[WikiEN-l] Citizendium

[WJhonson at aol.com]

In a message dated 4/10/2009 12:13:38 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
ragesoss+wikipedia at gmail.com writes:


> I couldn't actually submit the changes without signing
> up for a subscription (at least, a free trial subscription).  I think
> the Britannica "editing by the public" move is more or less a gimmick
> to drive subscriptions rather than an effort to seek reader edits.
> 

---------------------------

You can get a free and apparently eternal subscription by *being* a content 
publisher elsewhere.  If you have your own website (as I do), where you publish 
your own material, you can submit that to Brittanica and they will approve 
you for a free subscription.  My went a year, it's up for renewal now.  I 
haven't renewed it yet.

I have used Brittanica for links, but they are almost becoming obsolete with 
the appearance of Google Books, at least in my field.  Why link to modern 
accumulator when you can link right back to an older, or perhaps even *the* 
primary source for some piece of evidence?  So I'm a bit ambivalent on whether to 
extend my subscription even though free.  I just find that I'm not using them.

In addition, a great deal of my recent work, has been on BLPs and Brittanica 
just does not cover them to the depth that I need.  So generally I just 
rewrite them using most primitive sources anyway.

Brittanica is great however for tangential or incidental links in articles 
you are writing, but then so is Wikipedia, and I do like that I can make edits 
directly to it, but then I can do that in Wikipedia.  Brittanica is supposed to 
be written by experts, but I tend to find errors and omissions there that are 
inexplicable.  Generally I find these on articles I worked myself in-depth.  
It makes me wonder about the experts.

I'm not sure if I like it enough to continue doing it.

Will Johnson




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