I think I really meant it did it much better than pretty much anything on the web. Which I suppose isn’t saying much, but I think it’s saying more than nothing—Britannica is a culturally reified gold standard that approximately no-one actually cracks open past high school; Wikipedia is something ordinary people use every day when they just would not have used a paper encyclopedia.
Though, of course, Wikipedia calls itself an encyclopedia and has always looked up to Britannica. As I note below, it would be interesting to actually compare the neutrality of current Wikipedia with current Britannica.
Oh, I certainly agree with this. I’d just trace it back to Wikipedia’s roots—and I suspect that as fewer people are familiar with Britannica, Wikipedia will lose that more and more.
I suspect that as fewer people are familiar with Britannica, Wikipedia will lose that more and more.
That’s … a thought on Wikipedia’s future that hadn’t occurred to me before. You can see it already, of course. Even just “We’re here to write an encyclopedia” requires a prior notion of an encyclopedia other than what you’re already doing. But then there’s anecdotes of kids already saying “encyclopedia? Is that like Wikipedia?” I wonder how Wikipedia will self-define.
I think I really meant it did it much better than pretty much anything on the web. Which I suppose isn’t saying much, but I think it’s saying more than nothing—Britannica is a culturally reified gold standard that approximately no-one actually cracks open past high school; Wikipedia is something ordinary people use every day when they just would not have used a paper encyclopedia.
Though, of course, Wikipedia calls itself an encyclopedia and has always looked up to Britannica. As I note below, it would be interesting to actually compare the neutrality of current Wikipedia with current Britannica.
Oh, I certainly agree with this. I’d just trace it back to Wikipedia’s roots—and I suspect that as fewer people are familiar with Britannica, Wikipedia will lose that more and more.
That’s … a thought on Wikipedia’s future that hadn’t occurred to me before. You can see it already, of course. Even just “We’re here to write an encyclopedia” requires a prior notion of an encyclopedia other than what you’re already doing. But then there’s anecdotes of kids already saying “encyclopedia? Is that like Wikipedia?” I wonder how Wikipedia will self-define.