Because geek is cool and clever

Playing Wikipedia at its own game January 30, 2009

That bastion of collected knowledge, the Encyclopedia Britannica, has been well and truly trumped online by Wikipedia, partly due to the breadth of subject covered by the latter but mostly, I suspect, because you get maybe 10 seconds to read most Britannica entries before a huge black box covers the text and tells you that you need a premium (read ‘paid for’) subscription in order to view it.

In a bid to revive its popularity, editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica have decided to take a virtual leaf from Wikipedia’s book and start to accept user submitted content as both new entries and additions to existing ones – but with a slight difference.

Whereas Wikipedia entries are immediately on the site and then peer reviewed some time later, Britannica, presumably wary of its reputation, has stated that user content will be checked by editors before going onto the site, claiming they can turn around submissions in 20 minutes.

If the idea becomes popular Britannica will need a staff army to keep up.