Wikipedia to introduce page controls

Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, is on the brink of introducing a dramatic revamp to how visitors to the site can edit their pages.

The website will now insist that any changes made to pages about living people and a number of organizations will have to be checked and approved by an editor. This marks a major change for the site which is known for allowing anyone to add changes. A spokesperson has said the new changes will be brought in soon, most likely in a matter of weeks. At the moment a two month trial of the new format is planned and it is proving to be a controversial move as far as some users of the site are concerned. A poll on the site has shown that 80% of 259 contributors welcomed the new changes. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, first suggested the new idea early this year but some Wikipedia members weren't in favour of it and said the new system would lead to extra work and it hadn't been planned properly. The trial will be carried out on Wikipedia's English-language site and means a new user or a user not known to the site will be unable to make any changes to entries without an editor checking the content first. In the past there have been changes made which have been inaccurate. If an attempt is made to continually spoil a page or if repeated edits are made that cause controversy then there will be an option to lock the page so no further additions can be made. Mike Peel from Wikimedia UK said to the BBC: "I'm sure it will spark some controversy. The decision to run this trial was made by the users of the English Wikipedia, rather than being imposed." The proposed changes will be on the agenda this week at Wikipedia's annual conference which is being held in Buenos Aires.