Talk:Encyclopædia Britannica/Archive 2

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Picture of a Britannica Printed Set

We need a picture of an entire Britannica printed set. I tried to use a picture from Britannica Online, but when I asked over at Fair Use whether this was allowed, they said it was not. So, I am writing on Wikipedia:Requested pictures and here, to ask you to get out your cameras and go to your nearest library. NauticaShad e s 15:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Done. Image:Encyclopaedia Britannica 15 with 2002.jpg (SEWilco 05:15, 14 November 2006 (UTC))

Thanks. NauticaShad e s 09:43, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Criticism section

Is the stuff in there about spelling notable? It gives examples, but no references are given for this criticism. — Matt Crypto 17:29, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I may have missed your point, but this is from, if you like, the horse's mouth: "In some cases, a British spelling returns more hits than an American spelling. The term theatre returns more hits than the term theater... If you have trouble getting the results you want in a Britannica CD search, try using the British spelling of a word." The reference (16) then follows: "British Spelling, Query Quirks, Getting Started, Encyclopædia Britannica Online Help Accessed 10/16/2006." Publishers usually attempt to impose a unified house style onto their product - in the case of spelling/punctuation, this means either ALL UK spelling/punctuation, or ALL US spelling/punctuation. To produce a hybrid of the two systems seems rather notable. Ericoides 20:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

No, it doesn't mean either British or American English. While the article may well mention that Britannica uses a hybrid (which is not particularly unusual), it is unsourced POV to describe it as "confusing" etc. Bramlet Abercrombie 21:32, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I was interested in sources that the spelling style was a notable criticism. — Matt Crypto 20:49, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Bramlet Abercrombie, if you revert once more, I'll have to report you for violation of WP:3RR. We have clearly put forth evidence and citations justifying this section, so please, stop removing it unless you can give a better explanation as to why it should be. It is common sense that the British/American spelling could cause ambiguity, and one does not really need to cite this (although a footnote would be nice), one only has to cite examples. NauticaShad e s 20:57, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. You have no source that its spelling style has ever been criticized, or that people are likely to get confused by it. Nor is there any source for the existence of a "publisher's decision to avoid British spellings that would be considered strange or quaint". Bramlet Abercrombie 21:12, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, please no more revert warring. Let's discuss this. I'm afraid evidence and citations haven't been given for this as a criticism. Are there any? — Matt Crypto 21:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense Bramlet, do I need a source to show that K2 is a mountain? It is as self-evident that it is a mountain as it is that a reference work with two different ways of spelling the same word is confusing. The fact that the EB itself uses the word "trouble" regarding "getting the results you want" speaks volumes ...Ericoides 21:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's very easy to find a source that K2 is a mountain. If you think that's equivalent, it should be easy for you to provide sources for the claims in the section. Incidentally, it does not spell the same word in different ways (except in proper names or within quotes). It uses a quite consistent system. For example, it always uses -ize endings (as in civilize), and it always uses -our endings (as in colour). Where is even your source for the claim that it uses "mostly but not exclusively British spelling"? It seems like a rather even balance between American and British English to me. Bramlet Abercrombie 21:32, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

There is also the question of this being "original research" and "inappropriate weight". An encyclopedia article needs to to summarise the body of human knowledge on a topic, and give each topic space according to its significance in the literature. If nobody has really voiced this issue as a criticism anywhere notable (and it's just a pet peeve a Wikipedian has noticed, say), then we can't give it any weight. If you can come up with some sources showing this is a criticism that has been raised somewhere notable, then fine. Otherwise, we should remove it, or rephrase it so it's not cast as a criticism. — Matt Crypto 21:43, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

You do have a point there; I'll go see if I can find a source. Until then, no more edit warring, please. NauticaShad e s 22:15, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid I've had little luck finding any source, and I apologize to both of you. Before we completey remove it however, we mgith want to wait and see if someone else can find it. If we do remove it, we should at least mention Britanica's style of spelling somewhere else, perhaps in the Current Version section. NauticaShad e s 22:27, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Please note points 2 and 3 of the policy at Wikipedia:Verifiability:

2. Editors adding new material to an article should cite a reputable source, or it may be challenged or removed by any editor.

3. The obligation to provide a reputable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it.

The material should be removed unless and until a valid source is provided. -- Donald Albury 02:48, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I've googled but can't come up with a source either. The case for removal looks strong.Ericoides 07:42, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

So be it, but we shouldn't let all that information go to loss. We should at least mention Britannica's spelling policy elsewhere, without the criticism/confusion part of it. NauticaShad e s 09:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

There seems to be alot of EB bashing -- what's with all the criticism of the 1911 edition? Come on, it's almost 100 years old. And isn't it the basis for WP itself? I'm really getting fed up with WP. And no, I'm not from EB. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.179.5.126 (talk • contribs). 27 April, 2007

I, as a Britannica and encyclopedia user, beg to differ with the opinion of the writer of this section, pasrticularly the bit that mentions racism and sexism, and the inaccuracy of the contributors. I was taken slightly aback by the seemlingly false claims that the editor of this piece made, therefore I am going to remove it, as there seems to be no proof of this.

