英国大不列颠百科全书

A few days ago we reported that Encyclopedia Britannica was planning to allow user edits to its online (and eventually print) reference products. The policy change was put in place as part of an effort to compete with Wikipedia, but we wondered if would have any real effect.

几天前，我们报道了《大不列颠百科全书》正计划允许用户对其在线(并最终打印)参考产品进行编辑。 这项政策变更是与Wikipedia竞争的一部分，但我们想知道是否会产生真正的效果。

“Will user contributed content help Britannica to compete with Wikipedia? The bottom line answer is: probably not,” we concluded. “Wikipedia will continue to be the web’s top general reference destination because its results are accurate enough for most people’s queries. Simply adding user content won’t make Britannica a more attractive reference destination.”

“用户提供的内容会帮助Britannica与Wikipedia竞争吗？ 最重要的答案是：可能不会。 维基百科将继续成为网络上最主要的参考站点，因为它的结果对于大多数人的查询来说足够准确。 仅添加用户内容并不会使Britannica成为更具吸引力的参考目的地。”

However, we still think Britannica is making a smart move by allowing users more control over the encyclopedia content. Increased engagement with their users can only be a net positive for the brand, and tapping into the collected knowledge of the crowd could help broaden the scope of their reference coverage and make sure errors are caught and corrected.

但是，我们仍然认为Britannica正在通过允许用户对百科全书内容进行更多控制来做出明智的举动。 与用户的更多互动只会对该品牌产生正面影响，而利用所收集的人群知识可以帮助扩大他们的参考范围，并确保发现并纠正错误。

One of the reasons Wikipedia has become so popular is that the range of topics it covers is so startlingly broad you can find an article on just about any topic. Britannica could never hope to match that depth of coverage using its traditional model of paying individual expert writers to author entries on each topic. By opening up their content to user contributions, they are potentially opening up for expansion. Vetting those user edits for accuracy will ensure that the encyclopedia maintains its high quality standards.

维基百科如此受欢迎的原因之一是其涵盖的主题范围如此之广，以至于您可以找到有关任何主题的文章。 Britannica永远不会希望使用其传统的付费个人专家作者就每个主题撰写文章的传统模式来匹配这种深度的报道。 通过向用户贡献开放其内容，他们潜在地可以扩展。 审核这些用户编辑的准确性将确保该百科全书保持其高质量标准。

Another reason Wikipedia has come to dominate reference sites is its speed. When new information about a subject arises — such as the death of a famous person, or the sale of a company — it is added to Wikipedia almost instantly. That update speed is something that Britannica’s traditional model could never achieve. Though vetting user contributions will mean they won’t reach the site as fast as Wikipedia, it does likely mean that new content will be able to be added at a faster clip than in the past.

维基百科主导参考站点的另一个原因是它的速度。 当出现有关某个主题的新信息时(例如，某名人的死亡或公司的出售)，该信息几乎立即被添加到Wikipedia中。 这种更新速度是Britannica的传统模型无法实现的。 尽管审核用户的贡献将意味着他们访问网站的速度不会像Wikipedia那样快，但这确实意味着可以比过去更快地添加新内容。

However, the reasons that Wikipedia is so popular, are also the reasons that it is so potentially dangerous. Information spreads fast on Wikipedia, but so to does disinformation. And that can be a real problem given how much power it holds. Hitwise reported last week that of the top 5 encyclopedia sites, Wikipedia gets 97% of the visits. That’s an almost complete monopoly of the space. Further, we noted in September that Wikipedia is one of the most powerful sites on Google. So disinformation on the site can have very damaging consequences.

但是，维基百科如此受欢迎的原因，也是其潜在危险的原因。 信息在Wikipedia上Swift传播，但虚假信息也是如此。 考虑到它拥有多少电量，这可能是一个真正的问题。 Hitwise 上周报告说，在前5大百科全书网站中，维基百科获得了97％的访问。 那几乎是整个空间的垄断。 此外，我们在9月注意到Wikipedia是Google上功能最强大的网站之一。 因此，网站上的虚假信息可能会造成非常严重的后果。

That’s why, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is proposing flagged revision system that would place some articles under the care of expert reviewers who would fact check any major changes. What prompted Wales to make the suggestion was edits to articles for two US senators that incorrectly reported them dead last week. The false edits were corrected within minutes, but on a site as high traffic as Wikipedia, minutes could potentially be long enough to fan the flames of rumor. And sometimes rumors on the site have stayed unchanged in entries for months.

因此，维基百科的创始人吉米·威尔士(Jimmy Wales) 提出了一种带有标记的修订系统 ，该系统将某些文章置于专家审阅者的照顾下，他们将检查任何重大更改。 促使威尔士提出该建议的是对两名美国参议员的文章的编辑，他们错误地报告了他们上周死亡。 错误的编辑在几分钟之内就得到了纠正，但是在像维基百科这样的高流量网站上，几分钟的时间可能足以引起谣言。 有时，网站上的谣言在几个月内一直保持不变。

“This nonsense would have been 100% prevented by Flagged Revisions. It could also have been prevented by protection or semi-protection, but this is a prime example of why we don’t want to protect or semi-protect articles – this was a breaking news story and we want people to be able to participate (so protection is out) and even to participate in good faith for the first time ever (so semi-protection is out),” wrote Wales.

“这些废话本来可以通过标记修订来100％防止的。 也可以通过保护或半保护措施来防止这种情况发生，但这是为什么我们不想保护或半保护物品的一个典型例子-这是一个重大新闻，我们希望人们能够参与其中(威尔士写道：“因此，保护​​已经取消了，甚至是第一次有诚意参加(因此，半保护已经取消了)。”

The flagged revision system has been in place on the German Wikipedia for a few months, but the up to 3 week approval time for changes in unacceptable to Wales. The system for the English version that he is proposing would have a much shorter approval time — less than a week — and only be active on a subset of Wikipedia articles. Though he doesn’t say which articles, or how they’d be chosen, presumably articles that have already been flagged as dealing with a contentious issue or are already receiving a greater than average number of edits would be prime candidates.

标记的修订系统已在德国Wikipedia上部署了几个月，但威尔斯无法接受长达3周的变更批准时间。 他提议的英文版系统的批准时间要短得多(不到一周)，并且只能在部分维基百科文章上使用。 尽管他没有说哪些文章或如何选择，但大概已经被标记为处理有争议的问题或已经收到超过平均数量的编辑的文章将是最佳选择。

So while one major encyclopedia is moving toward user edits, another is planning efforts to curtail them. Both, however, are likely moving in a direction that will lead to more accurate and reliable reference content.

因此，虽然一个主要的百科全书库正在朝着用户编辑的方向发展，但是另一本正在计划减少它们的工作。 但是，两者都可能朝着导致更准确和可靠的参考内容的方向发展。

翻译自: https://www.sitepoint.com/maybe-britannica-is-on-to-something/

英国大不列颠百科全书