Wikipedia is a rich source of information on any topic but it is some times not trustworthy, due to the free editing of the articles some people add random crap into articles. If you think this problem is the main reason to not to trust Wikipedia information, Wikipedia adding a trustworthiness to the article text using color coding. According to Wired, an optional feature called “WikiTrust†will be introduced to Wikipedia, that will color code the words based on the author and how long the specified text persisted on the page.
WikiTrust is a extension for MediaWiki script that implements an author reputation system and a text trust system. WikiTrust is available for download under BSD License, if your run a wiki yourself you can implement this plugin. Wikipedia is using this wikitrust to color code the text, this feature is optional and users have to opt-in to enable this feature. This color coding of the articles will start with English wikipedia. Here is waht WikiTrust does
Text author: WikiTrust computes the author of every word of text, using an algorithm that is robust to cut-and-pase, delete-and-reinsert, and most type of attacks (we claim, all attacks — try your hand at it and let us know!). If you click on the check text tab, when the mouse pointer hovers over a word, the author of the word is displayed in a small pop-up next to the word.
Text origin: WikiTrust keeps track of the revision in which every word was inserted. In the check text tab, clicking on a word redirects to the diff showing the the edit where the word was introduced. You can examine the edit, as well as access information on the author of the edit. As for author tracking, WikiTrust uses algorithms that are robust to attacks.
Text trust: The trust of a portion of text is computed according to the reputation of its author, as well as the reputation of all users who have subsequently revised the text and the article where the text appears. Text trust is displayed via text background colors in the check text tab: the background is white for high-trust text, and shades of orange that are the stronger, the lower the text trust.
Author reputation is computed from content evolution: authors who provide lasting contributions gain reputation, while authors whose contributions are reverted in short order lose reputation. Thus, the reputation system provides an incentive towards constructive behavior.
Image Credit: WikiTrust UCSC Lab
Although this won’t stop some one from vandalizing and adding crap to the articles, at least it will highlight whether the text in question is trustworthy or not.
