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The Internet has changed research as we know it. Advent of search engines such as Google and online encyclopedias such as Encarta and Wikipedia have outdone traditional printed encyclopedias. In the new Web 2.0 generation of technologies, user contribution is highly emphasized. Wikipedia was founded with this principle in mind. Allowing user contributions to websites has empowered the users of the formally “closed” Internet. However, as Cliff Robertson says in the movie version of Spider-Man, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Although not many users partake in vandalism, there are some who do not follow etiquette. This is a frequent occurrence on Wikipedia. Due to vandalism in the English-language Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, the website’s founder and the co-founder and board member of the Wikimedia Foundation, has recommended that the website introduce “Flagged Revisions”; however, this fundamental change of policy and the basic philosophy of this website is not open for debate.

Wrongful edits are usually fixed and repaired promptly. The members of the team that helps out with checking changes are called recent changes monitors (RCMs). Wikipedia provides special resources for these RCMs. All changes to articles are sent to them. The locations include links that show the difference between the previous and current revisions. Similar to the recent changes monitors, there are new page monitors who ensure that any new encyclopedic entry is notable enough to be included. This prevents people from making pages about themselves and turning Wikipedia into the next MySpace. As many edits are made on Wikipedia and usually there are only 20 RCMs at any given time, some vandal edits may pass through. In effect, for arcane entries, Wikipedia could have wrong information for long periods of time. One example of this is the page on evolution. A graph has been made that shows the edits to the article “Evolution” over time. It shows that controversial articles are bound to have vandals attack it with their own points of view (“Map: Evolution Evolving”).

Vandalism is a key reason why Wikipedia’s current editorial policy is under debate. This form of attack on knowledge is due to various reasons. As a Wikipedia editor, I know that there are vandals who do it purely out of the pleasure of tarnishing the value of something, and there are other vandals who do it because they feel that they have been previously wronged by the encyclopedia (or an entry’s content) in some way. Famous incidents of vandalism on Wikipedia are mostly instances of “death-by-Wikipedia” (Ahrens). In January 2009, the editing of the articles about Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd are two incidents that stand out. Authors like Metz, a newspaper columnist for the Register, criticize Wikipedia by calling some information “Wikinonsense” written by “Wikifiddlers” (”Jimbo Wales ends”).

Many people in academia such as Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Carla University School of Law (“Biography”), feel that Wikipedia has gotten too large to sustain its current policy. He states that Wikipedia contains “seeds of its own destruction” (”Doomed”). In a world of anonymity due to the Internet, we might not be able to validate credentials that certain people have. For example, in 2007, Wikipedia was stirred up in another controversy. This time, it revolved around the user Essjay. “The editor […] described himself on his user profile as “a tenured professor of theology at a private university in the eastern United States.” In reality, Ryan Jordan was a 24-year-old community college dropout from Kentucky who relied on sources like “Catholicism for Dummies” when correcting articles,” writes Russell Goldman (“Wikiscandal”). This shows that the Internet lacks a method of verifying the credentials of an individual.

All of these problems with Wikipedia have prompted a solution. Wales has suggested that “Flagged Revisions” should be introduced to Wikipedia. Flagged Revisions is a radical change to the current editorial policy of Wikipedia. In brief, it is a way of assuring a better amount of quality on many articles subject to vandalism. The proposed interface for the policy would be integrated into the current workflow. When the editor saves a page, a new revision is created. However, unlike the current workflow, this newly edited revision will not be displayed to end users (users who use Wikipedia only to access information) immediately. The created revision would require the approval of other editors with sufficient permissions. Initially, the campaign included the entire encyclopedia. Since then, Wales restated his aim to include only the most vandalized category, “Biography of Living Persons” articles. One such attack is seen in the previous examples of the two American Senators. According to him, pages that fit in this category would make ideal test candidates to see whether the policy would work on a larger scale.

Even though Flagged Revisions would solve many problems, it also creates problems in terms of former policy. These may be solved with more changes to editorial policy. One of Wikipedia’s forte is that it is community driven. “Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written collaboratively,” says the introductory page for new editors (“Wikipedia: Introduction”). The page also promotes new editors to be bold and to not be afraid with editing. The implementation of Flagged Revisions would change this for established users. Established users who can already approve newer versions of pages would be the group that is most affected. In case too many of their edits are invalid, their privileges to approve pages could be revoked. The criteria for choosing established users may also be somewhat controversial in the community. Currently, debaters are currently proposing that “autoconfirmed” users automatically earn the right to approve new revisions. These autoconfirmed users are editors who have contributed to the encyclopedia in the past and have been members for a certain amount of time. On the other hand, the sheer number of autoconfirmed users could cause the whole system to be ineffective.

In order to find a middle ground between the two opposing ends, there have been numerous proposals made by other members of Wikipedia. One solution was mentioned earlier: have only a small subset of the site converted for trial purposes. Another viable solution would be to allow users to choose which version of the page they want to view by default, moderated or unmoderated. Under this system, unauthenticated users would always view the moderated version, so not as many mistakes are exposed to end users.

Vandalism on Wikipedia has prompted the administrators with a difficult situation to react to. One component of this situation is the need to find a way to discourage vandals. The other component is the needed change due to the growth of the website. With Internet access penetrating developing countries, this problem is bound to escalate if something is not done to stop it. 

Works Cited

Ahrens, Frank. “Death by Wikipedia: The Kenneth Lay Chronicles.” Washington Post 9 Jul 2006: F07.

Anderson, Nate. “Doomed: why Wikipedia will fail.” Ars Technica. 2 Mar 2009

<http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/02/doomed-why-wikipedia-will-fail.ars>.

Goldman, Eric. “Eric Goldman – Biography.” 21 May 2009

<http://www.ericgoldman.org/biography.html>

Goldman, Russell. “Wikiscandal.” ABC News. 21 Mar 2009

<http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2928756&page=1>.

Kruglinski, Susan. “Map: Evolution Evolving.” DISCOVER Magazine. 22 Mar 2009

<http://discovermagazine.com/2006/jul/evolutionmap>.

Metz, Cade. “Jimbo Wales ends death by Wikipedia.” The Register. 2 Mar 2009

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/22/wikipedia_vandalism_crackdown/>.

Pershing, Ben. “Kennedy, Byrd the Latest Victims of Wikipedia Errors.” Washington Post 21 Jan 2009. <http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2009/01/ kennedy_the_latest_victim_of_w.html>.

Wikipedia Contributors. “Wikipedia:Introduction.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 21 Mar 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction>.