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Encyclopaedia Britannica Embraces The Wikipedians, Sort Of

With the upcoming relaunch of its Web site, Encyclopaedia Britannica is making some interesting changes. It's taken steps to embrace certain aspects of the collaborative nature of Wikipedia (and the Internet in general), but at the same time, it reasserts the need to rely on experts with strong voices and distinct points of view.

The Britannicanet.com site explains a bit of the background:

"So for us collaboration is not something new; it is not something we consider daring or experimental. It is something we've always done in creating Encyclopaedia Britannica. Obviously, we share with many the view that the Internet brings significant opportunities to make this collaborative process more inclusive, and that by doing so we will not only improve the quality of our content but also increase its reach and relevance. It should not be a surprise then that among the main objectives of our new site are to make it very easy for our contributors, other scholars, and regular readers to engage with our content by suggesting improvements to our editors; and to provide the editing tools they need to create and share their own content at the site."

So, no -- you won't be able to edit the entry on Star Trek. But if you spot an error or omission, you'll be able to easily reach the entry's editor to let them know about it. They also will allow users to author materials in certain parts of the site, but will reserve a "Britannica Checked" label for content created/approved by their editors.

This reliance on opinionated experts over the more democratic wisdom of the hive mind (the Wikipedia model) is the foundation of its new approach, termed "The Consequences of Listening to Experts."

Again, from the announcement of the changes, my paraphrasing of the three "consequences":

"The first one is ownership. Here I am not referring to copyright ownership but to owning the responsibility that comes with having created or documented a set of ideas or a body of knowledge....

The second consequence of our collaborative-but-not-democratic approach is that we recognize the voices and powers of experts....

Finally, the third consequence of this approach is objectivity, and it requires experts....In contrast to our approach, democratic systems settle for something bland and less informative, what is sometimes termed a "neutral point of view."

Take that, Wikipedia!

Their beta site is currently available, and will soon move to the main Encyclopaedia Britannica homepage.

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