Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 8:03 PM, Keith Old keith...@gmail.com wrote: G'day folks, From the Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/battle-to-outgun-wikipedia-and-google/2009/01/22/1232471469973.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 In a move to take on Wikipedia, the *Encyclopedia Britannica* is inviting the hoi polloi to edit, enhance and contribute to its online version. I am a big fan of Britannica and hope they stay in business. With that in mind, I actually sat down to try this out today. I encountered several problems: * I can't tell if you have to pay for access to *edit* the articles behind a subscription wall, as well as view them * The site doesn't load properly in Firefox * No style guide provided that I found; one has to be familiar with Britannica house style, presumably * I can't figure out where to enter my real name and address * I found an article I know something about and made a few changes; after hitting submit, however, the flash-based window just hung, spinning its wheels. Perhaps that is because I don't have the newest version of flash here at work, which is the only place I have IE. * all the ads everywhere, even in search results and as hotlinked keywords in articles, is very unappealing It's unfortunate that they still seem beset upon by technical difficulties, because this would be an interesting experiment for them. -- phoebe ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Wikipedia only lives of donations and has no ads. Britannica lives of selling huge volumes and has its page full of ads... -- Alvaro On 04-02-2009, at 20:44, phoebe ayers phoebe.w...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 8:03 PM, Keith Old keith...@gmail.com wrote: G'day folks, From the Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/battle-to-outgun-wikipedia-and-google/2009/01/22/1232471469973.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 In a move to take on Wikipedia, the *Encyclopedia Britannica* is inviting the hoi polloi to edit, enhance and contribute to its online version. I am a big fan of Britannica and hope they stay in business. With that in mind, I actually sat down to try this out today. I encountered several problems: * I can't tell if you have to pay for access to *edit* the articles behind a subscription wall, as well as view them * The site doesn't load properly in Firefox * No style guide provided that I found; one has to be familiar with Britannica house style, presumably * I can't figure out where to enter my real name and address * I found an article I know something about and made a few changes; after hitting submit, however, the flash-based window just hung, spinning its wheels. Perhaps that is because I don't have the newest version of flash here at work, which is the only place I have IE. * all the ads everywhere, even in search results and as hotlinked keywords in articles, is very unappealing It's unfortunate that they still seem beset upon by technical difficulties, because this would be an interesting experiment for them. -- phoebe ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 6:20 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonav...@gmail.comwrote: I think in fact that the headline is misleading. This isn't really a case of Britannica taking on Wikipedia. It is more like they may have seen Veropedia in their rear view mirror, and gotten scared. A peer reviewed study that unfavorably compared Britannica with Veropedia in terms of timeliness, scope and accuracy would be quite devastating to Britannica, since Veropedia also vets its contents. Was that before or after Veropedia dropped off the face of the planet, the company that runs it was administratively dissolved by the state, and the founder was spotted begging Obama for government handouts? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
On Sun, 1 Feb 2009, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote: Like I say, this story itself may be an urban myth, and certainly even if it happened to be in fact true, it would reference a very early edition of Britannica, perhaps even one of the very first editions. I am sure even their editorial standards have not always been as high, as they are today. If you're not trying to imply anything about Britannica's current accuracy, and you're not even sure it's true, then I don't even get the point of mentioning it. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
With respect intended, it may be simpler than that. When a patient with advanced cancer changes his diet, it's seldom because he recently learned he also has a cholesterol problem. *Britannica's* business plan for generations could rely on a steady stream of institutional purchases. From schools to public libraries to universities, virtually every organization that attempted to keep a general purpose library would buy a set of encylopedias, and then buy updates and new editions. It was a purchase they made if they possibly could even if the budget was small--especially if the budget was small--because if they couldn't obtain specialty texts in diverse areas the librarians could at least direct patrons to a basic overview of most subjects in the encyclopedia. A lot of small town libraries and elementary schools probably scrambled for funds in order to get *Britannica*. If a free and reliable substitute existed, they'd have an excuse to deprioritize that purchase. Then *Nature*said, essentially, that *B* is wrong nearly as often as Wikipedia. I'd hate to have been a fly on the wall of their sales office during the months that followed. That's their bread and butter. What they've done in response to that loss has not been innovative. They're following trends. What they still have is a brand name and a reputation for respectability. In my country, most native speakers age 25 or older used to open a volume of *Britannica* now and then, or at least thought they ought to. Those people are parents now and grandparents. And one thing Wikipedia does not try to be is a babysitter. When Dad's fixing dinner and Mom's not home from work yet, a lot of parents would prefer to sit their little ones down to something educational without having to worry about what they'll find. And a lot of parents don't know diddly about installing screening software. This may be blue sky speculation, but it wouldn't be entirely surprising if sometime in the next few years *Britannica* gets purchased by a conglomerate that cuts the price and cross-sells its other products. So in order to provide Junior a *guaranteed vandalism-free* article about a blue whale, the tyke will sit through movie promos and toy commercials. -Durova On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 5:02 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote: I think in fact that the headline is misleading. This isn't really a case of Britannica taking on Wikipedia. It is more like they may have seen Veropedia in their rear view mirror, and gotten scared. A peer reviewed study that unfavorably compared Britannica with Veropedia in terms of timeliness, scope and accuracy would be quite devastating to Britannica, since Veropedia also vets its contents. I suppose your point is since Veropedia fact-checks Wikipedia articles, but then makes no effort to update them, EB's timeliness would be poor if it lagged that effort. But there is a more traditional reference model, the almanac, where updates are on a one-year cycle. Part of the point I was trying to make is that there are these models between instant updating, which WP allows, and a long revision cycle traditional for encyclopedias (of the order of a decade). Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Durova wrote: Their main advantage in the current market is that their content is vetted. Question is whether they can afford the staff to keep up with submissions, and whether that value added is worth the price they charge for it. The market seems to be saying no. And if they walk away from that strategy what other working model is there? Actually I don't know that the question is rhetorical. There is the hidden assumption: EB is the universal encyclopedia (for English-language readers). There must be ways of running a reference website for money that drop the comprehensiveness and timeliness (WP's major strengths) as the central ambitions. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
EB trades size for reliability. They may get a fact wrong here and there or be slightly out of date, but they aren't going to publish absolute hoaxes and they're relatively family-friendly. Whether consciously or by default, EB has opted for a niche market. Where can they reposition themselves if that niche market proves unprofitable? Their window of opportunity to go head to head on an open edit format probably closed in 2003. -Lise On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 3:05 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Durova wrote: Their main advantage in the current market is that their content is vetted. Question is whether they can afford the staff to keep up with submissions, and whether that value added is worth the price they charge for it. The market seems to be saying no. And if they walk away from that strategy what other working model is there? Actually I don't know that the question is rhetorical. There is the hidden assumption: EB is the universal encyclopedia (for English-language readers). There must be ways of running a reference website for money that drop the comprehensiveness and timeliness (WP's major strengths) as the central ambitions. Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
What is surprising is the fact that even though it shows it'd be succesful, given the example of Wikipedia, they refuse to accept edits instantly and they have to pass through a review process. Come on, morons may do vandalism on Wikipedia, but I'm pretty sure only -or at least, the big majority- people that know will send edits to the Encyclopædia Britannica. -- Alvaro On 30-01-2009, at 0:07, Durova nadezhda.dur...@gmail.com wrote: Being bold here and expounding a little. If any of you have read the history of encyclopedias *Britannica* put out in its Macropedia from a few years ago, it's been clear their management has been living in a dream world. They go on at length about quaint little experiments from the 1980s, while neglecting to mention the existence of Wikipedia as it swam into their river and chomped on *Britannica's* market share like a swarm of piranhas. Meanwhile they portrayed themselves as a 'portal to the Internet', reflecting a top-down information management mentality that's obsolete to anyone who's ever heard of Google. Bottom line for that organization: they may be cream of the crop as encyclopedias go, but in terms of general reliability hierarchies that's kind of like being the best in cuisine at microwave dinners. If the competition is nearly as good and free, why should the public pay to get their service? Their business plan never accounted for that possibility. After the *Nature* study it looked very curious that, five months later, * Britannica* management revived interest in dead news by publishing a bitter rebuttal. That was lousy PR. And the head-to-head with Jimbo in the Wall Street Journal shortly afterward made it clear--with minimal reading between the lines--that ol' *B* must have been hurting financially. A venerable institution doesn't act that counterintuitively unless it's hemmorhaging readership and money. Privately, I've been telling people for years that I doubt their business plan could survive another decade. They may have embraced wiki-ish modifications, but it's too little too late. They should have anticipated the Internet's real potential twelve years ago. Headlines may say 'Watch out Wikipedia', but Alexa says differently. How many of you are shelling out hard cash to read *Britannica* online? Raise your hands. Yeah, just about none. Sayonara, Durova On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 4:20 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: -Original Message- From: Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:52 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0 wjhon...@aol.com wrote: In a message dated 1/29/2009 sainto...@telus.net writes I had sent him a scathing email denigrating him for not allowing direct user edits. For some time, they allowed you to *email* them additions and corrections, and I pointed out how ridiculously last decade that was. And how if they don't shape up ...like now dude they would be history. Buried by Wikipedia. I notice they didn't mention my name in that article however. Shameless! It's hard to see what will be accomplished by taunting them in this way. Rubbing dirt in the faces of the losers is not particularly dignified. If we really are the winners we need to be more gracious about it. Then you're not understanding what occurred. What was accomplished is that they *now* allow contributors to make direct edits to the articles. They didn't before. Sorry, but I hadn't realised that they had done all this just because of your letter. :-[ Ec - Of course! Everything revolves around me and my needs and desires. The rest of creation in fact is just part of a dream I keep having. W.J. formerly the Artist ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Their main advantage in the current market is that their content is vetted. Question is whether they can afford the staff to keep up with submissions, and whether that value added is worth the price they charge for it. The market seems to be saying no. And if they walk away from that strategy what other working model is there? On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 4:33 AM, Alvaro García alva...