Wikipedia has rapidly become the fount of all knowledge on the Web, although not all of the information is entirely accurate. But with the sheer number of articles, and the number of people who regularly use the online encyclopaedia, it’s become hard to police of late, which is why Wikipedia will very likely soon introduce a approval system.

At the moment, anyone registered on Wikipedia can edit an article how they see fit, with errors, or blatant cases of vandalism, later removed by an administrator, or one of the many community members who try to keep everything correct and in its place.

This system works well, but as well as some errors and factual mistakes getting through, there are also added problems with people gaming the system, adding links and sources to the site for fun or profit. So things could be about to change.

According to the New York Times, a new pre-approval system for article edits and additions is currently being trialled. Called ‘Flagged Revisions’, it is currently undergoing its first full-scale experiment on the German version of Wikipedia. Why the German site? Because it is one of the most vandalised versions of Wikipedia.

The system works by delaying changes to articles until a designated checker has verified that they are not vandalism. Once the authorised person has signed off the edits, the alterations will appear on the site. The problem is, the extra time taken while the edits are checked for accuracy, means Wikipedia becomes less of an ever-evolving source of information, and just another boring encyclopaedia.

Around 60% of the articles on the German Wikipedia have so far been checked over, and subject to approval in the future. There are roughly 3,000 checkers, all of whom have made at least 300 edits in their time as registered members, none of which were flagged for vandalism.

The topic is currently being discussed in depth at Wikimania 2008, in Alexandria, Egypt. And the German experiment is being watched carefully by the administrators of other language versions to see if it’s something that should be widely adopted.

I can see the logic to this change, and would welcome it in stopping some of the stupid edits which currently happen on the site. However, the approvals would have to take place in minutes, rather than days, for the site to keep its current feeling of being the ultimate ever-changing, and bang up to date information source on the Internet.

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Entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 5:05 pm under Internet, Opinion.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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