Wikipedia Tries Approval System to Reduce Vandalism on Pages

By Noam Cohen

Wikipedia is considering a basic change to its editing philosophy to cut down on vandalism. In the process, the online encyclopedia anyone can edit would add a layer of hierarchy and eliminate some of the spontaneity that has made the site, at times, an informal source of news.

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.

The idea, which is called “flagged revisions,” has only been possible in the last few months because of a new extension to the software that runs Wikipedia. It is sure to be a hot topic here at Wikimania 2008, in Alexandria, Egypt, because it promises to enact a goal for “stable versions” of articles that has long been championed by Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales.

An administrator at the German Wikipedia, where the first large-scale experiment is happening, will give a talk Friday on how it’s going.

The German site, which is particularly vexed by vandalism, uses the system to delay changes from appearing until someone in authority (a designated checker) has verified that the changes are not vandalism. Once a checker has signed off on the changes, they will appear on the site to any visitor; before a checker has signed off, the last, checker-approved version is what most visitors will see. (There are complicated exceptions, of course. When a “checker” makes a change, it appears immediately. And registered users, who make up less than 5 percent of Wikipedia users, will also see “unchecked” versions.)

Approximately 60 percent of the more than 750,000 German articles have been checked, and thus are under watch in the future. There are approximately 3,000 checkers, though Mathias Schindler, one of the administrators of German Wikipedia, says he expects the numbers to grow, since the only requirement is that someone have made a total of 300 edits, none of them vandalism.

The Germans who are implementing the idea stress that the checkers are not a heavy hand, but are doing the most cursory examination to see that no curse words or obvious non sequiturs have been added. While some revisions can wait a day, usually they only take minutes, as checkers like Mr. Schindler spend hours going through lists of changes to approve.

Also, they point out that edits that haven’t been approved are still in the system and show up to anyone who later wants to make edits. So contributions would not be lost or overwritten as they wait for a checker to approve them.

Administrators at Wikipedias in other languages, as well as people at the Wikimedia Foundation, said they were watching the German experiment carefully expecting that some version of it would migrate to the other versions.

Ultimately, the checkers hope for their own obsolescence. If vandals, online or off, cannot show their work to the world, perhaps fewer vandals will take up the task.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

DB July 18, 2008 · 1:55 am

This makes perfect sense. Let the registered users edit articles without worrying about revisions being held back. Then let someone approve it for the normal users who don’t want vandalism. The chance that the checkers will vandalize is minimal and can easily be changed back by another “trusted” user.

Ethan Q July 18, 2008 · 2:25 am

As someone who has argued with his brother ad nauseum in favor of the validity of wikipedia’s open edit policy, I warily applaud this effort. Because of this policy, wikipedia is able to both be a source for virtually instantaneous news and a resource for sharing information that does not agree with current authoritative opinion. It is, therewith, a far greater reflection of scope of human thought.

There are countless authoritative sources of information available, both online and off. Wiki’s true value is that it is a greater reflection of humanity.

It would also seem prudent to me, that if wiki wanted to keep the vandals at bay, they could reject edits from any IP address caught vandalizing.

Western civilization was unable to deter the Vandals the first time, I wonder how successful we will be this time. Touch lightly, please, this candle of human wisdom.

mystic July 18, 2008 · 6:40 am

You have not indicated how one corrects libelous statements that are not true, and how one obtains the names of the people who participated in the slander to be used in litigation.

Mike B July 18, 2008 · 7:23 am

This sort of move is completely unnecessary and can only hurt the Wikipedia experience. Aside from the usual arguments regarding censorship and delays in getting information spread, many Wikipedia contributors got their start by removing either outright errors or vandalism from the site. Removing such things take only seconds and give the novice contributor an instant positive feeling. What starts as vandalism removal will eventually lead to contributions of positive content, instead of the elimination of negative content.

I have never found vandalism to be a problem on Wikipedia. I rarely encounter vandalized articles and when I do they are easily dealt with. In a model where the motivation for new content is largely the lack of any cost to the user, a vetting system will only discourage potential contributions especially in less trafficked areas that could go months before being “checked”.