@gmail.com wrote: What is surprising is the fact that even though it shows it'd be succesful, given the example of Wikipedia, they refuse to accept edits instantly and they have to pass through a review process. Come on, morons may do vandalism on Wikipedia, but I'm pretty sure only -or at least, the big majority- people that know will send edits to the Encyclopædia Britannica. -- Alvaro On 30-01-2009, at 0:07, Durova nadezhda.dur...@gmail.com wrote: Being bold here and expounding a little. If any of you have read the history of encyclopedias *Britannica* put out in its Macropedia from a few years ago, it's been clear their management has been living in a dream world. They go on at length about quaint little experiments from the 1980s, while neglecting to mention the existence of Wikipedia as it swam into their river and chomped on *Britannica's* market share like a swarm of piranhas. Meanwhile they portrayed themselves as a 'portal to the Internet', reflecting a top-down information management mentality that's obsolete to anyone who's ever heard of Google. Bottom line for that organization: they may be cream of the crop as encyclopedias go, but in terms of general reliability hierarchies that's kind of like being the best in cuisine at microwave dinners. If the competition is nearly as good and free, why should the public pay to get their service? Their business plan never accounted for that possibility. After the *Nature* study it looked very curious that, five months later, * Britannica* management revived interest in dead news by publishing a bitter rebuttal. That was lousy PR. And the head-to-head with Jimbo in the Wall Street Journal shortly afterward made it clear--with minimal reading between the lines--that ol' *B* must have been hurting financially. A venerable institution doesn't act that counterintuitively unless it's hemmorhaging readership and money. Privately, I've been telling people for years that I doubt their business plan could survive another decade. They may have embraced wiki-ish modifications, but it's too little too late. They should have anticipated the Internet's real potential twelve years ago. Headlines may say 'Watch out Wikipedia', but Alexa says differently. How many of you are shelling out hard cash to read *Britannica* online? Raise your hands. Yeah, just about none. Sayonara, Durova On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 4:20 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: -Original Message- From: Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:52 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0 wjhon...@aol.com wrote: In a message dated 1/29/2009 sainto...@telus.net writes I had sent him a scathing email denigrating him for not allowing direct user edits. For some time, they allowed you to *email* them additions and corrections, and I pointed out how ridiculously last decade that was. And how if they don't shape up ...like now dude they would be history. Buried by Wikipedia. I notice they didn't mention my name in that article however. Shameless! It's hard to see what will be accomplished by taunting them in this way. Rubbing dirt in the faces of the losers is not particularly dignified. If we really are the winners we need to be more gracious about it. Then you're not understanding what occurred. What was accomplished is that they *now* allow contributors to make direct edits to the articles. They didn't before. Sorry, but I hadn't realised that they had done all this just because of your letter. :-[ Ec - Of course! Everything revolves around me and my needs and desires. The rest of creation in fact is just part of a dream I keep having. W.J. formerly the Artist ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Durova wrote: Their main advantage in the current market is that their content is vetted. Question is whether they can afford the staff to keep up with submissions, and whether that value added is worth the price they charge for it. The market seems to be saying no. And if they walk away from that strategy what other working model is there? Imagine: If each active Wikipedian chose to submit a single perfectly legitimate change to the EB website their system could quickly be overwhelmed. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Gwern Branwen wrote: In a message dated 1/21/2009 larsen.thoma...@gmail.com writes: What evidence do you have that an encyclopedia must be free? Society has existed for a few thousand years without a free encyclopedia. A statement trivially true. Society has also existed for a few thousand years without copyright, period. And for most of those few thousand years there were no printing presses. Copyright without printing presses was meaningless. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote: For instance that simian society has always had ways of restricting access to intellectual property, not limited to intentional obfuscation, initiatory methods of knowledge access, and going all the way to the level of intentionally making the information transmitted faulty, just so you would have to make the leap of intellectual discovery as to what precise way the mechanism in question worked. Copyright *did* in fact enable people to spell out in full detail what they had discovered, because they had a reasonable expectation that even if they didn't only pass on their knowledge to their apprentices, somebody would protect their ability to milk it for all it was worth... What you are describing here is really about patents rather than copyrights. Patents protect ideas on behalf of the exploiters; copyrights only protect the way they are expressed. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
David Goodman wrote: The combination of user generated content, user-based editorial control, and free content is our characteristic. That doesn't mean it's the best way for all purposes, or even that it will always be us that implements it best. It is perfectly possible that if there were an equally free encyclopedia that was equally comprehensive, but did have editorial control in a more authoritarian conventional manner, that people might prefer it for many or most purposes. Even so, we will have the distinction for being not just the first large project of our sort, but the one that stimulated change elsewhere. It's an acknowledgment of our importance that we are influencing conventional publication also. It's important that we learn from Britannica's history. Its current crisis is not the first time it's been on its deathbed. Its revival often depended on the injection of new management with new ideas. We have yet to figure out how to make our own rule-making processes dynamic. There's a natural tendency for majorities to be comfortably protectionist about their vicarious accomplishments. The status quo can have a warm and fuzzy feeling of the kind that makes babies reluctant to leave the womb. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
