{"id":599,"date":"2009-01-30T19:56:35","date_gmt":"2009-01-31T03:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cubist.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/?p=599"},"modified":"2009-01-30T19:56:35","modified_gmt":"2009-01-31T03:56:35","slug":"wikipedia-editing-could-be-made-more-restrictive-due-to-vandalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/2009\/01\/30\/wikipedia-editing-could-be-made-more-restrictive-due-to-vandalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Wikipedia Editing Could Be Made More Restrictive Due to Vandalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to this <\/a>article, the English version of Wikipedia may be implementing a system called \u201cflagged revisions\u201d to the editing software, which would require that edits would have to be approved (\u201cflagged\u201d) by a \u201ctrusted\u201d user (see the Wikipedia page on flagged revisions here<\/a>). Edits that have not yet been approved could be viewed by users on request, but the default version of a page would exclude any changes that have not yet been approved. Trusted users\u2019 edits are automatically approved. There could be long wait times for edits to be approved; this system has already been implemented in the German Wikipedia version, and edits there have taken as long as three weeks to be approved. <\/p>\n

This change was proposed to combat vandalism. As it is now, a user could maliciously and instantaneously change the content of any article in an arbitrary way. For example, the article announcing the proposed change noted an instance of vandalism where a Wikipedia user vandalized Senator Ted Kennedy\u2019s article to say that he had died after President Obama\u2019s inauguration. According to Wikipedia\u2019s page on Vandalism<\/a>, the current method of dealing with vandalism is to delete the changes, and possibly take action against the user who posted the changes. A user believed to have vandalized an article could be given a warning, or blocked from making any further edits by an administrator. This current policy still allows the flawed article to be seen (and possibly taken as fact). The flagged revision system would mean that malicious edits might never be seen at all.<\/p>\n

Another way to discourage vandalism might be to impose more draconian penalties on users thought to be maliciously altering articles, such as banning both the user and the computer from accessing Wikipedia in the future. This would be too harsh, since foolish edits could possibly be innocent mistakes, and there could be more than one person using a given computer. Another alternative would be to only allow users who are already considered trustworthy to make edits. This would be too restrictive, and does not allow for as broad a community of editors as Wikipedia has currently. The only methods that seem to allow for a reasonable amount of freedom for users are the current reactive system, and the flagged revision proposal.<\/p>\n

With the proposed system, Wikipedia is trying to ensure the correctness of the content of its articles. Vandalism could potentially hurt users by spreading false information. This is especially troublesome for people such as this author, who generally trusts Wikipedia to be accurate. Vandalism also harms Wikipedia\u2019s reputation for accuracy, perhaps deterring potential users from using the website at all.<\/p>\n

The flagged revision idea does seem to be a good way to prevent vandalism, assuming there is a reasonable system for selecting which users are considered \u201ctrusted.\u201d However, it also reduces the freedom of the Wikipedia users to make edits. Also, since all changes are subject to the perceptions of the trusted users, it is possible for those trusted users to exercise censorship against other users. In addition, the proposed system would place a very large burden on the trusted users to inspect others edits so that they can be added to the article within a reasonable amount of time. It would limit the ability of Wikipedia\u2019s editors to modify articles to keep up with current events, something that has been a useful feature. Despite the flaws of the current more permissive system, it might be better for Wikipedia to leave it as it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to this article, the English version of Wikipedia may be implementing a system called \u201cflagged revisions\u201d to the editing software, which would require that edits would have to be approved (\u201cflagged\u201d) by a \u201ctrusted\u201d user (see the Wikipedia page … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4,10],"tags":[172],"class_list":["post-599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-availability","category-current-events","category-integrity","tag-add-new-tag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604,"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions\/604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secblog.cs.washington.edu\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}