Board Thread:Wiki News/@comment-4811793-20130620231943/@comment-9946604-20130621041649

The moral compass of the wika mission statement and value system is not pointed in the wrong direction. Since your policy is in conflict with it, clearly it's your policy that is wrong.

How does blocking an unregisterd user from posting prevent the personal information of children? This is like saying that to prevent terrorism, we must take our shoes off at airport security. This policy was stopped becase it was SILLY AND DIDN'T HELP.

The fact that this law infringes on the soverignty of the internet is irrelivent. Wikia has chosen to honor this law, and so we must comply with the parent site. But how is your policy change supposed to accomplish this?

I'd guess that easilly more than 60% of all forum posts are from annonymous users (or IP users as we call them). These IP users also contribute substantially to the wiki and to our knowledgebase through page edits.

When Jens Ingles adopted this wiki, it was in shambles. He turned it around and built a community. Even now, it would fall apart without him as he does the bulk of the real code work. Even so, this would never have been possible without IP users filling in the gaps and picking up the slack. IP users are in many ways the ideal sought by wikimedia's policy against descrimination and their value system in general.

There is nothing that stops a user from registering with fradulent information, so we really don't know anyone's age. I agree that many of our users are children, but blocking IP users doesn't stop children, it only stops visitors. It is easier for a child to hide their personal information if they are not forced to register. For all you know, I could be 7. Yet, you are treating me as an adult and holding me outside of this silly policy because I've told wika my age. The rumors are true, I'm 30. For the record, I told the truth because my parents taught me to honor the law.

That raises a good question:  How excatly does forcing children to identify themselves help protect their identities? As I have said, this policy is just plain silly.

We are all human. We all have a right to contribute to the knowledgebase. We shall all be judged on the merit of our ideas and contributions, not by our race, color, AGE, or religion. We all deserve a voice, even if we do not chose to reveal our identities. The best way to protect children's identities on the intenet is to teach them how to maintain annyonimity, not to take it away.

This is the nature of wikimedia. It's ethically sound and can coexist with the law-- you just need a better approach. The solution that you offer will cripple not only this wiki but many others without protecting or helping anyting. This is a silly policy and it should be extinguished before it spreads. I ask you personally to lead this firefight.

I have a more elegant solution to offer.

All IP user posts require admin aproval. When an IP user posts, move it to a page that only an admin can view. If an admin reviews the post and approves it, then it can be posted. This will not only allow us to police our own, but provide a great way for us to fight all other problems of abuse such as vandalism, spam, trolling, phishing, and posts that do not contribute to the idea.

While you may argue that this is difficult to implement, your current solution is a violation of wikimedia's values and cannot allowed to continue. Saying "no one is motivated enough to code it" is not justificaton for this clear violation of our code.

This policy is silly and should be thrown away in favor of a better one.

Take my suggestion for a better solution, go back to wherever it is you came from, and come back when you have an idea that isn't silly.

Frankly if I didn't think you had the power to kill this wiki, I would delete this thread and block you for clear violations of wikimedia's core policy. The best I can do is move this to our Hall of Shame board and call every visitor of this wiki to join me in calling your idea silly.