The site Wikimapia (think Wikipedia meets Google Earth) used to have a vetting system where low privileged users would have to have their new place submissions “seconded” by at least two other users. This system was far less odious than the proposed one for Wikipedia (as Wikimapia had an interactive graphical interface), but it still ultimately failed. Everyone I knew who used it set the display to show unvetted places as well as vetted ones because even the unvetted places had useful information. Eventually the system was scrapped during an upgrade because it added overhead, but didn’t significantly improve the site’s content or user experiance.

Wikipedia is falling into the trap into believing it is something it is not. Just like eBay is ruining itself in a vain attempt to pretend it is Amazon.com, Wikipedia seems to want to pretend that it is some sort of old school Encyclopedia. However Wikipedia is not an old school Encyclopedia, its better than that. It’s a forum where ideas compete in the full light of public scrutiny in the best traditions of free speech.

JS July 18, 2008 · 9:24 am

Didn’t Wikipedia have expert editors at one time?

Didn’t at least one of them have faked credentials?

So exactly how are designated checkers going to be any improvement?

Mathew July 18, 2008 · 9:57 am

Seems Wikipedia has come full circle — after touting the benefits of having no editorial control as a major differentiator, it seems the Wikitards have (rather slowly) learned what professional publishers have known for years: good editorial control retards the propagation of baseless nonsense.

Today, self-appointed (and self-important) “Wikipolice” perpetuate irrelevant, badly written, libellous and factually incorrect articles on Wikipedia through obsessive editing to reflect their world view. Now the same folks are being handed the ability to exercise editorial control by deeming an edit to be “vandalism”.

To add insult to injury, a potential Wiki contributor with real life experience in a topic is likely to see their contribution deleted unless they can provide a reference to a traditional book, newspaper or other traditional publishing form. A supreme irony!

John July 18, 2008 · 11:12 am

Glad to see that the Wikipedia editors have been able to get out of their pajamas and go all the way to Alexandria, Egypt. Hope the shipment of Jolt Cola got there in advance of their arrival.

Wikipedia is user generated content and largely filled with incorrect and biased information. Ask any grade school, high school or college teacher who has received a blast of Wikipedia information in their students’ papers. Cheating has never been so easy to catch.

The Wikipedia community’s effort to create a better system with “checkers” is ridiculous. The self-empowered editors of the big W are only “qualified” for editing by the fact they spend hours on end in front of their computer sucking up to their Wikibuddies and getting their digital rocks off on telling would-be editors of important and relevant information that they know better because, “Well, I am a Wikipedia editor, please pass the Jolt.”

Leave the checker business to the side, Jimmy Wales. Don’t pretend Wikipedia is something more than it will ever be – an unflagging source of biased and haphazard information.

Steve H. July 18, 2008 · 11:43 am

Wikipedia is a fiasco.

It is statist, it is academic in the intensely negative sense, the “wikipolice” are hilarious, and on top of that Wikipedia is massively influenced and created by “corpo-wiki” action.

There is only the merest gloss of Wikipedia being “open to all.” In effect wikipedia is the “old media” of the internet, and is the perfect example of pure gate-keepery and busy-bodiness.

Extremist conspiracy theories like the following suggest the reality, to wit, that Wikipedia was created by, and is, very much an “Establishment” mouthpiece in sheep’s clothing.

//www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20080424&articleId=8784
//www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/6811

That’s all it is and all it ever will be – an “Establishment” mouthpiece with a ridiculous gloss of everyone’s! internet! that is so shallow, well, it’s shallow enough to fool people so naive they think text messages are literature and facebook is culture.

Wikipedia is simply funny, and a great study for anthropologists figuring out how busybodyness becomes government; how the Establishment creates a quasipopulist face.

Hence, “I have never found vandalism to be a problem on Wikipedia….” OF COURSE vandalism is not a problem on Wikipedia. A completely normal pattern of government is to invent a crisis! and then – surprise! – supply Power and Control to Save The People from that crisis. It’s the War On Drugs, War On Terror, War On Poverty, War On Pollution .. etc etc etc.

