After being stung in the past week by a pair of much-discussed mini-scandals, Wikipedia is about to change the way it does business. But the popular online encyclopedia won’t stray far from its open-source ideals.
The Web site’s founder, Jimmy Wales, says he will soon bar anonymous users from creating new encyclopedia entries, leaving that job instead to the site’s legion of registered contributors. Wikipedia will still permit anonymous posters to edit existing articles, though. (CNET News)
The change in policy comes after an ugly week for Wikipedia. First, a former administrative assistant to Robert F. Kennedy wrote a sharply critical op-ed piece for USA Today, complaining that a Wikipedia article falsely accused him of having been a suspect in the Kennedy assassinations. Just two days later, Adam Curry, a former MTV host often credited with inventing podcasting, was accused of anonymously editing a Wikipedia entry to minimize the contributions of other seminal podcasters.
Mr. Wales says that the recent incidents have been exceptions to the rule, and that Wikipedia maintains a high accuracy rate. But some commentators are less sanguine about the online resource. Dave Winer, a blogger whose name reportedly was among those Mr. Curry deleted from a Wikipedia entry, writes: "Wikipedia is so often considered authoritative. That must stop now, surely." [Editor’s note: This entry was corrected, see comments for details]
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