There has always been a debate about vandalism by anonymous editors. On this page, just for the sake of passing a little time, I'm putting together some stats. The shocking conclusion of my study is that anonymous edits are 7,842 times more likely to be vandalism than edits by logged-in users.
Facts from other studies edit
From Wikipedia:WikiProject Vandalism studies/Study1:
- Anonymous editors are responsible for 97% of vandalism
- 4.6% of all edits are vandalism
From my own previous study User:Cool3/Analysis
- Anonymous editors are responsible for 87.2% of serious vandalism
- Generally, edits on Wikipedia average about 8,000 per hour
- In general, anonymous editors account for roughly 30% of edits; registered users account for 70%.
Basic math edit
- 8000 edits per hour*4.6% vandalism = 368 vandalism edits per hour
- 368 vandalism edits*97% anonymous = 357 anonymous vandalism edits (368*87.2% anonymous = 321 anonymous vandalism edits)
- 8000 edits * 30% anonymous = 2400 anonymous edits
- 357/2400 = 14.9% of anonymous edits are vandalism
- 11/5600 = .0019% of registered edits are vandalism.
- 14.9/.0019 = 7842. Thus, according to the data here an anonymous edit is 7,842 times more likely to be vandalism.
Pros and Cons of Anon Editing edit
Pros edit
- Anons contribute about 26.8% of all non-vandalism edits
- About 85% of anon edits are not vandalism
- All the reasons you've seen everywhere else
Cons edit
- Anonymous edits are almost eight thousand times more likely to be vandalism
- About 15% of all anonymous edits are vandalism
- All the reasons you've seen everywhere else