Wikipedia, the largest and most popular online encyclopedia, could have some major changes on the horizon. It is common knowledge that Wikipedia content isn’t always 100% accurate purely because of the nature of user-generated content. However, the online resource has gained a significant level of trust from search engines and online users, making it more common to use Wikipedia as a trusted information source.

In order to continue to build this level of confidence among their users, Wikipedia is discussing the possibility of adding colored indicators to Wikipedia entries to show different levels of trust within each article. Currently the flagged revisions are being used on the German language version of Wikipedia and are being proposed for the English language edition. The feature, currently being called WikiTrust, will be visible to registered users of Wikipedia if deployed.

While the implementation of WikiTrust on the English language version of Wikipedia will seemingly add more trust to the content, will it also take value away because less authoritative users are adding correct information that is being flagged? Perhaps the speed of edits that take place by trusted Wikipedia editors will keep the look-and-feel of the articles relatively the same. Regardless, this change could create difficulties for businesses trying to maintain an accurate Wikipedia presence by editing their own entries.

Stay tuned to the Wikimedia Foundation Blog for additional information and updates around Wikipedia.org.