The 241-year old Encyclopedia Britannica is taking a hint from Wikipedia by offering its readers the ability to modify or add to its online entries.

There's something you should know before you declare this the end of Western civilization, though: while Wikipedia allows anyone to edit its entries at any time without approval and depends on knowledgeable volunteers to correct mistakes after they've been made, all changes to the Britannica must be approved by in-house editors paid to make sure no false or incomplete information gets published.

If the edits you make to the online encyclopedia are good enough, though, they could appear in future print editions. The Britannica is arguably the most prestigious encyclopedia in the English language, so it could be quite a confidence booster and personal affirmation if your edits make it into the books.

Don't interpret this imitation as flattery, though. Britannica president Jorge Cauz had choice words for Wikipedia when speaking with the Sydney Morning Herald. He suggested that Wikipedia is prone to error, and that few people actually go directly to Wikipedia for information. He said the site is popular because of its prominent Google ranking, not because people lend any credence to it. Of course, Google decides how to rank pages partly based on how often other websites cite them, so... well, decide for yourself how much water that argument holds!

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