# With Wikipedia available free what's Encyclopedia Britannica's value proposition?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 3, 2008, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689 "2008-08-03T08:04:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/1 "2008-08-03T08:04:36Z")
Wikipedia has more coverage, is generally fairly high quality re information accuracy, and it’s free. With this in mind what’s Enciclopedia Britannica’s value proposition to make people pay for access to it?
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### Author:  [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/2 "2008-08-03T08:13:56Z")
[QUOTE=astro]
Wikipedia has more coverage, is generally fairly high quality re information accuracy, and it’s free. With this in mind what’s Enciclopedia Britannica’s value proposition to make people pay for access to it?
[/QUOTE]
Generally fairly… yeah.
There is a bias against Wikipedia cites - even on this board. I’d say Britannica still has more clout. If I were a student turning in a paper, I’d know which I’d prefer to have on my bibliography.
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/3 "2008-08-03T08:28:46Z")
For many, it’s a question of trust. Your wiki cite could be gone tomorrow. Just _who_ wrote that wiki cite anyway?
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/4 "2008-08-03T09:59:57Z")
I think Britannica’s value is based on inertia. People who grew up with Britannica feel it’s more reputable than Wikipedia. Objective studies have shown this isn’t really true. As the people who are growing up with Wikipedia move into positions of academic influence, Wikipedia will become an acceptable reference source. Of course by then there’ll probably be some new encyclopedia that the Wikipedians can distrust because it wasn’t around during their formative years.
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### Author:  [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/5 "2008-08-03T10:03:12Z")
There’s glaring errors in Wikipedia pages, even the most popular ones. Recently, I found a rather substantial error on a popular page that was credible enough to remain unchallenged for ages.
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/6 "2008-08-03T10:06:41Z")
But as **Little Nemo** pointed out ojective studies show just as many errors in other encyclopedias and those in print versions are there for ever. I am sure that many of \*Wiki’\*s popular pages aren’t covered by other sources.
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### Author:  [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/7 "2008-08-03T10:14:10Z")
Sure, _Nature_ compared 42 science related articles, and found Wikipedia had an average of four errors an article, versus EB’s 3. Is this really convincing, though? What counts as an error? If EB misspells a word, and Wikipedia claims faster than light travel is possible, are they both counted as errors?
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### Author:  [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/8 "2008-08-03T10:38:18Z")
Very many Wikipedia articles are shockingly badly written, or would benefit from severe editing. It’s a case of too many cooks. Often people seem to chip in their own little contribution without checking if it’s already in the article. I think this kind of chaos is inevitable if there’s no authoritative editor.
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### Author:  [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/9 "2008-08-03T10:46:49Z")
Exactly, there’s more to comparing encyclopedias than simple statistical tests comparing factual (in)accuracies.
Actually, reading more about _Nature_’s comparison between the two encyclopedias, it seems the comparison was fatally flawed.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/10 "2008-08-03T11:33:07Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Sure, Nature compared 42 science related articles, and found Wikipedia had an average of four errors an article, versus EB’s 3. Is this really convincing, though? What counts as an error? If EB misspells a word, and Wikipedia claims faster than light travel is possible, are they both counted as errors?
Do you have any evidence that this type of thing happened? Unless I know otherwise, I’ll presume that Nature counted the same types of errors in both sources.
There are areas in which Wikipedia has an indisputable lead: it has a substantially larger number of articles and it is kept much more current. If I want to find information on my current Congressional representative, which source should I check? I know Wikipedia has an article on him. Britannica probably doesn’t have articles on every Congressman. And if they did, they’d probably have one on the one who was voted out of office in 2006.
There are undeniably factual errors in Wikipedia (as there are in Britannica). But the errors in Wikipedia get fixed much quicker than the ones in Britannica. You’ll be much more likely to find a three year old error in Britannica than in Wikipedia.
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/11 "2008-08-03T11:38:48Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Do you have any evidence that this type of thing happened? Unless I know otherwise, I’ll presume that Nature counted the same types of errors in both sources.
[/QUOTE]
No you are quite right, the _Nature_ article classified all the errors by type and severity.
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### Author:  [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/12 "2008-08-03T14:09:35Z")
> [@](#):
>
> No you are quite right, the Nature article classified all the errors by type and severity.
Apart from many of the errors _Nature_ identified in EB don’t seem to be errors, but matters of style, and in many cases, _Nature_’s referees are simply wrong. For example, the “error” _Nature_ identified in EB’s article on Acheulean Industry criticizes EB for use of the term “early Homo Sapiens”. However, EB contends that this is a valid alternative:
> [@](#):
>
> We do not accept this criticism, which only reflects the point of view of the reviewer. The term “early Homo sapiens” cannot simply be swapped for “Homo heidelbergensis” without explanation. As is stated elsewhere in the Britannica, many paleoanthropologists do categorize some early H. sapiens as H. heidelbergensis, though many do not. Likewise, some insist that many hominins called H. erectus are really H. ergaster, though some do not. In a short article like this we have decided not to distract the lay reader by raising such complex issues. We leave these issues to our more substantial articles on human evolution and the various Homo species, which have been written and revised by Russell Tuttle of the University of Chicago, Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History, Erik Trinkaus of Washington University, and G. Philip Rightmire of the State University of New York-Binghamton.
