Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
That's great. It might be valuable to share notes on collaborations between old-school encyclopedic media groups and Wikipedians in various countries. I see a few classes of collabs possible * between traditional editing teams and Wikipedians. These teams, including those being laid off by brockhaus, have tremendous history/experience/tradecraft in how to organize workflows, track sources, follow updates year by year to a topic, and find new experts to provide overviews and novel writing. Generally these experts are not paid much - IME that is not the core expense of maintaining even traditional encyclos. Work together to find ways to help WP benefit from these practices -- and find a new way for lifelong encyclopedists to continue contributing to world knowledge even as their jobs change * between chief editors and Wikipedian masses. Reassess the merit of "the value of an encyclopedia is what it leaves out, not what it puts in". what does that mean now for multimedia encyclos with multi-DVD sets? What did it ever mean for mega-encyclos? How can we provide high-quality top-level overviews while continuing to expand the quantity & quality of detail? How to coordinate what are effectively focused subject-specific encyclos and WP as a whole? how important are the value judgements being made by each group producing a limited edition for DVD / iPod / OLPC / print? what audiences don't find their needs met yet? * between content archivists and Wikimedia : freeing archives for public use. There are a few degrees to this : access/reuse of indexes, access/reuse of summaries//data templates//thumbnails, access/reuse of full text & multimedia. This works in two ways -- WM can be a world leader in providing accurate and high-visibility attribution of its sources [something the projects currently are poor at - contribute text or media to WM and you get an almost negligible mention]. SJ On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 7:29 AM, Mathias Schindler wrote: > On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 12:23 AM, Samuel Klein wrote: >> Do we know people at Arvato? SJ > > Yes (more precisely: at Wissen Media and at InmediaOne] ) > > Mathias > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > > ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 12:23 AM, Samuel Klein wrote: > Do we know people at Arvato? SJ Yes (more precisely: at Wissen Media and at InmediaOne] ) Mathias ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
Do we know people at Arvato? SJ On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 6:06 PM, Mathias Schindler wrote: > On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:21 PM, David Gerard wrote: > >> Eek! What's happening to the content? >> > > There are/were several ways to access the content of the actual core > Brockhaus encyclopedia: > > 1. Buy the book. 30 volumes, 2700€ - 3100€, depending on your payment > plan: http://www.brockhaus.de/enzyklopaedie/aufeinenblick/bestellen.php > > 2. Buy the "USB stick edition": 1500 €. no longer being sold. > > 3. Pay per view via munzinger.de > http://munzinger.de/search/query?f=query&qid=query-12 > > 4. online subscription to brockhaus-enzyklopaedie.de. There was never > an end user license for this web site. end users had to buy 1. or 2. > (see above) to get access to this site until 31/12/2010. > > 5. Get the content (or a very similar kind encyclopedia) from > http://lexikon.meyers.de, which is the second encyclopedia brand name > at BIFAB AG. BIFAB has announced to shut down all encyclopedia related > activities and has said that the content at lexikon.meyers.de is > largely taken from Brockhaus substance so that they are unable to > continue this service. Hence we have to assume that lexikon.meyers.de > is going to be shut down in the next 39 days. > > From an online perspective, it is unlikely to get any worse. The > poorly visible Brockhaus encyclopedia text might re-appear under > different brand names in other places. Or other content might appear > under a Brockhaus brand. All questions to save or use or release the > content from the Brockhaus encyclopedia would have to be directed to > Arvato/Wissen media group. > > Mathias > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > > ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:21 PM, David Gerard wrote: > Eek! What's happening to the content? > There are/were several ways to access the content of the actual core Brockhaus encyclopedia: 1. Buy the book. 30 volumes, 2700€ - 3100€, depending on your payment plan: http://www.brockhaus.de/enzyklopaedie/aufeinenblick/bestellen.php 2. Buy the "USB stick edition": 1500 €. no longer being sold. 3. Pay per view via munzinger.de http://munzinger.de/search/query?f=query&qid=query-12 4. online subscription to brockhaus-enzyklopaedie.de. There was never an end user license for this web site. end users had to buy 1. or 2. (see above) to get access to this site until 31/12/2010. 5. Get the content (or a very similar kind encyclopedia) from http://lexikon.meyers.de, which is the second encyclopedia brand name at BIFAB AG. BIFAB has announced to shut down all encyclopedia related activities and has said that the content at lexikon.meyers.de is largely taken from Brockhaus substance so that they are unable to continue this service. Hence we have to assume that lexikon.meyers.de is going to be shut down in the next 39 days. >From an online perspective, it is unlikely to get any worse. The poorly visible Brockhaus encyclopedia text might re-appear under different brand names in other places. Or other content might appear under a Brockhaus brand. All questions to save or use or release the content from the Brockhaus encyclopedia would have to be directed to Arvato/Wissen media group. Mathias ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/23 Mathias Schindler :
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 11:06 PM, David Gerard wrote:
>> Britannica is notoriously antagonistic toward Wikipedia in its
>> advertising, but Brockhaus for instance isn't anywhere near as
>> obnoxious (they're not *fans* of Wikipedia, but they have more class
>> than to trash a perceived competitor the way Britannica try to). What
>> other important language encyclopedias of comparable renown are there?
