Forum:Vote: Registered user requirement

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As proposed in the preceding discussion forum, the vote below determines support for a registration requirement addendum to the editing guideline.

Proposed

Poll

Poll finished on 12:49 am November 21, 2021 (UTC). A consensus must be reached by voting before any action is taken. You can vote by placing the following line in the appropriate section of the option you support: # {{yes}} ~~~~ # {{no}} ~~~~ Please do not edit other user's votes.

Yes

1. -kdarrow ^{take her for a spin!} 02:23, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
2. As the numbers have shown, there has been a massive decrease in vandalism since the original initiation of this as a temporary measure. Using a VPN to edit anonymously takes much less effort than making an account with a VPN. It's worked very well so far and I would love to see much less vandalism here continuing forward. -Eckserah ^{Head Dataminer} 03:20, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
3. —Vicyorus (talk)
4. Slipmcripfist (talk) 03:52, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
5. I'm a bit mixed on this. I understand that only a minority of anon edits are cases of vandalism. If someone wishes to fix a small grammar mistake without having to sign up for an account, I see no issue. But vandalism is always going to be a problem, sadly. Requiring an account to edit won't stop it, but it'll make it more tedious to do. I feel this will be a net positive, despite the cost of anonymous edits. Zealous Champion (talk) 03:55, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
6. -Not Alex 03:59, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
7. Not for the reasons given here, but I think it's irresponsible of Fandom (and other organizations running the MediaWiki software) to be publishing the IP addresses of (so-called) anonymous contributors for all to see forever in page histories. If they require community consensus to allocate CheckUser permissions to allow a small minority of users to see this information for users with Fandom accounts, that being so cavalier about making this information available about 'anons' for the whole world seems incongruous. Aya42 ^{T C} 04:40, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
8. Read above ^ Scribe-Howard (waster_93) (talk) 05:10, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
9. Our rate of vandalism has gone from an average of 350+ bans actions a month to somewhere in the range of 5 bans actions a month since implementing this requirement. I think that speaks for itself. This has been literally nothing but a positive for the quality of our articles and the accuracy of the information therein, which is something I maintain is a major issue that we severely neglected until last year and still need to work hard at fixing. --DirtyBlue929 (talk) 05:19, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
10. Hellotalos (talk) 05:28, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
11. Strong okie dokie from me >>bow burger box 06:04, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
12. See comments. –Findabair^{The benefit of the doubt is often doubtful.} 07:41, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
13. Requiring registration has proven very effective in combating vandalism as Blue's graph demonstrates, and making an account is a very easy and fast process. Besides, I also think that having IPs publicly visible is a very bad thing, so making an account is a way for users to protect their own privacy, if nothing else. The Appalachian 11:53, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
14. Graph makes everything wildly clear. ~ A better future, underground! 13:11, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
15. As has been said many times, the account requirement has been hugely beneficial, and has not been a detractor in the least bit. I fully support the requirement. It is also not entirely new as a local decision, since it has been in place for years for all /d users who have never been able to use the platform as anonymous users, which is and always has been Fandom wide. Similarly, Discord requires an account. The barrier to entry here is virtually nonexistent, and stats show only positives to the account requirements. The Dyre Wolf (talk) 17:38, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
16. I've said everything I needed to say in the discussion phase. Let my vote reflect that which I have said. TechnoCrusader (talk) 20:33, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
17. Master Miraak (talk) 03:18, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
18. Yes from me. Making an account isn't hard, I don't see the issue. Dare Rodeo IX 03:33, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
19. I'm really only seeing problematic users or people who hardly contribute in the no votes which tells me everything I need to know. ~the elusive legume 13:50, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
20. Easy vote, we need to keep the vandals out. Boulder City 17:09, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
21. im shifting my vote from neutral to yes, after reviewing the data i can safely say while yes Vandalisim has indeed gone down, we would lose quite a few anon editors, then again they can just make an account JustDoggo2 I swear to god if I don't get my damn mugs! IM GOING TO EXPLODE 18:07, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
22. How many sites allow you to edit them or contribute anything without registering first? I agree with all Dyre's points in the comments. Also, the way editors have treated anons and new editors in the past has done more to drive away editors than a registration requirement. When entire edits are undone for Oxford commas, over-capitalization, over-linking, and other pedantry without constructive talk page messages (which are of zero effect on an anon anyway), it creates a far more hostile environment and a steeper barrier to entry than a registration requirement. Gilpo1 (talk) 16:45, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
23. MiffyTPC
24. Making an account is really easy. Much easier than making comments in pages like this. Anyone who can add to pages, can make an account with no problem. The Dyre Wife (talk) 14:50, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

