Britannica has published a scathing criticism of Nature’s december Wikipeda-Britannica comparison, claiming that Nature gave reviewers only sections of Britannica articles, used materials from it’s children’s edition and “Book of the Year”, and used some articles that, they claim, aren’t even in Britannica. Naturally, Nature has responded (I think I just made a pun ) and the response firmly stands by their original work.

An article from The Register states, “Nature‘s news and features editor Jim Giles, who was responsible for the Wikipedia story, has a fondness for “collective intelligence”, one critical website suggets.” I’d sure hope the editor of the leading peer-reviewed academic journal has a fondness for collective intelligence – that’s not critical, that’s laudable. The article also tries to make the argument that Nature came to the defense of wikipedia after bad press from the Seigenthaler controversy, as if that was a bad move by Nature. Where’s the bad in that? Clearly, Nature sees the value in what’s happening with Wikipedia, including the value of public discourse and transparency. I’m sure there have been disgreements over the content of articles in Britannica, but we’d never hear about them because it’s a closed system. Incidentally, the Seigenthaler controversy link above goes to a Wikipedia page describing the event in full detail, including the negative characterizations of the site by mainstream media. I have to ask, what mainstream media outlet or big corporation would ever publish such a detailed, transparent account of a negative event, and acknowedge their own errors? I’d say Wikipedia, by virtue of its own design, will learn from its own mistakes, and be less likely to respeat them. On another note, does Britannica think it’s own children’s product isn’t up to snuff? That’s an odd argument for them to make – that Nature shouldn’t have used one of their products to measure the accuracy of their products?

I’ll stand by the independent third party, who has nothing to gain from this. Britannica is obviously feeling the sting of Nature’s study; otherwise they wouldn’t have felt the need to strike back so hard. This is an example of the larger issues facing big publishing – a model that worked well when transparency and particiaption weren’t so commonplace, but is now coming under criticism because it doesn’t enable the same involvement. I think people want to know what’s in the food they eat, so to speak, and don’t want to be served “mystery meat”.

Here’s the Britannica criticism (PDF), and Nature’s response (PDF).