Re: this is where I came in....

jeev@xxxxxxxxx (Ellen Evans) wrote in
news:dvpek0$knk$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

I had a less than stellar encounter with EB once, actually.
Someone I know was contacted by EB to write an entry on a subject
on which he is, in fact, one of the most authoritative experts in
the world. He obliged. After their "copy-edited" version came
back, it sounded as if it had been run through a pablum making
machine, with much of the information, and essentially all of the
linguistic esprit - for which the author is noted - removed,
replaced by something that can easily be described as "blah, blah,
blah <insert key word here> blah" When my friend expressed his
concerns, he was told he had no recourse. Largely because he
loved the 1911 edition, he decided to allow them to carry on, but
it left a bitter taste in his mouth. And made me more than a bit
wary of what I see there.

One of my two New New Grove articles was treated in exactly this
fashion, with information inserted that I had purposefully omitted.
I argued with the editors about it and they insisted the information
they'd inserted stay in.

In another context (not an encyclopedia, but a reference work) my
contribution included new entries to be added to the catalog of
which it was a part. I was assured that my entries would be added so
that my textual contribution would make sense. But when it was
published, the entries were not added, and numbers were not
assigned to the references in my text. The result was that my text
referred to things that were not there.

Editors often do *terrible* things to the texts they are supposed to
be caring for. They often introduce mistakes.

Editors are no guarantee of accuracy or reliability.

--
David W. Fenton http://www.dfenton.com/
usenet at dfenton dot com http://www.dfenton.com/DFA/
.

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