Wikimedia press releases/Wikipedia vs Brockhaus and Encarta
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[edit] Wikipedia content tested
October 4, 2004 (Berlin, Germany, the Internet): c't, the popular german magazine for computer engineering, just released a study (in their October 4 edition) in which they had experts test the content of the three major digital encyclopedias in Germany -- Brockhaus, Encarta, and Wikipedia. The test covered 22 subjects in the fields of Science, Society, and Arts. Within each subject, three specific topics were chosen -- an easy, a moderate, and a hard topic -- and the articles on these topics were reviewed by experts for breadth, depth, and comprehensibility of content.
The experts then rated each article on a scale from 1 to 5 points; these results were totalled at each level of conceptual difficulty, within each field, and across all 22 topics. The net result: Wikipedia took the top prize, a significant margin ahead of the other two encyclopedias, faring particularly well in Science topics.
[edit] Background
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, is created entirely by volunteers who contribute, update, and revise articles in a collaborative process. All of its content is freely reusable, published under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). Wikipedia recently celebrated the creation of its 1 millionth article in over 100 languages.
Wikipedia publishes its content on a wiki software platform called MediaWiki. A wiki allows anyone to edit a page at any time and have their changes visible instantly (wikiwiki means "quick" in Hawaiian). Visitors can also examine old versions of pages to see how an article has developed.
[edit] Additional information
For questions and interviews, please contact (in English only):
Jimmy Wales, Chair, Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Foundation
Phone: (+1)-727-644-3565
Email: press@wikimedia.org
Angela Beesley, Executive Secretary, Board of Trustees, Wikimedia Foundation
Phone: (+44)-7796-305-786
Email: angela@wikimedia.org
For further background information, please see:
