User blog:RRabbit42/Welcome back, new editors!

Over the past couple of days, you may have noticed there are entries in the Recent Wiki Activity list that says "edited by unregistered contributor". Or if you're looking at the Recent Changes, you'll see some IP addresses listed amongst the edits made by our registered members.

This is because the requirement to have a registered account in order to edit here has been lifted.

I'm not sure when it was put in place and I don't remember seeing anything discussing it. Usually a wiki will do this because they believe it will cut back on spam and vandalism. It's a good idea in theory because a lot of times it looks like it's only anonymous users causing problems.

My own experience has been that people who want to cause problems will not let needing an account stop them. And the side effect of requiring registration is that all of the people who might edit but haven't signed up for an account (they want to try editing for a while first, prefer not to an account, et cetera), are locked out.

There are advantages to having an account. It actually offers you a little more anonymity and if someone leaves you a message, you can be notified even if you're on a different wiki. But as of this week, it is no longer required here.

So, welcome back, new editors! I hope you'll like it here. Let's continue on with making this a great wiki.