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Britannica Goes After Wikipedia and Google
kzieli writes "Britannica is going to allow viewers to edit articles, with changes to be reviewed by editors within 20 minutes. There is also a bit of a rant against Google for ranking Wikipedia above Britannica on most search terms."
Well Jorge, first of all you take a swipe at Google for respecting the very encyclopedia that you yourself are tacitly acknowledging is at least somewhat superior (by imitating it). Then you show just how PROFOUNDLY out of touch you are by insisting that your changes will require editorial review (unless you're about to expand your editorial staff with thousands of new hires, you must not be expecting much participation).
Sorry, but this is just pathetic. If this is the best you can do online, just stick with what you do best (the printed page). Admittedly, Brittanica has always been a great source for academic quality articles, especially back when basic information was hard to come by. But this sort of half-hearted effort only highlights just how much you still don't "get it."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Wikipedia isn't interested in truth, only facts.
-1, Didn't Read the Article
The changes won't appear on the site until they have been reviewed by someone paid by Britannica.
They must really be on the ropes. They're into full-on me-tooism, but obviously don't get what makes Wikipedia awesome at all.
-Peter
Google ranks Wikipedia articles higher than Britannica articles because Wikipedia.com is linked to more than Britannica.com.
In fact I would wager good money that Wikipedia.con is one of the top 5 linked to domains PERIOD, probably shortly after sites like cnn.com, myspace.com, facebook.com
Google doesn't just manually set it's rankings. They're set by the web. If Britannica wants higher rankings they need to get more people to link to them as an authority.
Specialists editors.
Unless they plan to hire Stephen Hawking, i don't see how this is going to work.
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams [...]."
Starting in High School we were taught never to do research off an encyclopedia. You use it to get a general idea about the topic which will help guide you to more appropriate sources for your research.
Britannica has been putting themselves on the high ground when they really weren't so high up. While Britannnica may have better researched articles, however Wikipedia for the most part does a good job at what encyclopedias are good for. A way to get a basic understanding of the topic so you then can go further in and do some real research.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Quote: "If I were to be the CEO of Google or the founders of Google I would be very [displeased] that the best search engine in the world continues to provide as a first link, Wikipedia," he said."Is this the best they can do? Is this the best that [their] algorithm can do?"
I don't know...maybe that's because a few hundred million people visit Wikipedia every year, and maybe because someone like me, who remembers when Lynx was the only web browser available, has never actually gone to Brittanica's website? Just maybe? Perhaps if they resolved their rectal-cranial inversion and made an accessible, easy to use, accurate product their PageRank might improve?
Bill
There is also a bit of a rant against Google for ranking Wikipedia above Britannica on most search terms.
Well, I guess that Google doesn't like to read teaser summaries that demand a paid subscription to read "premium content" any more than I do.
I just checked Britannica.com and I can see another reason why people avoid it - it's terrible for access, where as Wikipedia is a nice and simple browsable site, much closer to a reference book with cross-reference links.
You hit the front page of Brittanica.com and you get two Flash movies (which I don't see because I use Gnash and have it set to pause on load and not play) and the side panel animates itself open. I decide to try and browse and I can't because the Flash is rendered above the "browse" pop-up layer. I do a search and there's no obvious search button, you just have to hit the Enter key and assume it'll work. Rather than giving you results or the page you want it gave me a quick "light box" animation before popping up another layer. Once I do get to the article it takes ages to load because of the adverts and a slow caching site (ironically) and then it proceeds to plaster its "pay for premium" advert over what I was just about to read! When you close the "pay for premium" layer it won't even go away - apparently details about "encyclopedia" are a premium topic and so it keeps popping back every few seconds!
With an interface like that there's no wonder people prefer Wikipedia given that it's "accurate enough" for most people's needs.
In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Britannica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.
Scholarpedia looks set to address this difference, it is already quite good in its early stages. Essentially wikipedia where only scholars can edit.
Britannica is now out of date. The FLASH ADS on their site are abrasive and annoying; I will refuse to visit there site anymore due to this behaviour alone.
I was very careful in my word choice. But maybe I should have said, "Top men."