_Nature_ didn’t require its referees to divulge sources for their own criticisms, as it would “simply be too time consuming” ([cite](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/extref/438900a-s1.doc)). When you have two opposing groups of experts disagreeing over the content of a work, this isn’t really acceptable.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/13 "2008-08-03T14:43:06Z")
It’s not simply a matter of factual accuracy. Equally important is readability and comprehensibility.
The vast majority of Wiki articles that I’ve read on technical subjects go so far to be thought of as scientifically accurate that they are comprehensible only to those who are already experts in the subjects.
But the point of an encyclopedia is to give a good introduction to the subject to people who are not already experts on that subject. Wiki fails miserably on that basic requirement time after time.
Wiki’s only strength, ISTM, is that is does provide easy access to a great many facts on a great many current subjects. This is a true strength. Wiki is indispensable in this regard.
But Wiki is terrible as an encyclopedia because it can’t compel its many hands to cohere into a narrative on a subject that makes the subject understandable to one approaching it for the first time.
Wiki is actually lucky that it has been able to sidetrack the discussion to quibbles about accuracy. That plays up its strength while ignoring the real issue.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/14 "2008-08-03T15:11:36Z")
I’ve written several pieces for Wikipedia, mostly on theater and music. I’ve sometimes gone back to an article I wrote, and found that it’s been hacked to pieces and re-written by someone for whom English must have been a 3rd or 4th language.
It’s a valuable tool, and SOMETIMES offers much better writeups than comparable listings in more reputable encylopedias. But sometimes, they give us semi-accurate, awkwardly written, horribly organized crap.
I don’t automatically discount what I read in Wikipedia. But if Britannica says one thing and Wikipedia says another, I’m going to believe Britannica.
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/15 "2008-08-03T15:19:10Z")
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog]
There is a bias against Wikipedia cites - even on this board. I’d say Britannica still has more clout. If I were a student turning in a paper, I’d know which I’d prefer to have on my bibliography.
[/QUOTE]
But you can get valuable primary sources from articles that are properly cited. I wouldn’t quote an uncited source in a paper, but that goes for any source, not just Wikipedia.
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### Author:  [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/16 "2008-08-03T15:21:45Z")
[QUOTE=Usram]
Very many Wikipedia articles are shockingly badly written, or would benefit from severe editing. It’s a case of too many cooks. Often people seem to chip in their own little contribution without checking if it’s already in the article. I think this kind of chaos is inevitable if there’s no authoritative editor.
[/QUOTE]
This. Not to mention links that are hacked and end up going to a very different topic (personal experience, and good thing I wasn’t in a work computer).
Have you tried using the “random article” thing? It amazes me how many of the articles I get are poorly written (and I’m by no means an expert editor, but yikes!).
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### Author:  [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/17 "2008-08-03T15:41:51Z")
To give a concrete example of the kind of chaotic writing that crops up all over Wikipedia, here is a paragraph I happened to notice just now while looking up eBay for another thread:
“In some countries, eBay requires sellers to use their Paypal service to facilitate payment, which has led to consumer backlash[sup]50[/sup] with the view that Paypal is the only choice that makes sense and so should be the only choice available.”
Clearly, what has happened here is that somebody has inserted the “which has led to consumer backlash[sup]50[/sup]” part. Never mind that the modified paragraph now makes no sense.
That kind of thing is so Wikipedia.
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### Author:  [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/18 "2008-08-03T16:03:54Z")
EB doesn’t have sentences in it that say “citation needed” in the middle.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/19 "2008-08-03T16:32:28Z")
Speaking as a professional biologist, really, there is no comparison. Brittanica wins hands down. If I am seeking real, reliable, professionally vetted information on something, I am far more likely to find it on Brittanica.
The real problem with Wikipedia is that it is wildly erratic. There is no consistency of treatment or style. As **Exapno** mentions, many articles are excessively technical; others, however, may be much too simplistic. While it is true that a few articles are relatively professional in treatment, the vast majority are not. There are often large gaps in the discussion, and the articles are very often poorly written and organized.
The supposed benefit of Wikipedia that “errors can be corrected rapidly” strikes me as naive. Whether articles get corrected or not is again entirely hit or miss; and new errors can be introduced just as easily by almost anyone.
Wiki does have a lot of value as a “quick and dirty” intro to information. And some articles are quite good. However, the overall lack of serious quality control is a severe problem with its usefulness.
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### Author:  [@B\_A\_Bay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B_A_Bay)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-wikipedia-available-free-whats-encyclopedia-britannicas-value-proposition/458689/20 "2008-08-03T17:29:37Z")
Part of it is wiki has a definate slant toward their articles. The key thing is there are tons of “Wiki-Nazis” who you cannot make changes to their articles. Even if you source it, it reverts quickly so you’re stuck trying to make your revision stick or giving up.
I’m sure the info is generally accurate, but there is so much missing.
Also I found a lot of the sources on wiki aren’t accurate. They either lead to pages you have to pay for to get in, (not register but pay to be a member) or they are sourced by blogs.
Having a pages sourced to a blog is not correct, and if the people checking accuracy look at that they will say “Wiki is accurate.” Well sure it is but the source is poor or not even real.
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