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• Missing the Point
  Britannica is reliable. Britannica is slow. It sacrifices speed for accuracy on a narrow spectrum of topics.
  
  Wiki is less reliable, but then again, how often do we need to know all the nitty gritty details of a subject? When trying to find out the distance to the Moon, f wiki causes me to be off by 100,000 miles, no big deal, to me.
  
  But here is the big misunderstanding. Wiki is fast and growing. It has a MUCH broader range of topics AND you can directly link to external websites to find out more. If something happens in the news tonight, you can bet that Wiki will have something up tomorrow. It may not be 100% accurate, but I'll sacrifice a little accuracy for information now.
  
  Additionally, you are not going to find an article on "1337 speak" in Britannica. Nor will you get an article "Stargate: SG-1" in Britannica. As far as American culture goes, Wiki is king. Also, there are alot of fringe interests out there that don't get a whole lot of attention by major publishers, but they have entries in Wiki.
  
  All in all, I think that Wiki has done more to raise the "general" knowledge of people than Britannica, simply because it gives your the information you are looking for quick and gives you enough general information so that you can go from there and research the subject further.

  December 18, 2005

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