Britannica-Wikipedia debate gets personal Encyclopedia Britannica posted a rebuttal to the journal Nature’s investigation that found that Wikipedia.org was only slightly less accurate than the venerable Britannica. “We discovered in Nature’s work a pattern of sloppiness, indifference to basic scholarly standards, and flagrant errors so numerous they completely invalidated the results,” the 20-page white paper says. But say what you really think, Britannica!

Actually, the rebuttal is pretty damning. If Nature cut even half of the corners that the document cites, then it did a shoddy reporting job, certainly not something you’d expect from such a respected journal. However, Nature isn't taking this lying down. It posted a 27-page addendum to the article showing in detail what were the errors in both reference sources. While a lot of the errors are so small as to seem inconsequential, the sheer number of mistakes is surprising. The addendum also doesn't address Britannica's charges that some of the source materials Nature used came not from the encyclopedia but from related reference works that are less detailed or aimed at younger audiences.

If I were Britannica, I guess I wouldn't take this lying down, either. When you charge people $70 to use your reference work and someone else is giving away for free, you don't want to acknowledge the competitor's quality. That's about the only card Britannica has to play.  ¶ 8:16 AM