[rumel]

Guys, in order to minimize chaos and avoid anarchy in this Aneros Wiki, all changes, additions and deletions to the Wiki will be performed by a few caretaker members in response to your input and discussions in this Wiki Forum. We don’t have any “rules” that must be obeyed but we do have some basic Guidelines we would like you all to follow regarding information you want included in the Wiki.

Guideline #1 – Regardless of subject matter, please make sure the information you are proposing for inclusion is honest and accurate to the best of your knowledge and belief.

Guideline #2 - Regardless of subject matter, please present your information in a coherent, reasonably grammatically correct form and use a spell checker if you can, we aren't English teacher's here!

Guideline #3 – Please stay on topic, this is a Wiki dedicated to Aneros massager related usage. We don't need to be discussing the political situation in China or other unrelated agendas.

IMPORTANT - If you find errors, inaccuracies, harmful or injurious advice in your reading of information in the WIKI, please let us know about it so it can be corrected. It is our intent to provide you with accurate, unbiased information regarding the safe and enjoyable usage of this wonderful little device.

As the discussion evolves more Guidelines may be proposed, so this post may be edited periodically.

[bonerowner]

Too bad that this isn't handled like a typical wiki, with users being able to collaboratively create, edit, link, and organize the content. Wikis are generally designed with the philosophy of making it easy to correct mistakes, rather than making it difficult to make them. Thus, while wikis are very open, they provide a means to verify the validity of recent additions to the body of pages. The most prominent, on almost every wiki (including the one here), is the "Recent Changes" page — a specific list numbering recent edits, or a list of edits made within a given time frame. Granted, the open philosophy of most wikis, allowing anyone to edit content, does not ensure that every editor is well-meaning and vandalism does sometimes occur. Wikis tend to take a soft security approach to the problem of vandalism; making damage easy to undo rather than attempting to prevent damage.

Some wikis require an additional waiting period before gaining access to certain tools. For example, on the English Wikipedia, registered users can only rename pages if their account is at least four days old. Other wikis such as the Portuguese Wikipedia use an editing requirement instead of a time requirement, granting extra tools after the user has made a certain number of edits to prove their trustworthiness and usefulness as an editor. Basically, "closed up" wikis are more secure and reliable but grow slowly, whilst more open wikis grow at a steady rate but result in being an easy target for vandalism.

Many wikis requires the users' real name and a biography of themselves in order to edit, affecting the growth of the wiki but creating an almost "vandalism-free" ambiance. It would be nice if the Aneros wiki could be a little more open for users, since frankly the proposed procedure mentioned in your post seems a bit heavy-handed and not at all conducive to active participation from the community.

[darwin]

bonerowner-

thanks much for your interest in improving the content of the wiki.

we had a lot of discussions about how to manage authoring it.

my response to you is this. we'd love to have you contribute content, corrections etc. can you start out working with the framework we have now? give it a try. if it proves unserviceable, then we'll need to consider alternatives.

the comparison of this wiki with others is not exactly apt because of a few reasons:
- the sexual nature opens risk of nasty posts
- the "editors" (me, rumel, bmayfield) don't have a lot of time, so we won't have the time to police the site.
- we are going for a very high level of professionalism appropriate to a users manual. we are concerned that opening it up will degrade that quality.
- basically, it is not obvious that if we open it up, it will converge on quality rather than devolve into garbage.

darwin

[rumel]

bonerowner,

You’ve got some valid points in your post, some of which were discussed early on in the formation of this WIKI. I think this WIKI is special in many ways and as such needs to have some special rules to protect it from would be vandals. If you’ve done much reading of the posts to the forum, you are well aware that there have been some very disgruntled individuals who would very likely sabotage any part of the web site they possibly could. There have been some posters who have personal agendas for behavior that they might wish to foist upon the rest of us. There have been posters who are just completely incorrect about the “facts” as they know them.
It was in the interest of limiting corruption that the present controlled access was initiated. I think it makes a lot of sense considering the very controversial subject matter we are promulgating here. I have no idea how easy it would be to undo the damage a serious vandal could cause, but I do know that it would be very disheartening to try to re-create the information that is there if it were to be lost or otherwise corrupted. I’m sorry that you feel the present restriction of Edit/Write access to the WIKI is available by request only “seems a bit heavy-handed” but it seems to me a fair way to maintain some minimum level of security while still encouraging members to submit information.

[B Mayfield]

bonerowner,

I'm in total agreement with what Darwin and Rumel have said. As they both have stated, these issues were seriously considered at the beginning when we were in the process of putting the Wiki together. As one who has been hanging around this forum since its inception (and a member since 2003), I can tell you that we have had our share of "vandals" here (fortunately nothing recently). When this has occurred it has usually produced a great amount of disruption and distraction. Thankfully, most of it has been short-lived. Typically the members of this forum have been able to take care of this on their own, through their patience and thoughtful responses. In some instances however, it has required the assistance of the webmaster to "lock out" these individuals.

The thing is, in all cases these people have only had the ability to generate comments and have been unable to effect those posted by others. Ultimately it's that "firewall" if you will, that has always kept things from getting totally out of hand.

Without that constraint, the damage would have been far more widespread. Given that this Wiki is a USER maintained feature with the webmaster being largely out of the loop, dealing with vandal inflicted damage would fall upon us.

In a perfect world, unfettered access would be the way to go. But with a majority in our society who are at best dismissive of anal stimulation and many who are downright hostile about it, an endeavor such as this requires a modicum of oversight.


BF Mayfield

[bonerowner]

Thanks everyone for the input on this matter. The wiki is something you obviously take very seriously, and it shows. I applaud you for your dedication, and for having authored an amazing resource.

I understand the problem with trolls, spammers and vandals, as I do web development for a living. I have been running internet forums for many years, and am currently the admin of over a dozen forums (mostly all vbulletin, and some phpBB) and other sites.

Frankly, the reason that I brought this up in the first place is because I noticed a few places where I felt that I could contribute or clarify things (as I have done many times on other wikis) and was surprised when I went to edit, and couldn't. I know that I could PM or make a post regarding a correction or an addition, but that seemed rather foreign to me, having worked on many other wikis.

For example, I noticed an area of the wiki that discussed the specific type of plastic that was used in manufacturing, and next to one of the models there was a "???." This matter was discussed during the last chat, so I was going to add the proper information in place of the "???," but was unable to do so. I did notice that one reference to the type of plastic had been recently edited, however I found a different one. It is no big deal, and not vital to the overall information in the wiki, and I would be more likely to make an edit like that than make a post or send a pm to an editor. As you mentioned, you are busy people, and such a trivial correction or addition seems not important enough to even bother you with. I have also noticed a few spelling and grammatical errors (again nothing major) while reading the wiki, and those also seem too trivial to make posts regarding corrections.

You all have valid points, and I now understand more fully your reasoning for placing the rules and restrictions on the wiki. I apologize for making waves and for not trusting you to have made the correct decisions. I simply wanted to help.

It is an amazing wiki, and it obviously is a labor of love. Keep up the great work.

[redbeard2000]

I was concerned to see on visiting the wiki 'This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy.'

And for the second time as well? Something to do I think with the fact it promotes a particular product and could be seen as advertising?

The instructions that come with the product are vague, so it's been helpful to read firsthand experiences through the blogs, forum and wiki.

Am I right in thinking the makers of the Aneros are in a position where they can't make claims about their products in case people are unable to achieve intense multiple orgasms with it?

I'm not at all familiar with contributing to wikis and don't know how to weigh in with my comments on the debate.