In this week’s NZ Listener Russell Brown’s column “Wide Area News” is mostly dedicated to the ongoing tensions, or should that be conflict, between established providers of information (i.e. encyclopaedia publishers) and projects like Wikipedia. Some interesting points about Wikipedia and its like being open to the placement of “viral marketing.”

See: NZ Listener – Wide Area News – 10 Sept. 2005 (You’ll have to scroll down past the David Kirk bit and it flows over onto the next page).

Here are some relevant links. The first two were cited in the paper edition of the article but ironically left out of the online version. I’ve added the latter two because, while mentioned in the article, they weren’t linked to at all in any version.

• TCS: Tech Central Station – The Faith-Based Encyclopedia : Robert McHenry’s (ex-editor in chief – Britannica) critique of Wikipedia.
• Free Software Magazine – The FUD-based Encyclopedia : Aaron Krowne’s reply to Robert McHenry.
• Wikipedia:Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia.
• Wikipedia:Errors in Wikipedia that have been corrected in the Encyclopædia Britannica

Update – some more links that go with the above ones.

• On Getting It – A follow-up response by McHenry to his own article above.
• McHenry responds to Aaron Krowne.

Also check out these posts by Tim (especially the comments sections). See “Wikipedia vs Britannica” and “What matters about an encyclopedia?“