Editing Wikipedia (section)

== Openness ==
[[File:History Comparison Example (Vector).png|thumb|Differences between versions of an article are highlighted]]
Unlike traditional encyclopedias, Wikipedia follows the [[procrastination]] principle<ref group="note">The procrastination principle dictates that one should wait for problems to arise before solving them.</ref> regarding the security of its content.<ref name="zittrain">{{cite book |last = Zittrain |first = Jonathan |title = The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It&nbsp;– Chapter 6: The Lessons of Wikipedia |author-link = Jonathan Zittrain |publisher = Yale University Press |year = 2008 |url=https://archive.org/details/futureofinternet00zitt |isbn = 978-0300124873 |access-date = December 26, 2008}}</ref>

=== Restrictions ===
Due to Wikipedia's increasing popularity, some editions, including the English version, have introduced editing restrictions for certain cases. For instance, on the English Wikipedia and some other language editions, only registered users may create a new article.<ref>{{srlink|Wikipedia:Tutorial/Registration|Registration notes}}</ref> On the English Wikipedia, among others, particularly controversial, sensitive or vandalism-prone pages have been protected to varying degrees.<ref name="WP protection policy 1">{{srlink|Wikipedia:Protection policy|Protection Policy}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1 = Hafner |first1 = Katie |title = Growing Wikipedia Refines Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html |access-date = December 5, 2016 |work = The New York Times |date = June 17, 2006}}</ref> A frequently vandalized article can be "semi-protected" or "extended confirmed protected", meaning that only "autoconfirmed" or "extended confirmed" editors can modify it.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Protection policy|English Wikipedia's protection policy]]</ref> A particularly contentious article may be locked so that only [[Wikipedia administrators|administrators]] can make changes.<ref>{{srlink|Wikipedia:Full protection|English Wikipedia's full protection policy}}</ref> A 2021 article in the ''[[Columbia Journalism Review]]'' identified Wikipedia's page-protection policies as "[p]erhaps the most important" means at its disposal to "regulate its market of ideas".<ref>{{cite web|last1=Harrison|first1=Stephen|last2=Benjakob|first2=Omer|title=Wikipedia is twenty. It's time to start covering it better.|date=January 14, 2021|url=https://www.cjr.org/opinion/wikipedia-is-twenty-its-time-to-start-covering-it-better.php|access-date=January 15, 2021|website=[[Columbia Journalism Review]]|location=New York City|language=en}}</ref>

In certain cases, all editors are allowed to submit modifications, but review is required for some editors, depending on certain conditions. For example, the [[German Wikipedia]] maintains "stable versions" of articles<ref name="WP some sites stable versions 1">{{cite mailing list |first = P. |last = Birken |url=https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikide-l/2008-December/021594.html |title = Bericht Gesichtete Versionen |mailing-list = Wikide-l |date = December 14, 2008 |language = de |publisher = Wikimedia Foundation |access-date = February 15, 2009}}</ref> which have passed certain reviews. Following protracted trials and community discussion, the English Wikipedia introduced the "pending changes" system in December 2012.<ref name="BInsider pending changes intro 1">{{cite news |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/pending-changes-safeguard-on-wikipedia-2012-12 |title = Wikipedia Has Figured Out A New Way To Stop Vandals In Their Tracks |work = Business Insider |first = William |last = Henderson |date = December 10, 2012}}</ref> Under this system, new and unregistered users' edits to certain controversial or vandalism-prone articles are reviewed by established users before they are published.<ref>{{cite news |last = Frewin |first = Jonathan |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/10312095 |title = Wikipedia unlocks divisive pages for editing |journal = BBC News |date = June 15, 2010 |access-date = August 21, 2014}}</ref>
[[File:Wikipedia editing interface.png|thumb|left|Wikipedia's editing interface]]

