Wikipedia vs. Britannica
It would be interesting to see the full reports from the outside experts chosen to evaluate different articles. I think Wikipedia must be regarded as inherently unreliable because of the way its content is created. It seems to me that every single entry will have been produced by those with idiosyncratic interest in the topic. In many instances, this probably makes little difference, but in many others there is no way it could not. Here is an example from the first paragraph of the entry on the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons:
"The game also achieved minor notoriety, particularly in the 1980s, due to exploitation of its imagery by many fundamentalists for the purpose of scaring parents of players; they alleged that the game promoted, among other things, devil worship, witchcraft, suicide, and murder."You can't just throw around words like "exploitation" and phrases like "for the purpose of" in an encyclopedia article. And here's a paragraph from the entry on "2003 Invasion of Iraq" that requires no comment:
"More serious for the post-war state of Iraq was the looting of hundreds of thousands of tons of heavy ordinance: artillery shells, aircraft bombs, mortars; all of which were then used to attack US forces, Iraqi officials, and civilians by the insurgents and terrorists. After invading to prevent WMD’s, the Iraqi nuclear facilities weren’t even a priority- the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, with about 100 tons of uranium, was allowed to be looted. Video showed locals crossing through the fence as US troops looked on passively."Being an amateur photographer, I was interested to see that Wikipedia has a standing list of requested images. Here are some that you likely won't be seeing in the Encyclopedia Britannica:
- Anal jewelry [December 18, 2005: the day MWR lost what remained of his innocence.]
- Map of the world according to the legal situation of marijuana in the world's countries
- Molotov cocktail, the article could use an actual picture of a molotov coctail. Preferably one with a free lisense, either an ilustration or a photo of a "mock up" (or real) molotov coctail. The article does have a "fair use" image of someone throwing one, but IMHO a free image that show just the "weapon" itself would be more usefull for the article (pluss fair use should be avoided if possible). [I assume the Nature study didn't consider spelling--apparently I'm not the only one who needs an editor, CLD.]
- Salem, Oregon city photo needed [I may get a chance to knock this one off before too long . . . the excitement is palpable.]
posted at 1:17 PM
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