[Wikipedia-l] Encyclopaedias ... how long do their entries need to be???
Sabine Cretella
sabine_cretella at yahoo.it
Sun Oct 8 10:30:00 UTC 2006
This is a theme I always wanted to take up ... so now I wrote what I
think on my blog and I would like to know your thoughts.
-------- Original message --------
This is one of these questions. When it comes to wikipedia
<http://wikipedia.org> many people immediately think about long articles
about each topic. Considering the multitude of encyclopaedias you can
find in a book shop one thing is obvious: entries can range from one
sentence to full pages.
Now people often complain that the encyclopaedias of regional language's
wikipedias do have many stubs and just some long articles - well: I
would compare these to the kind of encyclopaedias that give you basic
information on many topics in just one or two volumes. I would not
compare them to the big ones like Britannica, Brockhaus etc.
Of course over time you will find single articles that get longer,
others will remain short for a long time, but ... well ... does it
really matter? I'd say no - because Wikipedia is not in concurrence with
anyone to my opinion - people put us into a concurrence position, but we
are not, because the way each language version is built and works is so
unique.
Fact is: one can only write about what he/she knows or translate ...
well being a professional translator I really avoid to translate also in
my free-time if I don't have to. Not having much time to contribute I
normally care about the almanac + some stubs related to the almanac ...
much more is not possible (see the main page
<http://nap.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paggena_prencepale> of the Neapolitan
wikipdia for the historical events I normally work on). Another thing I
of course care about is notions on the city I live in
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiori> and that in various languages.
Everyone of us editors have something particular they care about ... and
I believe that is great - and it is exactly what wikipedia is about:
collecting the knowledge of everybody and put it into one huge
encyclopaedia.
----
Originally posted on: http://sabinecretella.blogspot.com/
Thank you for your time!
Best, Sabine
Chiacchiera con i tuoi amici in tempo reale!
http://it.yahoo.com/mail_it/foot/*http://it.messenger.yahoo.com
More information about the Wikipedia-l
mailing list