Mark Gallagher wrote:
We aren't out there to create a new Britannica. We're creating
something different. We should look to Britannica, and its competitors,
as something to emulate. We should *aspire* to be as good as them.
But, in the end, we're *not*. There's always a niche market for
creatures like Britannica --- for people who are worried about accuracy
(but not money) and are not prepared to put in the effort required to
find out if a Wikipedia article is true or not, for example.
Of course, unintentionally, we're hurting Britannica. And we're hurting
the other encyclopaedias out there as well. We're bringing an
encyclopaedia into the homes of people who couldn't afford the fees
charged by the others. Decent and free will always trump excellent and
bloody expensive. It's only natural that Britannica, whose management
presumably know one or two things about business, will see this and get
scared. They don't want to peddle to a niche subset of the 'paedia
audience, and they don't want to risk going under if it doesn't work.
And frankly, that's not just Britannica's problem --- it's ours as well.
"Decent and free" is fine when there are better encyclopaedias out
there. If we're the best the world can offer, then we *have* to be
great, not good, not decent, but *great*. We'd owe it to the world,
after taking away their best encyclopaedias, to provide a valid alternative.
Cheers,
That's why we should now, after hitting the psychologically important
1,000,000 article mark in the en: encyclopedia, be focusing on quality
improvement, not growth.
-- Neil
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