There is nothing even slightly surprising here. It’s playing out exactly as you’d expect. There will be various non-crisis (vandalism! legal woes! costs! racism! the rudeness crisis!) … all of these “crisis” will of course be used as pretexts to move away from a laissez-faire system to a system of control and power.

Daniel Tunkelang July 18, 2008 · 1:24 pm

To those who are criticizing Wikipedia: have any of you used it? I grant that some entries are highly unreliable, either because of vandalism or partisan squabbles over their content. But most Wikipedia entries are uncontroversial, and their content tends to be quite good. Beyond arguments about accuracy relative to Brittanica or other old-school encyclopedias, I think the big win is breadth.

Vandalism and edit wars are a real issue, as are entries that serve largely as puff pieces. That’s also a problem for traditional media.

But the biggest problem with Wikipedia is anonymous authorship (much as it is for comment boards like this one). I think that if the Wikimedia folks can accept the importance of author accountability and insist that authors go through some hoop to authenticate real identities, most of the current problems with Wikipedia will go away.

Daniel Tunkelang

p.s. I hope other here will also take responsibility for their opinions and sign with their real names.

Ducky July 18, 2008 · 2:53 pm

JS: Wikipedia does not have appointed “editor” positions. Anybody, you and me, can be an “editor”, all it takes is to click “edit”. It’s therefore quite possible some of these folks have faked credentials. The thing is, Wikipedia requires no credentials, nor does it claim to check identities or credentials of whoever uses the site.

dudley July 18, 2008 · 4:40 pm

I think all the people complaining about wikipedia as a source probably are just pist that their vandalism got took down. I think they should try this new method and see if it helps or hurts. It’s not that hard to rescind the policy.

rob July 18, 2008 · 7:01 pm

Wiki is a great starting place for any research. Depending on how important that information is should indicate how many other sources should be cross-checked.
If I am just looking up some details about a movie wiki is all I may look at. If I am writing a assignment for uni I would check other references.
I have never encountered vandalism on wiki. Some odd opinions and strange expressions ‘encountered have I.
robert mackay

Edward G. Nilges July 18, 2008 · 8:01 pm

The real Vandals on wikipedia are the uncultured editors who are gradually privatising wikipedia so that the unpaid work of its original contributors can be sold. This is virtual slave labor. Generally they have the outlook of convenience store clerks and are apt to regard as “vandalism” anything not taught at junior college.

Thousands of incorrect facts including libel, and an American white male interpretive framework, will remain if this policy is implemented.

Ken Myers July 19, 2008 · 1:44 am

If I were Wikipedia, I’d be careful of how this impacted the Section 230 analysis (i.e., liability of Wikipedia for content).

Brian H. Bragg July 19, 2008 · 8:03 am

Daniel Tunkelang has come to the heart of the editing and accuracy issue: anonymity. Just as with anonymous e-mails filled with misinformation and slander, anonymous edits are not to be trusted. Any thinking person knows this. Wikipedia is a fine resource as a starting point for research, and it embodies the democratic principles of the internet itself. But the anonymity of the authors and editors makes it an inviting target for vandalism and propaganda. Just as a voter in a democracy volunteers to be registered and indentified, a Wikipedia contributor should also be willing to undergo the same scrutiny. I attach my name to any information I put on line — posts, Web pages, e-mails — because I am willing to answer for its accuracy. Why is that not a minimum standard?
— Brian H. Bragg, Logan County, Arkansas.

Edward G. Nilges July 19, 2008 · 10:53 am

Mr. Bragg, the problem here is that the non-anonymous contributor is so often trashed by “barbarians INSIDE the gates”.

I and a number of other commentators here question the Times’ framework, in which the word “vandals” is so unthinkingly applied to unknown outsiders who enter wikipedia, sometimes to be sure to vandalize, but other times to correct libel and falsehood.

For example, a contributor who needed to be anonymous corrected a very biased article recently on William C. Marland, a former governor of West Virginia. The original article was written, it appears, by a Republican who failed completely to balance Marland’s issues with alcohol with his accomplishments as one of the few Southern governors to accept Brown vs the Board of Education.

But especially when contributors attempt to set the record straight from a recognizable liberal viewpoint, their liberalism is renarrated as “POV”. If they respond briskly, especially with that sort of political wit that was the specialty of Adlai Stevenson, a general incomprehension labels them “vandals”.

