Board Thread:Anne Wiki Improvement Society/@comment-3493059-20130702021608

According to a staff blog post over at Community Central, Wikia, in order to comply with a newly revised version of a US federal law, has disabled anonymous editing on wikis that are directed towards children. That includes this wiki.

In simple language:

You know those edits you see made by "A Wikia Contributor" or (on this wiki) "A Kindred Spirit"? They are made by anonymous users – users who have not logged into Wikia or Facebook to edit. Now, if you try to edit this wiki while not logged in, a little window will pop up with a login notice. Wikia is doing this because of a United States (where Wikia is based) federal law called COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act). I won't go on about it here, as it's explained better in the original blog post, but it theoretically should stop children under 13 from editing. They can still visit the site, of course, but to sign up to Wikia you have to be 13 or older. If we find that you are under 13, you will most likely be banned and reported to Wikia.

Therefore I encourage you, if you are serious about editing this wiki and have not signed up (and are old enough), to get an account, either directly with Wikia or via Facebook. If your reason for not getting an account is because you feel editing anonymously is more private, then I'll put paid to that notion by saying that signing up with Wikia is not like signing up to Facebook, where you (generally) use your real name. On Wikia you can choose to be known only by your username. See my name up there: SusannahWithAnH? Susannah is my real first name, but up until very recently my username was *Ginny*. You don't have to use your real name, first or last. Most people don't. If you edit as an anonymous user, then everybody will know your IP address. Getting an account makes it even more private.

There are other benefits that come with an account, too. You can upload images, earn badges and simply become more easily identifiable ... Anyway, I think I've waffled on enough. Hope that explained some stuff to you.

Susannah 