Wikipedia to restrict editing bios of living people

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia to which anyone can make contributions, will soon be introducing restrictions on editing information about living people.

The encyclopedia, better known for allowing users to edit and contribute to articles, would be bringing in the restrictions only for bios of living people, which are at high risk of being vandalised.

"This (restrictions) is a two-month trial. It will probably be in place in the next few weeks -- we are doing final testing now," a Wikipedia spokesperson said.

As per the plan, a set of experienced users of Wikipedia would have to approve the changes made to the bios of living people before a casual reader can see it on the site. These would be termed as ‘flagged revisions’.

According to the official, the restrictions would not be applied on all living bios but only on the ones which could be targets of vandalism.

Anything in a living bio that is dubious, needs a good source and evidence of relevance, or it can be summarily removed," the spokesperson noted.

Currently, Wikipedia, which has over three million articles, keeps away from "abusive or libelous information" in a living bio by locking it -- whereby the user would not be able to make any changes.