Talk:Encyclopedia/Archive 2

message: I removed the paragraph claiming that cross references and indices were an innovation of encyclopedias during the 18th and 19th centuries.  Cross references were already common in medieval manuscripts; does anyone have information about when subject-matter indexes became common? David 21:40, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the introduction to the Classified table of contents of EB1911 (Vol 29,p 879, the classfied list of articles (pp 891-947) was the first attempt in any general reference work. Some early enclopaedias ed EB6ed  listed contributors. Rees's Cyclopaedia (1802-1819) does have cross-references at some of the longer articles. Apwoolrich 21:55, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cross-references and indices 

message: what was the name of the sciencist that preformed the rock experiment which rock drps fist
:Are you referring to Galileo's experiment to show that gravity applies a constant force regardless of mass?  Not sure why you are asking this on the encyclopedia page. njh 10:09, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  science 

message: I'm changing the definition in the article of an encyclopedia to more-closely match historical precedent and lexicographical usage. Here's how Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, defines an encyclopedia:a work that treats comprehensively all the various branches of knowledge and that is usually composed of individual articles arranged alphabetically. The word comes from the Greek words enkyklios paideia, meaning "general education". However, in the article's lead paragraph, there was no mention of how general encyclopedias deal with all areas of knowledge, so I corrected this.
I think the "Wikipedia is not a random collection of information" policy has thrown people off as to what an encyclopedia is versus what Wikipedia chooses to be. Whether Wikipedia wants to differ from what people generally consider an encyclopedia is up to it. Historically, how focused an encyclopedia is has been a function of how much space it has at its disposal. Since Wikipedia, per the WP:NOT page, does not have a "practical limit to the number of topics we can cover other than verifiability" we can cover just about anything. Encyclopedias always retain roundedness, so they cover the whole world and not just a part of it. For example, the Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana, an 119-volume work almost as large as Wikipedia, has integrated dictionaries of English, German, Spanish, Esperanto, Portuguese, and Italian words. It also has maps of small towns, making it effectively a guide book, as well. Another example would be anything from Larousse, which also contain embedded dictionaries. The Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste at 162 volumes only halfway completed is certainly larger than Wikipedia. I cited M-W's Third above--the second-largest English-language dictionary. Here's how Encyclopedia Britannica defines an encyclopedia:Today most people think of an encyclopaedia as a multivolume compendium of all available knowledge, complete with maps and a detailed index, as well as numerous adjuncts such as bibliographies, illustrations, lists of abbreviations and foreign expressions, gazetteers, and so on.Later in the intro, it says the following:In this article the word encyclopaedia has been taken to include not only the great general encyclopaedias of the past and the present but all types of works that claim to provide in an orderly arrangement the essence of “all that is known” on a subject or a group of subjects. This includes dictionaries of philosophy and of American history as well as volumes such as The World Almanac and Book of Facts, which is really a kind of encyclopaedia of current information.Further, here's how the most complete and respected English dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, defines an encyclopedia (most quotes and etymology omitted, except where needed):1. The circle of learning; a general course of instruction.1708 Motteux Rabelais v. xx, In you are lodg’d a Cornucopia, an Encyclopedia, an unmeasurable Profundity of Knowledge.2. A literary work containing extensive information on all branches of knowledge, usually arranged in alphabetical order.1841 Myers Cath. Th. iii. ii. 4 The Bible is..by no means indeed an Encyclopædia.The word in this sense appears first as the title of certain works published in the 17th cent. esp. that of Alstedius (see quot. 1819).b. Sometimes applied spec. to the French work ‘Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences, des Arts, et des Métiers’ (1751­-1765), by Diderot, D’Alembert, and other eminent scholars and men of science.3. An elaborate and exhaustive repertory of information on all the branches of some particular art or department of knowledge; esp. one arranged in alphabetical order.henceen"cyclo'pædiac a.[see -ac], = ENCYCLOPÆDIC; . . .
::I have heard people often misinterpret the word encyclopedia on Wikipedia to meaning that an encyclopedia is not a "how-to guide" (I understand that this is a policy, WP:NOT.) However, every student encyclopedia I know of (e.g., World Book, Compton's) gives instructions on how to do things, like write letters and act in formal situations (see the "etiquette" article in World Book). I'd like to close with a quote from Jimbo Wales:Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.--Jimbo Wales
--Primetime 21:01, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: I'm correcting the definition

message: What is a "branch of knowledge"? The lead definition mentions this twice, but the body text has no mention of this.  It seems to refer to a very particular idea of how knowledge can be classified and categorized. Unless a reference to "branches of knowledge" is made in the body text, or the "branches" of knowledge described, I would propose to remove these terms.
Pusle8 (talk) 19:43, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition - "branches"? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Encyclopedia. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110427040922/http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=dict&field-12668446=encyclopaedia&branch=13842570&textsearchtype=exact&sortorder=score%2Cname to http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=dict&field-12668446=encyclopaedia&branch=13842570&textsearchtype=exact&sortorder=score%2Cname
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 09:10, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Just a note but there's a draft for an outline of this topic at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/Drafts/Outline of encyclopedias. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 11:17, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Draft outline