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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."
Yawn. I wonder how many errors are in wikipedia that no ones found or noticed yet.
Evolution is a state-sponsored, state-protected religion.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
> Also, it's hard to imagine Britannica being unable to find loads of mistakes in Wikipedia.
Show us the list then.
The thing is, Britannica is a book. And books don't write lists. But if there were such a list, the errors would be corrected probably the same day the list is published.
You're completely right, nobody always has 100% correct information. But since it can be edited by anyone, it can be quickly corrected by someone else, or several someone elses. Ideally this would be the way to get a close-to-perfect repository of information.
Granted, there are some subjects that will never be presented objectively (in fact it could be argued that, as imperfect humans our bias, however small, will color anything we present, no matter how trivial or seemingly un-emotional). And there are always extremists on many issues that will ensure that nothing close to unbiased stays on display.
But it's pretty darn close.
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
Xeth, I have to agree with you. I've read several times here about this "caste system" at Wikipedia that is somehow destroying its value, but I haven't seen evidence of it myself.
I'm thankful that there are some editors who are willing to spend the time necessary to keep some semblance of order over there, the same way there are folks in the open source community who are a little "more equal" than others, who do a little more work, who care a little more.
Anybody can still add information or edit an article. I don't believe the success and value of Wikipedia can be disputed.
You are welcome on my lawn.