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Microsoft Encarta Adopting Wikiesque Process
An anonymous reader writes "The MSN Encarta program manager announced that readers of Microsoft's encyclopedia articles can now edit articles in a Wikipedia-like fashion. Once submitted, edits are reviewed by Encarta staff members for accuracy, readability, and proofreading before being incorporated into the article." From the post: "To support this program, we've hired some new research editors. Their job will be to help you out with things like fact-checking, syntax, and editorial style. Every writer can use a good editor, and we see no reason that community contributors deserve any less." J adds: This won't be a big surprise, but "Your submissions to Encarta must be your own work" and "you grant Microsoft permission to use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat your Submission."
I can't imagine that this will actually work, I mean how many people submit/modify Wikipedia articles each day? It will be impossible for Microsoft's small (in comparison) payed staff to sift through hundreds, even thousands of changes, even if they use an automated filter to reduce the number of poor submissions. The page says a submission may take weeks before it appears, and I think this is being optimistic. In the end I question if this will even yield higher quality articles than Wikipedia, this just seems like Microsoft saying, hey look "me too!"
Select one:
positiv: So MS values the "Wikiesque Process"
neutral: An interesting develpment
negative: Who will own the copyright? Surely M$!
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Is it just me, or does this sound like Microsoft wants users to write their encyclopedia for them?
Santa's suicide mission go!
Yeah, for a group of people who hate Microsoft, they sure do talk about it a lot.
"Why would I want to spend time to contribute something for free so that [Apple] can turn around and sell it for a profit?"
"Dns cache poisoning"
Encarta:
Separate articles on Cache, DNS and Poison none useful.
Wikipedia:
None found, Suggests searching Wikipedia with Google or Yahoo, Google suggests this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoofing_attacks
Which has a link to this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_cache_poisoning
Shows you how fresh Wikipedia is, it looks like the DNS Cache poisioning page is too new to be indexed by either Google or Yahoo.
More to the point I can see why Microsoft wants to go the same way.
Open source: users do all the testing, bug reporting, and create the content.
Proprietary: same as open source, except you pay some company for the privilege, again and again
Wikipedia, the free "online encyclopedia" has been hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Anybody can access it free of charge, anyone can add to it, and there's any entry for everything. Right?
It turns out that the great advantage of the Wikipedia, the wiki format, which allows everybody to add/edit everything, is also its greatest disadvantage. There are a few topics that I care about, a few of which I actually contributed to the German version of Wikipedia. Watching these entries change over the past few months, I noticed the following tendencies:
1.
Most contributions are poorly researched, or not researched at all. Accuracy depends mostly on the one website from which the contributor copied the information. A substantial amount of Wikipedia entries contains information that I know to be incorrect.
2.
There is no editorial selection. Some entries just grow and grow because some enthusiast who has no sense for what's important and what's not keeps adding pointless stuff to some entries.
3.
Due to extensive linkage within Wikipedia itself, a growing number of badly researched, incorrect Wikipedia articles is pushing down well-researched specialist websites in Google rankings.
4.
Text and concepts for Wikipedia entries are often blatantly copied from other websites. To avoid instant recognition, the text is sometimes rewritten, adding inaccuracies, inconsistencies or even errors. Due to the nature of the content and the open format of Wikipedia, no copyright holder can do anything about this.
Wikipedia generates noise, not knowledge. Previous encyclopedias were well-researched and contained precise information that could be trusted to be correct. Wikipedia, on the other hand, contains a large amount of errors, omissions and superfluous trivia.
Basically, what is happening here is the building of a parallel World Wide Web inside the wikipedia.org domain and calling it an "encyclopedia", which is a total perversity. Just making it searchable and giving it an encyclopedia-like structure doesn't make its content any less fluffy, error-ridden and amateurish than any other website.
I hope that in a few years it will be so bloated that it will simply disintegrate, because I can't stand the thought that this thing might someday actually be used as a serious reference source. Because in its current form, it's not to be taken serious at all.
First of all: chill down. This link leads to a real artivle not an offensive image.
Second: I must say that Wiki serves me pretty well especially with some cryptic webtrends/names wich I sometimes don't get the first time. It's a great source if you want to know more about things you wouldn't find in any other encyclopedia. This is where Encarta will come in second place I guess.
So this is what they hired Ken Jennings to do! It all makes sense now.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
An article, by Microsoft (or published by), criticizing Microsoft? I really dont think so.
A community page that cant criticize itself and its creator(s), really dont have anything to do with being a community.
This is just Microsoft wanting free articles.
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
Wikipedia is useless in getting true information in most cases, it only demonstrates the folly of trying to achieve truth by group consensus.
Someone says the Earth is round , someone else say it is flat. They can argue about it till the cows come home , but the only way to put the matter to rest is to compromise and say it is square. So then of course Wikipedia will wind up with the asinine statement that the Earth is square. So then the reader comes along and reads the article and thinks he made a step forward when he actually made a step backwards to his quest for knowledge.
It does not matter that Wikipedia has half a million articles if the bulk of them are loaded with the nutty opinions and hearsay of mouth-foaming raving lunatics pounding away at their keyboards day and night in their personal Jihad to get their version of the world published on Wikipedia.
Just try to edit any controversial topic on Wikipedia and see what happens within 15 minutes.
It is scary when you think about it , we are now spreading so much misinformation through the internet through sites like Wikipedia that appear on the surface as legitimate sources but which in reality are mostly conduits of partisan propaganda.
There used to be a time when Knowledge was the result of real research and facts. Wikipedia and other similar sites have turned knowledge into a duel of dissenting opinions.
Truth will never be what the editors of Wikipedia and other such sites say it is, Truth is what is regardless of what we would want the world to believe.
Wikipedia should do the world a favor and at the very least cut the academic pretense and announce that it is only a collection of opinions on any given topic.
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
I don't know that a business can be depressed in the emotional sense of the word, but I think Microsoft's strategy RE:Linux has fit this overall theme. I'd say MS is currently moving into the Barganing stage. Hopefully Acceptance won't be that far off. OneMicrosoft's inital position on Linux has been harsh, but do remember, Linux is 1)direct competition to Windows and 2)has a radically differnt philosophy that basically attacks the core of Microsoft's business model. How would anyone here feel if someone sprang up in direct competion to the way you live your life? How do any of us react to luddites and technophobes? Very similarly in spirit to MS's initial reaction to Linux.
But the shock is starting to where off and Microsoft is realizing that Linux isn't going away. So their learning and changing.
The changes in Encarta aren't just about embracing wiki. Microsoft's corporate buzzwords, the backbone of the feature set promoted in Office 2003 are integration and colaboration. Microsoft is simply extending that.
Free MacMini
You want me to pay you to allow me to write articles for your encyclopedia that you will in turn update and continue to charge me for? I think the only article that I will revise is the one on Microsoft. Let me see what it says...WTF?!?! I can't even view it without being a premium subscriber. No way I'm gonna pay $4.95 for this crap. Wikipedia will do just fine.
(first IANAL) However, it also means that derivative works (see GPL definition of this) that use the GPL material must be freely available. So you can still sell it, nobody is going to stop you, but the buyer has the same rights you have. You must make the source available to the buyer and the buyer can then turn around and distribute it freely or sell it again for profit.
In any case Wikipedia is licensed under GNU Free Document License, not GPL, though I hear they are similar. I have not read the wikipedia license yet.
.... ... }
int main (void) {
Know what?
I think an encyclopaedia should stick to factual information, and not philosophical or political rants.
I sure hope they wouldn't put any of the type of drivel slashbots spew into Encarta.
There's too much of it in Wikipedia, which is good, because it guarantee's that anyone with a brain reading it will never, ever, forget that it's an amateur hack-job.
Never will (or should) you be able to cite Wikipedia in, say, your Master's thesis, and expect to pass.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
All they need to do is add features like delivery to a cell phone; and they'll patent "having a user-editable encyclopedia's info accessible on a cell phone". Create enough of these, and they'll create a legal minefield that will empower them to shut down Wikipedia whenever they want.
So... you WOULD cite Encarta in a thesis paper?
This article text on Slashdot has the highest Anti-Microsoft slant as I've seen in a long time. Not only is Microsoft chastised with using a rather open submission style that happens to be very similar to Wikipedia, a facility Slashdot readers cling to for dear life as a champion of free thought, but a laundry list of rights that Microsoft assumes when you contribute is displayed in a way to render potential contributors with a strong feeling of vulnerability. Let Microsoft do what they want and if you want to contribute, do so. If you don't like Microsofts' project, then ignore it and go on your way. Afterall, actions (and inactions) speak louder than words. Save everyones time and don't make little pitiful stabs at Microsoft when they can't possibly defend themselves in this arena tailored to encourage only those thoughts which agree with yours (the average Slashdot regular) that often aren't neccessarily fair. So censor me and give me my negative moderation because I don't conform to the Slashdot norm, reinforce my point.
