One of the beauties of Wikipedia is the simple fact that nearly anybody is able to contribute to the site. They’re also criticized for this as well, and some say the practice of allowing open-editing makes Wikipedia susceptible to vandalism. What is Wikipedia to do to find a happy-medium where they can allow open editing of content yet keep the site accurate and free of vandalism?
Right now at the annual Wikimania 2008 event going on in Egypt, Wikipedia officials and contributors are discussing what they can do to improve the quality of content on Wikipedia and reduce vandalism. One idea that has come up and is already being tested on the German Wikipedia site is something they are calling “flagged revisions.” The concept of flagged revisions is pretty basic but could definitely change the way Wikipedia operates. Under the system, when someone contributed a change to an article, the change would not appear on the site until an “authority figure” verified the changes and assured they were accurate.
What does this mean for Wikipedia users? Well, for those who tend to use it almost as a news source, they’ll no longer be able to. The near instant updates to the site have turned Wikipedia into a place where you could go to learn about current events, but by the time an authority figure is able to verify changes, the event will probably no longer be “current.”
The New York Times wrote about this new approval system and said, “it well could bring some law and order to the creative anarchy that has made the site a runaway success but also made it a target for familiar criticism.” It’ll be near impossible for Wikipedia to please everybody because on one-hand they’ve got those that like the current system as it is, flaws and all, and then on the other-hand they’ve got those pushing for a more accurate and correct Wikipedia with a checks and balances system.
Our thought on this is that Wikipedia has done something right to get millions upon millions of visitors every single year. Why “fix” something if it isn’t broken? Flagged Revisions could certainly help cut-back on vandalism, but in the process it could stifle creativity and slow-down the flow of information.
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Wikipedia ain’t perfect, but this would be a big step in the wrong direction.
Yeah, I’m a fan of it as it currently is and don’t really see a need to delay the flow of information with an approval system.
The New York Times and related articles are relatively misleading, don’t worry.
Although the FlaggedRevs (the name of the flagged revisions extension) software allows for it and the German test has been configured so, it isn’t necessary for the flagged version to be displayed by default. It’s also possible to enable the latest version by default, and if this is so, also possible to dynamically enable it selectively for particular pages. What this means is that it’s not necessarily the change you dread.
In fact, the system might allow for more open editing by allowing pages which are currently semi-protected (so that only users with four-day-old registered accounts and at least ten edits can make changes) to simply have only the most recent flagged version visible. People would then still be able to make changes, though they’d have to be approved, rather than the current setup where unregistered users can’t make changes at all.
Also, the system is designed with multiple levels of “flags”: most people will be allowed to rank articles as clean of vandalism, while only experienced reviewers will be able to mark good articles and featured content (which will still be determined by consensus using the same method already in practice, using the privilege only to confirm what the community’s agreed on).
FlaggedRevs will be a useful tool and I don’t forsee it affecting much for the end-user aside from improved visibility of quality control. See nonsense in an article or need to be more sure it hasn’t been vandalized? Go back to the last sighted version. Want to be sure everything you’re looking at in a featured article has been scrutinized carefully by hordes of dedicated volunteer editors? Go back to the last version flagged “featured”. It’s not as earth-shatteringly numbing of the open-editing or constantly-updated nature of Wikipedia as you might believe.
There’s a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt floating about there. Perhaps the best advice to take comes not from Wikipedia, but its spiritual companion the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: DON’T PANIC.
P.S.: You can check out (and even try yourself) the FlaggedRevs software at [en.labs.wikimedia.org] where an open test of the software is taking place. It’s also very informative about the nature of the extension.
The idea in theory seems interesting, but we’ll find out how it really performs once it goes “live”. Although every minute I can save reverting kiddies jokes will be invested in more serious matters.
Ah, now if only the inner problems could be solved by software…
@Nihiltres: Thanks for stopping by and clarifying. Your explanation definitely helped!