The New York Times uncritically accepts a topos in which “in there” are normal people and “out there” are vandals, burning tires, and dancing trolls. While this has long been a computer geek world view it is also often a normalization of deviance in which a technical community confuses its command of apparatus with common decency.

The facts are that Jimbo Wales didn’t start wikipedia from idealistic motives but to avoid having to “herd cats”, paid writers being so famously ill-tempered. Non-anonymous teachers and doctors who enter wikipedia as a result do so at the risk to their jobs and reputations, for especially in recent years, “editors” without culture or in many cases subject-matter knowledge will trash their reputations and endanger their jobs based on a growing Scholasticism which outruns common sense.

A requirement for non-anonymity won’t change the central, if unmentionable, problem in wikipedia in particular and the Internet in general: the fact that online bullying is so common as to be used as a tool of control, and in Adorno’s phrasing, the domination of the dominated by the dominated.

Daniel Tunkelang July 19, 2008 · 2:57 pm

Edward,

You raise a fair point: not everyone will be willing to put their name out there in a world where people play dirty. But bear in mind that non-anonymity applies to everyone, including those who try accuse contributors of bias or vandalism. History suggests anonymity removes a lot of inhibition, and I’d hope that removing anonymity would swing things back towards at least some semblance of civility.

Brian H. Bragg July 19, 2008 · 6:18 pm

Mr. Nilges, your points are not without validity.
I happen to believe we are in a stage of development (of Wikipedia, and of interpersonal online communications as a whole) that will be seen years hence as very early infancy — dirty diapers, vomit, colic, nighttime fevers and all the other messy challenges of nurturing a baby.
Yes, The Times and other institutional voices will reflect an authoritarian view, because that is the model of communication they know. Yes, I suppose Wales is gratified by having to herd only unpaid scribes. Yes, I suppose the vetting and empowerment of editors is less than perfect. Yes, libels and slanders will occur.
But this is a process; the seeds have barely begun to germinate. Please permit us a growing season before plowing up the field and declaring the crop a failure.
Brian H. Bragg, Logan County, Arkansas

John Lane July 19, 2008 · 8:10 pm

Those who have lived in a police state know that anonymity can be an impregnable bunker from whose safety verbal shells mightier than the sword can be safely launched, which will bring down the tyrranous regime. And sometimes even a free society can have within it subdivisions in which freedoms are curtailed – in our society this has at times includes certain intellectual disciplines, the college campus, or government regimes.

Anonymity has resulted in much good. Think of The Federalist; Deep Throat; the Bronte sisters and other authors who at first wrote pseudonymously; countless whistleblowers and tipsters who have fed streams of tips to the authorities that have righted wrongs, freed the innocent, and helped to catch and convict the guilty.

Anonymity is not one of Wikipedia’s flaws. Those flaws do include the prevalence of self-important, self-appointed wiki-police, who delete good material that doesn’t conform to their views; and Wikipedia’s pedantic over-emphasis on preserving “encyclopedic tone” rather than informing and disclosing and educating.

Jimbo Sales July 19, 2008 · 8:51 pm

This is the beginning of the end for Wikipedia. Something better will replace it now that they are starting to drive down the user interaction that forms the basis of the reason the site exists in the first place. Perhaps Google Knol will take Wikipedia’s place soon?

Daniel Tunkelang July 20, 2008 · 2:21 am

John,

Your carefully chosen examples make a valid case that there is a place for anonymity. It’s a lot like caller ID. You’re free to block it, but I in turn am free to block calls for which caller ID is blocked.

I highly doubt that most anonymous posters to Wikipedia are using anonymity to protect themselves from repression. For many, anonymity is a cloak to act with impunity, advancing political or business interests, or simply playing pranks.

Anonymity should be a last resort for those who cannot safely sign their names to their words. And anonymous writing will have to pass a high bar of skepticism, because of the moral hazard induced by the lack of accountability.

As for Wikipedia’s emphasis on “neutral point of view,” I sometimes have issues with it myself, especially when the “wiki-police” are not experts in the entries they are policing. But it will always be difficult to resolve the disputes that arise in a collaborative editing process. At least let’s do it without wearing masks.

Morten Juhl-Johansen Zölde-Fejér (mjjzf) July 20, 2008 · 2:42 am

Is this not what is more or less attempted by Citizendium?

Chris July 20, 2008 · 6:55 am

I’m afraid that with the coming of a stronger controlling structure, more devious attacks will come too.

For instance, vandals will wait until they got approval from the system to start vandalizing. And since they are approved editors, it will be longer until they are suspected.

Edward G. Nilges July 20, 2008 · 11:02 am

Hmm, I complained on wikipedia that Ayn Rand was a “philosopher” from the neutral POV only by the strange rule that if you make a lot of money (in Rand’s case, by writing fiction) and get on a talk show, you can be anything you want, especially something so apparently nebulous as a “philosopher”.

I replied briskly but at length to ripostes which focused on my style of registering my complaint, (which was to analyse what it might mean to be a philosopher at some length) to be verbose, prolix, otiose and smart-assed.

Some of the most vicious responses in the ensuing free-for-all were from non-anonymous scientific people unfamiliar, in my view, with the fact that we can form rules in the humanities, such as the recursive rule that “you’re a philosopher if already-recognized philosophers, not funded by conservative fatcats, cite you. And, you at least try to read Kant”.

The problem is that modern societies GROW control systems: they aren’t created by fiat: cf. Foucault. As long as we applaud people like Mr Wales or Henry Ford for being visionaries, confuse being-a-celebrity with being-a-philosopher, and so marketize everything as to create scarcities of literacy and attention, the problems with wikipedia, a symptom of a class society, will remain.

The bullying and American self-centredness on the Internet is unremarked in the prestige media which starting with Drudge, tended to let the most unprincipled small fry become big shots. By its structure, the Internet is so atomic that it’s a Thatcher automaton which fails to see that there IS such a thing as society.

But the “Web 2.0″ phenomenon is changing that. Facebook for example discourages some bullying with a more broadband interface and even in its graphic design…eschewing bright colors and the simulacrum of two dimensions it reminds the user that they are in an artificial world.

Wikipedia perpetuates the illusionary world of Web 1.0 which Cass Sunstein and Lawrence Lessig have critiques as creating virtual reality bubbles…in wikipedia’s case, the illusion of technical people and convenience store clerks that recognizing quality writing is as easy as 1-2-3, and it’s only necessary to have a peasantlike suspicion of the Fancy Dan style.

R. Brown July 20, 2008 · 1:56 pm

Having contributed to Wikipedia for several years now, I must say that I have mixed thoughts on the vandalism reduction system.

First, vandalism does occur. Much of it goes unnoticed because it is usually swiftly corrected. Many editors daily, if not even more frequently, check watchlists to see if any activity has occurred on articles. As a result, vandalism is quickly fixed.

Is it so rampant that it requires this sort of vetting system? I don’t believe so.

What I’ve noticed in my time with Wikipedia is the growing existence of a culture of buddyism. Alliances and friendships are established, and these relationships are relied upon when articles come into debate. Numbers are often the key to success on Wikipedia, its rule by mass. Furthermore, the rules of Wikipedia are deftly wielded by experienced and long time editors against relative newcomers with dismissive efficiency. Knowing how to play the system helps.

My fear with this proposed system is that it would only reinforce this culture that has developed. While editors should be rewarded for putting in a lot of time, a lot of editors spend a lot of their time simply monitoring and changing the input of others, without actively seeking to create or add new content. This system will help concrete the system of protecting one’s “own” articles from others. Just because someone has made 300 edits to an article does not mean they have the knowledge or experience to ensure that the proper content makes it into the article.

In short, the term vandalism is overly broad, and will very likely be applied to content that is simply to the dissatisfaction of existing editors, regardless of its accuracy or validity. It will become a tool to allow established editors to strengthen their control and presence over an article they feel emotionally attached to. I believe this, because this is what instantly came to my own mind upon reading about the proposal. That it would help me keep articles with the same level and content that I believe is appropriate and accurate.

I do not think vandalism, while existing and a problem, is such a grievance that we need this type of system.