Wikipedia:Avoiding bias and sabotage

• The "Neutral point of view" policy. If someone adds new information to an article, it should be attributed. Unattributed information that is considered controversial is either attributed or deleted.

• The "Recent changes" list. This page displays edits that have recently been made to Wikipedia, and many contributors review it when they have time. It not only allows users to view the changes, it also makes it possible, by clicking on the "diff" link, to show the differences between a new page and its previous version. If someone edits a page and inserts four letter insults all over the place, we recognize this as vandalism and correct it. If a vandal persists, he is banned from the Wikipedia.

• The personal watch lists. Users who work on articles usually add these articles to their individual watch lists. If they view this watch list, they see a list of all changes that have been recently made to these specific articles. So a user who has worked on an article that was vandalized or changed in a bad way and who hasn't noticed that on the Recent Changes page can still see it weeks later in his Watch List and fix anything that hasn't been fixed yet. This works rather well.

• The discussion pages. Each article has a "Talk" page attached to it, which makes it possible for collaborators to work out conflicts, ask questions and agree on solutions.

There's more, and it all works amazingly well. Generally speaking, articles that are viewed a lot are edited a lot and are typically of higher quality, more balanced, less "crankish" etc. Articles on fringe or exotic subjects that few people care about can be of lower quality or less balanced. Some of us are thinking about implementing an additional certification scheme to detect high quality articles.