[Foundation-l] Radio interview with Clara Long yesterday

[David Gerard]

SJ (2.718281828 at gmail.com) [050722 21:55]:
> On 7/21/05, David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> > and criticisms of the process by pointing out that just because you can't
> > see inside the Britannica sausage factory doesn't mean it isn't as much or
 
> That said, It doesn't hurt to admint that our process has definite,
> known flaws; I feel pretty confident, despite not knowing for sure,
> that the Britannica process is not, in fact, more of a sausage factory
> than Wikipedia's at present.


Oh, yes; the above given the wrong impression. I talked about flaws in
Wikipedia's processes in detail. But the important thing is that the flaws
are visible - it's not that Wikipedia is less trustworthy, it's that *all*
sources, print or not, are untrustworthy and require thought.

Britannica's process is interesting. I don't have it to hand, but Anthony
Burgess (the author) wrote something years ago about the process of writing
for Britannica. They gave him a detailed topic brief and a number of words,
like 413 words or 508 words. If anyone has seen the article in question,
it was very interesting. This would have been how it was done in the '60s
or '70s.


- d.