[OSM-talk] Disallow Anonymous Edits NOW

[Sebastian Spaeth]

Steve Coast wrote:
> +1 to be fashionable
> 
> It's also fashionable to give up freedom for security, which is  
> pretty much what this is. 

Sorry, but that is bullshit. I am all for freedom even at the cost of 
convenience and security, but all this does is expose some random user 
display string that a user chose. For all what it's worth it could just 
expose "dibbledidapp" if you chose that user name. If you choose your 
credit card number as user name you have worse problems than OSM.

It also enables to send messages to some users (without revealing their 
addresses), so I don't see what freedom you give up there. (I would 
argue that we should already be able to send msg even to anonymous users 
right now through some OSM platform, but as IANAL, I won't really 
comment here.)

> Cutting off semi-anonymous (they still need  
> an account) editing is just putting off attacking the real problem,  
> which is rollback.

I agree that rollback is one part of the solution, however it is not as 
easy as you think it is.
If I can rollback unintended vandalism from newbies, there is a good 
chance that he does the same tomorrow in my or other areas, because she 
just doesn't know better. So enabling people to msg others and "educate" 
them is actually complementary to being able to fix any current damages.

spaetz