The End of Encylopedia Britannica

[Edward]

That survey, however, was done five years ago. It'd be interesting to see how well it stacks up today. Someone in one of the articles on the demise of Britannica suggested the longer Wilkipedia goes on the more unqualified people become involved with it -- "One qualified person alongside twenty teenage idiots is the same thing as twenty-one teenage idiots."

Well, that's the thing. For what I have used it for in the past myself, I find Wikipedia to be an excellent resource, but it is certainly far from perfect in every area - plus, the nature of the beast is such that we have no guarantee of accuracy. I would never accept it cited as an academic source (though that said, when used in a relevant way as a primary research material, it can still be relevant). This is where brands like the EB will find their long term niche: among those prepared to pay for the guarantee that a trusted brand brings with its content.

EB is more a Time Out guide, while Wikipedia accessed via a tablet is the nearst thing we'll ever see to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Don't forget this important piece:

"Encyclopaedia Britannica will focus primarily on its online encyclopedias...About half a million households pay a $70 annual fee for the online subscription, which includes access to the full database of articles, videos, original documents and to the company’s mobile applications..."

Now I'm accused of being a Luddite about 6 days a week...and yeah, it's kinda true. But what happens when a an electromagnetic pulse knocks out all computer technology on a bad day? Or when a tyrannical government censors the internet? Or eletricity can't be easily obtained? Just sayin'...

A business which relies on the availability of its content will have all sorts of backup and storage contingency plans already in place at all times. Anything that knocks out the web entirely (remember the nature and design purpose of its Arpanet forerunner....) will leave us all in a situation where access to an online ecyclopaedia is the least of our worries.... Government ensorship is finding it harder and harder to stymie the web. These days, my bigger concern is the unaccountable censorship by voluntary industry bodies or corporations such as Apple.

 

[dhermann1]

I read an article a while back (wish I could find it, but I can't) that said they fact checked a bunch of EB articles vis a vis a similar number of Wiki articles, and found comparable numbers of errors in both. The EB may have had big names in the past to write their articles, but over the years they relied more and more on overworked University of Chicago grad students, and the like, for their authors. The more harried and spread thin researshers are, and most researchers are that way across the board, the more spotty their research can become.
I don't want to set up Wiki vs, EB on any odious comparison basis. I love them both, in different ways. But Wiki I think is more maligned than it deserves to be.
Anytime you do research you need to rely on varied sources. And if you're computer literate, or web literate, or just plain literate, you learn to smell fishy info when you encounter it. Caveat emptor. Or what ever the Latin is for "researcher".

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's the whole issue all the way down the line, from wiki vs. encyclopedia to newspaper vs. blog -- accountability. When I open the Britannica I know there's accountability -- when I look at Wiki, how do I know there's accountability? I know that when I look at articles on topics where I'm knowledgeable I'm sure to find errors, sometimes some real screamers -- and if I go in and change it, ten to one the next time I visit I'll see things changed back to the way they were, or changed to something even more outrageously wrong. (I've even seen this happen in wiki articles where my own published writings have been cited as references!)

With a printed encyclopedia you know a qualified editor has had the final say. There's never that need to go thru eight pages of talk and past revisions to see whether or not you can trust it.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I'm glad I'm not the only one here who's seen his well-intentioned additions to Wiki articles subsequently removed for no good reason!

BTW, put me down as another one who browsed volumes of our 1962 edition of the World Book endlessly in my youth. There's no question that a big chunk of my wildly eclectic knowledge came from that, not to mention the habit of browsing reference sources for fun that's still a central component of my personality.

 

[Fly Boy]

I had similar wikipedia editing experiences and now avoid the irksome place.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Then there were the old Encyclopedia Britannica films from the '40s and '50s. I remember they were still showing them at school in the 1970s.

[video=youtube;rDlwR62Arks]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDlwR62Arks[/video]

[video=youtube;o1ERyso5DDM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ERyso5DDM&feature=fvsr[/video]

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

I had similar wikipedia editing experiences and now avoid the irksome place.

I've dealt with the same - particularly when I was trying to edit the page on Prien where it concerned the alleged collision with the San Francisco ship. I kept changing it only to find it being changed back and I had asked one of the other folks there editing the page why this was, because I had even emailed the HAPAG (now HAPAG-Lloyd) company about this incident (of which there were no records of it - and there would have been) - that it never happened. So there was no collision, no incident regarding having to have gone to the maritime court or anything. But because it was 'original research' I couldn't put that in. That really irked me.

Apparently there are only certain types of research you can put into the site and I was told specifically which types - unfortunately 'original research' is not one of them.

 

[sheeplady]

That's the whole issue all the way down the line, from wiki vs. encyclopedia to newspaper vs. blog -- accountability. When I open the Britannica I know there's accountability -- when I look at Wiki, how do I know there's accountability? I know that when I look at articles on topics where I'm knowledgeable I'm sure to find errors, sometimes some real screamers -- and if I go in and change it, ten to one the next time I visit I'll see things changed back to the way they were, or changed to something even more outrageously wrong. (I've even seen this happen in wiki articles where my own published writings have been cited as references!)

With a printed encyclopedia you know a qualified editor has had the final say. There's never that need to go thru eight pages of talk and past revisions to see whether or not you can trust it.

I think it is less the format of the internet and more the decreased standards to which individuals in these professions are held. Journalism certainly isn't what it used to be.

 

[1961MJS]

... I know that when I look at articles on topics where I'm knowledgeable I'm sure to find errors, sometimes some real screamers -- and if I go in and change it, ten to one the next time I visit I'll see things changed back to the way they were, or changed to something even more outrageously wrong. (I've even seen this happen in wiki articles where my own published writings have been cited as references!)
...