No

1. - I feel that this runs against one of the core mottos of Wikia back in the day as the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Regardless of how many seconds it takes to create an account, there will always be people that do not want to create an account or do not even realize that they need one to edit. Human beings are particularly lazy creatures. How many account-less users do we have in our own Discord server, even? If staff do not have time or the desire to react to vandalism or spam or faulty information (in particular patrollers, considering that's by and large their entire point), it's probably a sign we need more staff. When I was an active patroller, I had no struggle keeping up with patrolling recent changes, where anon edits made up the bulk of the changes. It doesn't surprise me when we barely have any active patrollers right now considering they haven't had anything to do for the past 6 months. The role barely gets any recognition, either. - Sigmund Fraud ^{Talk Contributions} 02:44, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
2. - The root cause of the vandalism doesn't lie in anonymous editors, but the VPN services that can be used to bypass bans, which has been demonstrated in discussions here and on other wikis. Blocking anonymous editing also turns off potential new editors from contributing to the wiki, as a number of editors start off with anonymous IPs before making accounts. Great Mara (talk) 03:11, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
3. LovinglyGaslight (talk) 03:15, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
4. KnuckleheadAtSea (talk) 03:59, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
5. Shouldnt even be a debate. "Vandalism" is not a problem unique to Nukapedia, and the destruction of a wikis core values of open editing is not a reasonable way to combat it in the first place. DankalorYT 04:23, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
6. I cant support a thingy based on falsified stats that are intentionally misleading sorry tho!!! All love <3 Responder Claire (talk) 07:52, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
7. Pretty much covered by Mara, not the core issue and could put off new editors. Branebriar1930 (talk) 12:28, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
8. This vote is being made off of ver misleading data. It saddens me to see behavior like this especially when it pertain to one of the core values of a Wikipedia style site. The point is anyone can edit, that has always been one of the main points of wiki style in websites. What’s worse it just makes it even worse that this vote is being made and reinforced by bullshit “statistics” Quarterman812 (talk)
9. User: Savior D.J The Greatest Savior (talk) 16:34, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
10. Devastating Dave^{ZIP ZAP RAP} 17:40, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
11. I have been on the fence about this for quite some time. Through my own experience on the wiki and within the community, I am wholeheartedly aware of the issues this wiki has with vandalism and spam. While I was originally going to weight statistics on a loss of edits vs. vandalism, ultimately I cannot in good faith go against the core value of this community as being an open and welcoming one that anyone can contribute to. I hope that anon editors do eventually make accounts, contribute more and get involved in the community. However, I feel it is unfair to dissuade them in this way because of those who mean harm. On top of this, I am extremely disappointed to see here and on Discord the disregarding of "no" voters as if they haven't thought long and hard about this, and as if they are "people who hardly contribute" or are "problematic users". I understand both sides, all of us here care enough about the wiki to vote on how they best feel we should move forwards. Everyone here wants to see our shared community do well, and we all work towards making Nukapedia the best it can possibly be. Regardless of how this vote goes, I look forwards to seeing our wiki thrive for years to come :) Skysteam (talk) 20:16, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
12. Am I allowed to vote ? If I am, my vote is an huge resounding NO. I hate to see all the yes votes this has already. If this had been in place when I first came here, I would have never made a single edit or gotten involved. You can see on my "about" page, I have listed the 7 different anon accounts I edited under for several years before I ever made an account. I was even suggested/requested by a bureaucrat to make an account in Oct 2018, which I still did not do until this year. Yes, I think I fall into the "hardly contribute" category, but I do feel like the contributions I have made have been meaningful contributions. I hope to see some of you guys on the fence hop off onto the 'no' side, and maybe make some of you yes folks reconsider. - AngelaStuff2 (talk) 22:35, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
13. While I appreciate the effect on vandalism this has had, I'm of the mind that that the ban on anon edits does more ill-will towards the wiki than the gain in lower levels of vandalism. Some of our best users, were anon user for months or even years before they felt the need to become fully engaged in the community by creating an account. The possibility stands, that if a user hits the burden they may decide to not get involved. At the core, the sole mission of the wiki is the information on the wiki. We should really be doing anything that we can to make editing easier for as many users as possible, not harder. I further assume the same as Agent C, that the anon ban likely has lead to lower edits in general to the wiki. Again, we should be aspiring to ease the editing process, not lock users out arbitrarily. -- ^{"Those Old World Relics still stand..."} 22:07, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Neutral

