How exactly does Wikipedia keep their posted sources of information as accurate as possible? By: Group A Jean Blackwell Christine Gries Maria Mancha Kendra Pitre-Bullock Lynn Wolfe

 WikiScanner is a tool created by Virgil Griffith for searching anonymous Wikipedia edits by organizations (Silverman, 2007).Wikipedia  Anonymous is not what it used to be. Now with the advent of this wikiscanner tool anonymous postings can be traced back to the authors organization with the trace of the internet protocol (IP) which is as unique as a finger print.  The identification of the author has a tendency to lead to more factual data on the Wikipedia site.

In order to test its reliability, Nature conducted a peer review of scientific entries on Wikipedia and the well-established Encyclopedia Britannica (“Wikipedia survives research,“ 2005). Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopedia, reported Nature (“Wikipedia survives research,“ 2005). But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively (“Wikipedia survives research,“ 2005).

 “Noveck points out that "participants are accredited by members of the wiki community, who have a vested interest in preserving the quality of the work product, on the basis of their ongoing participation." On controversial topics that have been subject to disruptive editing, a wiki may restrict editing to registered users”(Noveck, 2007).