First of all, the idea that the Ku Klux Klan restored white supremacy was the general opinion of white America at the time of the controversy between whites and blacks. Britannica and encyclopedias in general do not write from their own opinion, they write from facts and viewpoints of the people at the time. Just because that's what the article says doesn't mean that this syndicate necessarily supports this idea.

Also, about Marie Curie not being mentioned as a winner of the Nobel prizes, I don't think that Britannica is writing this from a sexist point of view. At the time, men were glamourized in these categories often more than women, and seriously, how many women have you heard of that won the Nobel Prize for things that actually mattered, or for something that not many people would be able to achieve? Physics is extremely broad and there are many who have won for this category and therefore we cannot expect everyone who won a Nobel Prize for Physics to be on that list.

As for the inaccurate contributors to Britannica..

Dear Editor, Are you sure you're not talking about Wikipedia being unreliable with inaccurate contributors? Britannica has actual staff, someone who is assigned to write an article. No one can go and login to write whatever they want before the next volume gets published, unlike Wikipedia, where anything you read could be true or not. The articles are also revised, so please tell me how what their staff writes is inaccurate, especially when the content of the articles are checked over constantly to make sure that every single piece of information that one may happen to read is factual. This is complete nonsense, and by this point, I'm starting to think that most, or all of this criticism is nonsense.

Also, the part about Wikipedia receiving millions of hits or whatever- that is COMPLETELY irrelevant to this article. It basically says "Wikipedia surpasses Britannica as an online substitute, and frankly, more people would rather use it instead of a reliable source which is professionally edited to deliver factual information". I am just going to suggest that someone deletes that entire bit, because this article is not talking about substitutes for Britannica. And let's face it, Britannica is more reliable than Wikipedia, because any oxymoron could write anything from unsubstantiated rumours to what they would like people to believe.

For the person/people who contributed to this false information, you are as ignorant as the "facts" you post on this site.

I do hope that the controversy over this does not continue beyond this post, and that is why I am hoping that someone will take notice of it and confirm deletion of this piece of the article.

DiscardedDream (talk) 22:30, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

You don't seem to have any understanding of how Wikipedia works. It's virtually irrelevant who the editor or editors were who added this. The only thing that matters is citations. The criticism section looks pretty well cited to me. Your suggestion of deleting the criticisms section outright seems pretty absurd. Richard001 (talk) 23:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Competition

Are Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encarta, and such traditional encyclopedias Wikipedia's competitors? Their so different. At their core, these are are traditional paper encyclopedias and wikipedia is a free-content online work. If so, how do we which encyclopedia is ahead. There is no market share or sales to base a comparison. I don't think you could compare number users or articles, accuracy of those articles, or hits to the website. Wikipedia is so different from Britannica. How do we know which encyclopedia is winning.--Wikiphilia 05:49, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia isn't always very factual, because anyone may edit it. You can't really compare Wikipedia with other encyclopaedias. Universities say that Wikipedia isn't a reliable source and shouldn't be used when doing research. --Adriaan90 (Talk|Contribs) 09:00, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, I won't accept wikipedia as a reference from my students - while on average it can be accurate, a reference taken at any given time can be hugely inaccurate, and is unlikely to be identical when someone checks the reference. Wikipedia is useful for a quick search (I use it all the time) but for scholarly works it has no authority. Sad mouse 16:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

If properly referenced it will be identical, as it is possible to reference an exact version of an article, using the history tab. Pentalis 05:50, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

"Which encyclopedia is winning" depends upon who's keeping score of what. Who's keeping score? (SEWilco 19:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC))

I'm adding some more information about traditional encyclopedias as competitors. Superm401 - Talk 03:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Versions missing

The 1911 "Handy volume issue" is not mentioned nor are any reprints. I've been told there may be reprinted versions of some editions. (SEWilco 06:36, 13 November 2006 (UTC))

Proper Source?

