The Wall Street Journal online hosted a debate between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Dale Hoiberg, the editor-in-chief of Encyclopaedia Britannica. I've included a brief excerpt (in which Jimmy Wales lays the smackdown on Dale Hoiberg) below:
Mr. Hoiberg: No, we don't publish rough drafts. We want our articles to be correct before they are published. We stand behind our process, based on trained editors and fact-checkers, more than 4,000 experts, and sound writing. Our model works well. Wikipedia is very different, but nothing in their model suggests we should change what we do.
Mr. Wales: Fitting words for an epitaph…
The debate makes for a very interesting read. Wikipedia's popularity has certainly left a sour taste in Britannica's mouth. What do you all think of the debate? Is there a clear winner? Does Britannica look musty and fuddy-duddy in the era of user-generated content? Or is Wikipedia striking out while at bat in the big leagues? Have you gotten sick of my metaphors yet?
About rebecca —
Rebecca Kelley is the content marketing manager for Intego, a Mac software company. She also guest-blogs/freelances at various places and runs a couple hobby blogs for shits and giggles.
The last buggy whip manufacturer in the world was probably one of the best as well. Nevertheless, I sure wouldn't have wanted to have held stock in that company. Neither would I consider investing in Britannica unless management considers the future of the information landscape and adjusts their service accordingly.
As far as accuracy is concerned, Britannica may well have its dates and names verified for historical articles. And, they make no bones about not serving 'news', so not publishing until all the facts are verified should not logically be a problem for them either.
The problem lies in that they still present history from a fairly exclusively Eurocentric viewpoint, making them no more accurate than Wikipedia, their one “claim to fame”. While names and dates may not be edited for accuracy, Wikipedia offers a more global input, providing a larger view of events in history, as well as a far broader range of information than one will find in the Britannica. So we have a “draw’….
But in the final analysis, Wikipedia is free. Check mate.
Britannica is not. Where is the world getting their info? SHOULD they be? Perhaps not, but that doesn't help pay the bills at the end of the month, Britannica, now does it?
*On a side note, Britannica owns significant amounts of urban real estate in some very expensive cities around the globe. They are still selling subscriptions to corporations, universities, public libraries and private individuals. So they are not ‘dead in the water.’ And, by the way, they do not appear to offer stock at all; they are privately held, so far as I can determine. (Britannica is not very forthcoming about their vesting or profits, so it’s hard to say). Surprisingly, even Wikipedia doesn’t have corporate info about this gentle giant of yester-year’s academic experience.
Britannica was at one time on the cutting edge of online information delivery - but they never made the leap into truly understanding online user engagement. They got stuck in beautiful high-end infographics, which are lovely but hold a finite lifespan of interest if you can't make them your own.
Gillian, right on with the buggy whip analogy. I remember interviewing for a job in their interactive business unit in 2001. Like many products in the early days of the consumer Internet, they failed to create a sustainable business model. Only instead of continuing to test the waters and find the right recipe, they pulled funding and laid off most of the interactive staff. Fear is the eternal enemy of progress.
Britannica is right in many ways. I believe in editorial oversight and fact checking. The missing ingredient? They haven't figured out how to involve customers in their product or to leverage the massive number of people who are willing to create content for free about topics that they're passionate about.
ooooohhhhh, them's fighting words. Rumble at the Wall Street Journal!
It's interesting for Mr. Hoiberg to say that they don't need to change their model, when I know more people who can cite Wikipedia rather then Encyclopedia Britannica. More people have access to Wikipedia rather then a full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica that just happens to be lying around their apartment.
But, with other replies to this post, it is an old and tired debate.
I just loved it when Hoiberg got miffed that Wales used some links. The ability to directly steer people towards a relevant source of information is one of the things that makes the Internet great!
I'm more then a bit tired of the debate, but personally, I do like the fact that Wikipedia has made people more critical in general of what they read and the facts they get. I'm hoping that by looking at the data provided by Wikipedia and realizing its source, users will start to make the connection that not every research source is 100% trustworthy and apply that across the outlets they get content from.
I agree that it's the same old song and dance, but, like you, I hope that people understand that it's a good source for getting a basic grasp of what a particular thing is vs. reading too deeply into each entry and understanding them as verified fact.