Noam Cohen, via the New York Times, featured a story about Wikipedia’s plan to introduce stringent requirements to limit public’s ability to changing entries. (Thanks to Open Access News) Excerpt:
Stung by criticism after vandals changed Wikipedia entries to erroneously report that Senators Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd had died, Wikipedia appears ready to introduce a system that prevents new and anonymous users from instantly publishing changes to the online encyclopedia.
The new system [is] called Flagged Revisions….The idea in a nutshell is that only registered, reliable users would have the right to have their material immediately appear to the general public visiting Wikipedia. Other contributors would be able to edit articles, but their changes will be held back until one of these reliable users has signed off, or “flagged” the revisions. (Registered, reliable users would see the latest edit to an article, whether flagged or not.)
The system has been used by German Wikipedia since May as a test case….
While long discussed as something to be used by the much-larger English Wikipedia, Flagged Revisions was given new life as a proposal after Wikipedia’s mastermind — Jimmy Wales — all but ordered it be adopted after the Kennedy and Byrd false-death reports, which remained on the site for about five minutes.
On his user page, under the header “Why I Am Asking Flagged Revisions Be Turned On Now,” Mr. Wales observed: “This nonsense would have been 100% prevented by Flagged Revisions.” …
The response was immediate and deafening, with headlines like: “Jimbo Wales, stop acting dictator.” …
