Editing Transaction costs/Brainstorming (section)

=== Wiki Contributions: Mandatory Logins ===

Several wikis have been open to contributions and then moved, either for selected articles or as a whole wiki, to requiring login information. In many situation, this login information is pseudonymous -- users do not need to give any personal information. The effect is that login becomes a simple cost.

General thoughts:

* The cost associated with logins may not apply equally to all users of wikis. The fact that logins are pseudonymous is not successfully communicated to all logins and is communicated to almost no users before they go the create user page. Not all users will be as comfortable creating a login for a variety of reasons.
* The best way to look at this would be to examine wikis that started out open and then instituted a login requirement at some point in the wikis life.

Additional options:

* Another related option would be to compare the effect of logins that require email confirmation with those that do not. I would be assuming, as I think is probably safe, that the vast majority of people editing can also recieve email.