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There are also those who monitor their watchlists a little too closely. "There are some people who are extremely persistent and stubborn, and they have a lot of time on their hands," Citizendium's Sanger explains, and these people will "squat" on the page, then watch changes made with a specific agenda in mind. "What's ironic about this," Sanger suggests, "is that you have some people who have no compunctions about accusing other people of what they call POV-pushing [point-of-view pushing] - in other words, making biased edits - when what those people are actually trying to do is reduce the amount of bias that's already in the article."

Even the most ardent Wikipedian would admit the system has flaws. "You don't have to go far to find mistakes," says David Gerard, a volunteer media contact for Wikipedia in the UK, "but we work toward quality." In Gerard's view, the important thing that Wikipedia's users need to understand is that "Wikipedia isn't a finished product, but a live working draft." In other words, a Wikipedia article needs to be read with a critical eye. "We don't promise to think for the reader," he continues. "If you see that, for example, your favourite pop star died in a bizarre toilet-related accident this morning, click the History tab to see if someone's just having a bit of fun."

The problem is that not everyone thinks it's fun; not journalist John Seigenthaler (whose Wikipedia entry accused him of complicity in the death of JFK) nor golfer Fuzzy Zoeller (who sued the owner

Human checks and balances

The job of protecting Wikipedia from vandals and maintaining peace in the articles and talk pages is, strictly speaking, the responsibility of every Wikipedian. However, certain users, dubbed "Admins", have been granted special powers. They can protect, delete and undelete pages, block specific IP addresses from editing, or quickly revert pages in the event of vandalism. As having an elite goes against Wikipedia's egalitarian grain, the site promotes the view that Admins aren't privileged or special. "Just a normal user with a mop and a bucket," as Wikipedia: What Adminship Is Not explains.

To some extent this is naive, and to know why you have to understand how key decisions are made. Wikipedia isn't a democracy. Issues aren't decided by votes, but by consensus. On articles where the debate becomes heated, editors discuss their concerns and attempt to reach a decision that all involved can abide by, but eventually someone has to make a decision - the Admin. True, the Admin's decisions are accountable and there are arbitration boards, but in many cases the Admin simply makes a judgement call. It isn't just a question of counting votes; they have to decide where the consensus lies.

This leaves a certain amount of power in the Admins' hands. Read enough talk pages and it's clear that some misuse their power. Take a look at the archives page on Wikipedia: Requests for Comment, and you can see allegation after allegation that Admin X blocked or banned users who disagreed with them, teamed up with Admin Y even though user Z was in the right, or used threats and wiki-lawyering - the interpretation of Wikipedia's rules, as lawyers interpret laws, to their own ends - to push their own views. Some of these accusations are clearly motivated by spite or anger, but certainly not all.