-Peter
Out of curiosity I visited www.britannica.com and did a sample search. The result came up, but when I tried to scroll down the article, it faded away and an offer for a "Free Trial" wafted into view. I'm not sure how long the free trial is, but they want to charge you a nickel less than $12/month, or $70/year or bundled with Merriam-Webster for $85/year. I don't see how they expect a casual user to pay these prices when Wikipedia and Wiktionary only ask for donations.
I'll use the free services for most things. If one needs further verification, there are external references available.
There are valid reasons that Wikipedia appears before Britannica on Google search results.
One of them is that if users wanted to pay for their information, then they would have already taken out a subscription with somebody like Britannica. And then they would be using their paid subscription to Britannica by using their search engine and NOT searching for free information on Google.
they're going to have an expert review it in 20 minutes?
What about a change to some obscure British scifi novel, like The Last Legionary? (By Douglas Hill)
This is never gonna work.
(* I have made changes to both of those pages in wikipedia, and though obscure topics, it wasn't long before further changes were made clarifying my own poorly written points.)
They aren't the only ones, one of the biggest selling points traditional encyclopedia's had was that they weren't wikipedia if they emulate it too closely they will disenfranchise that audience.
Anyone who is happy with the encyclopedic equivalent of lucky dip is already gushing about the 'awesomeness' of Wikipedia, they are not about to start helping elsewhere. Although perhaps some of the authors with genuine knowledge who have given up on Wikipedia's editfests might be interested in a more closely controlled equivalent.
The changes won't appear on the site until they have been reviewed by someone paid by Britannica.
So... skilled editors in the field of question, or your basic "anti-vandalization basic fact-check" paid editors? This is not entirely unlike the way Wikipedia can lock or semi-lock some pages where it's necessary. With all due respect to the ways wikipedia isn't that great, there's no way wikipedia or britannica could afford an editor staff to check every edit on something of wikipedia's size. I guess they have to limit the scope of their user input process greatly, until it's basicly what it's already - a collection of traditional encyclopedic material that is no match for the versatility of wikipedia. Despite the notability trolls, wikipedia carries so much information on so much more of greater and lesser, particularly lesser, importance.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
according to the article. Wikipedia says 1606.
I daresay the aborigines would reckon the date a bit earlier...
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Mortimer Adler is the author of numerous books such as, "How to Read a Book", and I believe he was once an editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Alas, despite writing many good books, Adler was maddeningly patronizing towards his readers. For Britannica to let the great unwashed masses actually modify one of his sacred texts almost makes me giddy.
Back in the earlier day of the web encylopedia Americana was free. Britannica was a pay site. Then Britannica went free and it was dominant. But for most of this decade Britannica has not been a free site, which means links are low value.
Further:
1) Wikipedia has vastly more articles than Britannica. It isn't even close.
2) Wikipedia covers a wider range of topics.
3) Wikipedia articles are longer and more detailed
4) Wikipedia articles are much more web friendly with their "see also" web references.... In many ways playing the role yahoo used to play
5) Wikipedia articles offer history and talk pages which can provide tons of additional information
I can't see why Britannica would even think that in 2009 they should rank above Wikipedia. Wikipedia vs. Britannica discussions were interesting in 2005/6 and you could make a case. Today they aren't even close. Wikipedia functions reasonably well against specialized encyclopedias in their specialties.
I have always been a strong supporter of Britannica. I've bought lots of their products over the years and still use their encyclopedia on my laptop as a mobile solution. But they really aren't in the same league anymore as reference works. I think Columbia Encyclopedia makes a fantastic one volume reference work but I wouldn't rate it not to Britannica. Quantity matters.
__________
Even assuming they started to get a flood of content I don't see how they would deal with it. Are they really ready to fact check say 1000 pages of new content a day? If they want to do what they are talking about they need to do something like partner with http://en.citizendium.org/
Britannica could create a distinctive advantage for citizendium and at the same time Singer has put in place enough people to help with content additions.
I just did a quicky informal comparison. Searched Britannica for a few terms that I know Wikipedia has good articles about (because I read them recently). And I don't mean the pop-culture kinds of terms that Wikipedia is really great for (just try to find an article about, say, Bubba Ho-tep, in Britannica.)
