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This is my second suggestion: It seems that more that half of the anonymous edits I see need to be reverted. Some of them because of vandalism, some are just tagging, many are just incompetent. Too much time is spent of such edits. I simply suggest that writers/editors should have to have a email confirmed registered account on wikihow before making edits. It could be set up so that the writer could remain anonymoous, but admins (if needed) could see the information.

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Not too sure I understand this proposal. So it’s a suggestion to have a mandatory valid email address prior to creating an account, in which administrators can see. How does it intertwine with anon editing? Would this “wipe out” anonymous editing and force people to create an account before correcting spelling on an article? I’ve actually seen a pretty good amount of FA saves (either) where a registered person (or) an anonymous by-passer vandalized something and another anon. person caught and undid that edit.

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requiring a confirmed email address for registered users would not solve the problem of anonymous vandalism, and being an open wiki, we should welcome anons just the same. better to have a few vandals get their way/pride for a few minutes than discourage potential helping hands

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+1

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wikiHow’s ‘‘motto’’ is “The website anyone can edit”, and placing requirements like having a valid email address would certainly make that statement inaccurate. I would never have bothered beginning here as an anonymous editor had I been required to give an email address (which I consider my personal information) before editing.

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How ironic, I just found this. http://www.wikihow.com/wikiHow:Open

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+1 And I quote: "Many new editors are surprised or even shocked to discover that wikiHow is completely open for anyone - yes, anyone on the internet - to edit . While this leaves us vulnerable to a certain amount of abuse by way of bad faith edits in the short term, wikiHow works precisely because we are so open. It may be difficult to accept at face value but in the long run even anonymous editors make wikiHow better, not worse. "

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If we limited editing solely to those who sign up in any way, shape, or form, we are no longer a wiki.

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Wait so I not be being able to edit articals cause I don’t have no email?

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A lot of our most awesome editors did get started by editing anonymously. While so much of our vandalism comes from anons, so many of our great contributors started off that way too. Instead of locking out anons I’d like to discuss ways to curtail vandalism more efficiently, like ways to improve RC patrol (and help patrollers become better).

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What if to patrol, you can’t have a block that expired within the last month and you need at least 2 weeks of wikiHow experience?

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What if you already have wiki experience from elsewhere? That’d be putting myself on lockdown if I was a newcomer and would probably already be set somewhere else within the next day, let alone 2 weeks.

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What if to patrol, you can’t have a block that expired within the last month and you need at least 2 weeks of wikiHow experience? @Maluniu how about just the thing about being blocked.

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I think that anyone should be allowed to edit. We can’t let trolls/vandals have the satisfaction of making us an inward group.

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I agree. Since our moto disagrees with this, we would have to a.Get hundreds of messages saying that our nmotto says thaey can edit. b. Rewrite our motto c. Contuniue to let the unknown pople o keep edititng. Not all of them are bad. Look at : Lose weight fast, Tie a Tie and many more. Just because a handful of trouble makers are causiing problems doesn’t mean we need to take such drastic measures.

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I totally agree. I started out as an anon. I think it’s fair to give people a chance to try out editing before they get their name put on an article. Most of the admin edits I see (about 90%) are good faith attempts at editing.

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@Carterchas I’d like to suggest that the wH model is about to change, completely; and if you’ll have some patience, you may see some changes you like!

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What do you mean it’s about to change completely?

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um, I’ll go with “my #s tell me so.” but ps, as far as I know, @Carterchas is the change…and “is going to change completely” might be a better way to put it.

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Let me rephrase, what is going to change exactly?