Encyclopedia Britannica to Take User Contributions

Barence writes "Britannica has long been a vocal critic of Wikipedia's user-generated content, and has repeatedly attacked the accuracy of its articles. Surprisingly, then, it is rolling out a new system allowing readers to potentially contribute to articles, Wiki-style. But Britannica is keen to stress that its new website will not be following the Wiki-model, describing it 'as a collaborative process but not a democratic one.' You can try out the new Britannica beta site."

Kafka said it

You become what you hate

Re:Kafka said it

Or as Yosemite Sam says: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Re:

Aw man, now THAT is a flashback...Yosemite Sam...ahhh Bugs Bunny. But honestly, I think there's way too much focus on the accuracy of Wiki Articles...Everyone attacks their validity, but let's face it, 90% of the things on there are cited and true...Sure,

Re:

I've always wondered what the deal is with not being allowed to use wikipedia for school etc. If you learned to research anything with some efficacy you would know that you CAN go to wikipedia and use the cited references there to write your own informatio

Re:Kafka said it

Slow down, take the lens cap off for a bit.

I said "If you learned to research anything with some efficacy you would know that you CAN go to wikipedia and use the cited references there to write your own information."

So, lets say this, if you find me terrifying, perhaps you should rethink your opinion of yourself. If you go to wikipedia and find the cited references are not any good (circular, tabloid, etc.) then keep searching, unless of course you want to cite such references, but don't blame me or wikipedia, or anyone because you did not do YOUR part in researching the information that you need. DAMN!

I heartily reject the idea, and your assertion that my teacher are wiser than I am. They may well be more educated, but that does NOT make them wiser. meh

First article submission

I shall submit an article on the 'electronic encyclopedia, which anyone can edit.'

Open Source (sorta?)

Let me get this straight. The encyclopedia Britannica will now be powered through user generated (but not user selected) articles... To me, it sounds like they're getting free work for a paid product.

1. Make encyclopedia
2. Get a lot of people to submit articles for free
3. Pay a few people to edit and select the best articles
4. ???????
5. Profit!

A grab for unpaid labor is all this is

From the terms of service on the linked Britannica site:

By sending information or material, you automatically grant to Britannica, a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, edit, translate, distribute, perform, and display it alone or as part of other works in any form, media, or technology whether now known or hereafter developed, and to sublicense such rights through multiple tiers of sublicensees.

Wikipedia may have serious accuracy problems in a lot of areas (not all of coruse, but it's not hard to find them) but at least they aren't using me as unpaid labor to save them from having to hire researchers.

Yeah I'm gonna rush over there

To help them, for free.

Brilliant strategy

1 - Capitalize on the buzz created by Wikipedia, falsely open Britannica to contributions
2 - Keep hand on content, unlike Wikipedia, edit contributed content and sell as own
3 - Profit

I know there's truth in their beef against the wiki process, but really what I mostly see is a great way for Britannica to get raw material faster without having to pay anybody.

Can you make links to wikipedia?

Could be serious, can't you just see some poor grad student needing a intervention after a long weekend following circular references...

Encarta tried it

Encarta already tried it. [slashdot.org]

It didn't work because it doesn't feel like you're collaborating and "owning" the submission, it feels like you're giving your time and effort to some large entity which has control over the content.

Clay Shirky explains it better in Here Comes Everybody [amazon.com] but the basic idea is that WikiPedia belongs to the people who submit, in a way, which means people are more likely to.

Britannica misses the point,... again.

But Britannica is keen to stress that its new website will not be following the Wiki-model, describing it "as a collaborative process but not a democratic one."

First, Wikipedia is not a democracy [wikipedia.org].

Second, facts are not democratic. You can't VOTE on what will be true. Trust me, it's been tried [youtube.com].

Re:Britannica misses the point,... again.

Second, facts are not democratic. You can't VOTE on what will be true. Trust me, it's been tried [youtube.com].

That may be true for maths and science articles, however anything remotely political is going to be biased as hell in one way or another, and those that agree with the bias will say its a "fact" and those that don't will say its lies.

For instance, in the article about Benito Mussolini, they go out of their way to talk about how he was violent and evil right up front.

In the article on Che Guevara, there is only a passing mention about how some people find his methods controversial, and its buried half way down.

Was Mussolini heavy-handed? Yes. But Guevara killed hundreds of people with his own gun, sentenced kids to prison for sassing their parents, etc. He exported violent revolution from Cuba to Africa and the rest of Latin America which lead to the deaths of tens of thousands, if not more.

Che Guevara was NOT a nice guy who gave candy to kids. However, clearly Wikipedians love him.

This is an example of "facts" being "voted on," and an example of why reliance on wikipedia for anything other than science or maths is a bad idea.

hell, be wary even of that, no matter what sort of good news that it espouses for African elephants.

