Clearly, Encyclopaedia Britannica is not adopting a "wisdom of the crowds" approach. It often leads the charge against sites such as Wikipedia--which relies on user-contributed content--and now, Encyclopaedia Britannica is implementing a "tightly controlled system" that leverages on user-generated content.
What will happen, according to a set of blog posts [1] outlining the new policy, is that contributors will be encouraged to create profiles highlighting their qualifications and a listing of related works. Encyclopaedia Britannica will furnish these experts with a "reward system" to generate new content, comment on existing entries or possibly furnish updated versions of content. All contributions to Encyclopaedia Britannica's core content will continue to be vetted [2] by their editorial staff before publication.
For more about the shift over at Britannica:
- check out this Ars Technica article [3]
Links:
[1] http://britannicanet.com/?p=88
[2] http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/06/britannicas-new-site-more-participation-collaboration-from-experts-and-readers/
[3] http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080609-britannica-to-cautiously-try-harnessing-users-for-content.html