Is Encyclopedia Brittanica a proper source for Wikipedia to cite? There an edit war in Joseph Stalin, one guy accusing the people who wrote the article and the Encyclopedia Britannica of bias, by calling Stalin a dictator, and there has been a huge revert war over this. Any suggestions--Vercalos 20:43, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

That's a central question I'm walking around pondering. Before the era of Wikipedia, there was no centralized find-the-website-and-sources-by-click tool. At that historical era (from c:a -13.7 Ga to +2 ka), an Encyclopedia was motivated since the true source (research report and similar fact snapshot) was not always available for citation. Regarding Encyclopedia Britannica: of course it has a bias of the capitalist west civilization (while the red block was the communist part of west civilization), as well as antireligious logical positivist bias. No human population without a bias, but that bias usually regards limitations in experience, and more seldom in political bias. Personally I think using Encyclopedia Britannica will grow an obsolete custom, since the fact uptake of Wikipedia should preferrably be science reports and similar from all around the world. As regards Joseph Stalin, and other politics polluted reviews on conflicts on red-blue west civilization diochotomies, I personally think it is improper to use Encyclopedia Britannica as a source at all. Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 09:07, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

(paraphrasing) "Encyclopedia Britannica has an antireligious logical positivist bias". Beautiful :) And I agree with your statements both that Britannica will become an obsolete custom and that it is not a good source of citations - for example the same reason that neither encyclopedia should be cited in university papers. They are both (for the most part) tertiary sources. Robert Brockway 01:14, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Re-Nominate

What do you all think this article needs before it's re-nominated at WP:FAC? I've worked on it since the nomination and I think I've addressed most (if not all) of the issues raised. NauticaShad e s 10:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi NauticaShad e s!

I don't think we've really met before in Wikipedia — hi! :D I saw and admired your nice awards to Opabinia regalis, though; she totally deserves them, don't you think?

About this EB article — I'm wondering if you would mind waiting a little before you submit it again to be a FA candidate, so that I could tinker a bit? The article's already very good, but my intuition is that we might make it better in a few ways; Quality Overkill is always a helpful strategy at FAC. ;) I'll try to read up more, though, both here and externally, before I do anything rash and ill-considered. Do you mind waiting just a bit? Willow 23:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I was planning to wait. I don't know if you noticed, but I said What do you all think this article needs before it's re-nominated at WP:FAC? Anyway, I would agree with you, but I'm not an expert on the history and makeup of Britannica, So I'll let you do that. I'm actively searching for references, though, because the WP:FAC people are not lenient on that. NauticaShad e s 11:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

California Island

I have heard it said that EB indicated that California was an island up until about WWI, but am unable to find any source online verifying this. Is there any truth in the story? If it can be verified, should it appear in the article as an interesting trivia note? Legis 17:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Nonsense. Only the 1st edition said: "It is uncertain whether it be a peninsula or an island." [1] And at that time it was indeed uncertain (see Island of California). Bramlet Abercrombie 17:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hardly surprising, considering the Baja peninsula and what had been explored by 1771. In the 1st edition, the coastline of North America ends north of California and west of Hudson Bay. Where the northwest part of the continent belongs is simply labeled "unexplored". Some exploration was yet to be done. (SEWilco 17:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC))

I stand corrected. Legis 18:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

We also need to be careful about putting in any errors that could be found. Can you imagine if the wikipedia article contained a list of amusing errors that existed at one point or other in it? Sad mouse 18:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC) My point is not to use EB-bashing (and I know this was just proposed for fun, not for bashing) as a proxy for wikipedia-glorification. Sad mouse 19:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Consensus on editing

It would be helpful if we could reach consensus on our goals, instead of reverting each other's edits. What do you all think of the following goals and guidelines?

Subjective, unverifiable adjectives such as "important" should be deprecated unless accompanied by an explicit reference. We should strive to make the article as factual/referenced as possible and to abandon any personal biases.

All references should be made as fully as possible and, consistent with usual practice, hardcopy references are preferred over electronic references.

That said, I have found and photocopied the Kister hardcopy reference. Interestingly, I cannot find the passage that judges the EB unfavorably in comparison with the other three encyclopedias; can someone here point me to it, perhaps the original editor of that passage?

I have to run now, but I'll check in tomorrow again, once I've digested Kister and the other hardcopy reviewing references.

I would also like to take this opportunity to encourage anonymous editors to become users here, which indeed offers more anonymity.

Ta for now, Willow 22:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

There is a section in Kister's book devoted to general adult encyclopedias. At the end of each evaluation, it gives accuracy and recency ratings. So, there isn't a single location where the statement is substantiated, but instead each evaluation has to be referenced.--Sold FIRE insurance 07:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Preferred structure of participial clause

Regarded as one of the most important and widely recognized reference works in the English language, the Britannica is the oldest continuously published English-language encyclopedia in the world.

I respect the sentiment behind this sentence, but I would like to amend its wording to make it more forceful, more factual and more immediately intelligible. Some weaknesses I see in its present wording include

the duplication of "English language"

the initial participial clause (Regarded...language,) is rather long, making the idea more difficult to understand, since the reader has to wait to find out what it refers to. I suggest that we reverse the order, and begin with

The Britannica is the oldest continuously published English-language encyclopedia in the world, and is...

Finally, the adjectives "important" and "recognized" are too subjective, too non-factual — don't you agree? I recommend that they be replaced, or at least that an impartial reference be supplied.