Re:

No go to a peer reviewed history book and read up on the same people .... look familiar? yes they are biased as well ....

As Henry Ford said "History is more or less bunk"

Mussolini was not a particularly nice person, but must have done some things people ap

Re:

You can't VOTE on what will be true.

Sure you can. However, depending on the parameters, the result may or may not be correct. For example, if a group of people vote to change the sky to yellow, they'll need to change the definition of yellow, or they coul

Britannica is still around?

shocking, who still uses it?

Appending to existing articles?

I would add an appendage to their article on 'Alchohol' about the best drink in existence. [wikipedia.org]

First impressions

Waaay too much "rich content" for my tastes. When visiting a site for information, I, for one, do NOT want:

• Videos auto-running
• Random elements zooming around
• Mouseover actions that surprise (I still don't think mainstream WWW pages are ready for a http://www.dontclick.it/ [dontclick.it] - like UI)

This also sounds suspiciously a LOT like Google Knol [wikipedia.org]. Encyclopaedia Britannica is reacting to Wikipedia the way Microsoft reacted to Google/Firefox. Giant established behemoth in its field getting its comeuppance from upstarts due to its inability to adapt to changing times, and trying to pick itself off the ground to play catch-up..

What about small changes

It sounds like the article is suggesting people can offer whole articles for submission. It seems that Wikipedia works because people can write just bits and pieces. And then, if I see something wrong, or if something changes, I can just make that minor little change myself. So, to fix some minor error in an Encycopedia Britannica article, I have to write a whole article? What if the article has some error within an article, or something has changed making the article no longer up-to-date and I want to just suggest a correction?

Still hopelessly clueless

First, it has taken them 7 years to figure out how to respond to Wikipedia, let alone have any kind of tenable internet strategy? Good for them.

Second, they are still clueless about wikipedia, and can't even critique it properly. Wikipedia

Re:

Third, have any of you checked out their site? Are you kidding me? It is full of junk! Adds, photos, stupid celebrity information, etc. I mean, this is web design 1990s style, covered with the "modernizing" sheep's clothing of flash. They just don't get it: we don't go to an encyclopedia to get bombarded by useless information and junk. On the contrary!

Worse, the interface is clumsy, it is really hard to navigate with the keyboard because of the heavy use of frames, the Javascript is buggy with the keyboard focus randomly shifting away from the article text to the outline and scrolling is horribly slugg

Obligatory Monty Python reference...

            (Scene : A front door of a flat. A man walks up to the door and rings bell. He is dressed smartly, like a Salesman.)

            Salesman: Burglar! (longish pause while he waits, he rings again) Burglar! (woman appears at other side of door)

            Woman: Yes?

            Salesman: Burglar, madam.

            Woman: What do you want?

            Salesman: I wart to come in and steal a few firings, madam.

            Woman: Are you an encyclopaedia salesman?

            Salesman: No madam, I'm a burglar, I burgle people.

            Woman: I think you're an encyclopaedia salesman.

            Salesman: Oh I'm not, open the door, let me in please.

            Woman: lf l let you in you'll sell me encyclopaedias.

            Salesman: I won't, madam. I just want to come in and ransack the flat. Honestly.

            Woman: Promise. No encyclopaedias?

            Salesman: None at all.

            Woman: All right. (she opens door) You'd better come in then.

            (Salesman enters trough door.)

            Salesman: Mind you I don't know whether you've really considered the advantages of owning a really fine set of modern encyclopaedias...(he pockets valuable) You know, they can really do you wonders.

            (Cut back to man at desk.)

            Man: That man was a successful encyclopaedia salesman. But not all encyclopaedia salesmen are successful. Here is an unsuccessful encyclopaedia salesman.

            (Cut to very tall building; a body flies out of a high window and plummets. Cut back to man at desk.)

            Man: Now here are two unsuccessful encyclopaedia salesmen.

            (Cut to a different tall building; two bodies fly out of a high window. Cut back to man at desk.)

            Man: I think there's a lesson there for all of us.

Encyclopedias as sources

Generally Encyclopedias are not considered valid sources for research papers anyway. They're great for getting a quick handle on what you're supposed to be doing your paper on but there aren't too many circumstances where they are considered okay for that use. I still feel wikipedia is just as good if not a better source than any other encyclopedia, it's amazing how fast those articles are updated. As long as you're careful not to believe every little thing you read you are probably going to get the best and most updated information from wikipedia

Re:

That's why I prefer to do my research using either uncyclopeia [uncyclopedia.org], or even more preferably an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters (if I can find enough monkeys).

For my news I prefer either UnNews (Today's on-topic headline "Society collapses, Anarchy [uncyclopedia.org]