Encyclopedia Britannica to Take User Contributions

Barence writes "Britannica has long been a vocal critic of Wikipedia's user-generated content, and has repeatedly attacked the accuracy of its articles. Surprisingly, then, it is rolling out a new system allowing readers to potentially contribute to articles, Wiki-style. But Britannica is keen to stress that its new website will not be following the Wiki-model, describing it 'as a collaborative process but not a democratic one.' You can try out the new Britannica beta site."

Comments

First impressions

[consonant]

Waaay too much "rich content" for my tastes. When visiting a site for information, I, for one, do NOT want:

• Videos auto-running
• Random elements zooming around
• Mouseover actions that surprise (I still don't think mainstream WWW pages are ready for a http://www.dontclick.it/ - like UI)

This also sounds suspiciously a LOT like Google Knol. Encyclopaedia Britannica is reacting to Wikipedia the way Microsoft reacted to Google/Firefox. Giant established behemoth in its field getting its comeuppance from upstarts due to its inability to adapt to changing times, and trying to pick itself off the ground to play catch-up..