The online, collaborative encyclopaedia Wikipedia is an interesting phenomenon. It seems to many that it should not work, and certainly nothing in the basic model guarantees that it will be either accurate or comprehensive. It succeeds because it has ‘mind share’: like social networking sites, news sites and other places where the majority of useful content is created by the users, it is the most useful because largely it is the most famous and the most famous largely because it is the most useful. Other, similar projects exist, H2G2 actually being the brain-child of Douglas Adams.
Now the German version of Wikipedia is changing the model that has been so successful to date. No longer is it the case that anyone can edit a page on any topic - changes and additions must be approved by long-standing users. The process of peer review has become more regulated. This comes not in response to the frequent cries of academics and other sceptics, who always demanded that Wikipedia somehow prove its ability to deliver accuracy, but in response to a German court case.
Of course, the security value of the change is perhaps illusionary. After all, a user intent on mischief will simply have to build up a good reputation before conducting his vandalism - the hurdle is higher, but hardly insurmountable. By contrast, the inability of users to edit pages directly will probably deter contributions.
As for the site’s continuing success and utility, I am reminded of the comment of a Swiss friend on visiting Brussels. ‘Belgium’, he said disapprovingly, ‘is proof that anarchy works.’