As the veracity of Wikipedia is questioned and lawsuits threatened, Nature’s Timo Hannay dropped a note to the Radar crew about a test the folks at Nature magazine conducted to see which encyclopedia had more errors. The experiment “sent 50 pairs of Wikipedia and Britannica articles on scientific topics
to recognised experts and, without telling them which article came from
which source, asked them to count the numbers of errors (mistakes,
misleading statements or omissions). Among the 42 replies, Britannica
content had an average of just under 3 errors per article whilst Wikipedia
had an average of just under 4 errors — not as much difference, perhaps, as
most people would expect.” Also see the subject-by-subject breakdown, accompanying editorial (subscribers only), and Timo’s blog which has links to Nature’s interview with Jimmy Wales about it.