If the wording matters to you, please respond to this note and its predecessor — thank you! Willow 16:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The Britannica is the oldest continuously published English-language encyclopedia in the world, and is widely recognized as an important reference work. How's that? The phrasing is weakened from "the most important" and both recognition and importance are supported by "widely recognized". The wideness of the recognition is missing a source. Would figures on sales popularity reflect wide recognition (at some point in time)? Is EB recommended in some library reference shopping list? (SEWilco 06:27, 9 December 2006 (UTC))

Haven't found a recommended library acquisitions list. Found [2] [3] (SEWilco 06:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC))

References

Do any of you mind I convert all of those Propedia The New Encyclopedia Britannica into one reference? By the way, reference 17 seems to be nonexistent. NauticaShad e s 11:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Order of the sections

There appears to be a difference of opinion regarding the best order of sections for this article. Let's discuss it and reach consensus, shall we? Here's the present order, which has been standard for a few weeks

History
CD-ROM edition and Britannica Online
Competition
1. Wikipedia
2. Encarta
3. Encyclopedia Americana and other print encyclopedias
Current version
Staff
Editorial advisors
Versions
Summary table of the editions
See also
References
Further reading
External links

As I see it, there are several problems with this ordering:

The "History" section is rather long, and a lot to slog through to get to a description of the current EB. I recommend putting at the end for the history buffs, and put the current information near the beginning for encyclopedia buffs. The summary table is too far away from the History as well; it seems like an appendix.

The "Current version" section comes well after the "CD-ROM" and "Competition" sections, which seems non-sensical. I would recommend putting the "Current version" section above those two, and eliminate the redundancies.

The "Versions" section (related materials published by EB Inc.) comes at the very end, and is uncoupled from the rest of the article. I recommend putting this section immediately after the "CD-ROM" section, but before the "Competition" section.

Details of the current version such as its staff, editorial advisors, etc. are given their own sections, which seems to confer undue importance on them. I recommend making them into subsections.

Finally, I'm intending to add more details into the History section for the editions between 3 and 14, on the historical context in which the 1st edition was published, and on the tradition criteria by which encyclopedias are assessed.

I invite all interested editors, anonymous or otherwise, to make comments and suggest alternatives. Thanks for your time and efforts to make this article as clear, informative and well-organized as possible! :) Willow 01:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

By convention most articles on Wikipedia (and most non-fiction books) move chronologically from oldest to newest. I agree history should come first, it is easier for the reader and other editors to understand the layout. I wouldn't worry about the history section being long, you never know why people read the article. If the article is long enough, it could move to History of Encyclopædia Britannica. I agree about sub-sections for staff. Look forward to your additions. -- Stbalbach 01:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Nature study in intro

If anyone other than Wikipedia were writing an article about Encyclopædia Britannica, I can guarantee you that the Nature study comparing Britannica to Wikipedia would not appear in the intro. On Wikipedia, sometimes we really have to step outside of the Wikipedia bubble and think about the importance of things in the big picture. This would be the equivalent of mentioning Congressional staffer edits to Wikipedia in the intro of the United States Congress article or Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China in the intro of the People's Republic of China article (not to give you any ideas).

WillowW says "If the study were insignificant, the EB would not have issued an exhaustive 20-page rebuttal on the web, and demanded a retraction from Nature (a serious step in science)."

I do not doubt the notability of this info for inclusion in this article, but merely challenge that it is one of the most notable things about Britannica, i.e. that it belongs in the intro. Things like the Nature study increase the credibility of Wikipedia; giving undue prominence to the Nature study decreases the credibility of Wikipedia. savid @n 22:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The Nature study was not even a study (in the scientific sense) - there was no peer review and the methodology used was controversial - it is best described as a "Nature article". We have an entire lengthy section in this article about Wikipedia already which talks about it. It is too controversial to be mentioned in the lead section without a lot of qualifiers, explanations and opposing view points. Finally, as the "final word" of the lead section, it gets undo weight and importance. -- Stbalbach 23:16, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm also unsure about the proper placement of the EB study, and am really happy that we're talking it over to help clarify it for ourselves. I completely agree that we should scrupulously avoid the appearance of bias. However, I also feel that the Nature study is really important for the following reasons:

The Nature study has been mentioned prominently in many of the popular press articles about the EB over the past year. Others may imagine that we're biased in our own favour, but not the New York Times and other newspapers, right? If newspapers consider the Nature study worthy of mention in short articles about the EB, can't we do likewise in our lead?

Not sure I follow the logic. Newspapers publish lots of material that is never mentioned in WP. -Stbalbach

Perhaps the most important asset of the EB is its hard-won reputation for being the best encyclopedia. Any factor that threatens that reputation is highly notable, particularly if it is published by a scholarly journal of the first rank, such as Nature.