> Well. The BIFAB AG (Bibliographic Institute & F. A. Brockhaus inc.)
> has announced last week ("happy x-mas") to sell the usage rights and
> brand name of "Brockhaus" to Bertelsmann (section Arvato, subsection
> inmedia one, business unit wissen media Group). The remaining staff of
> 60 editors of Brockhaus at Leipzig was not bought and will receive
> pink slips.
> Brockhaus might be transformed into an "imprint" of various content
> for door-2-door sales people.
Eek! What's happening to the content?
- d.
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 11:06 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> Britannica is notoriously antagonistic toward Wikipedia in its
> advertising, but Brockhaus for instance isn't anywhere near as
> obnoxious (they're not *fans* of Wikipedia, but they have more class
> than to trash a perceived competitor the way Britannica try to). What
> other important language encyclopedias of comparable renown are there?
Well. The BIFAB AG (Bibliographic Institute & F. A. Brockhaus inc.)
has announced last week ("happy x-mas") to sell the usage rights and
brand name of "Brockhaus" to Bertelsmann (section Arvato, subsection
inmedia one, business unit wissen media Group). The remaining staff of
60 editors of Brockhaus at Leipzig was not bought and will receive
pink slips.
Brockhaus might be transformed into an "imprint" of various content
for door-2-door sales people.
Mathias
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
David Gerard wrote:
> 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
>
>> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling
>> wrote:
>>
>
>
>>> The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
>>> javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()
>>>
>
>
>> Thanks! It works well :)
>>
>
>
> They called the function "upsell"? *facepalm* Wikipedia doesn't need
> to do anything to compete with Britannica, just leave them to collapse
> under the weight of their own ineptitude.
>
> We should probably run a large public "Save Britannica!" campaign -
> how to save a great historical encyclopedia, second only to the OED as
> one of the great works of Anglophone non-fiction, from its own
> business stupidity. I'm halfway serious. What could we do with a "Save
> Britannica" campaign?
>
> (There are many ways in which it sucks, but it still manages
> *consistent* quality better than en:wp. Better writing, too. A lot of
> us wouldn't be doing this Wikipedia thing if we weren't encyclopedia
> fans in the first place, and that includes Britannica.)
>
>
> - d.
>
>
I don't think you can be more clear than:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/bparchive?year=2006&post=2006-03-24,3
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
David Goodman wrote:
> Upsell is the name of the leading market research company in
> publishing--probably they are the ones who designed it. I'm suprised,
> for they are generally known as competent.
No, that would be upsell as in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up-selling
I'd give you a Britannica reference for that as well, but they don't have it.
