I would like to bring attention to the feature on wikis that allows (or restricts) anonymous users from editing on the wiki.
Over the lifetime of the Call of Duty Wiki, it has been subject to vandalism of many different types by anonymous users, often children (against FANDOM ToS) or nefarious actors, looking to get a kick out of interfering with something someone has built.
About a fortnight ago, I demonstrated the use of restricting anonymous editing, which resulted in drastically reduced vandalism, spam and otherwise unhelpful edits. The block was lifted in order to go through the proper channels (ie here) to discuss the use of the restriction properly and deliberate its usefulness.
I will not however merely state all anonymous users are unhelpful. Despite a majority of them either editing properly once and disappearing, or vandalising and getting blocked, some anons do end up making useful contributions, but I would argue they should then end up making an account instead, allowing us to comment on their talk pages and communicate with them effectively. As of this posting, April 5th, 2021, anonymous users cannot have their talk pages edited, even by staff. This itself poses a staffing issue.
As a result of this, I call a War Room discussion to debate the proposal of turning on the restrictions for the time being, permanently or otherwise, reducing the amount of vandalism that occurs on the wiki on a daily basis. One thing I also recognize, is ScarletTwig is often cleaning up these same vandal edits every single day - which is quite unfair in general to anyone let alone a staffer to consistently patrol Wiki Activity for misbehaving anonymous users.
Prof. Sugarcube (talk) 09:27, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
Discussion
I agree that I have to restrict anonymous edits. This would greatly reduce the vandalism that happens on a daily basis. There are a few anonymous people who collaborate with the wiki, but they can create an account and join the wiki. How many times have I not had to remove the vandalism from some page, because someone has vandalized it. And I also see daily you moderators doing the job of removing vandalism and blocking the anonymous people. That day that the restriction test was done, it was quiet. We only had 1 case of a person with an account who vandalized. I agree and vote to restrict anonymous editing. Marcello Julio (talk)
I'm going to stay neutral in order to close the thread with a final verdit. There are both positives and negatives to this. YELLOWLUCARIO TALK 18:27, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
I agree with restricting anonymous edits. 90% of anons are only here to cause trouble and vandalize. Frankly, it's more trouble then it's worth and it would be easier for everyone to just restrict their ability to edit. ItVaries (talk) 19:29, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
Sad Support - Normally, I would be entirely against this. The positives of having the few anonymous editors helping against the rather easy to deal with idiotic vandals should be pretty much the only reason we should say nay to this. But due to the recent changes that Fandom have seemingly deemed as a positive change, I sadly have to say that restriction might be the best option. The mobile editor lead to a noticeable rise in petty vandalism. The entirely idiotic removal of talk pages for Anons, along with the removal of any sort of alerts for them even if we force a talk page edit, making it so that we have no lines of communication to ones that wish to edit but make simple mistakes. Twig (Talk) 21:53, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
I'd like to mention that if this happens, we should add a small notification to the main page stating they will need to make an account to edit. I don't know if a similar message appears when they try to edit. Joe 04:20, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
- The notification on the main page is easy, we can also put out "announcement" thingy about it. It should alert recent editors in the same manor that messages should. But considering that the testing showed that Anons didn't even get talk alerts? I fear they might not even get those. Twig (Talk) 04:27, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Question — Is there any inherent disadvantage to creating an account for editing? I feel that making it so that you have to go through more of a process to edit before you can edit could increase the quality of edits that new users make, as well as the obvious advantage of eliminating many vandals. Most anonymous activity is not positive, and those that do make legitimately good contributions would likely be willing to go through the process of making an account so that they can continue to do so. 
Didikins · Talk 18:53, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
- Not really. Anons can dodge long IP bans which accounts can't but that's about it as far as 'disadvantages' go. It just means we have to make a few more clicks on average. YELLOWLUCARIO TALK 17:57, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Voting
With no discussion in over 48 hours, now is the time to move to a vote. Only votes cast in their respective section using the appropriate templates are valid.
Should the Call of Duty Wiki move to mandating users have an account to edit?
Support
Support — Those who care enough to make useful edits will most likely care enough to make an account. ItVaries (talk) 19:29, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Support — Same opinion. The COD Wiki is always welcome to receive new register users and who like to add content . This will definitely reduce the vandalism that happens daily. Marcello Julio (talk)
Support — What the guys above me said. ItsDexus (talk) 05:13, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
Support — As much as I hate to say it, it looks like we're gonna have to go with this option. Valid points have been raised above, and to add on those, the number of constantly active admins and trusted users is minimal compared to what we had in our prime. This leads to a hassle for individual users checking lots of non-trusted edits, not to mention that there's been a few instances of bad edits going unnoticed for a while until I (or other people) had to go back an clean them up. 
Ultimate94ninja talk · contribs 20:23, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
{{Support|Yeah, gonna toss in my vote here. While we have had a handful of anonymous users in the past who have done great work (and still do), a vast majority tend to use their anonymity to cause disruption to the work we’ve done. And seeing that we’re finally getting back into the grove to tie up loose ends (i.e missing pages, vast cleanups, etc), I think this would be the prime time to establish this rule. 
RoachTheIntelCollector Talk 21:16, April 12, 2021 (UTC)
Neutral
Neutral — So that I may close this War Room. YELLOWLUCARIO TALK 18:44, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
Oppose
Oppose — I do not believe, at this time, the problem is critical enough to warrant a restriction. Kalinine (talk) 10:04, 10 April 2021 (UTC)