All of this is controversial. Was it a study? Was it scholarly? Is it a threat? These are not clear and presenting them in such unambiguous terms in the lead section seems biased. -Stbalbach

The WP lead is supposed to summarize the longer article below, and stand as a "mini-article" on its own. So the "Competition" section should be summarized, even if briefly, no?

Perhaps. Although the lead section is currently way off - it uses footnotes (not supposed to use footnotes since it is just a summary with the details repeated in the main article) - so, it is difficult to know how to best phrase it - it should just be high-level summary, something about how its credibility has been a subject of public discourse over time. -Stbalbach

I have inside information (albeit, second-hand) that the upper management of the EB is seriously concerned about the threat of WP, concerned enough to convene an extraordinary meeting of its Editorial Advisors to discuss ways of dealing with it. That meeting, the press coverage mentioned above, the web publication of its exhaustive rebuttal (where it could be read by potential customers), the extraordinary step of asking Nature publicly to retract a paper with no falsified data, and recent changes in the EB's advertising to emphasize the unreliability of web resources — all these factors suggest that not only Wikipedians find the Nature study noteworthy.

It's certainly noteworthy and included in detail in the article. It's just how to deal with it in the lead section. -Stbalbach

How about the following compromise? We could replace the present specific-to-WP sentence in the lead with a more general statement that summarizes recent criticisms of the EB's quality, maybe something like this?

However, its reputation for excellence has called into question by several critics, who find it difficult to navigate<Kister citation> and only marginally more reliable than freely available web resources,<Nature citation> criticisms that have been challenged vigorously by the Britannica's management.<EB rebuttal of Nature study>

Again, this is biased because these points are controversial - why include the criticisms without also including the rebutals? -- Stbalbach

or the shorter version

Although its reputation for excellence has called into question by several respectable critics, these criticisms have been challenged vigorously by the Britannica's management.

This is better. It covers a lot of bases and is in the spirit of WP:Lead section. -- Stbalbach 15:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm very interested in all your ideas, though, and hope that you will consider this only as one proposal. Thank you also for being willing it to talk it over and for the courteous tone, Willow 23:39, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the advice and insights; I've been editing for some months now, but I still feel like a total WP newbie; I don't know what's proper and sometimes have a tin ear for how something sounds. It seems like the shorter version might be OK, though; if we're all agreed and there are no objections over the next few days, I'll add it. Willow 21:12, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I prefer a generic summary sentence about its reliability and how it compares to other encyclopedias that doesn't specifically mention Wikipedia or the Nature study at all. Savidan 02:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

EB 1911 into Wikipedia

How much content from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica (public domain) was copied into Wikipedia? --Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 02:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Hard to say. It was a lot. The Missing Encyclopedic Articles Wikiproject spent months importing and cleaning up the 1911 content, so they might have statistics. Each article incorporating 1911 content is supposed to make a note of it through {{1911}}, so you might want to check the Whatlinkshere for it. It's definitely up there in the thousands range. --Gwern (contribs) 05:33 10 January 2007 (GMT)

Also, a few editors copied and pasted entire EB1911 articles without much clean-up - I know of one editor (no longer around) that must have done it with over 1000 articles, at least in the account I knew about (he used multiple accounts). -- Stbalbach 15:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Novel topics?

The novel topics introduced into the Macropædia since 1989 include new taxonomic divisions (such as Algae, Animals, Dinosaurs, Fungi and Plants), new geographic discoveries (such as Atlantic Ocean, Belgium, Central Asia and Indonesia), new technological advances (such as Radar, Microscopes and Telescopes), and new developments in politics and history (such as Democracy, Diplomacy, Holocaust, European history, ancient Greek civilization and the Vietnam War). The Macropædia has also introduced new social developments of the past two decades such as rock music, science fiction, feminism, environmentalism, and puppetry.

I don't understand this at all. The Atlantic ocean, algae, dinosaurs, Ancient Greece, Indonesia, etc, can hardly be described as novel. Reference 33 is also missing. TimVickers 22:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Sigh; that's an especially snarky part. What's written is factually true; the Macropædia did introduce those articles over the past twenty years, and they were indeed novel for the Macropædia. But clearly, they're also fundamental topics whose absence from the 1989 Macropædia gives the lie to its self-claims of catholic coverage. Sigh, you see, I'm having trouble mastering myself even now. :( Willow 22:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I'll check for Ref. 33, hang on.

PPS. I think I'd better go home, and look at the article again once I've slept and had some pleasant dreams. Thanks for all your help, everyone! :) Willow 23:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Sleep well, sweet Wiki-princess. TimVickers 23:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

Is there an inconsistency here? How can it be American owned and owned by a Swiss billionaire. Something is missing here. David D. (Talk) 22:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Did I mention that I was dim? ;) Oops, will fix somehow. Thanks for stopping by, David — that's really nice! :) Willow 22:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts (long)

Posting this here in case anyone wants to refer to it (or troutwhack me, as the case may be):

"Troutwhack" — sigh, I love your use of words, I'm such a junkie.

