I think your reservations are good to have, Durandal's! Gives us something specific to look out for and monitor.

It's also a good point about the break being a good time to manage it and try it out while things are slower. And, yeah, I think we should get at least a working style guide together before then, even if it's not exactly polished but one that lays out all the basics and helps point people in the right direction. I'll see about starting together a skeleton of one over the next day or two.

ETA: Why this comment posted twice, I don't know.

I want to let people know that I have been reading the discussion here and I understand the arguments being made.

Whether or not anonymous editing is allowed is an administrative decision based on many, many factors. Community input is listened to, and appreciated, but only one consideration out of many.

Anonymous editing has been allowed in the past for extended periods of time; in other words, it's been well-tested. During that time, although not all anonymous edits were problematic, the vast majority of problematic edits were anonymous. Worse, there is no way (other than commenting the correcting edit and hoping the original editor reads it) to communicate with an editor who hasn't created an account to even let them know what the issue is. Also, anonymous comments aren't trackable, so trying to see if one IP was generating, for instance, the incredible hostility and (sometimes) obscenity directed towards some female cast members wasn't possible. That doesn't even take into account the issue of VPNs.

In the past, the wiki had been taken off anonymous editing for short periods in response to vandalism and repeated anonymous attacks, and as its popularity increased, so did those incidents. The decision to move to requiring log-ins to edit wasn't made lightly, or without consideration, or out-of-the-blue. It in itself was a test, to see if it decreased problems without decreasing new editors, and the test was more successful than imagined.

The barrier to entry isn't high. It just requires an email account, and those are free and plentiful. Someone who's absolutely determined to cause problems still can, but it has markedly decreased "drive-by" vandalism and the like.

I know this answer isn't going to satisfy those who think anonymity is a good thing, but at least know that the decision was a considered one.

Oddly, it feels like others editing for a very long time participating in the discussions do not remember a mass problem—or at least not one so acute and widespread to be worth bringing up in the two discussions thus far, only a concern about copy-editing and housekeeping. Are there logs or a number of page histories pointing to incidents of widespread vandalism problems acute enough have triggered the decision? Was it sustained constant tide of vandalism, or one-time one-user incidents every couple of weeks? What exactly what the incident that finalized the decision to turn off unregistered editing? What was the final nail in the coffin?

And, for that matter, what do "problematic" and "issues" mean in the context? Is it all vandalism and trolling—or, does it include malformed formatting, innocent narrative misunderstandings, and forgetting to add in references? Understanding the decision requires clarity on this.

Why have you felt long-term semi-protection of common targets, both at the editing level and the commenting level, to fail as a solution to curtailing the problem? Outside of protections related to the Fandom move, there have only been 15 page protections, usually of short duration. And looking at the histories for those pages, it seems to have curtailed the issue effectively. Overall, why has indef semi-protection of pages been not considered before turning off unregistered editing?

The block log shows only about 16 blocks of unregistered users related to vandalism, edit warring, trolling, spam, or hate speech over the past year of unregistered editing, which also does not feel to be in line with a characterization of a mass problem requiring turning off unregistered editing. (Also, those four blocks to try to force account creation to explain basic guidance, however, is arguably bordering on abuse of the block function even with the consideration of "it's difficult to communicate with IP editors"? Especially given the absence of style or conventions guides?)

Take into account that there are no accessible centralized guidelines, real explanation on this wiki of what good editing behavior and formatting looks like, little conversation being held on ANY talk pages. There isn't even an page to link the phrase "rules for attribution" in the rules to. Would the development of a centralized style guideline curtail any of these issues? It's my experience, looking at new registered editors that badly formed but good faith edits here at the wiki are the result of the complete lack of style guidelines.

Yes, barrier to entry isn't high for regular editing—but creating an account is high enough when one wants to make a spelling or grammar correction, or some other minor edit only once in a while.

And, again, about unregistered editing being made available on July 15 and July 16, then turned off again despite lack of major incident. What's the story there?

There are a number of tools that this wiki has not at all used that are developed specifically to address these problems. And, looking at page histories and logs, they appear adequate for the problems observed there: has it been considered to institute content moderators (of which there are none) to help protect pages targeted by vandalism, thread moderators (of which there are none) to manage trolling in comments, and rollbacks (of which there are none) to quickly undo vandalism? Has it been considered turning on the Recent Changes patrol log? Has a boilerplate editing notice explaining basic referencing guidelines and style conventions, perhaps linking to a central guide, been considered for its merits as a means of communicating practices?

Perhaps in tandem with the above tools, will the development of a centralized style and best local practices be taken into consideration on opening up unregistered editing again, even as a test run of a handful of weeks?

Since a number of editors here have expressed interest in seeing a test run happen, would it be considered opening up unregistered editing again for a period of weeks, if all or some of the following happened:

• A centralized style guide was finalized and added to the navigation at the top.