ADO(ActiveX Data Objects): nothing at all. Much ado about Shakespeare, though.
OLE DB: nothing at all.
But it did suggest an article about "decibel" (the unit of measurement.) Ok, let's see what it's got: One brief paragraph. Textually describes the math (rather than giving an equation). Doesn't really explain at all _why_ people like decibel measurements. Mentions the confusing 10*log vs 20*log thing for powers and amplitudes, but doesn't deign to explain why it is that way.
Wikipedia: Lengthy, informative, and as far as I can see, completely accurate.
That is why people link to Wikipedia. And that is why it has a high Google rank.
Perhaps with more user contributions Britannica can catch up somewhat, but it'll be one hell of an uphill climb at this point.
I would wonder even HOW they plan to review changes. Aside from the sheer volume issue (Good morning editors, each of you will be reviewing 14,850 edits in the next 8 hours), there is also the question of exactly HOW they can practically review technical changes for accuracy, without a wide variety of specialists on staff. Are they going to phone up a physicist every time someone changes a few sentences on the "Quantum Mechanics" article? And how are they going to deal with academically debated topics? Wikipedia does it by democracy, basically. But, with editors, Britannica is now going to be faced with editors having to "choose sides" on debates which they know nothing about.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Of course whats handy about wikipedia is that it almost always includes a good handful of links (and often meatspace citations as well) that makes it very easy to dig right into that additional research.
I picture a Britannica HQ populated by a bunch of old farts complaining about the "kids and their damned internets." When they decided to develop an online version, they probably just went with the first developer who could impress them with some cheap Flash and a lot of impressive-sounding jargon. "That guy really knows his internets," was no doubt overheard at the end of his presentation.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
So true. The first step whenever I start researching something is almost always a Wikipedia search, and it just branches off from there. Works better than just picking links at random from a Google search.
We are far indeed from knowing the extents of the Internet's potential, but know it's large enough to make the largest reference work in human history spring up out of nowhere. There's hardly a better time to experiment. If this goes wrong, the Britannica staff if anyone should be able to tell and they have an encyclopedia-wide revision to fall back on.
The rebellious air of Wikipedia's earlier years has dissipated, and editors no longer (widely) see the site as a competitor to Britannica. Both are used to provide information (yes, yes, Power Rangers Pokemon hur hur.) If one of them invents a way to do so better, hooray! Everybody wins.
They're going to look it up on Wikipedia.
Just looking at Britannica.com's home page will reveal why they aren't ranked as well as Wikipedia. Upwards of 90% of the home page content is irrelevant to the majority of users, who are there because they want to look something up, not look at the video of the day, play with the "Featured" flash movie, or read about how Britannica is involved in Advocacy for Animals. This is an excellent example of web design molded around the needs of internal customers and requirements rather than the needs of the end user. The flash movies swoop in as they load, drawing attention away from the user's goal: the search box in the upper-middle of the screen, which itself is visually subservient to the arrogant "Premium Membership - Free Trial" button in the upper-right.
Both google and wikipedia did it right. Give the user a search box, a logo, and some language options. Trust them to explore your system on their own.
You realise of course that even though there isn't a formal expert review process at Wikipedia, the project is *loaded* with experts. You can barely move without tripping over a Ph.D. Hence Wikipedia's other name, "Unemployed Ph.D Death Match."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I interviewed there a couple months ago for a strategic product manager. Basically, they wanted someone to come in and help them figure out how to beat Wikipedia and reclaim the spot as reference provider of the world. It's pretty funny that this major strategic decision got made a few short months after they hired someone else (presumably). The real problem, and I told them this while interviewing, is that they are requiring people to pay for content, and wikipedia charges nothing, for "good-enough-for-most-people" content. Not to mention, as other posters here said, that wiki has WAY MORE articles.
Good luck Britannica. It would be sad to see such a staple of modern culture fall by the wayside of technology. There's something kind of cool about the rows of Encyclopaedia Britannica volumes on a bookshelf in a library on a dusty shelf. That doesn't mean it's useful, just that there's something weighty about that "brand".