1. — Arcaneous "The Bull and the Bear and the Bull and the Bear and the Bull." - Ulysses 03:38, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
2. — I've been asked to share my opinion, so here it is. I am sympathetic to reducing vandalism; however the stat that would swing me here is one that I don't think we have, and one I'm not sure we can get, but I think we can see hints. I had a look in the patroller log before and after the enactment of this policy, and I believe I can see signs of a large drop of in editor activity at about the same time that this occured, and I'm not convinced the number of actions no longer required by inacting this policy fully justifies that drop off in patrolled edits. That said, the policy has been in place for 7 months (how did you manage that?!?) with no obvious issues occuring. I would encourage the admin team to hold off for a moment, put this on pause, and look at what was lost - how many good edits were lost vs bad edits? Agent c (talk) 18:26, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
3. I find myself sitting in the same department as Agent C here. While inevitably I find the drop in vandalism to be a good thing, I think C has a point about surveying the statistics. ---bleep196- (talk) 20:51, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
4. Still on the fence about the ban, but for some purely anecdotal evidence about quality of edits from anonymous editors, I have only seen one edit war around the real world weapons policy since the ban. While not outright vandalism, these were relatively frequent before the ban (check the Service rifle's page history for examples) but have become practically non existent with the ban. Aiden4017 (talk) 01:17, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
5. can't confidently vote yes or no as while I appreciate the drop in vandalism, I don't appreciate the drop in editors. Jon the Don -JBour53 (Talk to my consigliere) 06:47, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Excluded votes

1. after reading these repsonses i dont know where to stand with this, as of now i am in the middle JustDoggo2 I swear to god if I don't get my damn mugs! IM GOING TO EXPLODE 03:34, 14 November 2021 (UTC) User changed their vote. The Appalachian 18:38, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Comments

I'm going to go ahead and repost the graph I complied on the raw data of how much vandalism we've seen between November 1st, 2020 and November 1st, 2021. This requirement went into place in April, but I doubt I'll have to point that out given the dramatic effect you see at that point on the graph.

EDIT: Yes, I mislabeled and misinterpreted the data given to me as referring to bans rather than moderation actions as a whole. This was my mistake. Nonetheless the drop in incidents necessitating moderator intervention dropping significantly is verifiably real and I find the insinuation that I was deliberately misleading people or providing falsified information frankly insulting. I was basing this off of data I'd been provided by people I consider trustworthy and their explanations of it. I was operating in good faith; I'd appreciate if the same good faith could be extended to me instead of making these vague insinuations of malicious intent on my part.

I think this data speaks for itself. Vandalism is a problem every wiki faces, yes. That shouldn't be an excuse to let it happen en-masse. The drawbacks so far have been anywhere from negligible to non-existent as far as I've seen. There have been literally no negative effects or consequences to requiring users to register an account before editing, at least that I've seen - and several very clear, very positive effects. --DirtyBlue929 (talk) 05:23, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I see a graph, but where is the actual data? Responder Claire (talk) 06:27, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Update, I just looked at the block log and the number of bans for vandalism or other related offenses is like 6 in April lmao where is 400 coming from ?! This is so silly guys !!Responder Claire (talk) 07:48, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