Except they actually have editors that validate the information and do some basic fact-checking And wikipedia doesnt? Ok probably they are not paid by wikipedia there are people who subscribe to changes of the article and if someone changes the article they check to see if its accurate. There might not be designated editors for wikipedia but there are a good number of people at any given time who are watching the articles.
I may give them these rights "grant Microsoft permission to use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat your Submission."
But one could still withold the rights for them to "sell" works without permission.
basically, microsoft again trying to co-opt the opensource / community process instead of properly adopting it.
reject, refuse, deny
Gekido's Lair
Just because moderation is not perfect is no reason to reject it outright. The question is would it be better than the current state of afairs, not whether it would solve all the problems.
Wikipedia is useless in getting true information in most cases, ...
... it only demonstrates the folly of trying to achieve truth by group consensus.
Oh, I dunno about that. I just recently dug around for sites that listed the assorted physical and orbital numbers for a lot of bodies in the solar system. I found that Wikipedia was among the best-organized and most-complete sites. And the pages are quite consistent in their layout, making for rapid location of the data.
Actually, much of the scientific enterprise works by a sort of "group consensus". This is at the heart of the problems the religious folks have with it. You can't just make up your own scientific methods, and publish your results with yourself as the authority. You have to convince others working on topics closely related to yours that you're right. And even if they're convinced, they'll still often insist on independent confirmation. This is groupthink to the core, and has worked a whole lot better than most other approaches.
Wikipedia does have problems with "controversial" topics. Scientists generally don't. So, while Wikipedia does seem like a good start, it still has some kinks to work out. Maybe they can work it out as time goes by. If they do, chances they'll have mostly rediscovered scientific methods. But it won't be easy or fast. People have been trying for a century or more to be scientific about fields like psychology, politics, history, economics, and so on, with limited success.
Much of the problem is in working out ways of allowing free speech while implementing schemes to inform readers of reliability. This isn't too difficult, when dealing with things like the mass, albedo, or orbital parameters of Enceladus. Few people have any emotional attachment to the numbers, and no religious theories make prediction about such a body. But there are factual situations where religious people get involved, and they can shout down the scientists in most public arenas. Maybe the wikipedia folks can solve this problem. Maybe not.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
*sigh*
If Wikipedia got exclusive rights to the material for all my hard work of writing and correcting the articles, I wouldn't contribute to them in the first place.
I don't want to work for just one company without getting paid. It's a whole different thing with Wikipedia, since I know it'll benefit ANYONE who wish to re-use the material.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
But people who give of their time to Microsoft are performing charity for billionaires. Clever devils, Redmond: they understand one of the core appeals of the Wiki and open source movements is community, a value so debased in our right wing society that its resurrection in these projects is something of a bright hope.
There are two problems with the Encarta scheme. One, Microsoft is exploiting unpaid work for its own gain. And two, more critically, Microsoft's notorious censorship (cf. the pruning of disagreeable words from its Office dictionaries), dishonesty in public policy (cf. attempts to control open source) and irresponsibly-used economic might (cf. antitrust behavior in the US and EU) cast a long shadow over its ability to objectively shepherd any body of knowledge.
Moral: don't do free work for bullies.
A-S-S-I-M-I-L-A-T-E-D
Compensation is IRELLEVANT. Pursuit of Justice is FUTILE...
Don't EVER publish your own novels or such on ms' site, for given their requirements, you could publish the world's next best novel and be screwed their heavy-handedness. Or, you could post an idea covering the history of gaming and sims, only to find them developing your idea behind your back and then pointing to the contract.
Don't contribute to them. Apparently, they don't want or don't need PUBLIC DOMAIN material and seem, rather, to be fishing for new content at the expense of the contributor.
Can anyone really trust microsoft to be fair, honest, and such about ideas that come to them and they perceive to be worth millions, but the contributor is clueless? When does "survival of the fittest" take a back seat to integrity?
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"