They call the box that pops up the upsell, as in
activities: {hideUpsells: "", hideAds: "false", showDivType: ""},
It's also referred to as annoyware:
Darwin.Upsell.init(_config.userDataConfig.annoywareConfig);
The company responsible would be:
var mboxCopyright = "Copyright 2004-2007 Offermatica (tm) Corporation";
a.k.a. http://www.omniture.com/
-- Tim Starling
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
David Gerard wrote: > (A tangential note: I consider NPOV to be our most important > innovation - much more radical than merely letting anyone edit your > encyclopedia. The concept of "neutrality" has existed in various > guises, but not like Wikipedia does it, with the consequences it has > as a source of information for the world.) I guess I don't really agree on this--- it's been the trend in reference works for decades to split tertiary reference material (neutral summaries of scholarly consensus, published as encyclopedias) from critical surveys and novel arguments (published in journals or as non-reference books). The trend was becoming dominant by at least the 1970s I'd say; a good example of the modern encyclopedia in this style is the [[Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire]] (published 1971-1992) which explicitly aims for a neutral summary of scholarly consensus on each of its subjects, which scholars can all use as a reference point. (Where scholars disagree, it simply notes that fact, sometimes summarizing each side's argument.) -Mark ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
I noticed that Britannica is using some creative commons images from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Example: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-art/589288/113374/Courthouse-in-Denton-Texas http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Courthouse_Denton_TX.jpg -Aude ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling wrote: > I checked a larger biography, and it looked complete to me. Note that it > uses ajax to load article sections as you scroll to them, so you have to > scroll up and down the page to trigger all the ajax loads before you can > copy the text out. It even works with Javascript turned off, but then you have to click all the subheadings in the topic box to progress to the next piece of text (which can be just a few lines long). The Javascript version is not very user-friendly too, because you have to stare at the loading animations before you can read the text. -- Hay / Husky ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 Gregory Maxwell : > On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 5:38 PM, David Gerard wrote: >> (A tangential note: I consider NPOV to be our most important >> innovation - much more radical than merely letting anyone edit your >> encyclopedia. The concept of "neutrality" has existed in various >> guises, but not like Wikipedia does it, with the consequences it has >> as a source of information for the world.) > Full agreement. > My view on WP innovations: > (1) NPOV information resource. I'm thinking of things like areas that never got NPOV coverage *ever*. Scientology is a good example - pro-Scientology sources are saccharine and tend to leave out bits of great concern to the critics, and the critical sources have lots of well-sourced information but are so *bitter* they're all but unreadable. en:wp has some of the very best information available on the topic. > (2) Website with a permanent historical record (we're not the first, > but the first popular). What others are there? > (3) Large scale free-content useful reference. I'd put that below "anyone can edit" - (3) wasn't true until the last two or three years. In 2004, when I started, en:wp was a somewhat-useful source on computing topics, but very much one big stub on most things. Now it's actually useful in all sorts of places. (During the recent IWF/[[:en:Virgin Killer]] furore, our crappy work proxy blocked *all* Wikipedia reading because of the block on the page. And we felt the effects, because Wikipedia is such a good first reference work on computing topics.) > (4) Website anyone can edit. > There are all sorts of interdependencies between these and other > differentiators— It's easy to argue that without (4) the rest wouldn't > be possible… but in terms of the lasting impact on society and our own > uniqueness I think those are ordered about right. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 5:38 PM, David Gerard wrote: [snip] > (A tangential note: I consider NPOV to be our most important > innovation - much more radical than merely letting anyone edit your > encyclopedia. The concept of "neutrality" has existed in various > guises, but not like Wikipedia does it, with the consequences it has > as a source of information for the world.) Full agreement. My view on WP innovations: (1) NPOV information resource. (2) Website with a permanent historical record (we're not the first, but the first popular). (3) Large scale free-content useful reference. (4) Website anyone can edit. There are all sorts of interdependencies between these and other differentiators— It's easy to argue that without (4) the rest wouldn't be possible… but in terms of the lasting impact on society and our own uniqueness I think those are ordered about right. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 Tomasz Ganicz : > I don't like guys from Wikmedia projects speaking in some sort of > "supremacy" language. Our goal is to create: "a world in which every > single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." so > if the Britannica or PWN or any other commercial provider of the > knowlegde is making their content free we should be simply happy. And > it is not very clever to say that it is just because they feel the > pressure from us (which in fact might be the true anyway :-) ). They > have many values and advatages which we should still learn from them. Yes. As I said, just because Britannica is rude about Wikipedia is no reason to be rude in return. It's good to see we're catching up in many areas, but they remain the gold standard that en:wp works to in many ways. The Wikipedia writing style is different - Britannica is not NPOV, it's "authoritative" - but at our best we do very well indeed. But at our worst we're still terrible. Lots of work for the future! :-D (A tangential note: I consider NPOV to be our most important innovation - much more radical than merely letting anyone edit your encyclopedia. The concept of "neutrality" has existed in various guises, but not like Wikipedia does it, with the consequences it has as a source of information for the world.) - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 David Gerard : > 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic : > >> Then, I wanted to see what is the value of Britannica; without >> success. It is a "private company" (in US sense of that meaning; >> "public companies" in European sense are just companies owned by some >> local or state government; and in some specific circumstances). It is >> owned by Jacqui Safra, a billionaire [citation needed] [1], who may be >> an interesting partner to WMF. So, if it is not possible to buy it, I >> think that it is possible to make some deal to work together. > > > I don't know. He appears to have bought it to keep it going, as a > valuable entity in itself. > > So maybe what we need to do is talk to him about Wikipedia ;-D > > >> And I think that it shouldn't be just about Britannica. There are a >> lot of high quality encyclopedias all over the world. WMF may think >> about some kind of cooperation with them. It is not possible anymore >> to have encyclopedia as a profitable company, so I think that the >> institutions which own encyclopedias will be more open for >> cooperation; including giving the content under the same license(s) as >> under Wikipedia content is. > > > Britannica is notoriously antagonistic toward Wikipedia in its > advertising, but Brockhaus for instance isn't anywhere near as > obnoxious (they're not *fans* of Wikipedia, but they have more class > than to trash a perceived competitor the way Britannica try to). What > other important language encyclopedias of comparable renown are there? > Well in Poland we have PWN: http://www.pwn.pl/ which actually is quite well in terms of profit it produces. Among them and us it is a kind of gentle "elegancy". They talk about us in a gentle manner, and we about them in the same way :-) In fact for us PWN Polish language vocabulary and their encyclopedia is quite often cited in Wikipedia as a source of "serious knowlege". We even ask their language help-desk to solve some our language/terminology problems and we treat them as a kind of " language oracle" and they are happy to help us. So, we think our advantage is that we are faster and we cover the things they are not interested in, but their advantage is their high level of professional acuracy (at least with language problems) so we can friendly coexist. I don't like guys from Wikmedia projects speaking in some sort of "supremacy" language. Our goal is to create: "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." so if the Britannica or PWN or any other commercial provider of the knowlegde is making their content free we should be simply happy. And it is not very clever to say that it is just because they feel the pressure from us (which in fact might be the true anyway :-) ). They have many values and advatages which we should still learn from them. -- Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 Milos Rancic : > Then, I wanted to see what is the value of Britannica; without > success. It is a "private company" (in US sense of that meaning; > "public companies" in European sense are just companies owned by some > local or state government; and in some specific circumstances). It is > owned by Jacqui Safra, a billionaire [citation needed] [1], who may be > an interesting partner to WMF. So, if it is not possible to buy it, I > think that it is possible to make some deal to work together. I don't know. He appears to have bought it to keep it going, as a valuable entity in itself. So maybe what we need to do is talk to him about Wikipedia ;-D > And I think that it shouldn't be just about Britannica. There are a > lot of high quality encyclopedias all over the world. WMF may think > about some kind of cooperation with them. It is not possible anymore > to have encyclopedia as a profitable company, so I think that the > institutions which own encyclopedias will be more open for > cooperation; including giving the content under the same license(s) as > under Wikipedia content is. Britannica is notoriously antagonistic toward Wikipedia in its advertising, but Brockhaus for instance isn't anywhere near as obnoxious (they're not *fans* of Wikipedia, but they have more class than to trash a perceived competitor the way Britannica try to). What other important language encyclopedias of comparable renown are there? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
Sorry, wrong company name--I was thinking of another one --a truly
competent one, Outsell, that has undoubtedly nothing to do with this
nonsensical method of protection.
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:20 PM, David Goodman wrote:
> Upsell is the name of the leading market research company in
> publishing--probably they are the ones who designed it. I'm suprised,
> for they are generally known as competent.
>
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 3:17 PM, David Gerard wrote:
>> 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
>>> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling
>>> wrote:
>>
The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()
>>
>>> Thanks! It works well :)
>>
>>
>> They called the function "upsell"? *facepalm* Wikipedia doesn't need
>> to do anything to compete with Britannica, just leave them to collapse
>> under the weight of their own ineptitude.
>>
>> We should probably run a large public "Save Britannica!" campaign -
>> how to save a great historical encyclopedia, second only to the OED as
>> one of the great works of Anglophone non-fiction, from its own
>> business stupidity. I'm halfway serious. What could we do with a "Save
>> Britannica" campaign?
