Microsoft Encarta Adopting Wikiesque Process 314
An anonymous reader writes "The MSN Encarta program manager announced that readers of Microsoft's encyclopedia articles can now edit articles in a Wikipedia-like fashion. Once submitted, edits are reviewed by Encarta staff members for accuracy, readability, and proofreading before being incorporated into the article." From the post: "To support this program, we've hired some new research editors. Their job will be to help you out with things like fact-checking, syntax, and editorial style. Every writer can use a good editor, and we see no reason that community contributors deserve any less." J adds: This won't be a big surprise, but "Your submissions to Encarta must be your own work" and "you grant Microsoft permission to use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat your Submission."
Pattern? (Score:5, Interesting)
Longhorn to use UNIX-like User Permissions [slashdot.org]
"Readers of Microsoft's encyclopedia articles can now edit articles in a Wikipedia-like fashion"
huh...
Re:First that, then this?! (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember Microsoft, a few years ago called Encyclopedia Britannica a "relic" for not having enough multimedia content. Now, this move by Microsoft makes Encarta look like a relic compared to Wikipedia.
Ummm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
What's next, and "community" site to allow programmers to write new applications for Microsoft to sell?
Editor review before accepting modification (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bud Light Presents Real Men of Genius (Score:5, Interesting)
Something that wiki and slashdot both lack.
Can you criticize Microsoft on MS Encarta? (Score:5, Interesting)
Fostering a community spirit might be somewhat harder, I think due to the fact that the community isn't really actively involved in editing each other's works and contributing. It still goes through a review process, and the reviewers have the final say.
Wikipedia's strength (and some might say, weakness) is due to the large userbase that works on articles. Hence there is a broad spectrum of opinions and views when in the end sort of balances out. Would there be some sort of inherent bias due to the review process? I mean, does there have be any set of "officially sanctioned" view? Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has an article on Wikipedia criticisms [wikipedia.org]. Can we expect to see an article that criticizes Microsoft or MS Encarta ON MS Encarta? That would be interesting.
Errr ... business as usual? (Score:5, Interesting)
And now Encarta will have that. Which is a GOOD thing. If you want to create an encyclopedia, you go with Wikipedia (or H2G2, or Everything2). If you want to help improve Encarta, because you use it a lot, NOW YOU CAN. It's just a feature, people.
Who owns the content? (Score:3, Interesting)
So does this information belong to MS, or everyone?
I wonder if.. (Score:2, Interesting)
How? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wikipedia works so well because of the volume of information that is changed, and that is changed in real time. Microsoft would need a HUGE team, or have to outsource, and although an outsourced encyclopedia would prove comedic, it wouldn't be useful.
Encarta can't be as "fresh" as Wikipedia (Score:5, Interesting)
Increase quality and compete... (Score:5, Interesting)
A moderation system, including a way to submit changes to articles. Basically, there would be a way for readers to "vote" for various metrics on articles, including accuracy, readability, etc. Also, the system would keep track of articles that are accessed more often. The moderation system would work like this: The more often an article is accessed, the more important it is assumed to be, and therefore, changes would need to get higher moderation points before becoming an officially accepted part of the article. Up to that point, there would be a list of pending changes at the bottom of articles, which readers could see. This is akin to the development/stable process used in software development, and it would perhaps increase the quality of articles.
Further, Wikipedia should figure out all kinds of business ventures to bring in money for further quality improvement. A Wikipedia magazine, containing random articles picked by a small staff; a dead-tree Wikipedia set, CDs and DVDs, and other junk that could be sold might bring in money to pay a staff of researchers to go through the entire encyclopedia and increase the detail level and quality of its contents.
Also, a method for adding pictures, videos, and other content to articles should be provided, so people can contribute original art, photographs, music, etc., or like items that are free/public domain. This would add value to the encyclopedia as a whole.
Boatloads of money needed... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, Amazon-style "people who read this article also read..." links should guide people through the Wikipedia.
Google-style text links could be placed on the side of some articles.
The revenue from all of these activities could finance a staff of full-time researchers, photographers, developers, and so on, who could improve the quality and detail level of the reference as a whole. I know people here hate commercials, but they're small, text-only, and will help this free resource to grow into something that can rival the likes of the old-style Encyclopedia Britannica. I can see room for so much here; it will just take boatloads of money to make it work really well.
Forget 'criticism', let's (Score:5, Interesting)
No results were found for your search in Encarta.
versuse n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encarta>
ahref=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encarta [slashdot.org]http://
Forget being noncritical of Microsoft; let's ignore the competition, too! They don't even have anything on Linux save a mention in Open Source Software [msn.com].
Re:Ummm.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:fact-checking? (Score:4, Interesting)
Easy to catch them out then - just create a Wiki article about something that doesn't exist anywhere. Like Yellow Pages does - puts fake companies in, and catch people using the Yellow Pages (against it's terms) to find companies for business. Or map companies adding a very short fake road somewhere.
Let's talk about the license (Score:3, Interesting)
BBC's H2G2 was also a non-free project and a lot of people were willing to contribute to that.
It will be interesting to see if Encarta can actually defend their policy of "letting someone else to do part of the work". Of course, there are much more ways to pay back the best contributors:
* Write 20 articles and your name will be in the Microsoft Blog about Encarta
* Write 200 articles and you might be considered to be hired by their fact-checking department
* Write 2000 articles
The point is that there is so much more reward in a destructive behavior from some points of view.
* Who will be the first to smuggle in wrong information into an article that gets published by encarta
* Who will be able to turn an article into a Microsoft-bashing pamphlet
* Who will be the first to initiate a scandal about cencorship and so on...
In the end, it's a nice idea which does not meet the current standards of wikipedia.
yay! (Score:2, Interesting)
search Encarta for "more evil than Satan" (Score:3, Interesting)
Encarta [msn.com]
hee hee!
Re:Me Too! (Score:3, Interesting)
I dunno, I've got lots of spare time :)
My devious mind starts wondering.... Take a random Wikipedia article, use the Google language tools to translate it to some other language and then back to English. Submit it to MS Encarta under the name of another randomly chosen Wikipedia article. The only problem I envision is that MS will probably require a complex login and verification process instead of allowing anonymous contributions. That'd make scripting more difficult. I could do it manually a few times a day just for shits and giggles.
In response to Google's latest developments? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:better than wikipedia (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Forget 'criticism', let's (Score:3, Interesting)
Why on earth would anyone give MS free content when they could just post it on...wikipedia?
Re:Obvious what they want... (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the things I dislike about google is that they haven't improved this in the last 8 years (when did they start the beta?) and while it's a minor annoyance when you search the web (because someone somewhere probably used the terms you're searching for on his/her page); for an encyclopedia this is a much bigger problem