Wikipedia has grown to become by far the biggest encyclopedia in the world, with over three million articles, one of the top ten sites online and the first place where many people look for information. Its huge growth in popularity is in no small part due to its egalitarian nature and the fact that everyone could edit any article on the site. But its philosophy is about to undergo a major change with the introduction of a new editorial level for modifying entries on living persons and the changes will now have to be approved by an experienced editor before going live.

“We are no longer at the point that it is acceptable to throw things at the wall and see what sticks,” Michael Snow, the chairman of the board of Wikimedia, Wikipedia's parent, told the New York Times. “There was a time probably when the community was more forgiving of things that were inaccurate or fudged in some fashion — whether simply misunderstood or an author had some ax to grind. There is less tolerance for that sort of problem now.”

The new feature will require each new edit to articles dedicated to living persons to be “flagged” for approval before going live on the site. Currently any saved changes instantly become available to anyone and it may take hours or even days for a more experienced and trusted editor to verify them. This allows false information to stay up on the site for long periods of time, sometimes even weeks for more obscure articles, something that Wikipedia plans to change.

The fact that inaccuracies do show up and sometimes even deliberately misleading information is put up on the site has been one of Wikipedia's biggest weaknesses and the main source of criticism from its detractors. The new mechanism is already live on the German version of the site and it will be introduced to the English one soon, although Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales says it's only a test for the time being and there are several questions that need to be answered before a final decision is made.