I would wonder even HOW they plan to review changes. Aside from the sheer volume issue... there is also the question of exactly HOW they can practically review technical changes for accuracy, without a wide variety of specialists on staff.
Wikipedia. Cross check with Google. Jeesh, this kind of research isn't rocket surgery any more.
The real issue here is that the "authoritative" (emphasis on the quotation marks) status of Wikipedia as THE place to go for information in the sense that it will in time be generally accurate. If Britannica is successful, Wikipedia's status will be diluted. Case in point: probably 90% or more of Slashdot users use Google for general web searches, while going to Wikipedia for encyclopaedia research, IMDB for movie research, Sourceforge for open source product research, etc.... We know better than to put up with a MSN or Yahoo query (unless the Google search came up unsatisfactory). If the Wikipedia results are unsatisfactory, we research and add to the article, making it more complete and authoritative. Are we going to feel compelled to verify that Britannica is correct as well? (keep in mind that Britannica would never have allowed free access, let alone editable content if it weren't for the success of Wikipedia). Do we really care that MSN and Yahoo perform poorly for most queries other than perhaps looking up the latest Katy Perry video or editorial content? This, of course, comes with a massive theoretical cost to freedom by concentrating the power with a small number of authorities (Google and Wikipedia, for example) but with the benefit of optimizing accuracy and reducing time required to "authoritate" the web.
And let people edit this precious first post ?
Und lit paeple odet thes pressius frost poust ?
Thair. Hale fiksed.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
I suspect that while we grew up with the concept of "final" versions of thing, including truth, people who grow up with the Web as a reference will think of works as constantly evolving and never rooted. Truth, as it is, will always be revised to be (hopefully) more accurate, or occasoinally defaced.
Somehow this seems better than the authoratative books in the library which still say that dinosaurs were slow lizards and there is no water on mars.
The ______ Agenda
wikipedia is so easy to use, so vast that it is much easier to resort to wikipedia for something than britannica. when we are debating, discussing, or wanting to give information about something to someone in a quick fashion, we link the wikipedia page. in our sites, forums and so on. therefore the pageranks of those wiki pages goes up and up, whereas britannica's sucks tit.
it doesnt matter that wikipedia's content can be contested, objectionable, at times unreliable for some controversial subjects - it gives an easy, neat, formatted, quick glance presentation to convey what you are talking about to the person you are linking it to. moreover, the articles that are created with solid references and common knowledge cant be contested, so there isnt too much difference in linking "Anita Ward" or "French-Indian Wars" wiki pages to someone to give out a broad info, and give them a place to start with. not to mention that stuff that doesnt make into britannica editions because 'editors' would find too controversial or distasteful for their political/financial alignment, can easily be found in wikipedia in all their bare truth.
sorry britannica. you are proprietary technology. this is the 21st century of participation and interactivity. wikipedia is participative, and interactive. you are way behind. its good to see you trying to adopt, but its annoying to see that you people rant about stuff that are better than you in many respects. lighten up, its the century of the people. people are the custodians of information now, not a minority literate elite.
Read radical news here
I propose a test between encyclopedias:
Take a bunch of people and have them learn a new topic. Have half the people denied access to wikipedia (but full access to britannica.com) and vice versa with the other half. Give them 1 hour to learn about the topic
Then test them on the topic and see who is better "educated".
Possibly do it double blind so that the people who grade them are denied access to both britannica.com and wikipedia, and do not know what source of knowledge the person had.
Given the quality of your post, I feel you provide a good example of the level of competence required to call wikipedia good and an excellent insight into why preview is least valued by those who most need it.
Teacher's shouldn't accept wikipedia as a source, for the same reasons they shouldn't accept other Encyclopedias. An encyclopedias entire point is to act as a reference, fine for casual research but only to be used as a starting point in finding academic material.
i accept that, if they ban all encyclopedia then that can make sense, but that is not the norm IFAIK
Why would anyone care to contribute to a proprietary, for-profit encyclopedia that they probably already had to pay for just to access in the first place? Do they really expect hordes of people to pay for the privilege of editing their articles for free while they rake in all the profit?
