Talk:Encyclopedia

A correction I cannot perform due to permissions

It says "Banglapedia (on matters relevant for Bengal)". It's not Bengal, it's Bangladesh.

Done. Thanks for the tip. groupuscule (talk) 0 7:41, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Ye but that’s the name of the encyclopedia ShivanshPlays1 (talk) 21:12, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Encyclopedic

It seems that encyclopedic redirects here. Given that WP:MOS often mentions encyclopedic as a way to determine what should, or should not, be included, it would be nice to have a place specifically for that. What I am specifically interested in now, is that Wikipedia is not a travel guide, but I suspect that there are other distinctions to be made. Gah4 (talk) 05:27, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

@Gah4: I like your thought about including encyclopedic as something people might want to know about. I'm going to expand a bit before suggesting why it might not fit in the article. Encyclopedic is more often than not, used to to describe something rather than a thing itself. What you may be thinking of with WP:MOS is an/the encyclopedic style. McHenry talks about it this way, although its not really common. It is more usually to talk about encyclopedic projects, encyclopedic texts, or encyclopedic novels. In the first case there are things like Otlet's Mundaneum, Well's World Brain, or Bush's Memex machine; all things kind of like encyclopedias but don't fit the typical expectation, usually because of the technology they use. The second case is often used by historians who don't want to be anachronistic. There were no books understood by their authors as "encyclopedia" before the 15th/16th century. As a work around, contemporary historians call books that are kind of like encyclopedias, but were not thought of as such at the time, encyclopedic texts. This has also been used to describe the Bible and other spiritual texts. And then there are encyclopedic novels that are written with a kind of maximalism (opposite of minimalism) that try to convey the aesthetic of the encyclopedic. The Library of Babel, Ulysses (novel), Don Quixote, Infinite Jest are all examples of this.

So there's a lot there about encyclopedic but based on the variety of cases of how the term is used, I don't think it fits in this article because it exceeds meaning "an encyclopedia". Could it be its own article that is briefly mentioned in this one? I'm not sure. Textaural (talk) 04:03, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

More specifically, it is WP:NOT. So, not whether it is an actual encyclopedia, or something like an encyclopedia, but what kind of things should be in it in either case. Even more specifically, I was wondering about WP:NOTTRAVEL. There, one example is not to include restaurant recommendations. Gah4 (talk) 04:58, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

So are you thinking about adding a section that focuses on how different encyclopedias often self-describe their own encyclopedic style? I think that would be valuable contribution to the article as it is a very common thing for encyclopedias to describe what they do and do not cover. Could you draft up a sentence or paragraph of what you are envisioning? Textaural (talk) 15:28, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Suggestion

Change 'which' to 'that' in the following sentence, as the clause is restrictive and necessary for the meaning of the sentence:

• Generally speaking, unlike dictionary entries THAT focus on linguistic information about words, such as their meaning, pronunciation, use, and grammatical forms, encyclopedia articles focus on factual information concerning the subject named in the article’s title. Pursuedbybaer (talk) 18:14, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

in the lead,

The appearance of digital and open-source versions in the 20th century has vastly expanded the accessibility, authorship, readership, and variety of encyclopedia entries and called into question the idea of what an encyclopedia is[citation needed] and the relevance of applying to such dynamic productions the traditional criteria for assembling and evaluating print encyclopedias.[citation needed] replace with :

Digital and open source versions of encyclopedias began to appear in the late 20th century. The 21st century has expanded the accessibility and variety of encyclopedia entries, broadening user tools of research.Deermouse (talk) 16:25, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

cite: search Wikipedia "open source encyclopedia" 30,000 hitsDeermouse (talk) 16:30, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Plz necessory to correct that palal tribes as baloch tribe buledi. Palal is buledi tribe. Plz correct it Shakeelpalal (talk) 19:06, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 May 2018

I suggest that a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_encyclopedias be placed under the "See also" also section. Some, possibly many users may not be aware of the use of Fictional Encyclopedias as literary devices. The examples listed in the category https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fictional_encyclopedias could well inspire individuals to create entire fictional encyclopedias or use them as devices in their own works. Emoritz2017 (talk) 23:58, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

 Not done Categories generally aren't linked to within the "See also" section. Nanophosis (talk) 01:41, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Definition

The definition in the first sentence and the cited source, do not match. The source does not mention the term "information". So according to the source it should be:"An encyclopedia or encyclopaedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge from either all branches or from a particular field or discipline."--Daceloh (talk) 19:30, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

21st century

The 21st century section does not meet WP's standards of style. It is written like an advert and does not have a neutral point of view. --Roly (talk) 17:40, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

It is both advertizing Wikipedia and comparing it with Britannica. I need to fix this. —Yours sincerely, Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 12:01, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Proper etymology of "encyclopedia" is disputed.

