28 September 2007
Wikipedia is visited by seven percent of Internet users a day and well known for its ability to help win pub quizzes. However, Wikipedia is still hampered by its inability to guarantee that information appearing on the website is true. To rectify this the online encyclopedia is to tackle its reliability problem with a package designed to improve its trustworthiness and reliability.
The German-language version is to be the first and potentially most controversial change, by which ordinary readers will lose their ability to alter any entry and see their changes appear instantly on the screen, New Scientist reports today. Instead, instant editing will be restricted to a group of “trusted editors”, who must first earn their status by proving their commitment to the Wikipedia concept. One suggestion is to limit trusted status to those who have made 30 reliable edits in 30 days. Ordinary users will still be able to propose changes, but these will have to be vetted by a trusted editor before they appear. The English-language version will retain instant editing for now.
Wikipedia has become immensely popular since it was set up in 2001. It includes more than two million entries in English and covers 252 languages. However, its unique structure, by which anybody can add, remove or edit information, is at once its strength and weakness.
While the “wiki” format, which takes its name from the Hawaiian word for “quick”, means it can draw on a vast pool of expertise from individuals all over the world, it is also vulnerable to deliberate abuse. Serious and deliberate errors, such as a defamatory allegation that an American journalist was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy, have sometimes gone unaltered for months. Though much loved by many, the site has developed a reputation for unreliability.
The drawbacks to the changes being implemented by the Wikimedia Foundation, the charity that runs the website, are that some users will be deterred from editing by the vetting process, and as the number of trusted editors is expected to reach about 2,000, there is likely to be a long wait before many confirmed changes are incorporated. Readers will also be able to access an approved page that has been certified as vandal-free by trusted editors.
The main drawback, New Scientist says, will be that dedicated editors who correct vandalism may be penalised, as vandals often re-edit their changes.
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