>>
>> (There are many ways in which it sucks, but it still manages
>> *consistent* quality better than en:wp. Better writing, too. A lot of
>> us wouldn't be doing this Wikipedia thing if we weren't encyclopedia
>> fans in the first place, and that includes Britannica.)
>>
>>
>> - d.
>>
>> ___
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
>
>
>
> --
> David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
>
--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 9:17 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
>> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling
>> wrote:
>
>>> The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
>>> javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()
>
>> Thanks! It works well :)
>
>
> They called the function "upsell"? *facepalm* Wikipedia doesn't need
> to do anything to compete with Britannica, just leave them to collapse
> under the weight of their own ineptitude.
>
> We should probably run a large public "Save Britannica!" campaign -
> how to save a great historical encyclopedia, second only to the OED as
> one of the great works of Anglophone non-fiction, from its own
> business stupidity. I'm halfway serious. What could we do with a "Save
> Britannica" campaign?
>
> (There are many ways in which it sucks, but it still manages
> *consistent* quality better than en:wp. Better writing, too. A lot of
> us wouldn't be doing this Wikipedia thing if we weren't encyclopedia
> fans in the first place, and that includes Britannica.)
One idea came into my mind nearly after I wrote the first email in
this thread. Britannica is a project which is in decline. So, why not
to buy it? Yes, I know that it is a lot of money *now*, but it may be
achievable in a couple of years (I saw now that Geni mentioned that we
can't buy it).
Then, I wanted to see what is the value of Britannica; without
success. It is a "private company" (in US sense of that meaning;
"public companies" in European sense are just companies owned by some
local or state government; and in some specific circumstances). It is
owned by Jacqui Safra, a billionaire [citation needed] [1], who may be
an interesting partner to WMF. So, if it is not possible to buy it, I
think that it is possible to make some deal to work together.
And I think that it shouldn't be just about Britannica. There are a
lot of high quality encyclopedias all over the world. WMF may think
about some kind of cooperation with them. It is not possible anymore
to have encyclopedia as a profitable company, so I think that the
institutions which own encyclopedias will be more open for
cooperation; including giving the content under the same license(s) as
under Wikipedia content is.
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqui_Safra
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
Upsell is the name of the leading market research company in
publishing--probably they are the ones who designed it. I'm suprised,
for they are generally known as competent.
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 3:17 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
>> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling
>> wrote:
>
>>> The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
>>> javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()
>
>> Thanks! It works well :)
>
>
> They called the function "upsell"? *facepalm* Wikipedia doesn't need
> to do anything to compete with Britannica, just leave them to collapse
> under the weight of their own ineptitude.
>
> We should probably run a large public "Save Britannica!" campaign -
> how to save a great historical encyclopedia, second only to the OED as
> one of the great works of Anglophone non-fiction, from its own
> business stupidity. I'm halfway serious. What could we do with a "Save
> Britannica" campaign?
>
> (There are many ways in which it sucks, but it still manages
> *consistent* quality better than en:wp. Better writing, too. A lot of
> us wouldn't be doing this Wikipedia thing if we weren't encyclopedia
> fans in the first place, and that includes Britannica.)
>
>
> - d.
>
> ___
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 David Gerard : > They called the function "upsell"? *facepalm* Wikipedia doesn't need > to do anything to compete with Britannica, just leave them to collapse > under the weight of their own ineptitude. > > We should probably run a large public "Save Britannica!" campaign - > how to save a great historical encyclopedia, second only to the OED as > one of the great works of Anglophone non-fiction, from its own > business stupidity. I'm halfway serious. What could we do with a "Save > Britannica" campaign? Very little. We can't afford to buy it. Britannica's survival in some form is not a concern. The brand and the content are worth enough that if it's current owners give up there will always be someone looking to buy. If it were sold tomorrow likely candidates would be Microsoft (who wanted it for encarta and would probably still go for it if the price was low enough), Google who might try using it to populate knol, Yahoo to annoy google. It fits answers.com's profile if they survive that long. Then there are various media companies that might think about it. News Corp for example. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 1:27 PM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:
> 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
>> If I understood well, the content of the online edition of Britannica
>> became free (as in "free beer", of course). They are putting some
>> irritating screen with recommendation to buy access to their edition
>> every 10 seconds (or so), but, in fact, it is possible to copy-paste
>> the content somewhere else and read it. Hm. Wikipedia doesn't have
>> that irritating screen. (OK, banner is irritating, but it is not of
>> that kind ;) )
>
> One thing that is totally awesome about Wikipedia is the categories.