Hi Lizzie

I'm SURE that I would demand that they take down any reference to my work if they were ms-quoting or misusing it. I use Wikipedia quite a bit, but I'm always a bit skeptical about what I read.

later

 

[LizzieMaine]

They get the quotes right -- but it's the other stuff they ball up. People go into these articles and add all kinds irrelevant, trivial-pursuit type factoids that turn what could have been a decent piece into an ungodly mess, and a good part of the time the factoids are wrong. I've given up trying to police anything they do -- I don't do professional writing and editing for free, and that's what a site like that needs.

 

[John in Covina]

All editions are being recalled by the Ministry of Truth for corrections! :eusa_doh:

 

[Feraud]

That's the whole issue all the way down the line, from wiki vs. encyclopedia to newspaper vs. blog -- accountability.

Accountablility and the internet is a problem.
People want (or are being told they want) information so fast that accountabliity will suffer. The internet mindset of, "I want it now and I want it free" makes for a mess of how information and entertainment is dispersed.

 

[Cricket]

I actually had a conversation along these lines with a gentleman while I was covering the elections for our paper. I can remember being a high school student and a college student and actually getting excited to research at the library. Using the Encyclopedia was my go-to source for the majority of my fundamental research.

I knew things were about to change when I was in college. I noticed only a few of us had book sources with our major papers. That was in 2003-2004. Even though it has only been a few years, I wonder what the trend is now?

 

[LizzieMaine]

That's the thing that bugs me most, the whole "information must be free" mantra. *WHY* must information be free? Does that mean the people who provide that information aren't entitled to compensation for the effort it takes to uncover, process, and prepare that information?

Just another example of consumerist values masquerading as a noble cause. There isn't a butcher's window in the world big enough to display that much baloney.

 

[Edward]

I've dealt with the same - particularly when I was trying to edit the page on Prien where it concerned the alleged collision with the San Francisco ship. I kept changing it only to find it being changed back and I had asked one of the other folks there editing the page why this was, because I had even emailed the HAPAG (now HAPAG-Lloyd) company about this incident (of which there were no records of it - and there would have been) - that it never happened. So there was no collision, no incident regarding having to have gone to the maritime court or anything. But because it was 'original research' I couldn't put that in. That really irked me.

Apparently there are only certain types of research you can put into the site and I was told specifically which types - unfortunately 'original research' is not one of them.

The answer is probably to put it in a web page elsewhere, and then cite the page. I presume they are trying to require people in general to not post stuff with no source to verify, but that certainly isn't going to favour those with reliable, useful primary research.

I knew things were about to change when I was in college. I noticed only a few of us had book sources with our major papers. That was in 2003-2004. Even though it has only been a few years, I wonder what the trend is now?

It is much more common now. At one time only or mostly citing online sources was regarded as a sign of a student far too lazy to go to the library. There is still an element of that, but as the availability of reliable, online academic sources has improved, they are often a superior way of accessing much more up to date material (especially primary resources such as government consultation papers, court judgements and so on). At least that is the case in my own field (law).

 

[Undertow]

...There isn't a butcher's window in the world big enough to display that much baloney.

lol

That really brightened up the day!

 

[sheeplady]

The tax payers pay for research to be produced through federal grants. Much of the actual data gets locked away and never sees the light of day. Then (a few of) the publishers hold the publications in which these results are held charge such high prices for libraries to get access that it's basically a ransom. So the taxpayers pay twice and never actually see the data in most cases.

I'm specifically talking about the US here, but information certainly isn't free.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Speaking as one who writes and researches professionally, I have never seen a penny of Federal money. I have, however, had an article or three in a published encyclopedia, which paid me for my work. It's pretty clear where my sympathies are going to lie.

 

[The Lonely Navigator]

The answer is probably to put it in a web page elsewhere, and then cite the page. I presume they are trying to require people in general to not post stuff with no source to verify, but that certainly isn't going to favour those with reliable, useful primary research.

Well when I was discussing this particular situation, I asked one of the main contributors about citing my U-Boat Site (after all they listed u47.org's site and much of the biography the author had there was based on the horrendous ghost written book 'Mein Weg' so as far as biographical stuff went, that wasn't very reliable) - the contributor stated something about my site being all first hand research (he saw it and thought it was really good) but I still wasn't permitted to add it or couldn't add it. I then asked why this was because the u47.org site is all first hand research done by someone just like mine was...never got any direct answer.

So what I did was just incorporate (integrate) all of my historical research that I needed into my current blog. I still have the other stuff I found, but it's not integrated with my blog.

 

[sheeplady]

I think that's great Lizzie. Most publishers are good, but the few that use the pricing models I mentioned are absolutely not kind to those that publish in them or to the general public. We're talking about massive amounts of money that are unreasonable compared to other publishers. Strange and slick pricing models for their serials, and charging authors to get published (in excessive amounts) all under the threat of being the "best publication." And if someone is getting federal money to do their research, we are paying for all of that.

Quite frankly, while I have no problem with paying for a publication (in a reasonable amount), I do think that datasets from federally grant funded research should be publicly available. A good publisher knows that the data set is worthless without the interpretation from the researcher (the article itself) and publishing the data set actually boosts the popularity and citation of their articles. Many reputable journals already ask researchers to do this. Most of the publication of data sets is delayed until after publication of the article or delayed for a period of time set by the researcher to prevent getting "scooped." Making the data set publicly available also encourages others to work with the data set, getting way more value from the data, and that makes the federal money spent so much more useful to society.