The lead is too long; four bulky paragraphs were recently shown to be too much. Substantial chunks of the history, I think, should be abbreviated in the lead. I'll have to think more about including criticisms in the lead section, which we may think of as more notable than they are in the wider society simply because we're here.

I'm inclined to think that the critiques have been notable, and not merely to Wikipedians. There's a discussion above where newspaper coverage, EB reactions, etc. are considered.

The TOC is deadly huge. Can the editions be bundled into distinct periods of editorial leadership or philosophy, so there isn't a section header for every edition? Some of them only have a short paragraph of text. At minimum, the supplement subsections should probably be upmerged.

I tried to group them under three larger headings, but they're still there in the TOC — do you know how to fix this? I still would like to have individual sections for each editions, since they are discrete and fundamentally different from one another.

Depending on the final length, maybe they should be split into a history article and summarized - I didn't do the 'readable prose' calculation but I'm betting this is already on the edge. It's possible to forcibly construct a TOC that doesn't have the subheading links, but that seems a bit pointless; why else have them as section headers? Not quite sure what to about this, but it's a stylistic issue that can wait till the text is more mature.

I imagine most of the history is recounted from a relatively small number of print sources, making it difficult and downright undesirable to achieve the citation density of many FAs, but I also imagine the current low density will be a problem. For example, 'historical context' has no inline citations. The scientific citation guidelines are meant for science, obviously, but IIRC there were some rumblings on the talk page about similar standards being desirable for humanities-based FAs; might be a good place to start style-wise.

I totally agree, but I'll have to do more research before I'm up to snuff. :( Please be patient; some references I have already, but have not uploaded their inline citations.

Personal bias, but I hate {{cquote}}. I want those big cartoony quotation marks to die in a fire.

Let all of them burn, then — mwahaha. You really shouldn't encourage my arsonist tendencies. ;)

Oh yes, if you're feeling arsonistic, I can think of a few more templates that need flaming... :)

Rather than (or in addition to) explicating the circumstances surrounding each edition, a more general historical trajectory would be helpful - public perception, critical commentary, sales figures, that sort of thing. In particular - and I'm the last person to be suggesting an 'in popular culture type section - everybody has in their head the archetype of the door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, and everybody knows that at one point it was a bit of a status symbol to own a Britannica set, but the article as it stands doesn't give me a sense of when one developed from the other, or how those perceptions came to be. To whom was the first edition marketed? Did any of the original customers publish a review of their purchase? Etc.

The public perception is tricky to handle, since it's hard to quantify. The existence of pirate copies suggests that the EB was well-regarded; imitation is the sincerest etc.

- On that note, since this article is very long already, maybe it's worth splitting off a 'history of encyclopedia britannica' article. There's lots of information in the history section that seems interesting but ultimately minor, eg the pagination error of the 2nd edition. Similarly, there have been so many notable contributors of articles that I'm not convinced listing them in each edition's section is useful in this article, though it might be in a daughter article.

I agree totally; maybe I'll tackle that in a little while.

There's a bit of editorializing; the excellent An Universal History of Arts and Sciences by the French-born but English-naturalized Dennis de Coetlogon (two volumes, published 1748) drove its worthy editor bankrupt. stood out for me. Too many adjectives. Also Bonar "tried to extort" (yikes!), Bell's heirs "botched" the 5th edition, etc.

You're totally right again (YTRA for future convenience). Feel free to revert any such, if I don't beat you to it.

Things like "for further information, see <this reference>" are awkward and interrupt the prose - just a footnote works fine. (see 3rd edition section)

Yes, I had better fix those references, too.

In the 9th edition section, there's a long quote with little context from a British critic in 1988 that reads as very misplaced; had 'encyclopedia' even been dropped from the spine as of the 9th edition? It's a bit anachronistic. There needs to be some fleshing out of the process by which Britannica was sold to Americans - a direct result of the piracy? When the US government intervened, was it with a general ruling on international copyright or specific to Britannica? Was it a court case, new legislation introduced...? How did two of the pirates buy out the others?

The piracy history is a cool one, I'm guessing. The quote was meant to illustrate the lingering resentment of some British citizens to the American coopting of the Britannica name while slighting proper British subjects (pun alert!)

I think this would read better with the quote shortened, so it doesn't mention things that haven't come up in the article yet, or were only passingly mentioned in the lead.

Only 6.6% of the current contributors are female? Really? On the other hand, emphasizing that 'the dead outnumber women' is awkwardly POV.

It is, I know; I frustrate myself sometimes. :(

Including 'systemic bias' in the header might be POV-ish, and is rather awkward given that that is an established 'Wikipedia term'. Same with the weasel word 'seems' in the text of that section.

