Wikipedia - Press Coverage/2001-2003: differenze tra le versioni

"There are a lot of reference works on the Internet, but we don't concern ourselves about them too much," says Tom Panelas, director of communications at Britannica. "People are coming to realize that while there's a lot of information on the Internet, a lot of it is plain nonsense, and much of it is of questionable provenance. Being Britannica, we've always had a natural constituency of people who know Britannica is a name they can trust for reliable, well-written information."

To read Britannica on the Web you must pony up $50 a year, although you can read the first two paragraphs of articles for free. The company won't release subscription figures but claims that more than seven million users search britannica.com each month during the school year.

Walter Bender, executive director of MIT's Media Laboratory, believes that what makes Britannica a valuable resource is the scope and depth of its editing, and free Web-based encyclopedias such as Wikipedia will probably never be able to compete with that.

"The downside is that [Britannica] cannot practically keep pace with the growth of knowledge and information," says Bender. "For example, Britannica still uses the entry on the city of Boston written almost twenty years ago by Jack Driscoll, former editor of the Boston Globe. The article was written in a timeless prose, but it no longer captures the essence of the city."

"Ci sono un mucchio di lavori con riferimentiXXXXX in internet, ma non ci interessano più di tanto" dice Tom Panelas, direttore delle comunicazioni per la Britannica. "Le persone stanno cominciando a realizzare che mentre c'è molta informazione in internet, molta è assolutamente priva di senso, e molta è di dubbia provenienza. Essendo la Britannica, noi sempre abbiamo una natural constituency of people che sa che la Britannica è un nome di cui fidarsi per informazioni affidabili e ben scritte."

Per leggere la Britannica sul web bisogna pagare 50$ all'anno, sebbene sia possibile leggere gratuitamente i primi due paragrafi degli articoli. La società non rilascia le cifre delle sottoscrizioni ma afferma che più di 7 milioni di utenti hanno consultato britannica.com ogni mese durante l'anno scolastico.

Walter Bender, direttore esecutivo dei Media Laboratory del MIT, crede che ciò che rende la Britannica una valida risorsa è l'obiettivo e la profondità dei suoi lavori, e le enciclopedie libere come Wikipedia non saranno probabilmente mai in grado di competere con questo.

"Il lato negativo è che la Britannica non può praticamente tenere il passo con la crescita della conoscenza e dell'informazione", dice Bender. "Per esempio, la Britannica usa ancora la voce della città di Boston scritta 20 anni prima da Jack Driscoll, l'allora editore del Boston Globe. L'articolo fu scritto in una prosa atemporale, ma non coglie più l'essenza della città".

"There are a lot of reference works on the Internet, but we don't concern ourselves about them too much," says Tom Panelas, director of communications at Britannica. "People are coming to realize that while there's a lot of information on the Internet, a lot of it is plain nonsense, and much of it is of questionable provenance. Being Britannica, we've always had a natural constituency of people who know Britannica is a name they can trust for reliable, well-written information."

To read Britannica on the Web you must pony up $50 a year, although you can read the first two paragraphs of articles for free. The company won't release subscription figures but claims that more than seven million users search britannica.com each month during the school year.

Walter Bender, executive director of MIT's Media Laboratory, believes that what makes Britannica a valuable resource is the scope and depth of its editing, and free Web-based encyclopedias such as Wikipedia will probably never be able to compete with that.

"The downside is that [Britannica] cannot practically keep pace with the growth of knowledge and information," says Bender. "For example, Britannica still uses the entry on the city of Boston written almost twenty years ago by Jack Driscoll, former editor of the Boston Globe. The article was written in a timeless prose, but it no longer captures the essence of the city."

It's fun, first of all. But it can be fun for intellectually serious people only if we know that we're creating something of quality. And how do we know that? The basic outlines of the answer ought to be fairly obvious to anyone who has read Eric S. Raymond's famous essay on the open source movement, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar." Remember, if we can edit any page, then we can edit each other's work. Given enough eyeballs, all errors are shallow. We catch each other's mistakes and enjoy correcting them.

So, we're are constantly monitoring Wikipedia's Recent Changes page. When--as happens rarely--some eedjit shows up and vandalizes a page, it's fixed nearly instantly. (We save back copies of all pages, and these are very easily accessible.) We (that is, we participants) work on a lot of different pages, and I think most of us feel some collective responsibility for how the whole thing looks. We're constantly cleaning up after each other and new people.

In the process, a camaraderie--a politeness and congeniality not found on many online discussion forums--has developed. We've got to respect each other, because we are each other's editors, and we all have more or less the same goal: to create a huge, high-quality free encyclopedia.

It's fun, first of all. But it can be fun for intellectually serious people only if we know that we're creating something of quality. And how do we know that? The basic outlines of the answer ought to be fairly obvious to anyone who has read Eric S. Raymond's famous essay on the open source movement, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar." Remember, if we can edit any page, then we can edit each other's work. Given enough eyeballs, all errors are shallow. We catch each other's mistakes and enjoy correcting them.

So, we're are constantly monitoring Wikipedia's Recent Changes page. When--as happens rarely--some eedjit shows up and vandalizes a page, it's fixed nearly instantly. (We save back copies of all pages, and these are very easily accessible.) We (that is, we participants) work on a lot of different pages, and I think most of us feel some collective responsibility for how the whole thing looks. We're constantly cleaning up after each other and new people.

In the process, a camaraderie--a politeness and congeniality not found on many online discussion forums--has developed. We've got to respect each other, because we are each other's editors, and we all have more or less the same goal: to create a huge, high-quality free encyclopedia.

If Wikipedians believed that, we'd bag the whole thing. We think we are--gradually, and sometimes from very rough first drafts--developing a reliable resource. So what answer can I offer to the above concerns?

If Wikipedians believed that, we'd bag the whole thing. We think we are--gradually, and sometimes from very rough first drafts--developing a reliable resource. So what answer can I offer to the above concerns?

mischievous contributions --and deletions-- are caught early and either corrected or undone. For example, only Wikipedia administrators can totally or permanently delete pages. Other deletions are kept for two

mischievous contributions --and deletions-- are caught early and either corrected or undone. For example, only Wikipedia administrators can totally or permanently delete pages. Other deletions are kept for two