In a message dated 1/29/2009 10:31:33 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, sainto...@telus.net writes: I had sent him a scathing email denigrating him for not allowing direct user edits. For some time, they allowed you to *email* them additions and corrections, and I pointed out how ridiculously last decade that was. And how if they don't shape up ...like now dude they would be history. Buried by Wikipedia. I notice they didn't mention my name in that article however. Shameless! It's hard to see what will be accomplished by taunting them in this way. Rubbing dirt in the faces of the losers is not particularly dignified. If we really are the winners we need to be more gracious about it. Then you're not understanding what occurred. What was accomplished is that they *now* allow contributors to make direct edits to the articles. They didn't before. Will **From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay up-to-date with the latest news. (http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom0023) ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
the wub wrote: Also fom the article: He said the encyclopedia had set a benchmark of a 20-minute turnaround to update the site with user-submitted edits to existing articles That'll probably be faster than us once flagged revisions is switched on (compare with the German expeiment, where backlogs are up to 3 weeks) which should make for an interesting role reversal. So what if it takes 3 weeks? So what if there are backlogs? Even accepting the premise that EB can maintain such a breakneck speed, whoever defined this as a race to do things more quickly? Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
On 29/01/2009, Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net wrote: So what if it takes 3 weeks? So what if there are backlogs? Even accepting the premise that EB can maintain such a breakneck speed, whoever defined this as a race to do things more quickly? Well, they have less users than us. They have less scope than us, and they're probably growing more slowly than us, and they're not much more reliable than us, and they require people paying them money to be able to edit the articles as well as to read the articles. I'd say that there's a defacto race there, even if nobody has defined it as such; they're trying to compete with a free, larger competitor before going broke. Ec -- -Ian Woollard We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. Life in a perfectly imperfect world would be much better. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
2009/1/29 Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net: So what if it takes 3 weeks? So what if there are backlogs? Even accepting the premise that EB can maintain such a breakneck speed, whoever defined this as a race to do things more quickly? Our readers and our content writers. Speed of updates is a feature much liked by readers (and back when people where doing WPvsEB was often used as a point in wikipedia's favor). For our content writers the instant results are a significant part of their reward for contributing. -- geni ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Keith Old wrote: In a move to take on Wikipedia, the *Encyclopedia Britannica* is inviting the hoi polloi to edit, enhance and contribute to its online version. New features enabling the inclusion of this user-generated content will be rolled out on the encyclopedia's website over the next 24 hours, * Britannica's* president, Jorge Cauz, said in an interview today. (More in story) What's their business plan? Vetting the information to the standards they profess is going to take a considerable staff to keep up with the work that could in theory come their way. What will be their revenue source to sustain all this? There's a limited market for multi-volume dead-tree encyclopædias, and depending on advertising revenues in the middle of a global financial is not very secure. Maybe a sugar-daddy with bottomless pockets and insatiable vanity? Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
wjhon...@aol.com wrote: In a message dated 1/29/2009 sainto...@telus.net writes I had sent him a scathing email denigrating him for not allowing direct user edits. For some time, they allowed you to *email* them additions and corrections, and I pointed out how ridiculously last decade that was. And how if they don't shape up ...like now dude they would be history. Buried by Wikipedia. I notice they didn't mention my name in that article however. Shameless! It's hard to see what will be accomplished by taunting them in this way. Rubbing dirt in the faces of the losers is not particularly dignified. If we really are the winners we need to be more gracious about it. Then you're not understanding what occurred. What was accomplished is that they *now* allow contributors to make direct edits to the articles. They didn't before. Sorry, but I hadn't realised that they had done all this just because of your letter. :-[ Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
geni wrote: 2009/1/29 Ray Saintonge: So what if it takes 3 weeks? So what if there are backlogs? Even accepting the premise that EB can maintain such a breakneck speed, whoever defined this as a race to do things more quickly? Our readers and our content writers. Speed of updates is a feature much liked by readers (and back when people where doing WPvsEB was often used as a point in wikipedia's favor). For our content writers the instant results are a significant part of their reward for contributing. Speed of updates may be a factor for current events, but I see nothing to convince me that EB wants to enter that field. Nor do I see them as competitors to upload the latest plot line of Desperate Housewives as soon as it has aired. Has there been a survey of non-editing readers about the speed of updates, and what that means to them? I suspect that their demands would involve a significantly longer yardstick than the minute. It's not as though we were a newspaper trying to get the latest scoop on its competitor. Compared to Wikinews, Wikipedia should not need to feel that pressure. I don't share your passion for instant gratification, a concept with problems that extend far beyond the wikis. With flagged revisions our content writers would continue to see the results of their labours immediately. If they are any good at what they do they can also feel confident that the general public will also soon see their changes. Ian Woollard wrote: Well, they have less users than us. They have less scope than us, and they're probably growing more slowly than us, and they're not much more reliable than us, and they require people paying them money to be able to edit the articles as well as to read the articles. In other words we're already far ahead of them. Having people pay for the right to edit can't be a winning strategy; that would justify a claim from our side that they are a vanity press. :-) I'd say that there's a defacto race there, even if nobody has defined it as such; they're trying to compete with a free, larger competitor before going broke. If EB is in a race to the bottom their gravity is the only help they need. Ec ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
