[WikiEN-l] Britannica quote of the day

[Mark Gallagher]

G'day David,

> Nothing to do with the fact that Britannica Online has about 100,000
>  articles and the English Wikipedia (Britannica's direct competitor)
> has over a million?

Wikipedia is Britannica's direct competitor?  Where does that leave 
/World Book/ and /Encarta/?  And why can't I think of more than four 
encyclopaedias at the moment?  Gah.

We're not *exactly* competing with Britannica.  We're providing a free, 
detailed, comprehensive encyclopaedia ... where "encyclopaedia" is a 
very broad description, and can include anything on any topic with 
pretensions to the name (George Lucas gets his /Star Wars/ ideas from 
us!).  We're *more* than Britannica.  Much, much more.

At the same time, we're much, much less.  Wikipedia's greatest strength 
--- our openness --- is also a weakness.  The damage left by edit wars, 
our tolerance of insane amounts of cruft, even the constant vandalism 
isn't that big a deal --- but inaccuracy *is*.  And Wikipedia is very 
vulnerable to inaccuracy.  Where we're inaccurate about real people, 
like John "have I spelled his name right yet" Siegenthaler, we can cause 
actual pain in real life.  That's an issue we're trying to deal with, 
with WP:NOR to cut down on kookery, WP:V to cut down on outright lies, 
and WP:OFFICE to mop up anything we've missed ... but it's going to take 
time.

We aren't out there to create a new Britannica.  We're creating 
something different.  We should look to Britannica, and its competitors, 
as something to emulate.  We should *aspire* to be as good as them. 
But, in the end, we're *not*.  There's always a niche market for 
creatures like Britannica --- for people who are worried about accuracy 
(but not money) and are not prepared to put in the effort required to 
find out if a Wikipedia article is true or not, for example.

Of course, unintentionally, we're hurting Britannica.  And we're hurting 
the other encyclopaedias out there as well.  We're bringing an 
encyclopaedia into the homes of people who couldn't afford the fees 
charged by the others.  Decent and free will always trump excellent and 
bloody expensive.  It's only natural that Britannica, whose management 
presumably know one or two things about business, will see this and get 
scared.  They don't want to peddle to a niche subset of the 'paedia 
audience, and they don't want to risk going under if it doesn't work.

And frankly, that's not just Britannica's problem --- it's ours as well. 
  "Decent and free" is fine when there are better encyclopaedias out 
there.  If we're the best the world can offer, then we *have* to be 
great, not good, not decent, but *great*.  We'd owe it to the world, 
after taking away their best encyclopaedias, to provide a valid alternative.


Cheers,

-- 
Mark Gallagher
"What?  I can't hear you, I've got a banana on my head!"
- Danger Mouse


-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.3.2/293 - Release Date: 26/03/2006