User blog:WarBlade/Restricting Page Creation on Borderlands Wiki

Due to ongoing problems with vandalism, I'm proposing that we appeal to Wikia Central for an update to our user group rights. By restricting unregistered contributors from creating pages we can stem the flow of vandal problems but this also raises a few questions, and because of this it is appropriate to gauge the opinion of registered community members on such changes.

Firstly, user group rights are levels of access that our accounts (or lack thereof) grant us. Everyone including unregistered contributors can read and edit pages. Registering a user name opens up a few more functions, such as the ability to rename (move) pages. Sysop level access grants the ability to delete pages, and Bureaucrats can appoint and remove Sysop access, and so on.


 * Group rights on the Borderlands Wiki
 * Group rights on the Marvel Database (example of a customised set of user group rights)

What I propose is that we ask for a restriction on unregistered contributors to prevent them from creating new pages. What this will do is stop people from following red links just to create a gibberish page, or the more common habit of publishing a page with a single vulgar/profane word. This will mean fewer tags to notify the admins of a problem, and fewer admins wasting time deleting the problem.

There is also a more contentious issue of whether or not to restrict access to unregistered contributors from editing altogether. This means editors would have to log in to edit a page. The downside to this is that some potentially valuable contributors that arrive, experimentally edit a page and then decide to register, may feel alienated and turn away. This is not desirable, so it becomes a balancing act between the problem of unregistered vandals, and the value we get from good, constructive edits published by unregistered editors.

So those are the options I would like people to consider and provide feedback on:


 * Removing "createpage" from user group (all)
 * Removing "edit" from user group (all)
 * Retain the status quo


 * Note that if you are registered and logged in you will be in user group "Users", so will not be restricted by the above proposals.

Feel free to advocate one or both of the proposed adjustments, or if you would prefer to see no change from the default setting, please let us know.