Forgotten Realms Wiki talk:Disallow unsourced edits from anonymous users

Policy reasoning
I think it's time. There are nearly 7000 articles, and these could be split into well-referenced, poorly-referenced and not referenced piles. The well-referenced pile would be tiny, if we were to make such a pile. The wiki started out small, and the focus was on adding information right, left and centre until a decent wealth of it was present. I believe we have now achieved this.

I automatically dislike any additions to the wiki that are unsourced. You can't tell if an unsourced statement is true or not, and critics of the wiki have been fast to point out that as a whole, it is unreliable. They're right. This is why I want to propose reverting any changes to the wiki made by anonymous users that add information without a source.

I'm not proposing we prevent anonymous users from editing: they provide a useful source of typo and spelling corrections on a regular basis, but without the ability to go back and let a user know that some information needs a source (i.e. a registered account) we are accepting more and more new unsourced information every day. No doubt some of this is correct, but no matter how correct something is, with no reference, there can be no way of knowing that it is correct, and it is not the regular editors' job to go back and cite all unsourced statements.

To be clear: I am not suggesting we remove all unsourced information from the wiki, nor am I suggesting we stop the addition of unsourced information from registered users (although I believe a time will come for that); this proposal affects only unsourced additions from unregistered users, whether or not the added information is correct. Fw190a8 (talk &middot; contr) 17:56, October 8, 2009 (UTC)

What would you do? Can the Wiki somehow block edits with no source made by anonymous accounts? If it can please turn the feature on. I'm fine will blocking all edits with no source, from any user. (Bloodtide 03:29, October 9, 2009 (UTC))


 * Sorry, I should have made this clearer, but there is no automatic method of doing this. It would be a manual process. If this is policy, then if anyone sees an edit by an anonymous user that adds or changes information with no source, it would be fine to simply revert it. Fw190a8 (talk &middot; contr) 15:17, October 9, 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with adding the policy. (Bloodtide 02:34, October 10, 2009 (UTC))

Unregistered creations
I was wondering if we could add to this policy or just create a new policy about unregistered users creating non-referenced pages... so these pages could be marked for deletion... if there is already a policy, please direct me there, thanks Darkwynters (talk) 17:17, August 28, 2012 (UTC)


 * Erm... I have to comment here i think that we shouldn't delete pages like that because some times adding a reference is easy to use who has done it allot but to a random contributer that might not be so easy. So Let's not throw away helping hands because they don't know how to reference. But i would be positive to a special tag that states that it's a unregistered user that made a page with no reference and if it must be so that it might lead to deletion but that should be the last resort. Terrorblades  - This is recorded live at  18:51, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

Blades, I do not mean all unreg creation pages, such as the recent Pyricus page, which just needed refs and some structure... but the Brain In A Jar page... I mean maybe I'm wrong... but this page seems... well funny :) As a non-admin, I would like to mark the page as "strange" or for possible deletion... but I cannot justify my reasoning for deletion, like with copyright infringements: Forgotten Realms Wiki:Plagiarism or undoing an edit with the Forgotten Realms Wiki:Disallow unsourced edits from anonymous users reason... so I guess I'm just looking for more concrete rules :) Darkwynters (talk) 20:50, August 28, 2012 (UTC)


 * (Sorry for the very late response I'm a tranee at a Super market 8 hour days for no pay, oh joy)

Wynters, But to an registered users the adding of sources will be allot of harden then what it is to us but some one passing by wont know how to do one. So maybe a Site source type category? Like a special one that makes it in danger of deletion? Terrorblades - This is recorded live at  00:50, September 8, 2012 (UTC)

It's okay, Blades :) I think putting an unreferenced tag or if it is crazy or clearly vandalism deletion tab is basically a good idea now. Darkwynters (talk) 15:28, September 8, 2012 (UTC)