=== Review of changes ===
Although changes are not systematically reviewed, the software that powers Wikipedia provides tools allowing anyone to review changes made by others. Each article's History page links to each revision.<ref group=note>Revisions with libelous content, criminal threats, or copyright infringements may be removed completely.</ref><ref name="Torsten_Kleinz" /> On most articles, anyone can undo others' changes by clicking a link on the article's History page. Anyone can view the [[Help:Recent changes|latest changes]] to articles, and anyone registered may maintain a [[wiki#Controlling changes|"watchlist"]] of articles that interest them so they can be notified of changes. "New pages patrol" is a process where newly created articles are checked for obvious problems.<ref>[[Wikipedia:New pages patrol]]</ref>

In 2003, economics Ph.D. student Andrea Ciffolilli argued that the low [[transaction cost]]s of participating in a [[wiki]] created a catalyst for collaborative development, and that features such as allowing easy access to past versions of a page favored "creative construction" over "creative destruction".<ref name="FMonday collaborative effort 1">{{cite journal |last1=Ciffolilli |first1=Andrea |title=Phantom authority, self-selective recruitment and retention of members in virtual communities: The case of Wikipedia |journal=First Monday |date=December 2003 |volume=8 |issue=12 |doi=10.5210/fm.v8i12.1108 |url=https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1108/1028 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161206104747/https://firstmonday.org/article/view/1108/1028 |archive-date=December 6, 2016}}</ref>

=== Vandalism ===
{{main|Vandalism on Wikipedia}}
Any change or edit that manipulates content in a way that deliberately compromises Wikipedia's integrity is considered vandalism. The most common and obvious types of vandalism include additions of obscenities and crude humor; it can also include advertising and other types of spam.<ref name="upenn link spamming 1">{{cite conference |last1 = West |first1 = Andrew G. |last2 = Chang |first2 = Jian |last3 = Venkatasubramanian |first3 = Krishna |last4 = Sokolsky |first4 = Oleg |last5 = Lee |first5 = Insup |title = Proceedings of the 8th Annual Collaboration, Electronic messaging, Anti-Abuse and Spam Conference on - CEAS '11 |chapter = Link Spamming Wikipedia for Profit |conference = 8th Annual Collaboration, Electronic Messaging, Anti-Abuse, and Spam Conference |pages = 152–161 |date = 2011 |chapter-url=https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1508&context=cis_papers |doi = 10.1145/2030376.2030394|isbn = 9781450307888 }}</ref> Sometimes editors commit vandalism by removing content or entirely blanking a given page. Less common types of vandalism, such as the deliberate addition of plausible but false information, can be more difficult to detect. Vandals can introduce irrelevant formatting, modify page semantics such as the page's title or categorization, manipulate the article's underlying code, or use images disruptively.<ref name="WP vandalism manipulation 1" />

[[File:John Seigenthaler Sr. speaking.jpg|thumb|alt=White-haired elderly gentleman in suit and tie speaks at a podium.|American journalist [[John Seigenthaler]] (1927–2014), subject of the [[Seigenthaler incident]]]]
Obvious vandalism is generally easy to remove from Wikipedia articles; the median time to detect and fix it is a few minutes.<ref name="MIT_IBM_study" /><ref name="CreatingDestroyingAndRestoringValue" /> However, some vandalism takes much longer to detect and repair.<ref name="Seigenthaler" />

In the [[Seigenthaler biography incident]], an anonymous editor introduced false information into the biography of American political figure [[John Seigenthaler]] in May 2005, falsely presenting him as a suspect in the [[assassination of John F. Kennedy]].<ref name="Seigenthaler" /> It remained uncorrected for four months.<ref name="Seigenthaler" /> Seigenthaler, the founding editorial director of ''[[USA Today]]'' and founder of the [[Freedom Forum]] [[First Amendment Center]] at [[Vanderbilt University]], called Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and asked whether he had any way of knowing who contributed the misinformation. Wales said he did not, although the perpetrator was eventually traced.<ref name="book The World is Flat 1">{{cite book |last = Friedman |first = Thomas L. |title = The World is Flat |year = 2007 |publisher = [[Farrar, Straus & Giroux]] |isbn = 978-0374292782 |page = 124}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://archive.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=17798 |title = Founder shares cautionary tale of libel in cyberspace |last = Buchanan |first = Brian |date = November 17, 2006 |publisher = archive.firstamendmentcenter.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121221140311/https://archive.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=17798 |archive-date = December 21, 2012 |url-status=dead |access-date = November 17, 2012}}</ref> After the incident, Seigenthaler described Wikipedia as "a flawed and irresponsible research tool".<ref name="Seigenthaler" /> The incident led to policy changes at Wikipedia for tightening up the verifiability of biographical articles of living people.<ref>{{cite news |last = Helm |first = Burt |title = Wikipedia: "A Work in Progress" |url=https://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-12-13/wikipedia-a-work-in-progress |newspaper = [[BusinessWeek]] |date = December 13, 2005 |access-date = July 26, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120708062333/https://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-12-13/wikipedia-a-work-in-progress |archive-date = July 8, 2012}}</ref>