Whoa, systemic bias is a WP concept? I think it might be older than that; I'll try to find a good reference.

Not the concept but the term itself has an established meaning and set of connotations here that isn't necessarily the 'common' meaning - the way 'non-notable' in the Wikipedia context has 'should be deleted' attached to it. I guess only Wikipedia 'regulars' will notice one way or the other.

For purposes of minimizing bias, put Wikipedia last in the list of competitors? Also need citations for the commentary on people's preferred online search habits.

Good idea, someone already beat me to it. Thanks as always for your wonderfully insightful, unfailingly correct comments! You're the best set of eyes anyone could wish for, Willow 22:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

In general, it feels like the article gives a decently thorough description of the internals of Britannica's workings over the years, but comparatively little about its popular or lay reception during that time, or its impact on culture or education.

Opabinia regalis 06:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

It's kind of ironic you say that the lead is too long, as it's a commonplace of FAC to cite WP:LEAD and say the lead is too short! --Gwern (contribs) 16:10 12 January 2007 (GMT)

Speaking for myself, I agree with almost everything you wrote, including the lead length. I didn't mean to commission a review so early in the article's development, but I'm very grateful nonetheless. I'll try to read up on the issues you raise, and fix up those that fall within my present understanding. The piracy thing should make for a cool story. :)

I especially agree about removing even the slightest whiff of WP bias; the EB article should be noble, honest and serene, whatever the shortcomings of a particular contributor. I think the anonymity of EB Inc. is making it difficult for me to feel affection for it and appreciate its beauty; I'm going to try to imagine that I'm writing about and to someone I instinctively empathize with, such as Christine.

So, about the 6.6% issue. It's true and verifiable because the EB lists the names and positions of its named contributors exhaustively at the end of the Propædia. The gender of the contributor can generally be discerned from the name, e.g., "Annette Elizabeth Armstrong" versus "Terence Edward Armstrong". After counting the obviously female names and omitting ambiguous names such as "Jean" and "Leslie", one arrives at the 6.6% figure. This might be construed as original research, but I construe it as summarizing what the EB has published. I personally feel that the 15:1 ratio of male to female contributors is significant and worthy of mention, particularly in the context of systemic bias; however, I also understand the "gender is irrelevant" attitude of many people and recognize that publishing the statistic could be seen as — ignoble. I would welcome your ideas, and those of our fellow Wikipedians; I'll usually yield to any reasonable argument, and I promise to be gentle, not stubborn. :) Willow 19:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The above is basically a brain-dump of things I thought while reading the article, so possibly not everything is well-thought-out. Pirates pretty much always make cool stories, don't they? Well, the swashbuckling kind does; I hope their encyclopedia-stealing fellows keep up the tradition.

My instinct is that that calculation of 6.6% is problematic - there are inherent subjective decisions about the names involved that make verifying difficult. 'Jean Smith' is probably a woman, 'Jean Rousseau' probably a man, there are still some male Ashleys, Courtneys, and Kelseys running around, etc... I imagine these wouldn't throw the statistics off too much, but they do introduce fuzziness. My bias is to not mention the gender issue unless it's been analyzed elsewhere (I'm going to go ahead and guess that it has). But that's my general bias anyway, so take it with a grain of salt or two.

This is going to be a great article, and very worthy of being featured. Opabinia regalis 02:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

"Competition" section

The competition section is problematic, but easily solved. The problem is, anyone and everyone who has a favorite competing product is invited to create their own sub-section as a competitor. The solution is to rename the sections to something like:

Printed encyclopedias
Digital encyclopedias (DVD/CD)
User generated content encyclopedias

Then for each section, add a disclaimer that "there are many competitors but the most notable examples are .."

This will keep out the coat-tail riders. There are thousands of encyclopedia products that "compete" with EB (just by nature of being encyclopedias) and you don't want to create a monster here listing every one. -- Stbalbach 15:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that the Competition section should be shortened as there are probably thousands of printed and electronic encyclopedias, it is best to just name few notable ones.--67.2.149.47 21:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Regarding this paragraph, moved here:

Wikipedia receives roughly 400-fold more traffic than does the online version of the Britannica (britannica.com), based on independent page-view statistics gathered by Alexa from 15 October 2006 through 15 January 2007. The percentage of Internet users who visit Wikipedia is roughly 200-fold larger, based on the corresponding user-reach statistics. The measured average response time of the Britannica website (typically, 6.2 seconds) is over three times slower than that of Wikipedia (typically 1.8 seconds). Nine times as many web-sites link to Wikipedia (118,273, according to Alexa) as do to Britannica.com (13,628). Finally, the Alexa traffic rank for Wikipedia is roughly 11th, whereas that of the Britannica is roughly 4,573th; for comparison, the traffic ranks of the How Stuff Works and FunTrivia encyclopedias are 1,239th and 5,635th, respectively.