In the "Etymology" section, the word "encyclopedia" comes from a scribal error of two Greek words. Howeber, in the "Renaissance" section, the word "encyclopedia" was coined by 16th-century humanists who misread copies of their texts of Pliny and Quintilian, and combined the two Greek words into one word. Please fix this! —Yours sincerely, Soumyabrata (talk • subpages) 11:55, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

have correction, cant' edit

"transliterated enkyklios paedia" ACTUALLY that's "paideia".

XX — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.22.90.90 (talk) 14:30, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 February 2020

I need to add a finishing touch Redrose99 (talk) 10:10, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

You can suggest edits here on this talk page on the form "Please change X to Y" citing reliable sources. – Thjarkur (talk) 11:41, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

"Enkyklopaideia" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Enkyklopaideia. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 23:43, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Encylopedia

It is a book where you can use to find about things Casory (talk) 19:13, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 May 2020

42.115.19.209 (talk) 16:06, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 16:10, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

History

How exactly has the genre of encyclopedia changed over the millennia? There is some acknowledgement of this, but I find it hard to believe the stated changes are the only ones over that length of time. I might be wrong, but a greater focus on those changes would clear it up for skeptics like me even if I'm wrong. Monkeybomber (talk) 03:28, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Any takers ?

Greetings,

A bit different topic. We all know Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. While every 11 January Wikipedia adds up one more year to it's age, encyclopedias and Compendiums too add up a year more to their much longer history.

When did you last visited wikipedia articles Encyclopedia Compendium and History of encyclopedias? What is their status ? When I visited those the last two are tagged for lack citations. In Encyclopedia#Characteristics section too almost six paragraphs are missing in citations.

1) After reading all three articles on Wikipedia as a reader I do not get information what a reader of an encyclopedia is supposed to expect from encyclopedia or readers part many commercial encyclopedias might have done marketing putting those points forward so can one find any such information in any source? (I am not expecting discourses of Wikipedians but discourses of Non Wikipedian intellectuals or marketeers of traditional encyclopedias.

2) Another missing point is how an encyclopedic entry needs to be written features tools challenges etc. again not Wikipedian point of views but editorial or intellectual discourses of traditional encyclopedias writers or editors.

3) How an ideal Compendium and Encyclopedia content quality is supposed to look like (beyond it's alphabetical etc organizational aspects) again not Wikipedian point of views but editorial or intellectual discourses of traditional encyclopedias writers or editors with critique of some Compendium and Encyclopedia.

4) Is there any (Non Wikipedia) source that would say or suggest Compendium and Encyclopedia as 'up to date' state of information / knowledge ?

Actually one anon IP helped with a list of sources too on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities. If topic interests some one following is list of sources with which one can support the articles.

• Sanford, Eva (1949) Famous Latin Encyclopaedias
• Tsien, Tsuen-Hsuin (1952) A History of Bibliographic Classification in China
• Preece, Warren (1965) The Organization of Knowledge and the Planning of Encyclopaedias: The Case of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica"
• Sullivan, Lawrence (1990) Circumscribing Knowledge: Encyclopedias in Historical Perspective
• Burke, Peter (1996) Reflections on the history of encyclopaedias
• Binkley, Peter (ed.) (1996) Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts.
• Fowler, Robert (1996) Encyclopaedias: definitions and theoretical problems
• Twomey, Michael (1996) Towards a reception history of western medieval encyclopaedias in England before 1500
• Harvey, Steven (1998) The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy
• Stockwell, Foster (2000) A History of Information Storage and Retrieval
• Toshio, Yokoyama (2007) Some notes on the history of Japanese traditional household encyclopedias
• Würth, Stefanie (2008) Historiography and Pseudo-History
• Burke, Peter (2013). A Social History of Knowledge.

