April 13
Submitting New Articles to Encarta
Hi, I’m David Hirning, an editor here at Encarta. Recently a user nicknamed Potato (from Idaho?) asked on this blog, “Is this experiment really limited to modifying existing articles, without a provision to submit new ones?”
This is something we have already given some thought to, and here’s our answer: No, we are not accepting new article submissions at this point. That doesn’t mean we aren’t open to this possibility in the future, but we decided to start with basic community editing before we move whole hog into this Brave New World of user input.
There are a number of reasons for this policy. One is the very basic concept of what an encyclopedia is: a compendium of “knowledge.” That is, Encarta is not just a pell-mell conglomeration of information and random bits of trivia (some would argue that that would pretty much describe the Internet itself, but that’s a different discussion).
So you won’t find Encarta articles on each of Ashlee Simpson’s teeth—indeed, you won’t find an article on Ashlee Simpson at all. Nor will you find an article about Barney, Homer’s best pal on The Simpsons. Not that I don’t love The Simpsons (I’m not going to comment on Ashlee or her teeth), but that’s not what we do.
To paraphrase the New York Times, we offer all the information we deem “fit to print” (yes, we aren’t technically a print publication, but you get my point). And we don’t want our users to spend time crafting an article for Encarta that we ultimately decide doesn’t meet our standard for reference material.
Of course, how we define that "fit" standard is quite complicated and always subject to discussion. We welcome your input on this issue—what do you think a good modern encyclopedia should/should not cover?
There are resource limitations involved. All of our articles come out of an editorial process. First, an article is outlined by a staff editor; the editor then decides if the article should be commissioned (written by an outside contributor, usually a professor or expert in the field) or produced in-house; the article is researched and written; it is reviewed, edited, and proofed; appropriate media and related content is attached (everything from maps to videos to historic news accounts); and the article is posted.
So we can’t produce thousands of articles on anything and everything--although we do add new articles all the time. (To see some we’ve recently posted, check out our What’s New page.) We feel this process produces clear, complete, accurate, and insightful content for our users--articles that you can trust.
But we are always open to your suggestions. What articles are you looking for in Encarta that we dont have yet? Let us know, and if we like your suggestion we may very well get cracking on it. Maybe not in time to help you write that term paper due on Monday… but for all those term paper writers who will come after you. Truly, you will have done a great thing for humanity. J
And how do you let us know what articles you'd like to add? It’s not hard. There is a Feedback box at the bottom of every single online Encarta article. One way to get there is to click on the closest article match in your Encarta search for that elusive term, and in the box at the bottom of the page type in, “Yeah, this is nice, but what I’m really looking for is _____.” When you hit Send, this zips off into our Feedback Tool, where we process all the edits and comments we get. Your suggestion will then be routed to the editor in charge of that particular area, and he or she will take it from there.
We really want to hear from you--that’s why we started this feedback process in the first place! Thanks.
David Hirning, Encarta reference editor
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