We all know that information on Wikipedia isn't necessarily accurate - it's just one of the caveats of having a user-editable site. For the most part, though, the level of access that ability to edit provides outweighs any concerns over accuracy. After all, Wikipedia requires citations, and you can always check with the original source if any material seems questionable. A proposed change to this method of operations has been made by site founder Jimmy Wales, restricting some edits to going through an approval process before they even show up on the site in the first place.

Currently there are some editing protections in place, but they are relatively minor. Most of the articles protected by the system only restrict edits from non-registered users and only then for pages where vandalism had been a problem in the past. The new system, using a protocol called Flagged Revisions, would require pre-approval of edits before appearing on pages. The specific target in mind would be pages featuring biographies of living people, as they tend to be rife with vandalism.

Wales explained the desire for this plan as a compromise to allow new users to edit pages without risking them putting up falsehoods. While current protection measures would also prevent rogue edits, Wales wants to encourage first-time users to interact with the site, even if they haven't created accounts yet.

The proposal is causing a heated debate amongst Wikipedia editors, with some seeing it as an obvious solution to a long-term problem, and others as a serious breach of the spirit of the site, not to mention an enormous resource drain; instead of being free to create new content, editors would be needed to weed through all the Flagged Revisions requests for biography pages.

The German version of Wikipedia already has the system in place, creating delays of up to three weeks before edits in the backlog get approved and published. Wales is thinking about trying out the system on the English Wikipedia for a week as a test run. There are also calls for alternate plans, if anyone can think up a less objectionable way to protect site content.

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