It is not limited to bans, it is any moderation actions due to vandalism which include bans, manual reverts, undo reverts, and rollbacks. -kdarrow ^{take her for a spin!} 13:02, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, while I admit that the chart is not clearly labeled, assuming that Blue falsified those numbers is not exactly a good faith assumption. As kdarrow already pointed out what counts as action taken, have a handy table everyone:

Month, Year	Number of actions taken
Nov 2020	312
Dec 2020	317
Jan 2021	277
Feb 2021	303
Mar 2021	356
Apr 2021	412
May 2021	3
Jun 2021	9
Jul 2021	12
Aug 2021	4
Sep 2021	3
Oct 2021	4

Note that these numbers were counted manually in a tedium some time back. Hope this helps to clarify. –Findabair^{The benefit of the doubt is often doubtful.} 13:11, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I decided to vote yes, even though I get where the no votes are coming from. I personally dislike having to create an account in order to take part in something, and the only reason I created mine originally was the same reason that Aya mentioned in their vote, I did not want my IP to be publicly visible here.

However, from an overall perspective, I think the benefits outweigh the inconvenience of having to create an account. Vandalism is pretty much nonexistent, and there is a continuous influx of new users registering, some of which have turned out to be consistent editors over the last months.

I disagree with the idea brought forward, that more staff is all it takes to deal with inappropriate edits. As for patrolling, late last year we had even more staff than we have now, yet there were times when I had to go back two whole days in the recent changes, in order to make sure that all changes were patrolled, ending up with 5k patrolled edits a month. So more staff is not necessarily a solution.
–Findabair^{The benefit of the doubt is often doubtful.} 07:41, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Some extra data

I was asked by Sigmund, as a counter balance to statements made to him by Leon elsewhere to try and explain the numbers seen in the graph and I do so as a neutral party; I will present what I have found and explain why I have skipped any particular log.

I have ignored the abuse filter logs for disallowed actions for two reasons: 1) The numbers are low (around 50 in 2020 and 30 in 2021) and 2) many of the disallows are the same user trying to resubmit the same thing. I would discredit 1/3-1/2 of the log numbers to get even a realistic figure and as such it is a negligible factor in calculations. I've also ignored undo, revert etc for two reasons: 1) Unless there was a block there is a presumption of good faith, a user made a contribution and it was poor/incorrect information 2) A drop in these actions could be an indication of a faster moving moderation team and there are many factors as to why the team was faster; you cannot place it solely on registration required, or a previous anon bias meant more was undone for anons than registered users due to more intense checking.

As such I have kept the data to the block log, if it was serious enough to necessitate a block then it is serious enough to be recorded as a needed intervention. I accept there are nuances to this and should be taken with the same level of scepticism as Dirty's data.

Initially I looked at the blocks from 14/Nov/2020 - 14/Nov/2021 to get a count of block/unblock actions taken on a given month, averaged the total and averaged each side of the lock:

At first glance it looks like a big drop after the lock. Looking at the figures supplied against the numbers originally provided they are much lower and easier to compare: there was certainly an improvement.

Next I looked at year on year data from the block log using 05/Apr - 14/Nov for 2020 and 2021 to make a further comparison. Again, I am using all log entries:

I've split out advertising in the above because this comes down to Fandom's spam prevention more than the admin/moderators; Fandom's spam prevention may have improved between 2020 and 2021. It could also be that more people took to this type of spam work due to COVID-19 and loss of employment due it; there are many reasons. Circumstances like these could also explain any higher figure in 2020 than 2021.

The determination of user in both cases is the block of a well known user, their sock puppets or an block that indicates the actions were targeted against someone specific (insulting other users). These are not necessarily wanton vandalism. Anything under the category or nonsense/gibberish or flat out vandalism as categorised in the log is in the (registered) vandalism column. For 2020 I have broken the vandalism blocks by anon and user and lined the two tables up to show what correlates to what.

The first point to note is the number of registered user blocks has increased by 17, 25% of your anon blocks from last year. That said overall vandalism is down by 86%.

The other side to this that neither mine nor Dirty's data demonstrates is how many anon editors have you lost with the change and does that loss offset the gain.

