For interest and information, a copy of a letter I sent to a local newspaper.

The original article text is given below - it's one of those small kind of snips.

FT2.

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Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 9:41 AM Subject: Your "Wikipedia" article

Dear %EDITOR%,

Thanks for picking up on the news on Wikipedia. I thought I’d drop a line to correct the information you received, and also because the actual information is even more interesting.

Your paper commented (20 Sept) that Wikipedia will try to improve its reliability and trustworthiness by "stopping readers changing entries", and limiting "instant editing".  In fact what is happening is even more interesting than this, and these aren’t accurate at all.

You are probably referring to what we call "Flagged revisions".

What happens at present is that every edit, made by anyone, shows up immediately. This means vigilance for vandalism is always on the ball, and generally according to reviews, we have a good reputation at handling it. However some can get through for a while.

What we have now created, and are trialling in the smaller German Wikipedia, is a system whereby readers will be shown (if they choose) the most recent version of the article that has been checked for reasonableness.  It is anticipated that a very large number of editors – in fact all editors who have shown their editing is constructive - will have the ability to check articles, meaning that most articles will show the most current version as usual.  But those revisions that are vandalised will not get this "flag", and will not be the version shown to readers by default.

Because a major change like this will take some exploring to ensure it runs smoothly, and to see how it works in practice, it is being trialled on a smaller (but still major) language version of Wikipedia, rather than the two million articles of the English version, until we understand how best to manage it, and the best policies to apply.

Thus the change is not that some editors will not be able to change articles. Wikipedia remains "the encyclopedia anyone can edit". But unless a person has acquired a degree of trust, and constructive editorship, ones edits may not show up immediately to the world at large, until confirmed by another editor that they are of a positive nature and non-vandalistic.

Thanks for your article though.  It’s good to know you are out there keeping us on our toes!

Best regards

FT2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:FT2

-------------- ORIGINAL ARTICLE TEXT:

Online encyclopedia Wikipedia will try to improve its reliability and trustworthiness - by stopping readers changing entries.

The website is visited by 7% of all internet users everyday but has been dogged by accusations of inaccuracy. Now the German-language version will bar readers from altering entries. Instant editing will be limited to "trusted editors" who could earn status by making a specific number of "reliable edits".

The English version will stay the same for now. --------------