26 August 2009

Wikipedia clamps down on celebrity death hoaxes

Wikipedia is clamping down on vandals editing its encyclopaedia with false reports of celebrity deaths.

The Register reports that the Wikimedia Foundation will shortly introduce a two-month trial of "flagged revisions" that will see admins vetting articles of living celebrities and some corporations prior to their public release. This is further to earlier news of pre-approval methods being employed to combat vandalism.

Under this trial system, articles in flagged categories are protected and require approval before publishing, meaning that anyone visiting the page in the interim will only be presented with the earlier version prior to editing.

The German language version of Wikipedia has already been operating the flagged revisions policy for more than a year, and a poll deciding whether to implement the change into the English language version received 80 per cent of votes from 259 online users.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has pushed for a flagging policy for several months, after instances of vandalism received widespread media publicity. January saw erroneous reports that US Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd had died during President Obama's post-inauguration luncheon. Other famous examples of "Wikicide" include Osama Bin Laden, comedians Sinbad and Paul Reiser and TV presenter Vernon Kay.

The internet has brought a new immediacy to the breaking of news stories, but the possibility of false information and deliberate foul play means that Wikipedia does not want to risk providing visitors with misleading information, even if this means being a little behind. In June, Michael Jackson's death brought some websites to a standstill, with many internet users being naturally suspicious of a hoax. By implementing measures to combat its infamous tampering, Wikipedia may finally become a trustworthy information source.