Hope this is a helpful start. If you can’t read any of the paywalled articles, you can request them at WP:RX because you are using them to improve Wikipedia.

Any takers for the task?

Thanks and warm regards.

Bookku (talk) 06:31, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Contemporary usage

Spelt as encyclopaedia exclusively in Australia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.168.79.2 (talk) 23:10, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

In Britain, and the Commonwealth, the word is spelled: encyclopædia, and also encyclopaedia. NonhumanAnimalAutonomy (talk) 13:02, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Merge proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was: No consensus Cool guy (talk • contribs) • he/they 15:00, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

---

• Online encyclopedia → Encyclopedia
• CD-ROM encyclopedia → Encyclopedia

An internet encyclopedia is just another kind of encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia article is not really long enough to justify having two separate articles, especially considering the poor quality of prose in the Online encyclopedia article. I originally redirected Online encyclopedia, but an IP user has reverted me. CD-ROM encyclopedia is an unsourced two sentence stub. Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:57, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I respectfully oppose.

You stated "An internet encyclopedia is just another kind of encyclopedia", as an argument not to have two separate articles, leaving off your conclusion. Let's look at the form of this statement and replace "internet encyclopedia" with y and "encyclopedia" with x, and add the conclusion you alluded to. This results in "A y is just another form of x and therefore they should be merged into one article". Now we can test the soundness of this argument by plugging in other article titles for x and y, and we get....

• A St. Bernard is just another kind of dog and therefore they should be merged into one article.
• Internet art is just another kind of art, and therefore they should be merged into one article.
• Geometry is just another kind of math, and therefore they should be merged into one article.
• Math is just another kind of formal science, and therefore they should be merged into one article.
• Formal science is just another kind of science, and therefore they should be merged into one article.
• Science is just another kind of knowledge, and therefore they should be merged into one article.

If you make this statement for every subtopic and its parent topic, you would eventually wind up with a single article (knowledge), with all other topics included.

That a topic is a subtopic of another subject, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a merge to take place.

You also mentioned that "The encyclopedia article isn't long enough to have two separate articles." As we can see from Category:Encyclopedias, not only is the subject "encyclopedia" long enough to have two articles, it is already divided into hundreds of articles.

The online encyclopedia article delves into the intricacies of that type of encyclopedia, and makes it obvious that there is more erudite detail coming. It might be best not to bog down the main encyclopedia article with that minutia, and keep it as an overview of encyclopedias in general. In the spirit of Wikipedia:Summary style, as a major subtopic with much territory to be covered, "online encyclopedia" warrants its own article.

WP:SPLIT recommends an article size of around 50K, and there are plenty of subtopics not yet covered in this parent article, summaries of which will easily push it to 50K. "Encyclopedia", by its very nature is encyclopedic in scope. You could fill an encyclopedia with information about it.

Encyclopedia has other issues that warrant attention. There are many sections missing. More urgent is that the history section is a content fork of History of encyclopedias, and vice versa, as they share nearly the same depth and diverge in treatment of the subject.

I hope you find the above observations useful. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   19:21, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Do you have an opinion on the CD-ROM encyclopedia article? It's currently a two sentence unsourced stub. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:46, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: I have not yet formed an opinion on that article, but I noticed that it appears to have ten sentences. Concerning the unsourced comment you made, how does sourced/unsourced pertain to which page the content is published on? It would be just as unsourced if it were merged into the encyclopedia article. I encourage you to dive in and develop these articles. That is another way of resolving your concerns. I hope to see you in the edit histories, and look forward to working with you in interactive editing. Cheers.    —    — The Transhumanist   01:34, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the merge proposal: These are types of encyclopedias, but the current way that things are is perfectly fine as well. Just providing my own opinion, of course. I don't care too much what you do, I just read articles and make the occasional minor fix. Qwerty3521 -- Message me here 16:14, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

• Merge CD-ROM encyclopedia → Encyclopedia - This is hardly a separate topic justifying a separate article. It's a minor subtopic.