This is well researched, but too date and number specific. All of these numbers will be outdated very soon. I'm also not sure it is a good idea to get into a point by point debate about why one encyclopedia is better than another using such fine-grained measurements as hit counts, it seems too much like a sports competition and puts emphasis on things that are probably not even that important. -- Stbalbach 14:56, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

High level

Regarding this sentence:

Due to its high level of scholarship, it is targeted at educated adult readers, although simplified versions have been developed.

"High level of scholarship" is a value statement and thus POV. What if some people disagree that the scholarship is high? "High" is a part of the "high culture" (high art, higher education, etc..) lexicon and somewhat controversial. To be more neutral you could say "Due to its higher education scholarship.." but that is an awkward phrase that probably adds more questions than answers (when is a person an "adult", are they not adults if they don't have a higher education?). Perhaps just "Due to its level of scholarship.." and leave off any qualifiers of what "level" means and leave it to the reader to decide. I'll try that and see if anyone objects. -- Stbalbach 20:07, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Length of macropedia

The macropedia is 2-310 pages long? Something wrong there.--Shantavira 19:45, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, the articles are between 2 and 310 pages long; should I reword that? Willow 20:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Footnote #13 "Britannica History"

What source is <ref name="Britannica History"/> supposed to be in reference too, in footnote #13? -- Stbalbach 16:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, it seems to be blank... which means a named reference was used but that name isn't actually defined anywhere. Possibly there was a reference named "Britannica History" defined somewhere, but it got removed, and nobody noticed this reference was pointing to it. I'll have a look in the page history – Qxz 16:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Found it! The reference was originally used elsewhere in the article, but sometime in the last two weeks it was removed from there, and nobody noticed it broke this other reference. Fixed now – Qxz 16:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Stbalbach 16:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

"After the 11th edition...

The article states, "After the 11th edition, the Britannica chose to simplify and shorten its articles, making them more accessible to lay-readers, with the goal of broadening its North American market."

However, as the list of editions makes clear, the 12th and 13th editions consisted of the 11th edition in toto, plus supplemental volumes. Thus, the quotation is inaccurate. Perhaps it should be altered to read, "After the 13th edition...". Shenkin 06:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, Shenkin! :) I think it's straightened out now but, if not, please let me know. The History of the Encyclopædia Britannica article spelled it out more accurately. Thanks again and please keep a sharp lookout for other glitches; the article may go soon to peer review and then to FAC. Willow 18:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

harvard business school

HBS just put out this, which could be a good resource for this article. I've been tracking the progress here for a long time; keep it up guys its looking great around here. JoeSmack ^Talk 23:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Er... this seems to have more to do with Wikipedia than the Encyclopædia Britannica, would it be better there? – Qxz 09:33, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

It talks about Britannica as well as comparing the wikipedia/britannica rather frequently. their 'exhibits' has a nice little comparison table too. JoeSmack ^Talk 13:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

4,000 contributors

Are the 4,000 contributors paid or volunteer? -- Stbalbach 16:51, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm almost certain that they're paid, although I don't know what the prevailing rate is at the moment. According to the 1958 Kogan reference, the pay is relatively small and some contributors even try to return the pittance, on the idea that being allowed to summarize their field in a prestigious encyclopedia is reward enough. Perhaps we should track down more details on this? Thanks for the insight, Willow 10:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It would be very interesting and relevant. Obviously we can't know exact commissions, but any details that can be sourced. -- Stbalbach 15:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Comparison with Wikipedia

Ooh, I see the problem, the link in the reference did not go through, so it was removed! I cannot seem to figure it out, but the link is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/08/AR2006070800135.html

If someone wants to fuss around with the 'ref' tags and put that in, it would help out a bit! Alternatively, some might disagree with this. Sadly, this would be giving a biased view on this article, but if there is a particular reason for it, then let's hear it.

128.61.36.21 03:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, your original reference did indeed mess up the article, since you didn't include a closing </ref>, as I see now. Forgive me for having assumed it was mere vandalism.

That said, I still think the article is inappropriate here; it has little to do with the Britannica, being a minor summary of a minor event in Wikipedia's history, written by a reporter who didn't take the time to familiarize himself with Wikipedia. Your preceding sentence is also unfortunately disrespectful of the Britannica, which is counter to our mission here: to produce a factual, NPOV and courteous summary of the present Britannica and its history. Perhaps your article might find a home over at Wikipedia, but I think not; although the one episode is well observed, the article's scope is rather limited, and its author does not establish that the episode is representative.

However, please don't let this discourage you; it takes a while to get used to a place and its customs, no? :) Please consider forming an account here (it's that "Create account" at your upper right) and finding a place where you can devote yourself to improving Wikipedia. See you around, Willow 10:00, 26 February 2007 (UTC)