• An edit notice at the top or an edit tools notice below the editing field was added, similar to the new page edit notice, directing editors to cite their additions—even with an minimal example or a link to {{ep ref}}—and directing to consult the guide for any help.

• Thread moderators appointed to help manage any spam, trolling, and similar in the comments.

• Semi-protection was employed in response to targeted vandalism during the period, as it was in the past.

• A content moderator appointed to help protect pages.

There has been a lack of editing guidance on the wiki, and there has been nothing pointing to editing practice and guidelines at Fandom overall, and that naturally leads to malformed edits. And I feel addressing this problem possibly will help guide unregistered editors to better edits that will need less copy-editing, and away from edits considered previously an issue.

There is interest in seeing unregistered editing opened again, and I don't see in the block or protections log a history of unmanageable and constant vandalism, edit warring, and trolling that cannot be managed by semi-protections and blocks. This feels underscored by the fact that no massive or acute vandalism or similar problem was brought up by editors who were well-established in May, only concerns of malformed edits and edits needing copy-editing.

I think general good faith and patience with unregistered, and new, editors who make syntax, template, and copy-editing errors—and this includes referencing failures as referencing on this wiki has historically been arcane and difficult to understand due to lack of centralized guidance—will go a long way as these are not truly problematic edits, simply malformed. I think separating malformed good faith edits away from problematic will also make things clearer for everyone.

Again, unregistered editing being open for July 14 to July 16 (I misspoke earlier on the dates) was pleasant and saw constructive edits from unregistered users, even if some of them struggled with best practices for referencing and syntax, which again I don't see as a massive problem considering drive-by new editors do as well. The fact that unregistered editing was opened again possibly suggests to me that it was considered again as valuable at adminship? But that's raw speculation on my part, I again ask @Dexcuracy for input on that. (Not sure if that will ping in an edited comment.)

Generally, I feel that the decision to lock out unregistered editors in response to a single edit war or vandalism incident or something I presume happened around the time feels to not have been "choos[ing] to act in a way that makes the least ripples". It's felt like a very large action in response to a problem smaller than the logs and histories show. Locking out all unregistered users also protects the pages from their good edits as well, and I believe that they have good contributions to make, even if small.

With there being interest from established editors in seeing it opened again and with the tools outlined above to help act as intermediary steps, I think a test run is worth doing with a discussion afterward to determined if it should be then closed based on what we see during that handful of weeks.

Especially since the original decision to lock unregistered editing was not announced—and thus the established editing community at the time could not workshop other ideas to help address any issues.

If I remember correctly, the reason anonymous editing was turned off most recently was because in May (checking the logs, about a couple days before you started editing regularly, which would make sense why you don't know about it) a bunch of twitter and tumblr users, seemingly unprompted, decided they didn't like what was on the wiki and started doing malicious edits, like deleting entire sections of pages and uploading stolen art in place of art that the wiki already had permission to use. I believe it was turned off in response to that and, as someone who was editing even before that, the speed and consistency of the edits hasn't really changed much between it being turned on and off.

I didn't have the energy to read all and I'm not personally that much attached to either options, but I wanna say that I think it's fine that anonymous editing isn't on. Like it was said previously, it's not that difficult to make an account, and if people are really motivated to make a change then they will. Pretty much every website on the internet requires a login at this point, it's not that big of a deal in my opinion. And it's a great way to lower the amount of vandalism and help encourage communication between editors. If it can make it easier to ban users who keep trolling, then I support it! Plus you're technically still anonymous with an account, like?? I don't know who any of you people are!!

But then again if anon editing was allowed that would be fine as well. If vandalism happens so be it ya know. Its just a fan wiki and we're just a bunch of random people writing articles about nonexistent characters and worlds, it's not that deep. Idk this conversation is starting to sound like a board meeting and none of us are paid to be here!! This thread lowkey sounds like discourse like can't we all just remember to love each other etc. etc. Goodnight everyone thank u all for your time

I do think that's a fair position to take, Lalou.

I also did get an email stating that Occidental replied, pointing out my reply had been removed. Which is actually listed as a bad bureaucrat behavior, and thus definitely applies to admins. I imagine it was perceived that my comment was a personal attack, which I don't believe it is at least per the definition used at my time at Wikipedia per WP:WIAPA. I have not said anything defamatory about Lynn's character or about her as a person, I simply remarked on edits and blocks themselves. It was indeed in line with commenting on contribution, not editor.

The question of this thread is regarding anon editing, and LynnE216 has addressed this, and I think that pretty much covers it. I will add that it is common to turn off anon editing on high traffic wikis like this one.

This thread is getting off topic, so I am locking it. If there are other concerns, such as with article content or edit disagreements, please bring them to the article's talk page for discussion.

You are all free to reach out to me on my message wall with any questions. But if the main point of concern is article content, please first start a discussion on an article's talk page and link me. As your Wiki Representative, I will stay out of making content decisions, but I can help with facilitating positive discussion.