[Wikipedia-l] Re: Encarta goes wiki - sort of...

[Fred Bauder]

I contributed the word "Wiki" to the collins dictionary site and supposedly
am to be given credit for discovering the word.

Fred

> From: Timwi <timwi at gmx.net>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 01:44:17 +0100
> To: wikipedia-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Encarta goes wiki - sort of...
> 
> Neil Harris wrote:
>> Alphax wrote:
>> 
>>> 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.
> 
> How long ago have you made those edits? Even if their claims of having
> an editorial board check every submitted edit are true, it would
> probably take on the order of weeks or months for your edit to appear.
> 
>> 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.
> 
> I'm afraid this sounds a lot like bias from your experience with
> Wikipedia. You are used to your edits appearing immediately, so in
> comparison to that, Encarta naturally feels like a "brick wall". It is
> doubtful that the same kind of feeling will be experienced by casual
> users who are unfamiliar with "open-content encyclopedias that post
> their users' edits immediately". Even if they have vaguely heard of it,
> they will probably still readily accept a considerable delay in the
> processing of their contributions in return for what they perceive as
> superior factual accuracy.
> 
>> 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.
> 
> This, in turn, exhibits your anti-Microsoft sentiment. Most casual users
> are not like that and view Microsoft as neutral or even friendly, and
> even if it occurs to them that they will be enriching Microsoft, they
> are unlikely to see anything wrong with it. As for "getting something
> back in return", they do, and it's the same thing you get on Wikipedia:
> some sort of satisfaction that you have helped improve something. I can
> even imagine that most will feel it to be more "worth it" to help
> Encarta because it feels somehow more important or more substantial or,
> dare I say it, more accurate.
> 
>> Has anyone observed _any_ Encarta user edits actually becoming visible?
> 
> They have a "What's New" section where articles are listed that have
> recently changed (or so they claim). However, there is no way to see
> what exactly has changed in each article, much less does it say who
> suggested the change. Indeed for 99% of them you can't even view the
> article unless you pay.
> 
> Greetings,
> Timwi
> 
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