Wikipedia:Anonymity
Essay on editing Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Some of Wikipedia's pages on anonymity:
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community. |
General links:
- Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit (not functional since early 2005; see Bugzilla #3539 for an automated idea)
Rules
Privacy policy
This is "an official policy approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. This policy may not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored on local Wikimedia projects."
Summary: If you only read the Wikimedia project websites, no more information is collected than is typically collected in server logs by web sites in general. If you contribute to the Wikimedia projects, you are publishing every word you post publicly. If you write something, assume that it will be retained forever. This includes articles, user pages and talk pages. Some limited exceptions are described in the main policy.
Blacklists
Currently, people using open proxies or otherwise on the SORBS blacklist can't create accounts or log in.
CheckUser Policy
See also: Editor's index: privacy
Guidelines
Guidelines related to anonymity and pseudonymity:
Essays
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia is in the real world
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia is anonymous
- Wikipedia:Welcome unregistered editing
- Wikipedia:IPs are human too
- Wikipedia:IP addresses are not people
- Wikipedia:The overuse of anonymity at Wikipedia and a proposal
- Wikipedia:How to not get outed on Wikipedia
- It's better to remain anonymous
Research
Rejected guidelines
Historical use of shared accounts
At some point in 2003, there were role accounts on en:wp and on fr:wp. As of late 2005, they became considered harmful, and were discontinued by policy on most wikis.
Technical implementations
- Bugzilla #550 – blocking IPs without affecting formerly-created accounts (long discussion; should be combined with a throttle on # of account creations per IP per [day])
- Bugzilla #53069 Mobile editing requires sign up/log in. Readers cannot edit on mobile anonymously. See mw:Extension:MobileFrontend and m:Research:Anonymous mobile editing in Italian Wikipedia (as of 15 Nov 2014)