If you think the blogs have been a battleground in the contest for the White House, you need to see what’s going on over at the Wikipedia. According to a piece in yesterday’s Red Herring, advocates for both sides have been battling over the collaborative encyclopedia’s entries on incumbent President George W. Bush and challenger John Kerry, U.S. senator from Massachussetts.

It’s gotten so bad, according to the article, that Wikipedia’s administrators had to post a warning to users that partisan manipulation of the content could affect the objectiveness of the entries. An online town hall meeting convened to address the problem failed to resolve anything. Instead, administrators have had to freeze the entries so changes couldn’t be made.

As problematic as the situation has been, it could result in solutions that ultimately make wikis more credible. For example, next year Wikipedia will begin using paid editors to to review entries for accuracy. Wikipedia also will introduce a system readers can use to rate the quality of entries.