For the most part I would say my data does corroborate Dirty's, but it gives an extra layer of transparency and potential talking points for if this should go ahead. Sakaratte - Talk to the catmin 17:08, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

The data you presented does present some correlation towards the anon block decreasing vandalism, but nowhere near as knee-jerkingly large as Blue's data claims. I trust your data a lot more than Blue's, as unless there was a behemoth swarm of vandals at some point after I went semi-active, 20-50 per month seems a lot more realistic than 300-400 just based on my own memory as moderator. It is a shame that we cannot easily tally up similar statistics towards edit counts without some unlucky sod spending the rest of the year sifting through recent changes during all their free time. Based on your statistics though, I still do not believe an anon block is worth the potential loss in editors, especially when there are other methods to deal with vandalism and other broken rules, but it's a lot harder to persuade an anon to make an account for an edit when we don't even know they exist. - Sigmund Fraud ^{Talk Contributions} 17:21, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

An account requirement by no means detracts from the ability of a user to contribute, since anyone can make an account. If the concern is that making an account is a tremendous burden, I would point to the guidelines and policies, which present a mountain of information for new users to digest all at once, assuming they even understand there are rules to check before posting. I can assure you, pick anyone off the street at any age and any level of intelligence and they will have a significantly easier time making an account, than understand the local customs which their contributions must abide by when editing. With as many users as we see come from mobile, I would double down and say that the mobile interface is considerably more difficult already than account creation, which is so streamlined by comparison, that the greatest disservice account creation might do, is give the user the false hope that mobile editing will be as easy as making an account was.

In terms of a restriction, there's mentions of back in the day how wikis should be when things were free of restrictions, but there have always been restrictions. Edits must be formatted correctly, information must be presented correctly, cited correctly, fall within the scope of our wiki and its practices, and of course, not just be trolling or vandalism. These are all limitations on users and their edits. There are rules for conduct and interactions between editors and in the social space, falling outside of which results in bans that remove users from the wiki space, and these are all limitations placed on the users. But lowering standards, removing rules, and dropping the ability to ban are not discussions ever undertaken, despite these all having an effect on users; the last, closest effort seen was a vote to remove the permanent ban, which failed miserably. By comparison, such a ban is far more restrictive on a belief that "everyone" should be able to edit, and it was thoroughly supported by the community.

And as mentioned in my above vote, anyone who wants to use Fandom's Discussions platform must have an account, which is a Fandom wide requirement, not a local requirement, and has been for years. I have yet to see a single push from anyone here that this burden on the social space is unfair or outrageous, even when the relationship between editors and social users was at its most contentious. Likewise, Discord requires all users have an account. Whether or not users there want to link to their accounts with Fandom, they must have a Discord account in order to participate. Laziness was brought up by Sig. Hell, even at peak lazy with food delivery services bringing dinner right to your front goddam door with the press of a button and no human interactions, and you need an account. Pretty basic stuff here.

As a wiki and as a community, this is not a new restriction nor is it one which is difficult to overcome. There is no reason to see overturn this policy which has had an overall positive impact on the wiki. It may also be necessary to point out that this requirement was originally enacted to protect against a pretty staggering, targeted wave of vandalism as something of an emergency measure. If the requirement is lifted, only for the flood gates to reopen, there stands a very strong chance the implementation as a specific preventative measure is reimplemented regardless of the outcome in this vote. The Dyre Wolf (talk) 17:38, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I think I'm misunderstanding that last paragraph. It basically reads to me that you don't care what the community thinks, you will do what you want... I hope that I'm reading it wrong... Jon the Don -JBour53 (Talk to my consigliere) 04:55, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

You are reading that wrong, or maybe you are reading the forum and vote wrong. This vote is to maintain the account requirement, since the original intent was that it would be temporary. In that regard, it could be made into policy or not.

What this vote is not doing is removing the ability to enact the restriction as a reactive measure when faced with the targeted vandalism and efforts of banned editors to actively undo current editors’ work. So it is important to remember and to remind, that if the flood gates open up again, the restrictions can return as a measure to prevent or mitigate damage.

