User blog comment:Wetstream/Anonymous Editing/@comment-24459516-20130706014455

something people don't realize, also, is that when you edit as an anon, you're practically handing people your address. (well not that specific but approximate enough). people can trace you through your IP address, which shows up whenever you go to an anon's profile page, with any basic IP tracing site to get your state and approximate town location. anyone can do this. I've done this with a lot of you people. it's not difficult at all. all you literally have to do is copy and paste the IP into one of the tracking sites and boom I know the area where you live.

although those sites don't give an exact location for the safety of whomever is being searched, there are ways to get a person's exact location and address with their IP. Hackers and stalkers have the codes, programs, and hacks to access that information from your IP. If they really wanted to get it into their head that you were worth finding and doing God knows what to, they could. quite easily.

and that's one of the purpose of this anon-block, I presume - blocking anons means blocking a potential hacker/stalker's access to your IP address and location. if you're 13 and make and account and decide to give people your full name and address and such then they can't do anything about it, really - that's why they want you to be 13 to have an account. you're old enough (should be) to know why that's bad. and if you're under 13 and can't/don't want to make an account, they only want to protect you from anything that could go wrong if someone got ahold of your address.

granted, the smarter thing to do is probably just to take IPs off of anons userpages, but, the admins need /something/ to ban when they need to block an anon, and IPs are linked to our accounts as well (though not directly, just what IPs you've recently logged in under), so I guess it would be easier just to block anonymous editing than to get rid of the IP system on wikia altogether.