> Britannica is nowhere near Wikipedia in categorization and searching.
> I've seen people criticizing Wikipedia's categorization; what they
> don't realize is that no other encyclopedia comes near.
>
> And Britannica has this totally weird feature - the article loads
> itself as soon as the scrollbar progresses through it. So even if it
> is free as in beer, it is obnoxiously inconvenient to copy text from
> it, 'cuz Ctrl-A doesn't work as expected.
>
> And i saw articles in the current online Britannica that are much
> shorter than their counterparts in the PD 1911 edition. (E.g.
> [[Wilhelm Gesenius]].)
>
> And the article on Occitan language in Britannica contradicts itself
> and has no {{Contradict}} on top. It drives me nuts that i can't fix
> it. Wikipedia's [[Occitan language]] may have {{POV}} on its top from
> time to time, but at least we admit it and welcome corrections.
>
> So Britannica is written by experts and is free as in beer. So what.
Wikipedia's most important advantage is that it is free as in free
speech. I would prefer much smaller Wikipedia, as I am preferring to
use free software alternatives for a long time, even alternatives were
worst than proprietary software counterparts.
But, we need a basic level of honesty. Not just because some ordinary
reader of encyclopedic content, but, first of all, because of
ourselves. I am preparing now exam in comparative grammar of
Indo-European languages and here is the situation related to the
description of the first attested Indo-European branch, Anatolian
group:
* 14 volumes Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics has just a small
description of Anatolian languages; it doesn't have anything about
Hittite language (the major language from that group).
* Wikipedia has very inconsistent set of articles about all languages.
To be honest, I don't know where to start with fixing them.
* Britannica has a very good article about Anatolian languages and
good introducing articles about all Anatolian languages.
* Cambridge edition "Ancient languages of Asia Minor" (ALAM) has very
good articles about all of them. Even it is a book, the concept is
close to a very specific (and good) encyclopedia of those languages.
The styles of articles in Britannica and especially ALAM are superior
toward the style in (those) Wikipedia articles. Articles in Britannica
and ALAM are very useful to me, while articles in Wikipedia are far
from being useful.
Of course, we may fix our articles. Britannica has an error in
description of Serbian/Serbo-Croatian language at least since 1995
edition: instead of Serbian letter Ђ, it has letter Ъ (hard sign).
But, we need to find a way how to improve the quality of our articles,
systematically.
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling wrote:
>> The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
>> javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()
> Thanks! It works well :)
They called the function "upsell"? *facepalm* Wikipedia doesn't need
to do anything to compete with Britannica, just leave them to collapse
under the weight of their own ineptitude.
We should probably run a large public "Save Britannica!" campaign -
how to save a great historical encyclopedia, second only to the OED as
one of the great works of Anglophone non-fiction, from its own
business stupidity. I'm halfway serious. What could we do with a "Save
Britannica" campaign?
(There are many ways in which it sucks, but it still manages
*consistent* quality better than en:wp. Better writing, too. A lot of
us wouldn't be doing this Wikipedia thing if we weren't encyclopedia
fans in the first place, and that includes Britannica.)
- d.
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 4:14 AM, Tim Starling wrote:
> The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
>
> javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()
>
> Put it in a bookmark in your toolbar and click it to get rid of the
> annoying box. It doesn't come back until you go to another page.
