This is yet another one of those scratch-your-head-and-wonder articles. Essentially it says that Wikipedia is striving to "improve quality," and this is how they're going to do it:
QUOTE(p2pnet @ Wed 9th August 2006)
“An editing tool called 'Wikiwyg' - 'wyg' stands for 'what you get' - should make it easier to change articles ... As of now, readers who click 'edit this page' on a Wikipedia entry are confronted with a bit of programming code that ... can scare off less technologically savvy users, denying Wikipedia their expertise."
“...encouraging the community to allow fewer unsourced claims in biographies of living people.â€
Is that it?Sure, both of these "innovations" are laudable, but I honestly don't see how either of them will improve "quality" in any way whatsoever. Making it easier for people to do nice formatting is going to improve quality?
How, exactly? And as for the other thing, does this mean it's OK to libel someone, as long as you provide a source? Who's to say this hypothetical "source" isn't committing libel too?
Anyway, if that's the best they can come up with, I think we can safely say that Wikipedia's "quality" levels will continue to decline in the months and years to come.