Just a few observations.
The Encylopedia thing is out of date.
In the 60s my profs always warned against encyclopedias
except for directions to something better.
Running a traditional encyc. is very expensive and ever expansive.
The writers do it as a sideline and the editors do have their slants
on things as do the boards. It isn't just info. Never has been.
Supposedly the best ever encyc was the 11th ed. of Britannia.
It was a learned document, but that concept long since died.
Who wants to spend thousands of dollars on something that
will be out of date in months.  Really an encyc, is just a collection
of sign posts. So if people are just waking up to all that now,
then Wiki is a good thing. The concept wars are a good thing.
They make people think.

What would be a bad thing would be if Wiki were to be unique.
Competition is needed.

Do printed encycs even exist any more?

Cheers,
Peter
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rickard Parker" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 1:44 PM
Subject: Wikipedia


> On 2012-09-12, at 7:14 AM, Tom Gray wrote:
>>
>> it is common know edge that Wikipedia has problems with editors
> controlling what is written in the articles. Editors or groups of editors
> will seize control of a topic and exclude any idea from it that does not
> coincide with their favored viewpoint.
>
>
> Another case: Irish republicanism
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_republicanism
> Irish republicanism (Irish: Poblachtánachas Éireannach) is an ideology 
> based
> on the belief that all of Ireland should be an independent republic.
>
> Twice over a period of months I've seen a small single paragraph about the
> Republic of Ireland be deleted because it was off topic. The words 
> "Republic
> of Ireland" are written only twice and used only incidently.  The text
> wasn't even wikilinked this morning. I did link it but I'm more than half
> expecting a revert.
>
> For articles important to you it pays to check the article's Talk page too
> to see what infighting may be going on.
>
>
> As for citing Wikipedia:
>
> Sub-topic 1: Should you do it.  Wikipedia itself addresses the topic at
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia
>
> Sub-topic 2: How to do it.
>
> You can't just use simple URLs since the contents of the webpages change.
> Each edit though is given a unique id and so it is possible
> to retrieve older versions of pages. The page
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia
> says:
>    Note: Wikipedia has a tool to generate citations for particular 
> articles.
>    For the cite tool, see Special:Cite, or follow the "Cite this page" 
> link
>    in the toolbox on the left of the page in the article you wish to cite.
> I don't see this but I do see under the Toolbox menu
>    Toolbox
>      * What links here
>      * Related changes
>      * Upload file
>      * Special pages
>      * Permanent link
> a link named "Permanent link".  Clicking that I got my browser to visit
> another page identified with an ID number and the URL was shown by the
> browser. The article content was preceded by a note. Example:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia&amp;oldid=502308612
> This is the current revision of this page, as edited by EmausBot (talk |
> contribs) at 22:50, 14 July 2012. The present address (URL) is a permanent
> link to this version.
>
> You can also use Wikipedia's history feature to get to an old version
> of an article.  For example you could see the following entry in the
> history listing:
>    # (cur | prev) 08:39, 6 October 2009‎ Wordsmith (talk | contribs)‎ . .
> (15,967 bytes) (+7)‎ . .
>    (→‎A caution before citing    Wikipedia: 1st Paragraph: Replaced
> "uncorroborated" with
>    "without corroboration") (undo)
> Clicking on the time-date stamp link you get a URL and article note of:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia&amp;oldid=318213521
>    This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Wordsmith (talk |
> contribs) at
>    08:39, 6 October 2009. It may differ significantly from the current
> revision.
>
>
> There is a tool at
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Cite
> where you can type in the name of an article and it will present a page of
> citations (MLA, Chicago, bibliographic, etc.) to the current version of 
> the
> article.  For older versions of the article I think you have to hand edit
> the IDs and date/times.
>