Delirium wrote:
> I think Britannica goes for a different style than we do, largely
> because it *is* paper. In a paper encyclopedia, cross-references are
> much more of a hassle, and the reader can't flip between articles and
> volumes in the click of a mouse. Thus, articles tend to be longer and
> fewer. With Wikipedia, there's no trouble breaking up a major topic
> like, say [[United States]], into an overview article with separate
> articles on [[History of the United States]], [[Economy of the United
> States]], and so on, because it doesn't place much of a burden on our
> users to click through if they want the long articles. Even the way
> we format it---"Main article: [[History of the United
> States]]"---really only makes sense in a hyperlinked encyclopedia.
>
> It does bring up the interesting point that perhaps there should be a
> little more editing in making a paper version besides just validating
> articles. For example, it might make sense to collate these all into
> one article for print publication.
That would probably be necessary if we try to produce a massive
multi-volume encyclopedia on a scale similar to existing print models.
On the other hand, less editing is required, and in fact this structure
is quite handy, when considering a smaller reference work focused on a
particular subject. For example, an "Encyclopedia of the United States"
would do quite nicely with exactly these articles, plus those about the
individual states, each US President, and whatever other articles are
deemed necessary and appropriate for the topic.
I suspect our efforts are more likely to head in this direction at least
for now, as the efforts to produce WikiReaders already show. I don't
know if this path will lead us to the encyclopedia model of the past, or
if we should encourage people to reconceive of the full encyclopedia as
a collection of individual specialist encyclopedias.
--Michael Snow
