On Thursday, June 03, 2004 1:18 AM Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Encyclopedia != "database containing all human knowledge". An encyclopedia is an encyclopedia.
Oh, OK. It's an encyclopedia -- so let's take a look at Wiktionary to find out what an encyclopedia is:
A reference work (often in several volumes) containing in-depth articles on various topics (often arranged in alphabetical order) dealing with a wide range of subjects or with some particular specialty.
This doesn't seem to exclude any human knowledge, neither explicitly nor implicitly. What parts of human knowledge should in your view not be covered in an encyclopedia, and why?
According to the quoted definition an encyclopedia is 'dealing with a wide range of subjects'. This implicits that each encyclopedia has to define this range. So let's start thinking about wikipedias range.
I don't think that we are able to draw an exact line (somewhere between the [[left screw of the rear break of the bicycle of Uli Fuchs]] and the [[Mona Lisa]]). But at least an idea where this line could be would help us a lot in beeing an encyclopedia and not just a parallel World Wide Web.
Arne [[de:Benutzer:Akl]]