Wikipedia's Accuracy Compared to Britannica

Raul654 writes "Nature magazine recently conducted a head-to-head competition between Wikipedia and Britannica, having experts compare 42 science-related articles. The result was that Wikipedia had about 4 errors per article, while Britannica had about 3. However, a pair of endevouring Wikipedians dug a little deeper and discovered that the Wikipedia articles in the sample were, on average, 2.6 times longer than Britannica's - meaning Wikipedia has an error rate far less than Britannica's." Interesting, considering some past claims. Story available on the BBC as well.

Dooop

[MullerMn]

Slashdot Article Compared to Earlier Slashback: Found To Be Identical

Story available here [slashdot.org].

Accuracy

[penguinoid]

Wikipedia has less errors, you say? We'll be fixing that shortly...
-- The Britanica Team

Re:Dooop

[Prospero's Grue]

Slashdot Article Compared to Earlier Slashback: Found To Be Identical

Yeah, but the Slashdot Article is 1.4 times longer, so it's not as duped as you think...

Another thing

[Ostien]

Does Britannica have extencive articles on Lightsaber combat? [wikipedia.org]

Wikipedia: 1
Britannica: 0

Re:Versatility

[BushCheney08]

...but which one can you go back to and correct?

Both. Doing it to one of them is likely to get you kicked out of the library, though...

Hah! "Science" articles!

[ceeam]

What does Britannica say about "Goatse"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goatse [wikipedia.org]

Re:More words == lower error rate?

[aborchers]

"Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forty percent of all people know that." -- Homer Simpson

Re:Accuracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia has less errors, you say? We'll be fixing that shortly...

fewer errors

- Grammar Nazi Team

Re:Accuracy

[LiquidCoooled]

Don't you mean 'Britannica'?

Sincerely,
A Wiki editor.

ps, we don't hold grudges and most of us will gladly help clean up your mistakes :)

Man with one watch ..

[OzPeter]

One of my fav sayings (which also translates well into a coding practice when people want multiple copies of the same data in separate locations)

"A man with one watch always knows what time it is, but a man with two watches never knows."

Unless of course one of the watches is a nixie watch and that the batteries have run out after 2 days usage, or the cathodes have busted from all that shaking.

Re:More words == lower error rate?

[PhoenixK7]

OK. I can agree with this on one level, however these are a select number of articles that have been reviewed for inaccuracies. Presumably they don’t contain “gibblefinch”; repeated 5000 times to increase article length. What is indicated here is that per kilobyte (as a metric for length) there are fewer errors. Being more lengthy does not necessarily mean there’s really more information contained on the page, but given the gross difference in article length I’d hazzard a guess that the wikipedia articles don’t simply contain a bunch of fluff to make them look longer, they probably actually have more content.

To settle this issue, the metric should not be inaccuracies per kilobyte, but inaccuracies per idea/concept/fact or whatever, but those statistics are a little more of a pain to collect :-)

Re:Versatility

[mcgroarty]

Which one is more likely to grow links to goatse.cx between the time you cite it and the time your professor reviews your paper?

Re:Not exactly

[grasshoppa]

While what you say may be true, it's smoke screen to the issue. The quality of writing is not what's being examined, short of accurancy.

To that end, the results are still valid: Wikipedia has fewer errors per content unit.

Re:More words == lower error rate?

[CMiYC]

Bleh. /me adds "PhoenixK7" to the list of people who should hit "preview" first.

Re:Not exactly

[croddy]

So, what you're saying is that Britannica has a long way to go before it will be useful as a wiki?

Very nice.

[blair1q]

I get 33% more errors, it takes me 160% more time, and random lusers on the Internet say it's a good thing...

Re:dupe epud dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hilarious to mod a "dupe" complaint down as redundant. If only we could mod the original stories that way.

Re:Not exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

The error per word rate in Britannica may be higher, but the error per fact rate is probably much more favourable to Britannica.

So you have no idea or basis for this claim?

He read it in Wikipedia, right after he wrote it.

Re:Another thing

[smallguy78]

...or the fine art of pegging [wikipedia.org] ??!

Wikipedia needs a disclaimer

[wrook]

I was thinking something like:

In many of the more relaxed areas of the Internet, Wikipedia has long supplanted the great Encyclopedia Britanica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older more pedestrian work in two important respects.

First, it is slightly cheaper, and secondly it has the words Don't Panic! printed in large friendly letters on its cover.

Well, OK... except for the Don't Panic part...

Re:I challenge an assumption

[mrogers]

Unless someone here examines the articles in question, this argument is pointless.

What an accurate and concise summary of Slashdot - you should work for Wikipedia.

Re:Versatility

[vertinox]

Which one is more likely to grow links to goatse.cx between the time you cite it and the time your professor reviews your paper?

Lets just say I'm banned from using the color copier at my local college library.

Re:Hah! "Science" articles!

[Dirtside]

What does Britannica say about "Goatse"?

Finally! An on-topic link to Goatse! Will wonders never cease?