Wikipedia Will Screen Changes on Articles About Living People – NY Times

by admin August 26, 2009 at 4:10 pm

Wikipedia has decided to screen edits to encyclopedia entries about living people, significantly reining in the power it has bestowed for a decade upon anyone who wants to change an article on the open-source encyclopedia, the New York Times reports.

The policy change addresses a fundamental problem that has bedeviled the site for years: if anyone can change an entry, and nobody in particular vouches for the information’s authenticity, how can you trust what you read? Despite this seeming anomaly, Wikipedia is a top 10 sites with 60 million visitors a month. It’s also increasingly a go-to resource for breaking news: in the first 24 hours after Michael Jackson’s death, his entry was viewed six million times.

Read more: wired.com