In 2010, Daniel Tosh encouraged viewers of his show, ''[[Tosh.0]]'', to visit the show's Wikipedia article and edit it at will. On a later episode, he commented on the edits to the article, most of them offensive, which had been made by the audience and had prompted the article to be locked from editing.<ref name="tosh CC WP funny 1">{{cite web |url=https://tosh.comedycentral.com/blog/2010/02/03/your-wikipedia-entries |title = Your Wikipedia Entries |date = February 3, 2010 |website = Tosh.0 |access-date = September 9, 2014}}</ref><ref name="tosh CC WP funny 2">{{cite web |url=https://tosh.comedycentral.com/video-clips/wikipedia-updates |title = Wikipedia Updates |date = February 3, 2010 |website = Tosh.0 |access-date = September 9, 2014}}</ref>

=== Edit warring ===
Wikipedians often have disputes regarding content, which may result in repeated competing changes to an article, known as "edit warring".<ref>{{srlink|Wikipedia:Dispute Resolution|Dispute Resolution}}</ref><ref name="NBC WP editorial warzone 12">{{cite news |last=Coldewey |first=Devin |date=June 21, 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20140822010030/http://sys03-public.nbcnews.com/technology/wikipedia-editorial-warzone-says-study-838793 |title=Wikipedia is editorial warzone, says study |department=Technology |work=[[NBC News]] |url=https://sys03-public.nbcnews.com/technology/wikipedia-editorial-warzone-says-study-838793 |archive-date=August 22, 2014}}</ref> It is widely seen as a resource-consuming scenario where no useful knowledge is added,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kalyanasundaram |first1=Arun |last2=Wei |first2=Wei |last3=Carley |first3=Kathleen M. |last4=Herbsleb |first4=James D. |date=December 2015 |title=An agent-based model of edit wars in Wikipedia: How and when is consensus reached |journal=2015 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC) |location=Huntington Beach, CA |publisher=IEEE |pages=276–287 |doi=10.1109/WSC.2015.7408171 |isbn=978-1467397438|s2cid=9353425 |citeseerx=10.1.1.715.2758 }}</ref> and criticized as creating a competitive<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Suh |first1=Bongwon |last2=Convertino |first2=Gregorio |last3=Chi |first3=Ed H. |last4=Pirolli |first4=Peter |date=2009 |title=The singularity is not near: slowing growth of Wikipedia |url=https://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=1641309.1641322 |journal=Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration&nbsp;– WikiSym '09 |pages=1–10 |location=Orlando, FL |publisher=ACM Press |doi=10.1145/1641309.1641322 |isbn=978-1605587301|doi-access=free }}</ref> and conflict-based<ref>{{cite news |url=https://hbr.org/2016/06/why-do-so-few-women-edit-wikipedia |title=Why Do So Few Women Edit Wikipedia? |last=Torres |first=Nicole |date=June 2, 2016 |work=Harvard Business Review |access-date=August 20, 2019 |issn=0017-8012}}</ref> editing culture associated with traditional masculine [[gender role]]s.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bear |first1=Julia B. |last2=Collier |first2=Benjamin |date=March 2016 |title=Where are the Women in Wikipedia? Understanding the Different Psychological Experiences of Men and Women in Wikipedia |journal=Sex Roles |volume=74 |issue=5–6 |pages=254–265 |doi=10.1007/s11199-015-0573-y |s2cid=146452625 |issn=0360-0025}}</ref>