The Wikipedia vs. Britannica Debate
- 1768. The Encyclopaedia Britannica is founded. Today it
is a privately-held, for profit, company. Note the spelling. A convenient
source of information, ironically, about the Encyclopaedia
Britannica is the Wikipedia.
You can see an "annoying ad" for
the Encyclopaedia Britannica on YouTube.
- 2001. Jimmy Wales founds the Wikipedia. According to
its own article, "Wikipedia," "Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based free content encyclopedia project.
The name Wikipedia is a blend of the words wiki and encyclopedia.
Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers, allowing most articles
to be changed by almost anyone with access to the website." Note the
disclaimer at the at the top of this article: "Because of recent vandalism
or other disruption, editing of this article by unregistered or newly
registered users is currently disabled."
- 15 November 2004. Robert McHenry, former Editor in Chief of
the Encyclopaedia Britannica, publishes "The Faith-Based
Encyclopedia" on TCS Daily.*
- 15 December 2005. Nature publishes an article by Jim
Giles, "Internet
encyclopaedias go head to head." Nature 438, 900-901.
- March 2006. Encyclopaedia Britannica publishes a
20-page article, "Fatally Flawed. Refuting the recent study on
encyclopedic accuracy by the journal Nature" (available as a PDF file).
- 30 March 2006. Nature responds in an editorial.
- 31 March 2006. The editors and the board of directors of Encyclopaedia Britannica print a half-page ad, "An Open Letter to the
Publisher of Nature," in the New York Times, p. A19. As Ray Cha,
the author of a posting in the Future of
the Book blog, points out about this ad, "Several interesting things
are going on here. Because Britannica chose to place an ad in the Times,
it shifted the argument and debate away from the peer review / editorial
context into one of rhetoric and public relations. Further, their
conscious move to take the argument to the 'public' or the 'masses' with
an open letter is ironic because the New York Times does not display its
print ads online, therefore access to the letter is limited to the Time's
print readership. (Not to mention, the letter is addressed to the Nature
Publishing Group located in London.)"
- n.d. Nature responds to the ad with a 3-page PDF file point-by-point rebuttal.
- The controversy continues, for example, on the "Colbert
Report." As Ray Cha sensibly observes, "The main point is that
Wikipedia works amazingly well and contains articles that Britannica never
will. It is a revolutionary way to collaboratively share knowledge. That
we should give consideration to the source of our information we
encounter, be it the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia, Nature or the
New York Times, is nothing new."
