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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."
1. Imitate what is obviously an excellent encyclopedia system.
2. Patent it under some dumb name.
3. ???
4. Profit! In Soviet Microsoft, software patents edit YOU!!!
Seriously, though, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, etc...
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
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!"
Get ready for a stream of jokes about how /. should do the same...
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"Readers of Microsoft's encyclopedia articles can now edit articles in a Wikipedia-like fashion"
huh...
Web Design Tips
What's next, and "community" site to allow programmers to write new applications for Microsoft to sell?
The cake is a pie
Bud Light Presents Real Men of Genius
(Real Men of Genius)
Today we salute you Mr. Aaron Patterson
(Mr. Aaron Patterson)
Where would this world be without you and your innovations like typing www.en.wikkipedia.org into your address bar and copying virtually every feature off of it.
(Mr Copycat)
Thanks you for giving us the brilliant new features of user contributions and a clean fresh design just like www.en.wikkipedia.org.
(Who do you think you're fooling?)
Few men are brave enough to steal an idea and call it their own, but you have no problem posting about it on your blog.
(Look at ME!)
So crack open an ice cold Bud Light Mr Aaron Patterson You have high standands when it come to the online encyclopedia industry, and intelectual property
(Mr. Aaron Patterson)
Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
10.
I think this is a good idea, perhaps better than wikipedia's current setup. For starting out an article, it's less than desireable but at some point an article has to be "finished" for most purposes. In the same way articles at wikipedia are nominated for "featured article" status, perhaps articles should also be nominated for "finished" status at which point they should become harder to edit. Also, then you could get an independent authority to stamp it as "accurate," something with which wikipedia will always have trouble if they don't change.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
The end is the beginning, the end of days, dogs and cats living together. Tux and Clippy playing ring around the posie (sp?)
Seems like a good idea. Although as a somewhat frequent wikipedia contributor, I like the idea of seeing my words in "print" (for lack of a better word) immediately. The article says that you would submit your encyclopedia article which would be reviewed, and then edited by a bunch of reviewers. So the turnaround time is definitely longer than wikipedia.
Fostering a community spirit might be somewhat harder, I think due to the fact that the community isn't really actively involved in editing each other's works and contributing. It still goes through a review process, and the reviewers have the final say.
Wikipedia's strength (and some might say, weakness) is due to the large userbase that works on articles. Hence there is a broad spectrum of opinions and views when in the end sort of balances out. Would there be some sort of inherent bias due to the review process? I mean, does there have be any set of "officially sanctioned" view? Wikipedia has an article on Wikipedia criticisms. Can we expect to see an article that criticizes Microsoft or MS Encarta ON MS Encarta? That would be interesting.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
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