Britannica Attacks - Nature Returns Fire

An anonymous reader writes "Just in case you missed it, Nature has replied to Britannica's criticism of the Nature Britannica-Wikipedia comparison. I think it is fair to say Nature is not sympathetic to Britannica's complaints." The original piece regarding the accuracy comparison, along with the response from Britannica.

The original comparison article

[ktwombley]

Original Nature article comparing Britannica and Wikipedia [nature.com]

Re:Wikipedia Page

[arose]

It's in the article on Encyclopaedia Britannica [wikipedia.org].

Uhm, you can't buy Wikimedia.

[sultanoslack]

> Britannica should just buy Wikipedia and maintain both [...]

From the Wikimedia Foundation Bylaws [wikimediafoundation.org].

ARTICLE VII: DEDICATION OF ASSETS

The property of this corporation is irrevocably dedicated to charitable purposes and no part of the net income or assets of this corporation shall ever inure to the benefit of any director, officer or members thereof or to the benefit of any private individual.

In general you can't just buy a non-profit organization and if you could you can't turn around and make them a profit center.

Re:It boils down to this

[gowen]

It means they go out and find the foremost experts (recognized as such within their field, e.g. Nobel prize winners etc.) and then ask them to produce an article which goes on to be peer-reviewed.

Really? They went to the foremost expert on Frank Zappa, and got an article that didn't get his first name right? And that factual error got through peer review? How'd that happen?

They went to the foremost expert on Alexander Pushkin, and got an article that said that he frequently visited Bohemia during a period in which he never left Russia? How'd that happen?

They went to the foremost expert on Pink Floyd, and he got Roger Waters birthdate wrong? How did that happen?

They went to the foremost expert on transfinite numbers, and he got the definition of Aleph-1 wrong?

I rather think this idea of using "foremost experts" has more basis in Britannia's publicity machine than any verifiable fact.

Re:It boils down to this

[Anonymous Coward]

That is why you always cite the specific version of the Wikipedia page that you used. Admittedly, this does not solve the problem of authoritativeness, but it does ensure that whoever is trying to verify your sources can do so in a repeatable fashion.

Re:It boils down to this

[shotfeel]

Wikipedia quite often gives me enough to then go searching more of Google.

And in some cases had direct links to more authoritative and in-depth info right on the page. No need to even go to Google.

Re:It boils down to this

[Elfich47]

At one point... Wikipedia hand a temporary ban on the entire IP range from the House of Representatives for doing exactly what you were describing in the last paragraph. I don't know if they came to a consensus for a solution though.

Re:It boils down to this

[2short]

"Does that mean that they're not substantially correct or more accurate than other sources of information?"

In arguing about "models", "experts", and what "definitive" means, let us not forget that the study by Nature indicates Britanica is not substantially more accurate than Wikipedia, and both are substatially correct. In this context, I can't see how you can call one "definitive" and not the other using any definition I should care about.

Re:Nature dodged the issue.

[CrankyOldBastard]

It's considered the top (or one of the very top) scientific journals.

Nature is the cream of the "newspaper style" journals. But it's not one of the top journals, that position is held by such publications as Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Proceedings of the Royal Society and other such things. It's probably one of the most accessible cross-discipline journals, and it much more rigorous than say Scientific American. Nature is a great place to find research notes on topics that are "hot" or high-profile. But if you want to read about what is really happening, or if you want some detail, there are any number of journals that rank higher, unless you are only considering the Grants Committee perspective, in which case Nature rates highly due to it's wide publication.