[WikiEN-l] French encyclopedia edition cancelled due to lack of interest

[David Gerard]

On 20/02/2008, Keith Old <keithold at gmail.com> wrote:

> The Independent reports:
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/frances-favourite-encyclopaedia-falls-victim-to-wikipedia-784420.html
> "The brave new world of instant enlightenment at the touch of a computer key
> has claimed a heavyweight victim. The 2008 edition of Quid, France's
> favourite encyclopaedia,


http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?cc=FR&ts_mode=country&lang=none

We're #14 in France, as compared to #9 for the world.


> has been cancelled by its publisher for lack of
> interest. The annual sales of the 2,000-page tome, which reached more than
> 400,000 in the mid-1990s, collapsed to just over 100,000 last year. "


As I said: [[worse is better]] in practice. We may not be competing
with the paper encyclopedias, but they appear to be competing with us,
and failing to do so.

To what extent this is a good thing is open for discussion. e.g. what
can we practically do to become a replacement as good as the thing we
appear to have replaced?


- d.