On 24 October 2010 19:59, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 2:53 PM, ???? wiki-list@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote:
On 24/10/2010 19:33, Austin Hair wrote:
You're asserting, then, that Wikipedia is less reliable than other encyclopedias, which the research done on the subject contradicts.
He is probably thinking about this: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/britannica_wikipedia_nature_study/
Even if you ignore the flaws in the Nature study and equate errors-per-article with reliability, it still found that Wikipedia contained more errors-per-article than Britannica.
Remember though Britannica is meant to be the best of the best in terms of encyclopedias . So unless you are going to define "encyclopedia" as "Encyclopedia Britannica" you have to accept that works with lower levels of reliability qualify as encyclopedias.
"Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia" is a great bit of rhetoric but it is not consistent with any rational definition of encyclopedia. Of course pre wikipedia I doubt anyone outside OED really worried about the definition of encyclopedia.