This vote determines what we, as a community, would like to see when everything is otherwise working as intended. It is part of defining the culture the wiki wants to set for itself and if making an account would be an undue burden or a hurdle easily crossed. But the vote is not limiting measures that can be taken when things are far from working as intended, so even in the event of the wiki turning on anon edits right now, it may be still be closed off again in the future. If the same circumstance arises immediately, it may close again quickly. This vote has already made the rounds, and two of the folks causing the most issue here have already said they are just waiting to start trying to revert pages and edits to older versions they preferred. The Dyre Wolf (talk) 07:11, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I hope if something like this is implemented freely and quickly in the future that it is very temporary. Even if this vote passes it should probably just be a temporary thing. Most things just make more sense with an account. A wiki is not one of them. A random person reading a page for info finds incorrect info or spelling errors etc, and has to make an account to edit it, will likely just move on. I get if we're being attacked at a high level by anons but it should be short term temporary every time. But to me why even have this vote if you're just gonna implement it whenever you want anyways? Kind of just like giving the people the feeling that their opinion matters but not really. Jon the Don -JBour53 (Talk to my consigliere) 14:56, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

(←) That's why it is important to point it out now, while the vote is still ongoing, so that it does not look like this is something sprung up by surprise later down the road with no mention of it being made beforehand. This vote is just about whether or not the norm should be one thing or another, with different users of different backgrounds and all levels of current and past activity, all coming forward to voice their opinions on the matter. The vote has nothing to do with whether or not the account requirement has to be turned on or off again in the future as a reactionary measure, which will unfortunately be dictated by need rather than preference. It would be far worse if the first time you ever heard that was when it has to be implemented again, if you thought this vote here was to lockout this as a tool and make it unavailable for future use.

And one difference in user culture that may not have been addressed before, the casual additions or small edits, like typo fixes, are not at the level they once were. Not necessarily because of eyes on the wiki this long after a game launch or even because 76, the most recent game in the series, had a rough launch, but because of the makeup of the Fandom platform, where mobile and app users are a majority and desktop has become a minority. On the app side, you cannot edit, at all, and participation on the discussion forums through the app, which is the only way to interact with the community at all, already requires an account. There is no such thing as anons on the app or discussions because of this, and it predates the editing requirement by years. And the number of rando, one off posts and comments we see there is a testament to how many users have no issues whatsoever with making an account.

For reference roughly 2/3s of our userbase is on mobile, and a little less than a 1/3 on traditional desktop, with what portion remains also sharing a small fraction with tablets and the "other" category. The Dyre Wolf (talk) 16:03, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

I have a question for Great Mara and Branebriar, they said that this puts off new users, what data that is from? How can you know who decided to make an account or not? Just curious. Dare Rodeo IX 03:33, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I don’t speak for those users you named, but my suspicion that edits have dropped come from the patrolled edits log. Prior to the change a page of 500 entries would go back a day or so in dates, after the change, it was 4 or 5 days per 500 entries. That suggests there was less to patrol (ie - less edits). I don’t think a drop of 100s per day is consistent with 300-400 admin actions a month. Agent c (talk) 15:45, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Hello Agent c, I think I can attest personally that your sentiment here regarding the number of edits neglects to take into account the fact that the number of patrols does not accurately reflect or communicate the time and effort that each edit or act of patrolling takes. Easy one-off edits equate to easy one-off patrols. I am sure that you perceive already the goals of the wiki as an editor base have fundamentally shifted in two ways. First, a significant push towards rewrites and reference validation/archival. This effort is a time consuming endeavor, yet results in very few actual edits, as +20,000 bytes (read: several hours) worth of research, rewriting, and referencing equates to a single edit. However, patrolling this edit also parallels in terms of increased effort and time without a tangible number to communicate that statistic.

Second, the Fallout 76 piece, a completely different type of game, requires different types of edits and applicable skill sets needed to patrol. Checking numbers and confirming data in xEdit is now a must in order to mark these types of edits as patrolled appropriately, again requiring more time and effort but without an equivalent metric available to qualify or quantify in the same way as before. This, via patrol log or edit count, does not reflect accurately the amount of time and effort that editors and patrollers (or content moderators, discussion moderators, admins, and crats who share the burden) are dedicating to the current needs of the wiki.

