France has long battled against the Anglophone cultural invasion and now it has thrown down a virtual gauntlet. Larousse, the French encyclopaedia created more than 150 years ago, is launching its own - it would say improved - version of Wikipedia. Its first, free-access, online encyclopaedia will have the same contributor function but, to try to surmount the inherent problem of unreliability of articles, which can be modified by anyone at any time, Larousse has introduced some constraints. Users who want to contribute have to sign up and their names will then appear on the article they submit. Unlike on Wikipedia, anonymous contributions are not allowed, and once written, contributions become protected. Alongside the user-written pieces, Larousse will be making available 150,000 articles from its universal encyclopaedia, plus 10,000 images. Larousse is promising more in the future, along with the inclusion later this year of hundreds of video clips from channels such as National Geographic.
France has long battled against the Anglophone cultural invasion and now it has thrown down a virtual gauntlet. Larousse, the French encyclopaedia created more than 150 years ago, is launching its own - it would say improved - version of Wikipedia.
Its first, free-access, online encyclopaedia will have the same contributor function but, to try to surmount the inherent problem of unreliability of articles, which can be modified by anyone at any time, Larousse has introduced some constraints.
Users who want to contribute have to sign up and their names will then appear on the article they submit. Unlike on Wikipedia, anonymous contributions are not allowed, and once written, contributions become protected.
Alongside the user-written pieces, Larousse will be making available 150,000 articles from its universal encyclopaedia, plus 10,000 images. Larousse is promising more in the future, along with the inclusion later this year of hundreds of video clips from channels such as National Geographic.
Larousse has decided to put its encyclopedia online in a modified Wikipedia format. What does that have to do with English? Wikipedia isn't strictly English, it exists in many languages including French.
But the journalist is "in Paris" and has to send back stuff that fits a recognized frame. Another case of Foreign Correspondent Syndrome™.