2009/1/29 Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net: Speed of updates may be a factor for current events, but I see nothing to convince me that EB wants to enter that field. Nor do I see them as competitors to upload the latest plot line of Desperate Housewives as soon as it has aired. Has there been a survey of non-editing readers about the speed of updates, and what that means to them? I suspect that their demands would involve a significantly longer yardstick than the minute. It's not as though we were a newspaper trying to get the latest scoop on its competitor. Compared to Wikinews, Wikipedia should not need to feel that pressure. Failing to keep up with deaths is something EB has taken flack for in the past. I don't share your passion for instant gratification, a concept with problems that extend far beyond the wikis. What you have a passion for doesn't really matter. What our driveby content adders have a passion for does. With flagged revisions our content writers would continue to see the results of their labours immediately. False. Only logged in users will see them. If they are any good at what they do they can also feel confident that the general public will also soon see their changes. See the backlog of unpatrolled new pages. -- geni ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
-Original Message- From: Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:45 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0 Keith Old wrote: New features enabling the inclusion of this user-generated content will be rolled out on the encyclopedia's website over the next 24 hours, * Britannica's* president, Jorge Cauz, said in an interview today. (More in story) What's their business plan? Vetting the information to the standards they profess is going to take a considerable staff to keep up with the work that could in theory come their way. What will be their revenue source to sustain all this? There's a limited market for multi-volume dead-tree encyclopædias, and depending on advertising revenues in the middle of a global financial is not very secure. Maybe a sugar-daddy with bottomless pockets and insatiable vanity? Ec That this is not a dead-tree encyclopedia is exactly the point. This is on their website. They do not plan to incorporate this material into their print version. Will ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
-Original Message- From: Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:52 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0 wjhon...@aol.com wrote: In a message dated 1/29/2009 sainto...@telus.net writes I had sent him a scathing email denigrating him for not allowing direct user edits. For some time, they allowed you to *email* them additions and corrections, and I pointed out how ridiculously last decade that was. And how if they don't shape up ...like now dude they would be history. Buried by Wikipedia. I notice they didn't mention my name in that article however. Shameless! It's hard to see what will be accomplished by taunting them in this way. Rubbing dirt in the faces of the losers is not particularly dignified. If we really are the winners we need to be more gracious about it. Then you're not understanding what occurred. What was accomplished is that they *now* allow contributors to make direct edits to the articles. They didn't before. Sorry, but I hadn't realised that they had done all this just because of your letter. :-[ Ec - Of course! Everything revolves around me and my needs and desires. The rest of creation in fact is just part of a dream I keep having. W.J. formerly the Artist ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Being bold here and expounding a little. If any of you have read the history of encyclopedias *Britannica* put out in its Macropedia from a few years ago, it's been clear their management has been living in a dream world. They go on at length about quaint little experiments from the 1980s, while neglecting to mention the existence of Wikipedia as it swam into their river and chomped on *Britannica's* market share like a swarm of piranhas. Meanwhile they portrayed themselves as a 'portal to the Internet', reflecting a top-down information management mentality that's obsolete to anyone who's ever heard of Google. Bottom line for that organization: they may be cream of the crop as encyclopedias go, but in terms of general reliability hierarchies that's kind of like being the best in cuisine at microwave dinners. If the competition is nearly as good and free, why should the public pay to get their service? Their business plan never accounted for that possibility. After the *Nature* study it looked very curious that, five months later, * Britannica* management revived interest in dead news by publishing a bitter rebuttal. That was lousy PR. And the head-to-head with Jimbo in the Wall Street Journal shortly afterward made it clear--with minimal reading between the lines--that ol' *B* must have been hurting financially. A venerable institution doesn't act that counterintuitively unless it's hemmorhaging readership and money. Privately, I've been telling people for years that I doubt their business plan could survive another decade. They may have embraced wiki-ish modifications, but it's too little too late. They should have anticipated the Internet's real potential twelve years ago. Headlines may say 'Watch out Wikipedia', but Alexa says differently. How many of you are shelling out hard cash to read *Britannica* online? Raise your hands. Yeah, just about none. Sayonara, Durova On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 4:20 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: -Original Message- From: Ray Saintonge sainto...@telus.net To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:52 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0 wjhon...@aol.com wrote: In a message dated 1/29/2009 sainto...@telus.net writes I had sent him a scathing email denigrating him for not allowing direct user edits. For some time, they allowed you to *email* them additions and corrections, and I pointed out how ridiculously last decade that was. And how if they don't shape up ...like now dude they would be history. Buried by Wikipedia. I notice they didn't mention my name in that article however. Shameless! It's hard to see what will be accomplished by taunting them in this way. Rubbing dirt in the faces of the losers is not particularly dignified. If we really are the winners we need to be more gracious about it. Then you're not understanding what occurred. What was accomplished is that they *now* allow contributors to make direct edits to the articles. They didn't before. Sorry, but I hadn't realised that they had done all this just because of your letter. :-[ Ec - Of course! Everything revolves around me and my needs and desires. The rest of creation in fact is just part of a dream I keep having. W.J. formerly the Artist ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- http://durova.blogspot.com/ ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
