DEATHMATCH: Britannica vs. Wikipedia

The journal Nature have done a study of error frequency in Wikipedia and Britannica, and just published their results:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html

Turns out Wikipedia is only slightly less accurate than Britannica, at least on matters within Nature’s area of expertise.

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        <p>Especially interesting following the USA Today furor over a spurious entry about a retired journalist. I think this is a full list of the articles, editorials, and letters they ran on the subject:</p>

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2005-12-05-wiki-rules_x.htm http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2005-12-06-wikipedia-truth_x.htm http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-12-11-wikipedia-apology_x.htm http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-12-08-letters-wikipedia_x.htm

Also interesting as we’ve been debating the merits of converting one of our sites at work to a Wikipedia-style maintenance model, and some of the staff have brought up concerns of accuracy, defacing, etc. I find it at least passingly interesting that Wikipedia have begun requiring you to create an account before editing. I’m surprised they hadn’t done so before actually.