Could a Reputation System Improve Wikipedia?

Acidus writes, "There is an excellent article in this month's First Monday about using reputation systems to limit the effects of vandalism on public wikis like Wikipedia. It discusses the benefits and weaknesses of various algorithms to judge how 'reliable' a given piece of text or an edit is. From the article: 'I propose that it would be better to provide Wikipedia users with a visual cue that enables them to see what assertions in an article have, in fact, survived the scrutiny of a large number of people, and what assertions are relatively fresh, and may not be as reliable. This would enable Wikipedia users to take more advantage of the power of the collaborative editing process taking place without forcing that process to change.'"

Comments

Re:Hardly

[AlHunt]

> Some of the most brilliant stuff I've ever read on the internet had a -1 Overrated on it. I
> think that's the god-modding by the editors--who seem to have a huge conservative streak.

Say what??? The fastest way to get modded up on /. is by bashing anything conservative - republican - Bush - "war on terror" or practically anything "mainstream". Alternatively, you can bash MS or praise OSS/Linux/Mac. Do any of that and you'll be insightful, informative, funny, you name it. This will probably get modded -2, offtopic, meanspirited, spiteful and ugly.

Al