Thanks! It works well :)
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
teun spaans wrote: > "but possibly illegal" you can omit the word "possibly". I dont see a copy > left license at their site. You can copy it for your personal use :°♫ > On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Amir E. Aharoni > wrote: >> 2008/12/22 Amir E. Aharoni : >>> 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic : >>> And Britannica has this totally weird feature - the article loads >>> itself as soon as the scrollbar progresses through it. So even if it >>> is free as in beer, it is obnoxiously inconvenient to copy text from >>> it, 'cuz Ctrl-A doesn't work as expected. >> ... And of course, i forgot to mention that it is not free in the >> Stallman-Lessig sense, so copying text from is not only inconvenient, >> but possibly illegal. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 teun spaans : > "but possibly illegal" you can omit the word "possibly". I dont see a copy > left license at their site. It may be possible to copy from EB under fair use terms. On Wikipedia i don't even need to think about that (except some images...). -- Amir Elisha Aharoni heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com "We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
"but possibly illegal" you can omit the word "possibly". I dont see a copy left license at their site. On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Amir E. Aharoni wrote: > 2008/12/22 Amir E. Aharoni : > > 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic : > > And Britannica has this totally weird feature - the article loads > > itself as soon as the scrollbar progresses through it. So even if it > > is free as in beer, it is obnoxiously inconvenient to copy text from > > it, 'cuz Ctrl-A doesn't work as expected. > > ... And of course, i forgot to mention that it is not free in the > Stallman-Lessig sense, so copying text from is not only inconvenient, > but possibly illegal. > > -- > Amir Elisha Aharoni > > heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com > cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com > > "We're living in pieces, > I want to live in peace." - T. Moore > > ___ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 Amir E. Aharoni : > 2008/12/22 Milos Rancic : > And Britannica has this totally weird feature - the article loads > itself as soon as the scrollbar progresses through it. So even if it > is free as in beer, it is obnoxiously inconvenient to copy text from > it, 'cuz Ctrl-A doesn't work as expected. ... And of course, i forgot to mention that it is not free in the Stallman-Lessig sense, so copying text from is not only inconvenient, but possibly illegal. -- Amir Elisha Aharoni heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com "We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace." - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
2008/12/22 Milos Rancic :
> If I understood well, the content of the online edition of Britannica
> became free (as in "free beer", of course). They are putting some
> irritating screen with recommendation to buy access to their edition
> every 10 seconds (or so), but, in fact, it is possible to copy-paste
> the content somewhere else and read it. Hm. Wikipedia doesn't have
> that irritating screen. (OK, banner is irritating, but it is not of
> that kind ;) )
One thing that is totally awesome about Wikipedia is the categories.
Britannica is nowhere near Wikipedia in categorization and searching.
I've seen people criticizing Wikipedia's categorization; what they
don't realize is that no other encyclopedia comes near.
And Britannica has this totally weird feature - the article loads
itself as soon as the scrollbar progresses through it. So even if it
is free as in beer, it is obnoxiously inconvenient to copy text from
it, 'cuz Ctrl-A doesn't work as expected.
And i saw articles in the current online Britannica that are much
shorter than their counterparts in the PD 1911 edition. (E.g.
[[Wilhelm Gesenius]].)
And the article on Occitan language in Britannica contradicts itself
and has no {{Contradict}} on top. It drives me nuts that i can't fix
it. Wikipedia's [[Occitan language]] may have {{POV}} on its top from
time to time, but at least we admit it and welcome corrections.
So Britannica is written by experts and is free as in beer. So what.
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni
heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com
cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com
"We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Britannica became free
Milos Rancic wrote:
> If I understood well, the content of the online edition of Britannica
> became free (as in "free beer", of course). They are putting some
> irritating screen with recommendation to buy access to their edition
> every 10 seconds (or so), but, in fact, it is possible to copy-paste
> the content somewhere else and read it. Hm. Wikipedia doesn't have
> that irritating screen. (OK, banner is irritating, but it is not of
> that kind ;) )
>
> Does anyone have some more informations about it? Also, may someone
> (who owns some newer edition of Britannica: paper or electronic)
> check, let's say, this link [1] and confirm that this is the complete
> article.
>
> [1] - http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/268173/Hittite-language
I checked a larger biography, and it looked complete to me. Note that it
uses ajax to load article sections as you scroll to them, so you have to
scroll up and down the page to trigger all the ajax loads before you can
copy the text out.
The following Firefox bookmarklet may be useful:
javascript:(function(){Darwin.Upsell.deactivate();})()
Put it in a bookmark in your toolbar and click it to get rid of the
annoying box. It doesn't come back until you go to another page.
-- Tim Starling
___
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Britannica became free
If I understood well, the content of the online edition of Britannica became free (as in "free beer", of course). They are putting some irritating screen with recommendation to buy access to their edition every 10 seconds (or so), but, in fact, it is possible to copy-paste the content somewhere else and read it. Hm. Wikipedia doesn't have that irritating screen. (OK, banner is irritating, but it is not of that kind ;) ) Does anyone have some more informations about it? Also, may someone (who owns some newer edition of Britannica: paper or electronic) check, let's say, this link [1] and confirm that this is the complete article. [1] - http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/268173/Hittite-language ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
