A Wiki war on vandals.(Tech Knowledge)(Wikipedia)(Brief article)

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that allows virtually anyone to edit or add to its entries, is continually vulnerable to vandals, who wreak havoc with information on the site or intentionally insert errors. On occasion, these vandals have been traced to schools.

One of Wikipedia's solutions to thwart young pranksters is, basically, to pull the plug. While access to the site is never shut down, the ability to edit from a specific IP address is blocked, writes Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales in an e-mail. Meanwhile, Wikipedia is seeking to improve the way it identifies edits by newer visitors, as opposed to "trusted, experienced users," writes Wales. "But there are …