The UK’s Inquirer news site reported today that Wikipedia now has a page for reporting errors found in Encyclopedia Britannica. Some of the errors uncovered include birthdays, the birth name of Bill Clinton, the definition of NP problems in mathematics (whatever THEY are :-) ), and other scientific, linguistic, historical facts.

Does this mean Wikipedia is a better source for information than Britannica? It depends what information you want. In general, the rule of thumb is that you should ALWAYS double-check your information with a second source before you use it in any way that matters (like a research paper or blog post). While Wikipedia DOES self-correct rather quickly due to the vast number of people who follow different topics, you can always come across misinformation added or changed by someone right before you loaded the page. No matter HOW authoritative a source of information is, you should always cross-check the information with other sources, if only to make sure you didn’t misunderstand what you read.

For what it’s worth, Wikipedia and Britannica are more alike than you might think. Many of the articles on Wikipedia have been taken (literally cut and pasted) right from the 1911 version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which is now in Public Domain.

Do you want to know more about how Wikipedia works? I mean REALLY works? There’s a great article published on the Harvard Business School’s website called HBS Cases: How Wikipedia Works (or Doesn’t) that discusses how a Wikipedia article was started, recommended for deletion, actually deleted, restarted in greater detail, recommended for deletion again, etc. It’s a little long, but it’s VERY good and should be required reading for anyone who works with technology and information.