Thursday, August 30, 2007

Wikipedia > Britannica, Case Study 1 John Isner

I have heard a FEW folks complain that Wikipedia hurts the prospects of "real encyclopedias" such as Encyclopedia Britannica, & that Wikipedia has more errors than Britannica.

As a case study, I looked up John Isner on both encyclopedias. Isner is 1 of the biggest stories at the US Open.

1 Isner just graduated in May from U of Georgia, being 1 of the only ATP pros that go to college for 4 years & graduate

2 Isner is quickly showing results in his first few tourneys, making the final of the Washington warm-up tournament & losing a close match to Roddick

3 Isner beat #26th seed Jarkko Nieminen in the 1st Rd of the US Open. Isner's next match is in the 3rd Rd against the possible GOAT Roger Federer

4 Isner is 6 foot 9 inches, & has an awesome serve. Extremely tall players with great serves are very dangerous, because they have a chance to beat anyone. Isner's service games are extremely hard to break, so even if Isner can't break his opponent's serve, there's a chance Isner can still win a match via tie-breakers.

5 Isner might end up being the best American player of his era of mid-1980s born players.

I feel these reasons are strong enough to satisfy the "notability guideline" & have an encyclopedia article. Let's see what the encylopedias think:

Wikipedia

Britannica nothing!

Geez, whose more "ACCURATE" here, a decent article from Wiki, or NOTHING from Britannica.

My conclusion:
1 The Wisdom of Crowds effect > a small group of expert writers

2 Wiki is the truth. Anti-wiki naysayers are elitist, non-democratic haters.

1 comment:

Belize said...

Fukc brittanica..free is better