Timwi wrote:
Magnus Manske wrote:
You can mow add to Encarta articles online. After a review by the M$
staff, your edit may be added to the Encarta.
I've thought about this some more, and I have come to a number of
conclusions.
I don't believe that any noticeable fraction of submissions is even
looked at by a human. I cannot believe that a commercial organisation
could or would spend the resources necessary to do that.
I don't believe that the purpose of adding this feature was to allow
users to improve Encarta. Though of course that's what everyone thinks.
I do believe that they added this feature due to a growing public
awareness of Wikipedia, and in an effort to retain a certain amount of
market share. I believe that they are explicitly trying to reduce
faith in Wikipedia or wiki projects in general, thereby implicitly
increasing faith in proprietary encyclopedias (or strengthening the
superior faith that already exists).
At the same time, they are probably trying to show that they are
"ahead" of other proprietary encyclopedias by being the first to
introduce a significant feature, and that they are more
customer-oriented by making it look like they allow feedback to reach
them.
That's what I think,
Timwi
Ah, but only one way to test it....
Make a contribution. Suitably minor, of course, so that you can write it
off as a public domain minor edit.
--
Alphax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax
There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those
to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis