Boing Boing: Why Wikipedia works, and how the Britannica bully got it wrong:
Aaron Krowne has written a stunning refutation of [Robert] McHenry’s piece and published it in Free Software Magazine. This thoroughgoing debunking not only shows how shoddy McHenry’s reasoning is, but it actually goes some way toward a general theory of why and how Wikipedia-like projects fail or thrive. Best article I’ve read all week.
The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him…
What would McHenry’s metaphor apply more fittingly to?
Why, a traditional print encyclopedia, of course. If I wanted to analyze an arbitrary Britannica article’s evolution over time (for example), I’d have to somehow acquire the entire back catalog of the Britannica (assuming older editions can even be purchased), presumably reserve a sizeable warehouse to store them all, and block out a few days or so of my time to manually make the comparison.
Even the electronic forms of traditional encyclopedias are sure to be lacking such reviewability features. This makes sense, as public reviewability would be embarrassing to traditional content creators.
Some may remember the schoolboy who found errors in the latest edition of Britannica . . .
BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Boy brings encyclopaedia to book (
75):
A schoolboy has uncovered several mistakes in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica – regarded by readers as an authority on everything.
Lucian George, 12, from north London, found five errors on two of his favourite subjects – central Europe and wildlife – and wrote to complain.
The book’s editor wrote back thanking him for “pointing out several errors and misleading statements”.
My guess is that he encountered a different editor: I don’t see McHenry admitting to an error, based on what his article in Flack Tech Central Station said.