Wikipedia is defined by its community contribution model, and so far, the approach has worked quite well. The German version of Wikipedia has been experimenting with an edit approval system, though, and it seems the system may be ready to spread.
Under the stricter rules, anyone and everyone can still edit articles. The main difference is that new changes are kept out of public sight until a designated checker can look at and okay them.
Noam Cohen writes, “The Germans who are implementing the idea stress that the checkers are not a heavy hand, but are doing the most cursory examination to see that no curse words or obvious non sequiturs have been added. While some revisions can wait a day, usually they only take minutes, as checkers . . . spend hours going through lists of changes to approve.”
So it seems administrators have struck a balance between speed and accuracy that most Wikipedia fans might be able to live with. As such, the flagged revisions system is being discussed at Wikimania 2008, with the probable next step being tests or outright implementations in places other than Germany.
We’ll see what happens, although since this was last discussed about a year ago, it wouldn’t be wise to expect anything too soon.
