According to a New York Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1150635742-bd5X2bfGdWce1+jqMBuSfg
Wikipedia is pulling back on its "anyone can edit" policy.

One good thing I notice from the article is that there is a "cooling off" period of 4 days for newly registered users during which they cannot edit/contribute. It ought to help the "knee-jerks", (pun unintended) whose misplaced passions might cool off by then.

It used to be that anyone could edit WITHOUT registration. It has certainly become much stricter.

From what I understand to edit some semi-protected articles you need to be logged in, and also not be a super-new Wikipedia user. I think that's sort of the limited protection that still makes sense, but if they go further, they destroy the basis they stand on (easy public editing, including low quality edits, to make for overall quality results).

Personally, I think the limited protection is a good thing to reduce the fly-by-vandalism. But Philipp, you are right, any more restrictions or controls will badly damage the very core of the wiki philosophy.

In fact this is a kind of old news. I've heard this already long time ago. It's indeed meant to limit the vandalism.

But most importantly there were (/are) several people that are using Wikipedia in not so orthodox manner:
* There were some -mostly American- politicians that entered Wikipedia content describing themselves in a very positive -and not always very true- way.
* There were other people -also mostly politicians- that entered Wikidpedia on their competitors pages that was not so positive and also not very true.
Both are not so ethical.