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Ex-Britannica Editor Reviews Wikipedia
0-9a-f writes "Robert McHenry, one-time Editor in Chief of Encyclopædia Britannica, offers his thoughts on Wikipedia at Tech Central Station. While many Wikipedia zealots might discount his obvious bias outright, his broad argument is difficult to ignore. A million monkeys might eventually write Shakespeare, but how would they recognise it once they had?"
Wouldn't it make sense for somebody to be hired to ensure the information on the Wiki is correct? As any encyclopaedia would have teams of researchers and proof-readers, shouldn't that apply to the "community" version as well?
In other words, why is an encyclopaedia so expensive? Is it because of all the work that went into compiling the information, or is it to print twenty thousand (or whatever) pages worth of books? If it's the former, then okay, Wikipedia has no chance of being a major influence, because researchers and specialists that require pay are unlikely to devote many hours to something free that might undercut the pay they get from their day jobs.
If, on the other hand, it's really about the printing and distribution costs, than why isn't there some big money being donated to the project to pay for researchers and contributors to add data? If I wanted to donate money to education, would it be better to buy one school a set of books, or to buy someone's time to make that information available to all schoools? I think the answer is clear. But then, that's maybe because I don't really have any money to give.
- Luke