Thursday 15 December 2005

Online - Wiki versus the world


news @ nature.com�-�Internet encyclopaedias go head to head�-�Jimmy Wales' Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries, a Nature investigation finds.

Out and about in the mainstream media now, but this is the original Nature article that measured Wikipedia accuracy with that of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Out of 50 pairs of entries:

Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopaedia. But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively.

Headline on the BBC and others is 'Wiki survives research test'. Personally, by the looks of it I'd say both sources failed.

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