* Librarian Tasha Saecker, of Greeen Lake, WI's Caestecker Public Library, on the importance of watching the growth of wikibooks: http://www.greenlakelibrary.org/blog/archives/006242.html Some reports on Wikipedia...
* Susan Barnes on Wikipedia's credibility, and whether "hittable" is a word: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050717/BUSI...
At least three Wikipedians quickly replied to her (see mav's recent thread on wikien-l) correcting the article in various ways... for the record, the American Heritage dictionary lists hittable as a word, whether or not Wikipedia does.
And, last but not least, from today's news: * Britannica has chosen a new 15-person advisory board, the first since the last one was effectively disbanded 10 years ago. They hope that, among other things, this will bolster their image as a vetted and polished resource, to "respond to competitive challenges from Google, Yahoo, and the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia." http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/07/21/venerable_encylopedia_...
A nice article by Eric Ferkenhoff, who is clueful enough not to use the definite article in front of the big WP. There seem to be two Harvard economics professors on the board...
SJ wrote:
And, last but not least, from today's news:
- Britannica has chosen a new 15-person advisory board, the first
since the last one was effectively disbanded 10 years ago. They hope that, among other things, this will bolster their image as a vetted and polished resource, to "respond to competitive challenges from Google, Yahoo, and the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia." http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/07/21/venerable_encylopedia_...
A nice article by Eric Ferkenhoff, who is clueful enough not to use the definite article in front of the big WP. There seem to be two Harvard economics professors on the board...
From that article:
''We're deciding what people are going to think," said Wendy Doniger, a professor in the University of Chicago's Divinity School and the only member to have also served on the previous board, which had its last meeting in 1995.
There's the difference! With our stress on NPOV we're encouraging people to think for themselves.
They just don't get it.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
From that article:
''We're deciding what people are going to think," said Wendy Doniger, a professor in the University of Chicago's Divinity School and the only member to have also served on the previous board, which had its last meeting in 1995.
There's the difference! With our stress on NPOV we're encouraging people to think for themselves.
They just don't get it.
In Brittanica's defense (or maybe not, depending on your point of view), they have never seen themselves, as Wikipedia does, as simply reporting knowledge. They may be moving towards something like that more recently, but historically their goal has been to present opinions of world-renowned experts, which is why they often had their articles signed by said experts. Sometimes these even included an explanation of why other viewpoints were wrong or at least misguided.
This can be seen in a lot of EB1911 articles imported into Wikipedia, which have to have value judgments removed from them. EB has tended not to have a problem simply stating /ex cathedra/ things like "[X] is a terrible novel and not up to the quality we've come to expect from [Y]".
From a Wikipedia point of view this looks sloppy and non-neutral, but it does fit Brittanica's historical model of being The Source of trusted information, not "merely" an editor and reporter of information.
-Mark
[sorry for those who got this twice; I sent it to the wrong list by mistake]
Delirium wrote:
From a Wikipedia point of view this looks sloppy and non-neutral, but it does fit Brittanica's historical model of being The Source of trusted information, not "merely" an editor and reporter of information.
I thought I had a good analogy here and forgot what it was, and now remembered, so I'll reply to myself. If you considered making a travel guide, I see Wikipedia as looking at other travel guides, books on other countries, travel documentaries, reviews, and so on, and summarizing consensus opinion, properly sourced. Britannica, on the other hand, is more in the typical style of a travel guide---they send out a reporter who scoops out the places himself, and tells you the "real deal" on what is good and what's bad. Where it differs from popular opinion, they simply assert popular opinion is wrong---"[x] is popular and gets good reviews, but it's overrated and I'd steer clear".
Same with the encyclopedia---Britannica positions themselves as a trusted source that looks into things, cuts through the crap, and tells you what the truth really is, while Wikipedia doesn't claim to have any special knowledge of what the truth really is, so sticks to reporting.
Which of these is better depends on whether you think Britannica really *does* know what the truth is. =]
-Mark
On 22/07/05, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
This can be seen in a lot of EB1911 articles imported into Wikipedia, which have to have value judgments removed from them. EB has tended not to have a problem simply stating /ex cathedra/ things like "[X] is a terrible novel and not up to the quality we've come to expect from [Y]".
I don't have it to hand, but I recently acquired a 1898 copy of Pear's Cyclopedia, one of the "small encyclopedias" that were quite common around then - and, indeed, it still exists today.
It had a general encylopedic section. I think the most wonderfully opinionated article I found in this was on Russia, which after a few breathless passages on how wonderful and civilised the place was ended with "...which is why Russia simply must get a port on the Mediterranean!" Extreme case, but not rare...
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