It is worth mentioning that in terms of academic credibility, Encarta is not very highly regarded. In fact I have heard it described as a triumph of image over substance. But it is great to see wiki doing so well. We have /so/ many quality articles and also other than the 32K limit, we have greater scope to go into things in more detail.
I think wiki does need as it develops to be able to have some 'final' articles that, having reached a clear standard of accuracy, readability etc can he removed from the editing process. The downside of constant editing is that some articles that reach a high standard then can lose that as those who produced the standard leave and someone comes on and rewrites it to a lower standard. Wiki's open edit policy is its major plus, as it allows us to evolve and update, but its downside is reliability. Can I be sure if at 8.17pm I read an article /everything/ in it is factual or could I have the bad luck to read it just after some user either through not knowing what they were doing or deliberately, mucked it up and added in false information? For example, Jerusalem's status as the capital of Israel is disputed. That is stated on wiki (after a battle!). But what if a reader at 8.17 reads a version that says in a POV edit it is an 'undisputed' capital. Or someone doing an essay on JFK reads an edit at 8.17 that says he was the 33rd not the 35th president?
For all their downsides, the 'centainty of standard' is the one major plus that Brittanica, World Book, Encarta has. When you read an article you are getting a definitive version, not that moment's edit. At some stage wiki is going to face a credibility barrier where people ask 'but can I be sure that King Edward VI of England actually died on that day, or is it a bad edit? How can I be sure W.T. Cosgrave said that? How and when we deal with the 'certainty of standard' issue will mark the moment we go from being a good secondary source that may give a fascinating insight but which just to be sure you might want to cross check, just in case, to a /guaranteed/ reliable primary source.
Please don't think I am knocking wiki. It is a superb encyclopædia that I am proud to associate with. But it still is in its relative infancy. However just because we get more hits than other encyclopædias does not mean we are as generally reliable as they are. (I came across an article on [[John Redmond]] some time ago that before rewriting would have completely screwed up any reader's understanding of the early 20th century Irish leader.) As we grow and become more famous, people's expectations of our reliability and our 'certainty of standard' will grow and we are going to need to find a mechanism to ensure that, while not losing wiki's mass participation ethos.
JT
If only Wikimedia could buy out EB........cheap......Imagine!! Ec
Erik Moeller wrote:
Toby-
Jimmy Wales wrote:
So, this is pretty interesting. According to Alexa.com, Wikipedia is now more popular than Britannica.
We should probably keep in mind that Britannica is also available in print. In fact, that's the brand's traditional medium.
Encarta has very much harmed Britannica's print sales. Britannica counted on their brand name and image, but even many of their customers did not see why they would have to pay thousands of dollars for a paper encyclopedia when they could get a decent encyclopedia, plus lots of multimedia stuff, maps etc. for 100 bucks or less, and the whole thing would fit neatly into their back pocket.
Swiss investor Jacob Safra bought Britannica in 1996 (it's still based in Chicago), and the sales staff for the paper version was fired shortly thereafter. Since then the focus has been almost exclusively on the Internet and CD-ROM version, which was massively reduced in price and is now dirt cheap. For some time they even had the full text online -- remember, those were the dot com days.
Things are looking pretty grim for Britannica. Their Java-based software is a piece of crap, and Encarta has much better marketing. They still have their original content bonus, but even in terms of content they have massive weaknesses in some areas (for example, compare their article on circumcision with ours). I think the Britannica brand will live on, but in terms of competition we should be more worried about Encarta (and vice versa).
Regards,
Erik _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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