What prevents malicious tampering of Wikipedia?

Factual Questions
21

Dumb question: why don’t you just change it?

22

In fact, I just did: I used the CIA figures from 2004: 10,310,520 population.

23

They problem I’ve seen in Wili is not is basic facts. It’s in partisan politics. People from both side of the fight try to get their beliefs put in as fact.

24
      • Well, they contact people who would have direct knowledge of the issue at hand. If you wanted to know about US population figures, what source would considered the official authority on the matter?
  • As for historical figures or events or figures for which there is no “official” record, they consult with historians or recognized experts in the field, who have already done research and cross-referencing of their own. If someone told you that US President George Washington was Chinese and born with three legs, how would you go about proving that it was true or false?
    ~
25

There’s no disputing that Wikipedia has errors in it. But all encyclopedias have errors in them. A random survey of Brittanica entries will find numerous factual errors and editorial bias. And this is leaving out errors that arise due to factual changes.

26

I went there once looking for pages that were prone to vandalizing, just to see what kind of things people put on there and how long it took to get them off. One entry I figured would be a big target was Charles Darwin’s. So I brought it up, and I was right: there was a warning at the top of the page that said “This page is controversial; see the ‘discussion’ link for more.” or something like that (it’s not there anymore). So I checked the history. Turns out the “controversy” was over whether the fact that Abraham Lincoln and Darwin were born on the same day should be included. One group of people kept editing the page to put it in and another group edited it out, over and over and over again. Some controversy. That debate has since been resolved, and is included on Wikipedia’s list of lamest edit wars ever.

Incidentally, Darwin’s entry is indeed a vandalism target. It seems to always be caught and rolled back within a few hours at most.