Websites must be comfortable with the abilities of their users to regulate the content if they are to succeed in overseeing their community spaces, according to an expert.

Becky Hogge, the executive director of digital rights organisation the Open Rights Group, made her comments to the assembled IT support specialists present at the Joint Westminster eForum & Westminster Media Forum keynote seminar: Digital Britain.

She stated: "The best way to regulate the content is to rely on those same users either to alert administrators when there's a problem or sort out what content is suitable for dissemination themselves.

"This is called crowdsourcing."

Ms Hogge commented on the system currently adopted by Wikipedia, which allows users to facilitate communications regarding content between consumers on a larger scale.

Her statement has been followed by this week's revelation that Wikipedia editors may approve all future changes to the site, possibly affecting the open nature of the website.

According to a recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent).