Wikipedia "not clamping down" on edits

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 26 Aug 2009 at 10:44

Wikimedia has blasted reports that it's "clamping down" on Wikipedia edits with its new Flagged Revisions scheme.

Under the scheme, edits made about living people will need to be signed off by an experienced editor before being made live. The scheme is intended to put an end to article vandalism, but has also led to reports that the very ethos of Wikipedia is being challenged.

Speaking on his blog, Erik Moeller, deputy director of Wikimedia tried to settle concerns about Wikipedia's new direction: "A popular media narrative of this proposal is that it represents a 'clamping down' on Wikipedia's open editing process. That is nonsense.

If the proposed model works as intended, it will actually allow us to open up many articles for editing which are currently protected

"It is presently the case that many high-risk articles are completely uneditable by new contributors, which is referred to as page protection. For example, as a completely new user, you are not able to alter the article about Barack Obama.

"If the proposed model works as intended, it will actually allow us to open up many articles for editing which are currently protected from being edited. Edits will have to be patrolled, which is clearly a step up from edits not being possible at all," he adds.

Early reports pegged the scheme as likely to be rolled out within a few weeks, but Moeller claimed the organisation was wary of rushing it out.

"It's important for us to get this right – we want to make sure that we don't make Wikipedia harder to use, for our readers or our editors, in the process of deploying this functionality. That said, we hope to be able to deploy Flagged Revisions in production use on the English Wikipedia within 2-3 months."