Starting in High School we were taught never to do research off an encyclopedia. You use it to get a general idea about the topic which will help guide you to more appropriate sources for your research.
Britannica has been putting themselves on the high ground when they really weren't so high up. While Britannnica may have better researched articles, however Wikipedia for the most part does a good job at what encyclopedias are good for. A way to get a basic understanding of the topic so you then can go further in and do some real research.
I'm just waiting for schools be it junior, high or college to assign "wikipedia papers" as assignments. You could do it a variety of ways. I'd give each student a randomly generated article, then have them "grade it." Explain what's wrong with it in content, citations, grammar. Then I'd assign the student's to fix everything that they've ID'd as wrong with the given article. I'd then have students review and grade each others articles. You'd start of with existing known good articles and then you'd eventually have them build up to writing full articles on randomly assigned topics.
The educational value of this isn't about improving wikipedia at all. It's about educating students to ID poorly written/researched work, fix it, and write their own fairly decently researched "papers"/articles. Using wikipedia as a classroom tool though helps in several things. They actually learn through experience that not everything written in wikipedia is holy writ "right," and that other sources have the same sort of flaws. They then become used to improving stuff out of habit.
Long term it does end up improving wikipedia and it becomes more and more difficult to find grammer or factual mistakes.
I hope the persons who could join Wikipedia and Britannica have tossed this one around: best idea in this thread -- worth at least three cents. -
damaged by dogma
I'd like to know just how many people they plan to pay full-time to approve/reject all of these edits. How many changes are made to Wikipedia in an HOUR? No way they'd ever be able to keep up. It will quickly change over to the Youtube/Yahoo Answers system... someone flags/reports your work enough, it gets automatically removed and they pretend someone actually modded it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why don't you just Google it? Afraid you will get an inaccurate Wikipedia link?
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
(Good morning editors, each of you will be reviewing 14,850 edits in the next 8 hours)
Easy, nobody will actually use their site.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
Apparently a bunch of wiki-trolls decided that anyone telling the truth about wikipedia is "trolling." Sad, but true.
Slashdot needs to get rid of the "-1 Troll" function altogether. If it gets modded up, great; if not, modding "troll" for mere disagreement (or merely becuase a particular troll got mod points that day) only hurts the system.
If you can read this sig, congratulations, you have your glasses on!
Teacher's shouldn't accept wikipedia as a source, for the same reasons they shouldn't accept other Encyclopedias.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Referencing to a non-encyclopedic source *and* Wikipedia is much better than the traditional source alone. Yes, the meatspace/research source is probably more trustworthy/up to date, but a second verification helps not just add to the reliability of a given statement, but has an effect of almost multiplying the reliability.
It's even arguable that referencing two encyclopedias for a statement (providing they support each other) is better than the one 'traditional' source.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
What Brittanica should do is contribute its most polished articles to Wikipedia (or integrate the content) and then periodically, check on those articles or other "good" ones on Wikipedia and do whatever "fact-checking", copy-editing, and the like that they do already and produce better articles in both encyclopedias and still sell their dead-tree version.
The biggest problem both are facing are the questions of "what should an enyclopedia be" or put, "how broad should a general-purpose encyclopedia be", and "to what audience should it be." For example, with a B-Tree Algorithm; should it be in here, and if so, to what level of detail should we go? For Wikipedia, having the ability to have near limitless time and space, articles can be as indepth as contributors wish, and given the near limitless time and space their encyclopedia can have intesive breadth. Brittanica has a cyclical publishing nature, high quality requirements (e.g. Wikipedia can "get away" with articles in development, incomplete, uncited, etc... for a while, where the prior can not), no easy way to remedy inaccuracies; in other words, very limited time and space.
However, Wikipedia is running into issues where certain moderators are under the impression that they too must "trim the fat" and delete articles who need a little TLC; to get the same respectability of Brittanica. The major problem is they are in two totally different situations. Brittanica is trying to be too much like Wikipedia (which might not be a bad thing) and Wikipedia (at least parts of it) are trying to be a little too much like Brittanica; when their delivery mechanisms, editorial/community structure, and ultimately purpose is completely different.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.