I think Brittanica's model *could* have worked if Wikipedia hadn't appeared on the scene. I, revealing that I am an old fart, ( as if you couldn't tell by my cantankerous moods), bought the complete Brittanica when I was just a pup (more or less) and paid about $900 for it them. (To you brits that's roughly in the neighborhood of 450 to 550 pounds). This was about twenty *cough* years ago. And I still have those. About 40 volumes with the Macropedia as well and a few annuals in case you know anyone looking for boat ballast. I used to consult them more than daily. Now I consult them about once a month if that, usually when I find something strikingly bizarre in-project. Google Books has essentially removed any need to consult hard print anymore at least in *my* field. At any rate, about ten years after I had purchased the set, they then came out with the full set on CD. But the catch, just in case people wanted to copy it and sell it or give it away free to their dearest friends, was that you had to also buy this hardware piece of woggle-mucky-mucky-junk whatever, that you plugged into one of your external plugs. Your computer saw that thingie bob, and said Oh you have a legit copy. So they made sure there was no way to get it free. That version had popped down to a measly $250. Of course they didn't have to kill any trees or pay guys to lug 100 pounds of books door-to-door to sell it. After they had put their work up online, they realized that their ad revenue wasn't tip-top and to try to lure bloggers, they started giving away FREE subscriptions to online content creators. The details weren't clear, so I applied, and they gave me one. So I have been able to read the online content for free for a while, their intent being that I should cite, in my writings, to their articles, and thus get more people to click over into their content. Obviously to drive their ad revenue. But does this work? One of the rather interesting problems with that is, I don't mind citing the EB for main references, but in today's world, we frequently cite many inline citations to incidental things: Yesterday in [[Arkansas]], a [[serial killer]] was apprehended declaring that she was driven by insanity and the prevalence of online [[pornography]]. When citing in-project we can easily use the double-brackets, but when writing off-project, we have to cite to the full URL. So what does Wikipedia allow for this? URLs like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/serial_killer What does EB use for this? URLs like http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/34888/Arkansas another dumb move on their part. I'm not going to *actually look up* the URL for every incidental article citation. Our project makes it easy to create incidental citations, because you don't have to actually *search* out each one. Will Johnson ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
David Gerard wrote: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/22/1336241 I found this anonymous Slashdot comment interesting: === That's exactly the problem, and one which the Britannica guy doesn't get. I'm only minimally interested in what some expert at Britannica thinks is the right answer, and a bunch of citations back to the print version of their encyclopedia as justification is useless. [...] Well, to be fair, their previous model (ca. EB1911) was reasonably interesting: get some of the most well-known people in each area to write a broad overview of the area, suitable for general audiences. Opinionated, sure, but the opinion of someone with some claim to be worth reading, generally. The real problem is that they still have the authoritative voice and lack of citations, but no longer manage to recruit suitably authoritative authors to write (and sign) the articles. Even if they did, I'd find Wikipedia more useful for many things, such as getting overviews of fields that have multiple competing viewpoints, and pointers into the literature for further research. But I'd probably read Britannica, too, whereas currently I don't really. -Mark ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Mark wrote: -Even if they did, I'd find Wikipedia more useful for many things, such as getting overviews of fields that have multiple competing viewpoints, and pointers into the literature for further research. But I'd probably read Britannica, too, whereas currently I don't really.- Oh yeah, try to find a Britannica article for each Beatles song and each Pink Floyd song. -- Alvaro ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
the wub wrote Also fom the article: He said the encyclopedia had set a benchmark of a 20-minute turnaround to update the site with user-submitted edits to existing articles That'll probably be faster than us once flagged revisions is switched on (compare with the German expeiment, where backlogs are up to 3 weeks) which should make for an interesting role reversal. (I don't want to derail this thread into arguing about flaggedrevs, just thought it was amusing) Certainly that benchmark is impressive. I have a personal figure of about ten minutes, for how long it takes to add a new researched fact to enWP. Assuming only this is a fact-checking exercise based on Google, it would be quite something for EB to sustain this 24/7. Of course it may be deduced some other way, for example telling employees that they are supposed to vet two dozen submissions in a working day, and rather assuming a good match of employees to time zones. But in any case there would be a question-mark over how things scale. Presumably they are not intending a big expansion of coverage on current affairs? Charles ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 2:04 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: the wub wrote Also from the article: Re-quoting link to article (more comments below): http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/battle-to-outgun-wikipedia-and-google/2009/01/22/1232471469973.