Wikipedia vs. Britannica

[pendell]

After 244 years, Encylopaedia Britannica will stop publishing a printed edition . It will be delivered primarily online and directly to schools.

I suspect that's a setup for failure, because there's already an online encyclopedia called wikipedia. I personally have no need to shell out a subscription fee when I can get comparable material for free, and have editing privileges as well. I've never contributed a full article to wikipedia, but I have corrected a few and, of course, donate.

Who's gonna win, ya think?

It also brings up an interesting point about progress -- it seems like any invention you make, any progress, is going to wind up hurting someone somehow. You invent an online encyclopedia on the GPL shareware model, you drive out all the ordinary encyclopedia. You open a storefront to sell books online, you kill Borders. You invent a car, you kill the makers of horse & buggy. What's a person who takes 'do unto others as you have them do unto you' seriously to do? "Drive other people out of business so you can make a personal profit delivering things people don't really need" doesn't quite seem to fit that, does it?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Dr.Epic]

After 244 years, Encylopaedia Britannica will stop publishing a printed edition . It will be delivered primarily online and directly to schools.

I suspect that's a setup for failure, because there's already an online encyclopedia called wikipedia. I personally have no need to shell out a subscription fee when I can get comparable material for free, and have editing privileges as well. I've never contributed a full article to wikipedia, but I have corrected a few and, of course, donate.

You forgetting many people (including college professors) don't trust wikipedia as a reliable source. While you may stick to it, many will still go to Britannica because it's a source they can trust that not just anybody can edit.

[Megaduck]

You forgetting many people (including college professors) don't trust wikipedia as a reliable source. While you may stick to it, many will still go to Britannica because it's a source they can trust that not just anybody can edit.

I agree with the reliability issue but I think if you're going to be sourcing something Britannica isn't a good option either. It tends to be too shallow to be used for something like a college essay.

[deuterio12]

You open a storefront to sell books online, you kill Borders. You invent a car, you kill the makers of horse & buggy. What's a person who takes 'do unto others as you have them do unto you' seriously to do? "Drive other people out of business so you can make a personal profit delivering things people don't really need" doesn't quite seem to fit that, does it?

Counterpoint: horse breeding is still a highly profitable business if you know what you're doing, between rich people who still want horses, horse racing, certain sports, and underdeveloped areas where an horse is still superior to a motorized vehicle.

In this case, Encylopaedia Britannica seems to be moving towards selling its business to education institutions, which'll certainly be willing to pay for acurate information, in contrast with Wikipedia where more often than not you can see clearly biased information, if not outright wrong when it comes to the more complicated scientific stuff (Pelor knows how I would be screwed in my physicis engineering course if I had to remotely base myself in wikipedia). And trying to correct it lasts around a couple of hours before somebody else decides to "correct" it back.

[Devonix]

Exactly. Wikipedia may have fast updates and lots of info on it. But you would be a fool to take anything on it as fact without checking other sources to confirm.

Encyclopedia Britannica however is a source that you know you can immediatly trust.

[Psyren]

Serious academic institutions already have alternatives to Britannica though - educational databases like Lexis-Nexis, LION, Emerald etc. And unlike Britannica, these contain long-text of academic essays, journals, original news articles from Time, Newsweek etc.

So who is Britannica for, then? For light homework or essays, you've got Wikipedia and the sources it draws from. For in-depth papers and theses, you've got the databases listed above.

It's the K-Mart probem all over again - not as cheap as Wal-mart, not as upscale as Target.

[Mewtarthio]

It also brings up an interesting point about progress -- it seems like any invention you make, any progress, is going to wind up hurting someone somehow. You invent an online encyclopedia on the GPL shareware model, you drive out all the ordinary encyclopedia. You open a storefront to sell books online, you kill Borders. You invent a car, you kill the makers of horse & buggy. What's a person who takes 'do unto others as you have them do unto you' seriously to do? "Drive other people out of business so you can make a personal profit delivering things people don't really need" doesn't quite seem to fit that, does it?

