The elusive Rick Mansfield, who according to Iyov is planning a comeback in the near future, is a big fan of the Britannica for all the reasons that he doesn’t like Wikipedia. In fact, he and I had an extended debate about this a couple of years ago (I won, by the way).
The latest news should put the nail in the coffin of elitist information sources forever:
As I understand it, the post Britannica’s New Site: More Participation, Collaboration from Experts and Readers basically announces that the Wikipedia model has so much going for it that Britannica has to adopt elements from its greatest rival’s method of working.
Oh, that is just delicious.
Will hordes of information hungry surfers now be heading to Britannica for their bits of trivia? Probably not. But Britannica might be able to be Pepsi to Wikipedia’s Coke. Seriously, I think what Britannica is proposing is a great model. It’s something we are looking at in Africa for online dictionaries. There needs to be a way to encourage collective knowledge-sharing while also maintaining editorial integrity. Until now Wikipedia and Britannica have represented opposite poles. Britannica is moving toward the center. The question is, can Wikipedia move as well?
Here’s a great article by Rick on this subject: Is the Wikipedia the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
Here are some of my old posts on this topic:
