Alphax wrote:
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 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.
A couple of attempts at contributing (perfectly reasonable) test edits to Encarta have resulted in nothing at all happening to the articles in question. I'm not impressed. The whole experience is extraordinarily lacking in incentive for Encarta contributors, who will effectively see a brick wall, if my experience is anything to go by. Combined with the fact that it will dawn on them that all they are doing is enriching Microsoft, with nothing back in return, this is unlikely to gain a loyal user community.
Has anyone observed _any_ Encarta user edits actually becoming visible?
-- Neil