Wikipedia plans to roll out a new feature with the goal of enhancing the site’s credibility. Called “WikiTrust,” the optional feature color codes entries based on reliability, according to a Wikipedia page describing the new development. The color-coding tool gives users a “check text tab” that reveals author, origin and reliability of the text. The intent is to highlight spam, surreptitious changes and outright information-tampering by contributors who might have ulterior motives for making changes.
This article is skewed in favor of the accuracy of Wikipedia. I've been a Wikipedia editor for 4 years, and I've got about 50 pages on my watchlist. I'd estimate that a quarter of the edits are vandalism, a quarter are self-interested (either someone with an ax to grind or someone promoting their own website), a quarter are by well-meaning but uninformed people, and a quarter are good edits by knowledgeable people. For the articles that no one's watching, the 75% of poor edits remain in place except for obscenities, which are removed by bots. There's a lot of good information on Wikipedia, and there's a lot of pure nonsense. Don't believe anything you read there without checking a reliable source for verification. The citations at the end of the article are a good place to start.
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Wikipedia to Tinge Suspect Entries With Orange Cast
Posted by: Erika Morphy August 31, 2009 02:20 PMWikipedia plans to roll out a new feature with the goal of enhancing the site’s credibility. Called “WikiTrust,” the optional feature color codes entries based on reliability, according to a Wikipedia page describing the new development. The color-coding tool gives users a “check text tab” that reveals author, origin and reliability of the text. The intent is to highlight spam, surreptitious changes and outright information-tampering by contributors who might have ulterior motives for making changes.