Board Thread:New Features/@comment-5275700-20150722200934/@comment-1251315-20150724195346

One of the wiki's I used to be a member of (I no longer edit it) did allow anonymous editors to contribute. However, the anonymous there was a source of constant vandalism and there was only one user who wasn't registered that somewhat contributed: the rest were just vandals and trolls who did nothing to improve the wiki.
 * What does anonymous editing bring to your communities now, if it’s available there?

Another wiki which I used to contribute (which I'm starting to contribute towards again) has an almost constant problem with vandalism, with editors adding joke categories or making spam pages. However, while that type of anonymous is annoying, the anonymous are also very contributive to the forums there, so removing their ability to post in the forums without making an account seems extreme.

While the anonymous vandalism contributions can be deleted, unless an admin is online at the time, the bad pages will stick around: the persistent vandalism also wastes time for legitimate contributors.

The other wiki's I contribute to don't have enough anonymous editors for their right to contribute to be removed and the little vandalism they create is easily removable.

There are probably loads of reasons: I suspect the number one reason is that they don't feel a need to register if they have no intention of editing full time.
 * Why don’t anonymous editors create accounts?

There are many reasons: I think stating the benefits of registering in a more prominent place would get people to register, such as having a unique identity without needing to display their IP address to the public and access to restricted features that anonymous users cannot have (user rights, chat, userpage etc).
 * What would motivate them to create accounts, besides disabling anonymous editing altogether?

When it happened for Narutopedia, editing dropped severely. The only users who edited were a few regulars, very few people registered as there was no real reason for people to do so (this is due to the community having a hostile attitude to building a community, wanting to only have people register to improve the mainspace). When the wiki opened up forums for additional discussions, the wiki became more active and people had a reason to actually register and contribute.
 * For those of you in communities who plan to disable anonymous editing, or if that’s happened on your community already, please let us know about how the change affected your community.

Unless there is a reason for users to register, they will not do so. As it stands, there are only a few reasons to register an account: removing the ads and a chatbox. Other than that, it's not worth registering an account for one edit.