[Foundation-l] Britannica became free

[David Gerard]

2008/12/22 Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:

>> The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
>> javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()

> Thanks! It works well :)


They called the function "upsell"? *facepalm* Wikipedia doesn't need
to do anything to compete with Britannica, just leave them to collapse
under the weight of their own ineptitude.

We should probably run a large public "Save Britannica!" campaign -
how to save a great historical encyclopedia, second only to the OED as
one of the great works of Anglophone non-fiction, from its own
business stupidity. I'm halfway serious. What could we do with a "Save
Britannica" campaign?

(There are many ways in which it sucks, but it still manages
*consistent* quality better than en:wp. Better writing, too. A lot of
us wouldn't be doing this Wikipedia thing if we weren't encyclopedia
fans in the first place, and that includes Britannica.)


- d.