Wikipedia’s Call to Moderation Can Yield Mixed Results

User-generated content is at the heart of any social media outlet. But what happens when the users are able to hide behind the name of ‘anonymous’? User-generated content has potential to do a lot of good, but it can also provide some harm. This harm is what Wikipedia is trying to avoid in its announcement to roll out a new moderation system, known as flagged revisions. Moderation would provide users with more accurate wikis, but there are still cons to the idea of moderated content.

One of the negative aspects of flagged revisions is a delay in wiki updates. According to Read Write Web, “The flagged revisions system has been used by the German Wikipedia, although as Wales notes in his proposal, it has at times had approval delays of up to three weeks”. Moreover, the edits must be authorized by a registered and reliable user—terms which are a bit vague. Nevertheless, flagged revisions would mean avoiding incidents such as the ones sited by Read Write Web which include recent death announcements of Senators Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd. In the end, however, Wikipedia has always been about its users. How will users react to the idea of flagged revisions?