A new pilot program to rate articles has started for Wikipedia. The crowd-sourced encyclopedia is incorporating new rating system, which takes into account multiple factors. As reported:

The tool allows users to rate articles on sourcing, completeness, neutrality and readability, on a five-point system. A test run of the tool began yesterday and will run through December on a small number of articles. Moka Pantages, communications officer of the Wikimedia Foundation, says that “what’s really exciting about this tool is that it’s a way to increase reader engagement at a very basic level by gathering feedback from readers on what they think […] and at the same time, it provides Wikipedia editors another easy way to see which articles might need improvement.”

The interesting bit is that the tool was always crowdsourced, but feedback wasn’t really incorporated into the system. This has changed now, begging the question of whether or not the new system can be gamed.  This is one concern that has also been communicated in the official announcement in a blog post.  The cautious attitude to keep the platform as free-flowing as possible is one reason behind its extensive testing phase. Anyhow, we hope Wikipedia continues to provide authentic yet free-flowing information as always.