Scientist Launch Worldwide Bid To Make Wikipedia More Accountable And Accurate

Noting that the article on hospital psychiatry contained incorrect information and lacked other important points, Dr Marley set about compiling a set of standards based on information written by experts in the field.

These criteria are known as the Saragossa Criteria - after the conference on Consultation-Liason Psychiatry in which they were presented.

Dr Marley then audited Wikipedia content against these standards which highlighted significant improvements that could be made.

The implications of the work however are far reaching. All aspects of Wikipedia knowledge could benefit from this approach and this research comes ahead of the Wikipedia conference in the library of Alexandria, Egypt in July 2008.

To produce verifiable information communities and organisations will first need to assemble a set of standards about themselves.

They will then be required to publish these standards in a verifiable source such as an online newsletter, or via an external source such as a journal, article or community newspaper. This information can then be used in the construction of a Wikipedia profile.

This auditing of Wikipedia comes as a real breakthrough. Information appearing on the site must be verifiable.

By conducting and publishing research about their profile, Communities and organisations will not only produce useful information about themselves but by going through the proper process that information will be verified and so be of much greater value to Wikipedia users as whole.

The image of different organisations can only benefit from raising their profile in this way. These standards can also be used give a numerical marker for the accuracy of an article on Wikipedia as well as providing a tool for measuring the neutrality of the article.