Often viewed as something of an online whipping boy due to its accuracy gaffs, user-created knowledge oracle Wikipedia has recently been thrown beneath the spotlight after revisions to the page of Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy wrongly revealed that both he and Democratic colleague Robert Byrd had died.
Wikipedia founder supports proposed Revision Flagging system. Image: Joi/Flickr.
Not the first such sensational page edit to sully the reputation of Wikipedia, this latest entry has led to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales throwing his considerable backing behind a new flagging system designed to prevent future inaccurate content changes to selected pages on the service.
In comments made via the official User Talk page, the online encyclopaedia’s founder said the introduction of a revision flagging system would help the site avoid incorrect additions by making content changes accessible only to registered and approved Wikipedia members. Alterations to all other pages would remain in a waiting loop until an editor’s eyes became available to address the issue(s).
“This nonsense would have been 100% prevented by Flagged Revisions,” said Wales regarding the reported deaths of Senator Kennedy and Senator Byrd.
“It could also have been prevented by protection or semi-protection,” Wales added. “but this is a prime example of why we don’t want to protect or semi-protect articles – this was a breaking news story and we want people to be able to participate (so protection is out) and even participate in good faith for the first time ever (so semi-protection is out).”
The proposed flagging system is already in effect on the German language version of Wikipedia after passing through a test period in May of 2008. However, English language users are concerned the proposed system strays too far from Wikipedia’s philosophy of allowing anyone to add and alter online content.
There are also suggestions that weeks of delays subsequently experienced on the German version could similarly hamstring the service’s core site, which presently has more than 2.7 million English article pages.
“Our [English language] version should show very minimal delays (less than one week, hopefully a lot less),” outlined Wales, “because we will only be using it on a subset of articles, the boundaries of which can be adjusted over time to manage the backlog.”
In offering his reasoning for the new content system, Wales referred to a recent Wikipedia community poll regarding the alteration, which resulted in some 60 percent of responding members indicating they would welcome the new flagging process.
Interested in a more interactive TTH? Join our Facebook Group Want regular updates from The Tech Herald? Follow us on Twitter
Comment on this Story