If you really want to apply the Golden Rule, then ask yourself: Would I like it if someone intentionally witheld a useful technology for the benefit of a few people who manufacture obsolete products? Bear in mind, odds are pretty good that "you" will end up benefiting from this technology.

And the benefits are a lot better than "things people don't really need" would imply. Cars may have driven horses into a niche market, but people in cars can travel farther in an hour than someone on horseback could travel in a day.

[Selrahc]

An encyclopedia is a decent source for:
Curious people.
High school students.
First year undergrads.

Wikipedia beats out an encyclopedia for the curious, but those wanting to use it in an academic context need to be sure that there aren't major errors. Which is possible for an expert produced publication in a way that isn't for crowd sourced. Most wiki articles are fine or even good, but I'm sure we've all seen a few that have odd errors. So for high school essays and early college work, using a real encyclopedia as a source is a better idea.

In higher level academics, the only use for an encyclopedia is to have a quick look at a subject, before moving onto more specialized sources. Wikipedia serves the same function and any flaws will be caught at the more specialst materials. So for higher level academic work, Wiki is probably more use due to covering a wider subject area. A good wikipedia article probably also links you to usable sources, which can be handy.

[Bastian Weaver]

Encyclopaedia Britannica is accurate and reliable.
Wikipedia is neither.
Really, who's gonna win?

[razark]

Encyclopaedia Britannica is accurate and reliable.
Wikipedia is neither.
Really, who's gonna win?

Well...

In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words "DON'T PANIC" inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

How much does Wikipedia cost to use?

[Seraph]

strictly speaking, didn't someone do a study and show that wikipedia's margin of error was extremely close to Brittanica's MoE anyway?

[Selrahc]

strictly speaking, didn't someone do a study and show that wikipedia's margin of error was extremely close to Brittanica's MoE anyway?

I think they limited it to wikipedia articles rated Good or better. Which is what.. about 10% of it?

[Bastian Weaver]

Well...


How much does Wikipedia cost to use?

That's science fiction, dude. It's called "fiction" on purpose.

[Misery Esquire]

I think they limited it to wikipedia articles rated Good or better. Which is what.. about 10% of it?

Probably just the Citation Needed article.

Joking, joking.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Well...


How much does Wikipedia cost to use?

HA! I hadn't even considered this. Eerie, how on-the-mark Adams could be...

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Encyclopaedia Britannica is accurate and reliable.
Wikipedia is neither.
Really, who's gonna win?

My money's on the one that is free.

But more seriously, it's not a binary question: Wikipedia is less accurate and reliable than Britannica, but is generally reliable enough for most purposes.

[Z3ro]

Britannica contains errors too. The difference is that we know enough when using Wikipedia to double check the information we get, which is something you should do when using any enclycopedia.

[razark]

That's science fiction, dude. It's called "fiction" on purpose.

Damn. And I thought Mr. Adams was writing a documentary. Looks like I'm going to have to completely change my worldview based on this new information. The good news is that I checked my historical documents from the 23rd century. Looks like this fact won't change the fact that James T. Kirk will be commanding the U.S.S. Enterprise.

However, the point that Wikipedia is cheaper still seems to be unchanged.

In many of the more relaxed civilizations areas on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy earth, the Hitchhiker's Guide Wikipedia has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica Britannica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words "DON'T PANIC" inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover is relatively easy to access.

[Bastian Weaver]

True. Same as the fact that it's inaccurate.
Yes, there are mistakes in Britannica, too, but they're few and far between, compared to wikipedia.
Besides, there are better and more accurate free online sources. Should we continue this discussion as "Internet vs Britannica"?

[shadow_archmagi]

I think they limited it to wikipedia articles rated Good or better. Which is what.. about 10% of it?

The study by Nature (The more famous one) doesn't mention restricting itself to articles marked as high quality. I'm sure there's others though.

Quoth the article "In the study, entries were chosen from the websites of Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica on a broad range of scientific disciplines and sent to a relevant expert for peer review. Each reviewer examined the entry on a single subject from the two encyclopaedias; they were not told which article came from which encyclopaedia. A total of 42 usable reviews were returned out of 50 sent out, and were then examined by Nature's news team."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...l/438900a.html

But more seriously, it's not a binary question: Wikipedia is less accurate and reliable than Britannica, but is generally reliable enough for most purposes.

Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopaedia. But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively.

123/165 is.. about 75% as many lesser errors.

Wikipedia is imperfect, but it's a lot better than most give it credit for.

[Brother Oni]

You forgetting many people (including college professors) don't trust wikipedia as a reliable source.

So use the citations that Wikipedia links to, to check the original source.

[MCerberus]

Wikipedia itself is a secondary source, and standard giant print encyclopedias are subject to having no enough information. They're both not really what you should be looking at, but the former has a lot hidden under its surface (as its nature as a secondary, it cites primary source).

[Bastian Weaver]

So use the citations that Wikipedia links to, to check the original source.

You don't really need wikipedia for that, do you?

[SlyGuyMcFly]

You don't really need wikipedia for that, do you?

No, but it's nice to have all that bibliography handily listed in one place.

[Bastian Weaver]

No, but it's nice to have all that bibliography handily listed in one place.

Indeed. And in many cases a bibliography list can be more useful than encyclopaedia.
Somehow I still think this is more "Internet vs Britannica" kind of thing, though. Or maybe "free library vs library that you need to pay for".

[Lord Seth]

Encyclopedia Britannica however is a source that you know you can immediatly trust.

Can't speak for Brittanica, but there were some things in my World Book that are definitely wrong, including when it makes the hilarious claim in its Chess article that "Most chess players in English-speaking nations use descriptive notation, also called English notation, to keep a written record of their games." (italics original) That statement hasn't been true since the 1970's. Now to be fair, this is the 2000 edition, so maybe they fixed it since, but you'd think that they'd be able to fix something like that within a few decades.

It's a minor point, true, but it goes to show that not everything in it is perfectly fact checked.

Oh, and I feel I have to post this.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Well you know I seem to remember something about this. Oh right:

Wikipedia found to be about as accurate and Britannica

Oldie but a goodie. And I would add from my own recollections of using encyclopedias, that what minority of inaccuracies wikipedia suffers from are more then counterbalanced by its comprehensiveness and greater detail. Let's face it why should I buy a book for a short blurb when I can use my media device to get a full page report on a minor atoll for free and in a fraction of the time?

Given that wikipedia even works with my Kindle (albeit not that well) I can literally access it for nothing.

So use the citations that Wikipedia links to, to check the original source.

This. Ever so much this.

Wikipedia is not so much a source in itself as a research tool to get you started. Pull up your topic, read it. Then dive into cited sources.

Something much easier then any other source of knowledge I found. Cripes the days of getting pitiful blurbs off Encarta and having to BS a two page paper into existence... the 90s were a scary time kids. A scary time.

[Bastian Weaver]

Wikipedia is not so much a source in itself as a research tool to get you started. Pull up your topic, read it. Then dive into cited sources.

Something much easier then any other source of knowledge I found. Cripes the days of getting pitiful blurbs off Encarta and having to BS a two page paper into existence... the 90s were a scary time kids. A scary time.

*Shrug*

Like I said... Internet vs Britannica. And still, a good library often beats Internet fair and square.

[Soras Teva Gee]

*Shrug*

Like I said... Internet vs Britannica. And still, a good library often beats Internet fair and square.

Only if its got a computerized catalog of what's in it so you can find what you are looking for quickly. You run into a topic that might not have a lot of literature written on it and you are going to need a very comprehensive library to match up. A library is only as good as the books contained in it.

And the internet is the biggest library there is.

While we will always need physical archives of some nature ultimately the net is literally made for information exchange and wikipedia is one of the most powerful tools existing in it.

[Bastian Weaver]

I still think you overestimate wikipedia. A good search engine is far more effective. See, a library is as good as the books contained - and wikipedia articles are as good as people who edit them. And some of these people are plain dumb. Many of them, actually.
Which is why I dislike wikipedia.
Speaking of libraries - naturally, by "good library" I mean a comprehensive one, with all the necessary equipment to make searching for books as quick and effective as possible.