別了，大英百科全書
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????登陸維基百科（Wikipedia），輸入“重商主義”和“馬六甲海峽”這兩個詞條，顯示的結果都要優于在《大英百科全書》（The Encyclopaedia Britannica）的移動應用中查詢到的結果。 ????這對于大英百科全書來說可不是件好事，因為這些內容本應是大英百科全書的長項。盡管維基百科的涵蓋范圍要廣泛得多【甚至就連已經播了22季的美國動畫片《辛普森一家》（The Simpsons】，維基百科也不厭其詳地記錄了它每一集的劇情。此外維基還收錄了英國樂隊平克?弗洛伊德的所有唱片），但人們還是覺得大英百科全書在學術問題上更權威些。但事實往往并不是這樣?！洞笥倏迫珪返摹榜R六甲海峽”詞條里沒有地圖，而維基卻有。而且維基百科對“重商主義”一詞的解釋也更具可讀性、更清晰、更詳盡。 ????正如同外界長期預測的那樣，近日《大英百科全書》宣布，將停止銷售自1768年發行至今的印刷版百科全書?，F在大英百科全書將完全依賴它的數碼產品，也就是它的網站和應用。雖然它的部分信息是免費的，但大多數內容還是要收費。 ????大英百科全書有限公司（Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc.）的總裁喬治?考茨對美聯社（Associated Press）稱：“這件事與維基百科或谷歌（Google）都沒有關系，主要是由于現在《大英百科全書》已經在向大量人群銷售數碼產品。” ????當然這并不全是真話。該公司表示，《大英百科全書》大概有50萬付費用戶，而有1億多用戶則是通過圖書館和學校訪問《大英百科全書》。說印刷版大《英百科全書》的終結與維基百科和谷歌“完全沒有關系”，這是在否認事實?！度A爾街日報》（Wall Street Journal）指出，超過一半的谷歌搜索都會把維基百科的相關頁面排在第一位。相比之下，只有不到0.5%的關鍵詞搜索會把《大英百科全書》的頁面列到搜索結果里，并將搜索者導向它的網站。 ????這并不是說《大英百科全書》的實用性已經不復存在了。由于它的編寫和編撰工作非常謹慎，因此只要是它所涵蓋的內容，它仍是一個非常權威的來源，至少在可靠性和精確性上是勿庸置疑的。比如說，如果你想在學年論文里引用人類登月的確切日期，你絕對可以相信《大英百科全書》登載的內容是正確的。維基百科的詞條可能也是正確的，但由于任何人隨時都可以編輯詞條（或者在網站上搞破壞），因此特定事實必須與其它來源交叉引用——引文鏈接往往位于維基詞條頁面的底部（為了保證安全性，交叉引用大英百科全書也不失為一個好主意）。 ????不過，在許多情況下，人們只是想看到對某個事物的綜述，對像“重商主義”這種詞匯有個大體的了解即可，不必深究細節。在這種情況下（或者一個讀者想知道月球背面是什么樣時），維基百科往往和大英百科全書做得一樣好，甚至往往還要勝出一籌。不過維基百科詞條的質量波動很大，比如許多關于“馬六甲海峽”的事實都未注明來源，該詞條頁面頂端就嚴正注明了這一點（“本文需要額外的引文作為驗證。請引用可靠消息來源幫我們改善這篇文章。無來源的材料可能遭到懷疑和刪除。”——維基百科）但是對于大多數情況來說，維基的內容完全可以滿足大多數用戶了。 |
????Wikipedia's entries for "Mercantilism" and "The Strait of Malacca" are better than the entries in The Encyclopaedia Britannica's mobile app. ????This is bad for Britannica because subjects like those are supposed to be right in the venerable encyclopedia's wheelhouse. While Wikipedia is far more wide-ranging, with exhaustive entries for each episode of The Simpsons and all of Pink Floyd's albums, Britannica is often assumed to be superior on academic subjects. But often, it isn't. Its "Strait of Malacca" entry includes no map; Wikipedia's does. And Wikipedia's "Mercantilism" article is vastly more readable, clearer, and more exhaustive (at least, as of March 14, 2012 at 7:58 a.m. PDT.). ????As had been long expected, Britannica has announced that it will stop selling printed versions of the encyclopedia, which has been published since 1768. It will now rely entirely on its digital products -- its Web site and apps, where it makes some information available free, but puts most of the content behind paywalls. ????"This has nothing to do with Wikipedia or Google," Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. President Jorge Cauz told the Associated Press. "This has to do with the fact that now Britannica sells its digital products to a large number of people." ????But of course that's not entirely true. The company says about half a million individuals pay for access, while more than 100 million get access through libraries and schools. But to say the demise of the print edition has "nothing" to do with Wikipedia and Google (GOOG) is to deny reality. The Wall Street Journal notes that more than half of Google searches put a Wikipedia page in the No. 1 position in the results. And less than a half-percent of searches on terms that put Britannica pages in the results actually draw searchers to the site. ????None of which is to say that Britannica has outlived its usefulness. Thanks to the fact that it is carefully written and edited, it remains an authoritative source on the subjects it covers, at least in terms of reliability and accuracy. If you need to cite the date of the first lunar landing in a term paper, you can rest assured that Britannica has it right. Wikipedia probably does, too, but because anyone can edit (or vandalize) the site at any moment, particular facts must in all cases be cross-referenced with other sources -- which are often linked to right at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry. (It's usually a good idea to cross-reference Britannica as well, just to be safe.) ????In many cases, though, people just want an overview of a subject, to gain a general understanding of, say, mercantilism. In cases like that (and certainly in cases where a reader wants to know all about Dark Side of the Moon), Wikipedia is often at least as good as, and often better than, Britannica. Quality fluctuates wildly on Wikipedia - many of the facts in its Strait of Malacca article are unsourced, for example (which is duly noted at the top of the page), but for perhaps the majority of uses, it suits most users just fine. |
