In the past, I have helped maintain several pages on Wikipedia for various organizations. In addition to adding new content, most of the work was simply geared towards keeping vandals at bay.
Reinventing the information wheel
I believe the carte blanche policy of giving anonymous users the ability to edit every page should be changed. Some of these changes could be as simple as requiring that users sign on through a captcha, IP-stamped system. Or even easier, create a new function within the Wiki software, to where anyone can “suggest” changes, but these changes will not go into effect without the approval of a moderator.
In fact, a variation of this last example is currently being tested by the German edition of Wikipedia and is expected to be implemented in other editions within the coming months.
The online edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica has also adopted this “suggest a change” into their system (example), and I would suspect that this has helped them further refine their otherwise top-notch articles.
However, despite this change, based upon my own unscientific observations, Britannica is not even close to winning the all important traffic-based popularity contest. For instance, whenever I use a search engine, Wikipedia articles rank much higher than those of Encyclopedia Britannica (in fact, I honestly cannot recall ever seeing an EB result on the first SERP).
And while some may say each of these organizations is trying to cater to a different clientele, that would be nonsensical in this age of dying gatekeepers and open access. [Note: another article could discuss the differences between the structure of article layout between the two behemoths; accuracy is another issue altogether]
The Man vs. Fanboys
While Wikipedia currently enjoys holding the lofty status as the alternative to the Establishment - the Corporate world that Britannica supposedly represents - the capital resources expended in maintenance and upkeep come, by-and-large through donations by firms such as Google and Yahoo. So the “free” nomenclature is not entirely accurate (kind of similar to GNU/Linux vs Microsoft and the economic opportunity costs in development).
However, arguably the most important change EB could implement for increasing traffic and thus increasing potential ad revenue is to open up their Walled Garden (they charge for “full access”). Answers.com makes a killing this way, Encarta has also adopted this model, and The New York Times is toying with this as well. They could even strike a monetary deal with a search engine to integrate and improve upon their lackluster offering.
If EB wanted to stay in the world of academia (which their area for “suggestions” leans heavily towards), they could set other restrictions in place, such as: limit contributors to .edu addresses, have several moderator/contributor levels based upon peer karma, longevity, etc.
See also: 1 2 3 and Murray Rothbard’s criticism of the theory linear history advocated by Whigs.
Note: Michael Arrington has some thoughtworthy (sic) comments regarding Nupedia, Citizendium and Digital Universe.
And as a last aside, structurally EB could branch out and perhaps set up a business akin to Techdirt’s information consulting service.