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 He said the encyclopedia had set a benchmark of a 20-minute turnaround to update the site with user-submitted edits to existing articles That'll probably be faster than us once flagged revisions is switched on (compare with the German expeiment, where backlogs are up to 3 weeks) which should make for an interesting role reversal. (I don't want to derail this thread into arguing about flaggedrevs, just thought it was amusing) Certainly that benchmark is impressive. I have a personal figure of about ten minutes, for how long it takes to add a new researched fact to enWP. Assuming only this is a fact-checking exercise based on Google, it would be quite something for EB to sustain this 24/7. Of course it may be deduced some other way, for example telling employees that they are supposed to vet two dozen submissions in a working day, and rather assuming a good match of employees to time zones. But in any case there would be a question-mark over how things scale. Presumably they are not intending a big expansion of coverage on current affairs? There may also be a big presumption of rejecting most updates. Their standards may be (almost certainly are) different to ours. Rather than verifiability and sounds OK and has sources (I know, I know...), they may intend to only accept the best updates and the ones that really do improve the articles. They may also be looking for major improvements and additions, rather than incremental improvements. Though doing that in 20 minutes does sound optimistic. A 20-minute turnaround does sound more like a can you copyedit and proofread our articles for us? approach. I guess the only way to find out is to go and suggest different sorts of changes and see what gets accepted. And a fact checking exercise based on Google can be excellent in some areas and useless in others, as we all know already. I really hope EB aren't doing that. Hopefully their fact-checking would involve access to various paid-for databases and a library of books as well. If the book needed can be found quickly (in the same room), 20 minutes is just about doable. If the update is large and books needed are in a remote location, then you would be talking hours and days to update. Would-be editors on the Britannica site will have to register using their real names and addresses before they are allowed to modify or write their own articles. That sounds like an attempt to merge Wikipedia, Knol and Britannica. On something else completely, the comparison isn't direct: Founded in 1994, the Britannica.com's database contains articles comprising more than 46 million words [...] Founded in 2001, Wikipedia is now available in more than 250 languages and attracts about 700 million visitors annually. The English editon alone contains nearly 2.7 million articles. Britannica is 46 million words. Do we know how many *words* Wikipedia is? How many *articles* Britannica is? Carcharoth PS. That's an *awful* picture of Jimmy! :-) ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
2009/1/22 Keith Old keith...@gmail.com: In a move to take on Wikipedia, the *Encyclopedia Britannica* is inviting the hoi polloi to edit, enhance and contribute to its online version. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/22/1336241 I found this anonymous Slashdot comment interesting: === That's exactly the problem, and one which the Britannica guy doesn't get. I'm only minimally interested in what some expert at Britannica thinks is the right answer, and a bunch of citations back to the print version of their encyclopedia as justification is useless. It's the plethora of sources in the Wikipedia articles that are most valuable. I know the Wikipedia article is a cobbled together opinion that might be worthless and even wrong. So what? I can read the cited sources and form my own opinion, an option which Britannica doesn't really offer. They think they are their own authority and that their readers can end their investigation there because of the high quality. Sorry, that's stupid. Real research doesn't work that way. The days of proof by authority are rapidly fading. [Citation needed] is the way that real science has always worked, and most other subjects. You figure it out for yourself by reviewing what has already been done, and you back up your claims. It isn't perfect, but it is much better than no citations or because we're Britannica! Even if Britannica does pop up in Google's search results I usually don't bother looking, because I know it probably won't tell me anything I don't already know. Meanwhile the Wikipedia article probably cites the most relevant and recent papers, and maybe even has a link to a PDF of it or another relevant website. I can dig deeper. The citations are weak in Britannica. Google's ranking is appropriate because it reflects the fact that people link to the Wikipedia articles more, probably because those articles really are more useful as a starting point for research. === - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Do we know how many *words* Wikipedia is? Current estimate on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes is 1,178,620,320 words (1.2 billion), although that's based on a words per article count from October 2006 when the statistics program exploded. How many *articles* Britannica is? Um... 4? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA512 On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 12:20 AM, wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEAREKAAYFAkl4kr4ACgkQvpDo5Pfl1oKbEQCcC5i02/SXa2EgSuncpVydj+h2 9jkAniovyrPUW4o0MW5Xl1kCvy50afRD =hWcx -END PGP SIGNATURE- In a message dated 1/21/2009 9:17:31 PM Pacific Standard Time, larsen.thoma...@gmail.com writes: * free—as in the sense of freedom, not necessarily in the sense of beer; * reliable—in other words, accurate, coherent, and neutral; and * global—that is, multilingual and written by a diverse, broad group of people. Britannica might be reliable, and it might become slightly global, but it is not yet multilingual and it isn't free. - What evidence do you have that an encyclopedia must be free? Society has existed for a few thousand years without a free encyclopedia. A statement trivially true. Society has also existed for a few thousand years without copyright, period. -- gwern ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
G'day folks, From the Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/biztech/battle-to-outgun-wikipedia-and-google/2009/01/22/1232471469973.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1 In a move to take on Wikipedia, the *Encyclopedia Britannica* is inviting the hoi polloi to edit, enhance and contribute to its online version. New features enabling the inclusion of this user-generated content will be rolled out on the encyclopedia's website over the next 24 hours, * Britannica's* president, Jorge Cauz, said in an interview today. (More in story) Regards Keith Old ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