To address others aside from Agent c, it is an affront to reality to claim that "edits are down, patrol numbers are down, this is inherently a bad thing" as that assumes a high volume of edits and patrols are more desirable while requiring more time, effort, and staff, which I argue the opposite is true.

With the influx of new game mechanics, constantly shifting data by way of updates, both navigating how to best display new information in an accessible way while circling back to check for and make corrections on information already placed and subsequently changed in hotfixes, patches and updates, I am not surprised to see the volume decrease. Yet I must stress that this is in no way a negative, nor is it an indication that editors "don't have anything to do" or that "patrollers are lazy." Quite the opposite, we work each day to stay as on top of things as possible, already struggling to keep up with these new demands despite our best efforts, and that is without adding 85% more vandalism to the equation. It is frankly bewildering to watch individuals who do not edit or patrol make out-of-touch claims about an endeavor in which they are not involved. -kdarrow ^{take her for a spin!} 18:09, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry Kate, I'm not convinced by that. I think you'd find it hard to make a case that the complexity of patrols changed between a month before and a month after the enactment of this policy, and Fallout 76 was a thing before and after the date in question. I don't think a case can be made that either of these are responsible for the drop in activity at that time - I just can't see how you can find causation there. I don't think we have any data at all showing what quality the "lost" edits are, and therefore if the reduction is actually desirable. Agent c (talk) 20:55, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I believe there is possibly a very sizable elephant in the room being completely ignored in this discussion on statistics. It's a potentially frustrating question, but an extremely important one: What is the breakdown of these actions by staff member (in the graph with the giant crash at a certain point in time) and how does that point in time correspond with staff members who left, went inactive, or were forcibly removed around that time?

Furthermore, this is a bit of a second topic, but if this data is true or even somewhat reflective of reality, then it is reflective of another problem: massive favoritism of editors over anons when it comes to dealing out punishments for actions. The fact of the matter is, just signing in does not make you 100 times better as a person. But signing in makes a staff (in my speculated opinion) far, far more likely to send you a talk page rather than just banning you because you're "just an anon." |\| () |\/| /\ |) | Talk | Discord | NMC 15:41, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I have definitely seen this in action before the ban, where staff wouldn't leave talk page messages for anonymous users telling them what they did wrong. Although it wasn't uncommon to see no messages sent at all in my experience, if one was sent it was more likely to be sent existing account. Aiden4017 (talk) 23:00, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Well, I guess I never made even one stinkin' edit on 2.0, so I can't vote. But I will let this little tidbit for consideration: It seems fairly clear that going registered only has had some causal effect on vandalism. I quickly read the other comments and didn't see this mentioned though, even though it might have been mentioned in the discussion thread: This period in time on the wiki is not dissimilar to after New Vegas was out for some time. Daily edit counts shrunk, a higher percentage of the effort by rights holders was in maintenance and dealing with user conduct issues, whether that be spam, vandalism or bad faith users. If a tool exists to decrease the amount of vandalism, if that vandalism is of a degree that is too high for the current rights holders to correct, then that tool's use must certainly be examined. We had certainly considered it at times in the past. In the end we did not use it, for a number of the reasons pointed out by the no votes. But there is also a really big consideration that should be made, and should be made at some point before there is a new game, or some other reason for a high volume of new content to be added to the wiki. That is the fact that when a game drops, the number of constructive anon edits dramatically rises, along with all edits in general. Maybe one of you script wizards could pull some numbers from directly before FO4 dropped to after the game was released. with this in mind, my position would be that if the wiki decides to stick with registered only, it should certainly be reconsidered before a new game is released. Anecdotally, I know many people who could contribute here, but refuse to make an account, based on a number of real or imagined objections. Were I able to vote, I would probably vote no, with the caveat that the language of the rule does not take into effect the probable need for anon editing at the time of a new game. TheGunny2.0 (talk) 01:22, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Results

The forum received sufficient support and will be reflected in our editing policy moving forward. -kdarrow ^{take her for a spin!} 23:21, 22 November 2021 (UTC)