Wikipedia is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and its moderation innovations are being highlighted. The Colombia Journalism Review published a retrospective on Wikipedia, discussing its measures to stabilize the site, such as semi-protection and extended-confirmed protection for sensitive articles. ossia shared an article illustrating these protections, which codinghorror noted bears resemblance to Discourse’s built-in trust system.
However, the effectiveness of Wikipedia’s moderation is debated. merefield shared an article from The Critic, suggesting that Wikipedia’s regime may result in opinionated content, which may or may not be desirable. The article’s credibility is acknowledged to be influenced by the publication’s right-leaning bias.
The Colombia Journalism Review (a big journal we used to read when I was working as a reporter) just published this 20 year retrospective on Wikipedia. And they talk about some of the moderation innovations over the years that have helped stabilize the site.
Articles such as the “COVID-19 pandemic” are subject to semi-protection, meaning that anonymous IP editing is not allowed and that any contributors must register an account. Other articles have more extensive protections, such as the article on Donald Trump, which has long been subject to extended-confirmed protection, meaning that only Wikipedia editors who have been active for 30 days and who have performed at least 500 edits can directly edit Trump’s page.
I think Wikipedia is an interesting case study, and that some of their innovations may make their way to larger Discourse instances, and perhaps to larger open source projects as well.
Suggesting that the result of Wikipedia’s regime is at least ‘opinionated’? I guess it’s up to the reader to decide whether this is a good outcome or not? It’s worth noting The Critic is right leaning …
