Interestingly, a study that compared science-related articles on Wikipedia vs. articles on Encyclopaedia Brittanica found that they were of very similar quality, with an equal (low) number of serious errors.
You are referring to a
Nature study that has been shown to be largely biased.
Here is the link to Britannica's rebuttal.
The errors included:
1)
Nature reviewed text that was not even from the Encyclopædia Britannica.
2)
Nature accused Britannica of “omissions” on the basis of reviews of article excerpts, not the articles themselves.
3)
Nature rearranged and re-edited Britannica articles.
4)
Nature failed to check the factual assertions of its reviewers.
5)
Nature failed to distinguish minor inaccuracies from major errors.
6)
Nature counted “errors” and “critical omissions” that did not exist.
Despite all these errors in methodology, the actual count of errors was 162 in Wiki vs 123 in Britannica (
sample source). I am not sure where else 33% more of anything is considered to be "equal."
This article has some interesting links, including one to the original press release from
Nature that accompanied their study. It ends with this paragraph (bold mine) which IMO demonstrates
Nature went into the study with an agenda:
Nature would like to encourage its readers to help. The idea is not to seek a replacement for established sources such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but to push forward the grand experiment that is Wikipedia, and to see how much it can improve. Select a topic close to your work and look it up on Wikipedia. If the entry contains errors or important omissions, dive in and help fix them. It need not take too long. And imagine the pay-off: you could be one of the people who helped turn an apparently stupid idea into a free, high-quality global resource.
Just saying.
