Wikipedia takes a leaf out of Orwell's book: All editors are equal but some are more equal than others

Henceforth, special "editors" approved by Wikipedia executives will moderate revisions to references to living individuals "and some organisations" on its web pages before they go "live". Here endeth the hippie dream.

Since it's inception back in January 2001, Wikipedia has courted controversy because its enlightened policy - of allowing anyone to add to, alter or adapt entries made by other contributors to the site - left it open to claims that many of its articles are partial, inaccurate and misleading. In more recent months there have been accusations that those with personal and/or political and economic motives have been vandalising the site.

Accordingly, and in the democratic traditions of the Wikipedia ethos, rather than simply imposing changes, those that manage Wikipedia on a daily basis designed an online poll via which users were asked to approve editorial changes to the contributions system. Of those that polled, 80 per cent voted in favour of change.

So, for what is being described as a "two-month trial period" (but which everyone expects to become permanent), contributions and changes to Wikipedia entries will be subject to a regime of "flagged revisions". The organisation says this is "essentially a buffer, to reduce the visibility and impact of vandalism on articles".

The new system will, initially at least, apply only to Wikipedia's English language pages.