[WikiEN-l] UIC Journal: Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia's feature[d] articles

[Charles Matthews]

Carcharoth wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 9:43 PM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>   
>> I think we're writing for everyone, although ironically the 'pedia'
>> bit of Wikipedia and encyclopedia refers to children (as in PEDIAtric
>> doctors- children's doctors)!
>>
>> Encyclopedias were actually mostly intended to educate children.
>>     
>
> I had to go and check the etymology of "encyclopedia" after reading that, and...
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paideia
>
> That article was where I ended up. I'm still not convinced that the
> first *modern* encyclopedias were developed specifically for children,
> but that was an interesting article, though it clearly still needs a
> lot of work.
>   
Somewhat of a folk etymology. The history of encyclopedias is a vexed 
subject, but printing costs had to come right down before they had much 
to do with kids.

Charles