Recall our discussion of the relative merits of Encyclopedia Britannica vs Wikipedia? The battle heats up, as reported in the latest American Scientist e-newsletter, which I've appended below. The Wall Street Journal also has a report on the dust-up, at http://tinyurl.com/qwfbw
Personally, I'm rooting for Wikipedia (and _Nature_). Stephen (from American Scientist) Britannica Bites Back at Nature's Wikipedia Study A month ago, the journal Nature publicized results of a study that compared the reliability of the online, community-authored informational resource Wikipedia with that of grand reference dame Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Nature study focused on science topics. They distributed to a group of scientific experts unlabeled entries from each resource that dealt with the same science topics and asked them to hunt for mistakes. The experts reported that Wikipedia and Britannica were pretty close in the credibility contest. Nature published the study at a time when Wikipedia's credibility was being called into question after an entry on John Siegenthaler, former aide to Robert Kennedy, had been doctored to link him with the assassinations of both Robert Kennedy and John F. Kennedy. So the Nature piece pumping up Wikipedia's credibility came at a crucial time and overtook the Siegenthaler mess in the press. Britannica stayed quiet for a while, but this week it will hit back in unprecedented fashion, issuing a press release and placing half-page letters as ads in several major newspapers. Britannica claims that Nature's study was seriously flawed. The release disputes some of the specific findings of the Nature study, asks specifically for a retraction and notes that Nature refused to turn over survey data, as Britannica had requested. Nature claimed that doing so would compromise the anonymity of its reviewers. So, what to believe? Here's Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, quoted on the Wall Street Journal: "It's hardly true we're as good as Britannica." Wales said he was pleased that Nature focused on science "because on history and the social sciences, we're much weaker." Ah, but for computer science and the history of Star Trek, said Wales, "Wikipedia is way better." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Department of Psychology Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://faculty.frostburg.edu/psyc/southerly/tips/index.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
