Wikipedia Corrects Encyclopedia Britannica

javipas writes "Despite all the controversy about Wikipedia's work model, no one can argue the potential of a project that has so effectively demonstrated the usefulness of the 'wisdom of crowds' concept. And that wisdom has detected a large number of mistakes in one of the most revered founts of human knowledge, the Encyclopedias Britannica. Among the wrong information collected on this page are the name at birth of Bill Clinton and the definition of the NP problems in mathematics."

Comments

Score +5 (Troll)

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad most of the administrators think they know more than you, simply because they read an article on the subject. The others are all to happy to demonstrate the Wikipedia caste system to you.

Britanicca is useless.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Even if it were error free, Britanicca would still be useless - it does not enough content.

I mean, where's the articles on Fanboy? Or the List of minor Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters. (and for that matter, detailed summaries of individual episodes) Or for that matter, where's the article on the Slashdot effect

Re:Britanicca is useless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if it were error free, Britanicca would still be useless - it does not enough content.

I mean, where's the articles on Fanboy? Or the List of minor Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters. (and for that matter, detailed summaries of individual episodes) Or for that matter, where's the article on the Slashdot effect

I'm glad something is documenting every minutae of our popular culture. Popular culture of the past is fascinating, and often tells you a lot more about what it was really like to live in the time than journalistic or encyclopedia articles or the works promoted to "high culture" of the period.

For example I love old newspaper strips from the turn of the century to the Great Depression. They're endlessly fascinating, ofen very well written and draw you into a world that is very similar yet completely different than our own. They're also incredibly difficult to find, even some of the ones that were enormously popular (like Buster Brown or Mutt and Jeff), and there is almost nil written about them. Someone else might find this in Old West dimestore novels, or minor Victorian theater, who knows. What I wouldn't give for the "fanboys" of the past to have documented every minutae, because there are a lot of great works have simply faded into obscurity because they were considered "throwaway pop culture" at the time.

That's the beauty of Wikipedia; it's limitless and only takes a small community (even of one) to decide something is relevant. If it's something you don't find interesting then there's no reason for you to bother with it. And who knows? In fifty years an article about Fanboyism, Buffy characters or the Slashdot effect may be extremely treasured information to someone else.

By the way how long did it take The Beatles or Charlie Chaplin to make it to Britannica's pages?

Re:Britanicca is useless.

[KeepQuiet]

FYI, Britanicca is not a collection of popular culture or slang terms. It is an encyclopedia.

Re:Britanicca is useless.

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's completely untrue, isn't it? Hundreds of articles are deleted from wikipedia every day because they're deemed by editors to be irrelevant or of interest to too few people.

ok lets compare the number of wiki errors

[timmarhy]

why so silent now? Oh thats right Wiki is brimming with incorrect information.

A novelty but nothing more.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the kind of thing that Wikipedians love to trot out to show how much better they think they are than traditional sources, but this "corrections" list is not actually very meaningful. Heck, I once caught a typo in The Economist - does that mean a publication I made would thus be more accurate and reliable than The Economist? No, it just means they messed up once. Hey, when you produce a large volume of text, it happens. The real question is, how often do they mess up compared to how often we mess up? And that is a difficult question to find the true answer to, but one thing is for sure: it's certainly not hard to find errors in Wikipedia.

Re:A novelty but nothing more.

[timeOday]

I think that's the whole point - not that Wikipedia contains fewer errors than Britannica (the idea you're debunking), but that finding an error here or there in something doesn't prove anything, much less negate the value of the whole collection. It's simply to blunt accusations against Wikipedia, not bring down Britannica.

However, to me and most people Wikipedia really is far more valuable than Britannica - simply because we have no access to Britannica. And I also think the vast majority of wikipedia pages are quite good - at least the ones anybody is interested in. Certainly a much higher S/N ratio than the Internet at large. I even have a downloaded copy of wikipedia on my PocketPC, it's amazing how rarely I can not settle issues or questions that arise by consulting it.

For every good example...

[alvinrod]

For every good example, there apparently are several bad examples of this so called "wisdom of crowds." I'm not saying it doesn't work, but to pretend that it's the be all and end all of systems is just disingenuous.

Wisdom of crowds is a pretty good concept, but in reality it turns out that the crowds aren't always so wise.

Old news, please disregard

[Taxman415a]

This page has existed nearly since the beginning of Wikipedia. For a long long time it contained a disclaimer that it was just for the fun of it, and not to be taken too seriously. I think the disclaimer was taken off because it should be inherently obvious. Well apparently not to the submitter, who submitted what amounts to a flame bait story. Oh well, such is slashdot. Gotta get pageviews I suppose. But the submitter should have known better than to trump it up so much in the submission.

Re:Purposeful

[rm999]

If an encyclopedia purposefully says something incorrect, it has lost credibility for a poor reason. For example, if I want to know what the NP problem is, I don't consider it acceptable that an encyclopedia purposefully lied to me just to mess with its competitors.

Wikipedia is getting better

[Oldsmobile]

There are a few minor issues I have with the new winds blowing over at Wikipedia, but these are not pressing enough for me to get all worked up over them.

Over all I'm positively surprised at Wikipedia's ability to continually get better, work on not only the content but also the form factor.

A greater emphasis on references and citations has greatly contributed to some articles.

There are a few problems, such as the fact that important and well known scientists are still reluctant to contribute.

Overall though, Wikipedia is continually evolving and getting better, which is a whole lot more than can be said about Britannica or any other encyclopedia which have pretty much kept to their centuries old methods ideas.

Re:Errors

[LordKazan]

I see you know absolutely nothing about anatomy. The foreskin is the same structure as the clitoral hood. Removal of the clitoral hood, a form of female genital mutilation, is the direct female equivalent of removal of the foreskin. The foreskin contains 66% of the erogenous nerves of the penis, 50% of the mobile tissue (without that it is MUCH more likely for the female to get sore during intercourse). Only your ignorance makes it seem to be an obscene error in magnitude (that is to not say there aren't forms of FGM that are worse than the one mentioned, but that doesn't make circumcision not evil).

You know why people compaign against it? Because it was done on us when we were infants, without our consent or any ability to reverse the damage done. It is the ONLY cosmetic medical proceedure allowed to be performed on a child with a parents preference.

Even a small amount of HONEST research will reveal that circumcision is an evil practice.

It was started in the english speaking world as a cure to masturbation - because at the time (late 1800s) masturbation was considered the root of all evil. Dr Kellogg and a few others got everyone to start cutting off foreskins - Dr Kellogg also encouraged applying carbonic acid to the clitoris for the same reasons. Infact FGM was practiced in the united states within living history - see the book "The Rape of Innocence" by Patricia Robinett - a woman born in kansas in the 50s who had most of her labia and her clitoris removed.

So before you godwin the thread again, know what the fuck you're talking about.