wikipedia versus Britannica

 I wonder what makes an encyclopedia official.

> comprising entires written by any Joe (or Jo) Schmo with no credentials

Well many of the writers *do* have very good credentials.

Suppose you are the world expert on X. I imagine you are motivated to ensure that the wikipedia page is correct.

Indeed, wikipedia allows access to more qualified people by dint of being continually edited.

> at all and then posted without being assessed by an editor or a copy-editor+fact-checker is poor

So this is perhaps more of an issue.

In practice you get a moderate about of "drive-by" copy editing and fact checking by people researching the topic.

One advantage of this is that wikipedia can be more correct and as mentioned above can get access to more skilled writers.

... 

> Britannica offers mini-articles for free, and the annual subscription isn't that much.

And most public libraries offer their patrons free online access to databases and reference materials.

A wonderful result of wikipedia's qualification-free environment is that articles can be well referenced - particularly if a topic if controversial.

Such references act as a good jumping off point to get into the academic research.

I would note that interacting directly with "academia" can be misleading in some fields unless one is dealing with systematic reviews or familiar with a field.