In a message dated 1/21/2009 8:04:30 PM Pacific Standard Time, keith...@gmail.com writes: New features enabling the inclusion of this user-generated content will be rolled out on the encyclopedia's website over the next 24 hours, * Britannica's* president, Jorge Cauz, said in an interview today. (More in story) - I had sent him a scathing email denigrating him for not allowing direct user edits. For some time, they allowed you to *email* them additions and corrections, and I pointed out how ridiculously last decade that was. And how if they don't shape up ...like now dude they would be history. Buried by Wikipedia. I notice they didn't mention my name in that article however. Shameless! Will Johnson **From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay up-to-date with the latest news. (http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom0023) ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Well, they can do what they like. But because of that, Wikipedia will remain more popular and wider in scope and depth than Brittanica 2.0. On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 8:07 PM, wjhon...@aol.com wrote: In a message dated 1/21/2009 8:04:30 PM Pacific Standard Time, keith...@gmail.com writes: New features enabling the inclusion of this user-generated content will be rolled out on the encyclopedia's website over the next 24 hours, * Britannica's* president, Jorge Cauz, said in an interview today. (More in story) - I had sent him a scathing email denigrating him for not allowing direct user edits. For some time, they allowed you to *email* them additions and corrections, and I pointed out how ridiculously last decade that was. And how if they don't shape up ...like now dude they would be history. Buried by Wikipedia. I notice they didn't mention my name in that article however. Shameless! Will Johnson **From Wall Street to Main Street and everywhere in between, stay up-to-date with the latest news. (http://aol.com?ncid=emlcntaolcom0023 ) ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l -- Whether you can or can't, any way you are correct. - Henry Ford ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
In a message dated 1/21/2009 9:01:13 PM Pacific Standard Time, wikipedianmarl...@gmail.com writes: Well, they can do what they like. But because of that, Wikipedia will remain more popular and wider in scope and depth than Brittanica 2.0. What they are saying *now* is that they are going to allow this. Not that they're not. **A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/10075x1215855013x1201028747/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=De cemailfooterNO62) ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
There are three things _any_ encyclopedia must be: * free—as in the sense of freedom, not necessarily in the sense of beer; * reliable—in other words, accurate, coherent, and neutral; and * global—that is, multilingual and written by a diverse, broad group of people. Britannica might be reliable, and it might become slightly global, but it is not yet multilingual and it isn't free. —Thomas Larsen ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
In a message dated 1/21/2009 9:17:31 PM Pacific Standard Time, larsen.thoma...@gmail.com writes: * free—as in the sense of freedom, not necessarily in the sense of beer; * reliable—in other words, accurate, coherent, and neutral; and * global—that is, multilingual and written by a diverse, broad group of people. Britannica might be reliable, and it might become slightly global, but it is not yet multilingual and it isn't free. - What evidence do you have that an encyclopedia must be free? Society has existed for a few thousand years without a free encyclopedia. **A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/10075x1215855013x1201028747/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=De cemailfooterNO62) ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
I think Thomas there is some room for an encyclopedia which is written entirely by experts, and has no room for the input of commoners. However with Wikipedia online, that room isn't the internet. But when you buy a print encyclopedia like Encyclopedia of Creepy Places to Visit... you don't want to read along and then encounter This spooky house in DesMoines is where you're a fag fag fag six murders occurred. Wikipedia has changed the internet, but most of the lives of most people are lived off line. Will Johnson **A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/10075x1215855013x1201028747/aol?redir=http://www.freecreditreport.com/pm/default.aspx?sc=668072%26hmpgID=62%26bcd=De cemailfooterNO62) ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Hi Will, On 1/22/09, wjhon...@aol.com wjhon...@aol.com wrote: I think Thomas there is some room for an encyclopedia which is written entirely by experts, and has no room for the input of commoners. However with Wikipedia online, that room isn't the internet. But when you buy a print encyclopedia like Encyclopedia of Creepy Places to Visit... you don't want to read along and then encounter This spooky house in DesMoines is where you're a fag fag fag six murders occurred. Wikipedia has changed the internet, but most of the lives of most people are lived off line. Will Johnson Wow, this is the first time somebody has actually agreed with me on this! :-) No, I'm only kidding, but it's pleasant and refreshing to see that somebody supports the idea of getting experts actively involved in writing an encyclopedia. I don't hate Britannica, but they could do with being more open, global, and diverse, like Citizendium. Citizendium is too bureaucratic for my taste, though, while I find Wikipedia too open; hence, I recently co-founded Epistemia (http://epistemia.org/). —Thomas Larsen ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0
Yes it's nice to be the king. -Original Message- From: Thomas Larsen larsen.thoma...@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 9:39 pm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Watch out Wikipedia, here comes Britannica 2.0 Hi Will, On 1/22/09, wjhon...@aol.com wjhon...@aol.com wrote: I think Thomas there is some room for an encyclopedia which is written entirely by experts, and has no room for the input of commoners. However with Wikipedia online, that room isn't the internet. But when you buy a print encyclopedia like Encyclopedia of Creepy Places to Visit... you don't want to read along and then encounter This spooky house in DesMoines is where you're a fag fag fag six murders occurred. Wikipedia has changed the internet, but most of the lives of most people are lived off line. Will Johnson Wow, this is the first time somebody has actually agreed with me on this! :-) No, I'm only kidding, but it's pleasant and refreshing to see that somebody supports the idea of getting experts actively involved in writing an encyclopedia. I don't hate Britannica, but they could do with being more open, global, and diverse, like Citizendium. Citizendium is too bureaucratic for my taste, though, while I find Wikipedia too open; hence, I recently co-founded Epistemia (http://epistemia.org/). —Thomas Larsen _ __ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
