FRANKFURT, Germany, January 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- A new tool to evaluate the quality of Wikipedia articles is now available. "With http://www.Wiki-Watch.org , everybody can check the reliability of information within Wikipedia", says Professor Wolfgang Stock, one of the founders of Wiki-Watch, based at the European University 'Viadrina' in Frankfurt, Germany.

"For the millions of people who look things up in Wikipedia, we offer a closer look into this fascinating system, how well the articles are edited and by whom. We are offering this service because we are great fans of Wikipedia and want to contribute to further improvement."

Wiki-Watch is analyzing Wikipedia articles every single entry ever made, checking the number of sources, the number and quality of editors as well as how many links are directed to an article. Within a second or two, the service is giving a reliability score for any of Wikipedia's 3.5 million articles. "This algorithm has been developed in Germany. Now, it is available in English, too. Additionally, Wiki-Watch has incorporated 'WikiTrust', developed by the University of California Santa Cruz. This reputation system is using a colour code system to display the reputation of a text, according to its history and number of revisions by other users. This does help to spot recent and unqualified changes within the articles.

"For Wikipedia users, these two methods combined do show whether you can trust any given Wikipedia article in its present form," explains Professor Johannes Weberling, the co-founder.

http://www.Wiki-Watch.org

Contact: Prof. Wolfgang Stock, Stock@Europa-Uni.de, cell +49-172-2900-387

SOURCE European University Viadrina,

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