The previous discussion thread (http://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-14135874/anonymous-publishing-of-articles) went over the broad strokes of the Anonymous Posting proposal, which was generally met with enthusiasm. Nonetheless, several key issues were brought up that merit further discussion, specifically relating to Disciplinary procedure.
This second discussion aims to tackle those problems and lay out a general groundwork for proceeding with anonymous posting.
There are 6 main points that will be discussed here -
- Claiming an anonymous article, through proper channels and improper channels, as well as plagiarism concerns
- Anonymous article interactions with site requirements, such as author pages, canons, hubs, etc.
- Self deletion of anonymous articles
- Plugging and advertising of anonymous articles
- Vandalism
- Where does the information about how to anonymously post go?
To that end, I'm going to go through them in order with my thoughts and those of 
stormbreath, 
weizhong, 
Limeyy, 
MalyceGraves and 
Tuomey Tombstone on how to handle these.
Claiming an anonymous article, through proper channels and improper channels
This one is actually two issues - what is the official procedure for de-anonymising an article, and what do we do when that procedure is not used and someone just claims to be the author without proof?
To the first point, I believe that de-anonymisation should go solely through Rewrite (as in, users seeking to de-anonymise must come to Rewrite to change attribution first, not have the team later verify claims made elsewhere). This removes a lot of the ambiguity of "he said, she said" situations and would allow us to treat any claim not verified by Rewrite as automatically false. Repeated, credible cases of false claims brought to the attention of the Disc team would be investigated at Disc's discretion.
The more pressing concern about this is, if a random user claims to have written an an anonymous article, that does fit the definition of plagiarism in our site rules:
Plagiarism: You may not copy any portion of someone else's writing to use as your own work without proper attribution. You may not attempt to pass off another user's article as your own work. Doing so will result in summary deletion of the work.
It is worth noting that plagiarism does not immediately lead to a permanent ban, but the plagiarism rules would need to be tweaked slightly - specifically, the addition of something like the following passage:
Anonymously posted works would be subject to the plagiarism rule insomuch as the piece itself must be original work. Anyone other than the actual creator claiming authorship of an anonymous work will be subject to the punitive aspects of the plagiarism rule.
The current rules could be read as allowing a non-author to claim an anonymous article, which would trigger the summary deletion of the work, something that is… clearly untenable.
In all cases, anonymity can and will be revoked for rulebreaking behaviour. It is not a shield by any means.
Plagiarism 2
For actual plagiarism concerns, such as the text of an anonymous work being plagiarised from another source, Rewrite will perform a cursory check before posting - there are a variety of good sources that should not add significant workload. This would not constitute an in-depth investigation, and Rewrite would not be liable for anything that slips past this due diligence, nor ex post facto edits.
In the case of these actual plagiarism concerns, those cases investigated by Disc should be recorded under the article name, rather than the original author - this would ensure that anonymity is preserved to the greatest extent possible. Once the case is closed, if plagiarism was not found, we would have a clear record for the future. In the case that plagiarism was found, this anonymity will be stripped and the name of the original author would be passed over to Disc.
An attempt to post a plagiarised work that does get caught by the Rewrite pass would count as an attempt at plagiarism for Disc purposes, and the relevant information will be passed over to Disc.
Anonymous article interactions with site requirements, such as author pages, canons, hubs, etc.
This was brought up frequently as a point of concern - to reduce as many headaches as possible, I believe that anonymous articles should not count towards page/unique author/etc requirements for any category. This would not prevent anonymously posted works from being part of a canon/GOI/etc, but it would prevent them from being used to satisfy requirements to make a new canon/GOI/etc.
It's not perfect, but it's infinitely easier to keep track of than the alternative. This ethos would also apply to anonymous hubs and art pages - these would not be allowed to begin with, though this may change in time.
Self deletion of anonymous articles
Should people be able to request the "self" deletion of their anonymous article? I believe so, giving Rewrite 24 hours to respond to the request.
Plugging and advertising of anonymous articles
Is this a concern of ours? If someone proceeds to post an anonymous article and then plugs it while pretending it is not theirs, is this something we should address or let be?
Vandalism
If an author does a massive edit to their own, anonymised work, is that vandalism? Or would it count as a de-anonymisation request?
I believe the best policy would be to speak with the author, and either revert the changes and ask to go through Rewrite, or confirm the de-anonymisation. In the case of large edits that are confirmed by Rewrite to not be done by the original author, they will be reverted and given standard Disc escalation, though the original author will be notified.
Where does the information about how to anonymously post go?
I would very much so like MAST input on this - either its own separate guide or added to another guide somewhere, but this information about the rules and how to go about such a thing will need to make it on the site somehow.
