Board Thread:New Features/@comment-33004897-20171019111258/@comment-33008805-20171019112435

Individual communities are permitted to forbid anonymous contributors from editing, but to enforce such policies on a network-wide level would not only violate the spirit of collaborative editing for which wikis have long stood, but would also potentially damage FANDOM's ad revenue. Though I'd venture to say most anons read articles rather than edit them, if anons were to attempt to get involved by making minor spelling or syntax edits in a good-faith capacity, only to discover that they cannot edit in any way, it might dissuade them from ever returning to the site.

I personally was an anonymous contributor for many years before making any account; had anonymous editing been restricted on a network-wide level at that time, it's likely I would never have stuck around.