Merge Online encyclopedia → Encyclopedia - I feel less strongly about this merge, since Online Encyclopedias are a significant enough topic to have their own article. However, there are some messy aspects to the current split. Digital encyclopedia actually redirects to a section of the Encyclopedia article. However there is a hatnote at the top of the Online encyclopedia article that says:

"Digital encyclopedia" redirects here. It is not to be confused with CD-ROM encyclopedia.

This confusion is because every encyclopedia is in digital form. It's just that some encyclopedias are printed and others are made available online, and many printed encyclopedias are also available in digital form either online or in CD-ROM format. It's certainly confusing to have CD-ROM encyclopedia and Online encyclopedia as a separate articles and yet redirect Digital encyclopedia to the main Encylopedia article. I don't see a clean way to split these topics apart frankly. I think the topics should be merged. Whether an encyclopedia is available online or in a CD-ROM format is a question of distribution and access. It doesn't make the dictionary fundamentally a different kind of encyclopedia. For example, Britannica is now exclusively available online, but it used to be available exclusively in print, and later in multiple formats. It's not fundamentally a different kind of encyclopedia. The decision to abandon print versions was a business choice about distribution and access for customers.Coastside (talk) 17:32, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per @The Transhumanist: Ytpks896 (talk) 07:23, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per The Transhumanist (talk · contribs). Also because the article has 10 citations and is clearly far different than a normal encyclopedia. --The Tips of Apmh (talk) 13:55, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. --SHB2000 (talk) 23:04, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Per The Transhumanist (talk · contribs). These articles are valuable, particularly for future generations who may not understand the importance of the CD-ROM and bound encyclopedia. Thriley (talk) 20:08, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
• I would like to bring up a general social aspect about a merge. Many people who grew up with Wikipedia and other largely digital, online encyclopedias (e.g. subject/field specific encyclopedias), including myself, are less familiar with print encyclopedia. It may be important to at least link the article for online encyclopedia to the online encyclopedia section to provide a reference to this body of knowledge. Coastside (talk · contribs) mentions aspects of the liminal nature of the encyclopedia as well that speak to this public understanding. I do think it's important to keep them intertwined to afford a comprehensive knowledge of the the history of the development of the encyclopedia (in line with improving public understanding of the sum knowledge of the encyclopedia). I am not necessarily 'opposing' or 'supporting,' but I think understanding public perception is vital here. Breadyornot (talk) 22:08, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Content fork

The history section and History of encyclopedias are both extensive and have diverged into two distinct treatments of the subject. Wikipedia:Summary style may apply. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   17:25, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

 Fixed I've truncated the section, and am in the process of merging the content to the subarticle.    — The Transhumanist   19:21, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

 Done Merge of the history section into History of encyclopedias is (for the most part) complete. Leftover text that I wasn't sure what to do with, I've posted at Talk:History of encyclopedias#Merge of Encyclopedia#History. That leaves the history section of this article almost empty, and so a summary needs to be rebuilt.    — The Transhumanist   22:38, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

 Done The History section has been rebuilt, from paragraphs copy/pasted from History of encyclopedias.    — The Transhumanist   23:34, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

"Free encyclopedia" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Free encyclopedia. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 September 27#Free encyclopedia until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. EthanGaming7640 (talk) 19:09, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 January 2022

Ndamulelo Netshivhambe Ndamulelomatamela (talk) 09:13, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Ndamulelo Netshivhambe Ndamulelomatamela (talk) 09:14, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 09:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Encyclopedia

The encyclopedia gives us factual information. Topics contained in an encyclopedia are arranged in alphabetical order. Important words in the topic will help us find what we want to look for.

An encyclopedia is a set of books.It gives information on all branches of knowledge.Sometimes, information given are of only one subject.Topics or subjects are usually arranged in alphabetical order. 112.210.193.180 (talk) 11:10, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Encyclopédie ommitted from history

Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie is missing from the history section despite it predating Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopédie had important significance in promoting the Radical Enlightenment and subsequent democratic revolutions. 172.58.27.60 (talk) 05:12, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Encyclopaedia Britannica

Look, this article from Encyclopaedia Britannica did it better than us! CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 14:41, 11 April 2022 (UTC)