Britannica Responds to Nature Study About Wikipedia’s Inaccuracies (.pdf)
Remember that study published in the journal Nature about how Wikipedia is only slightly less accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica when it comes to certain articles about science? Apparently, it made the folks at Britannica nervous enough to look into the study itself. They sent around an e-mail to a select group today encouraging people to read their refute of that research.
Addenda 3/25: David Mehegan, who authored a two articles in February about Wikipedia, covers Britannica’s claims in The Boston Globe.
3/28: Nature responds (.pdf) to Britannica’s assertions, mentioning that Britannica contacted Nature soon after the study appeared, but Britannica did not follow up with Nature’s initial response. Nature explains more about the process of completing their study and demonstrates that they tried to treat Britannica and Wikipedia the same.
March 26th, 2006 at 8:17 am
Article: Thyroid [“thyroid gland”]
Reviewer comment: It does not mention the importance of iodine intake.
Britannica response: Iodine uptake is indeed discussed.
I wonder if telling people that it’s important to consume iodine might differ somewhat from a discussion of iodine uptake from food? The Britannica response seems to completely miss the point here.
April 8th, 2007 at 4:38 am
The comparisons between Encyclopaedia Britannica and Wikipedia are very interesting.
Encyclopaedia Britannica never thought that an open source product like Wikipedia would seriously challenge the credibility of its brand. They were wrong and Encyclopaedia Britannica’s staff seriously misread the global market. They are now very concerned about the widespread use of a free Wikipedia vs their paid subscription model. Industry analysis shows that the accuracy of both encyclopedic databases is similar.
It is interesting that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is developing a new search engine. It is the combination of a) improved search engines and b) the success of Wikipedia that has put financial pressure on Encyclopedia Britannica over recent years. Many institutions and individuals are questioning the need to pay to subscribe to Encyclopaedia Britannica when the content is free on the internet. Google even has free direct links to Encyclopaedia Britannica’s main database !!