As a former member of the editorial advisory board of Encyclopaedia
Britannica, I can tell you that, unlike Wikipedia, EB relies on the
voice of authority. It has excellent subject matter editors as
full-time employees who select world-authorities on each topic to be
considered. These people are given a lot of leeway in how the write
their articles. They are also paid for their services.
The editor reviews the articles in the traditional manner of academic
publishing (but seldom asking for peer review), with staff
fact-checkers, artists, and photographers helping to put together the
article. Informed opinions are encouraged.
At one of the editorial meetings, one of our members (Murray
Gell-Mann, a Nobel in Physics) recited from memory a wonderful section
on physics from an older edition, gleefully reporting at the end:
"this is absolutely wrong. And that is OK -- it was thought to be
correct at the time. The article was written by Maxwell, the most
eminent physicist at the time. This is how all our articles should be:
informed opinion, even if later it is wrong."
On EB, if a reader of the on-line version thinks there is an error or
omission, the reader can edit the text appropriately. However, unlike
Wikipedia, this 'correction" is not published. It goes to the section
editor. That person can decide immediately whether to accept or reject
it. Or, if it is something that is substantive enough to require an
expert opinion, it is sent to the article's author. (The reader is
informed of the progress of the recommendation.) This allows timely
revision, but still under complete editorial control.
My suggestions were always immediately implemented because I was a
known entity. Someone else making the same suggestion might have to go
through a more lengthy review. This is as it should be, in my
opinion.
EB is the voice of authority.
---
Wikipedia is extremely valuable. Even the EB editors would refer to
it. It is especially good at the small, the trivial, and the items
that EB would never cover. It is not so good at informed, lengthy
articles. Many of my revisions to articles on which I am expert are
changed back because these are just my opinions. In EB, they would be
maintained (but if they were just my opinion, they would be stated as
that).
The American Psychological Association has an extensive recruiting
program to get authorities to write and edit Wikipedia articles. We
will see how well that stands up to their rules: uninformed people who
know little or nothing of the topic, enforcing silly, but
well-intentioned rules.
Don
On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 10:16 AM, Filippo A. Salustri
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I'd like to ask a question out of complete ignorance: How is "undue weight"
> treated in encyclopedias of a more conventional nature?
> That is, would the same thing have happened in, say, a similar article
> published in E. Britannica?
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