less_retarded_wiki/encyclopedia.md
2023-09-10 13:29:33 +02:00

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Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia (also encyclopaedia, cyclopedia or cyclopaedia, from Greek enkyklios paideia, roughly "general education") is a large book (or a series of books) providing structured summary of wide knowledge in one or many fields of knowledge (such as mathematics, history, engineering, general knowledge etc.), usually structured as a collection of alphabetically ordered articles on terms used in the field. Paper encyclopedias are oftentimes printed in several volumes as the amount of contained information is too great for a single book (in large ones you may even see one or two volumes dedicated ONLY for the index). The largest and most famous encyclopedia to date is the online Wikipedia created by volunteers in free culture spirit, however Wikipedia suffers from significant issues such as censorship, high political propaganda and low quality of writing, therefore it is important to also stay interested in other encyclopedias such as Britannica, Americana or LRS wiki.

Encyclopedias are awesome, get as many of them as you can, especially the printed ones -- they are usually relatively cheap (especially second hand books) and provide an ENORMOUS amount of information, FOREVER (no one can cancel your physically owned paper book, you will retain it even after the collapse when such books will become practically your only source of human knowledge). Also remember, paper books are still of much higher quality than online resources such as Wikipedia -- even if they lose in terms of shear volume, they make up in quality of writing and still many times contain information that's not available online, and the older ones are more objective and trustworthy, considering the decline of free speech online. Shorter articles may also do a better job at providing overall summary of a topic and filtering out less important information, as opposed to a gigantic Wikipedia article. Furthermore even if such a book isn't free as in freedom, the knowledge, information and data contained in it is in the public domain as such things cannot (yet) be owned, therefore it is possible to legally paraphrase the information into a new source which we may make public domain itself (however watch out to not merely copy-paste texts from encyclopedias as text CAN be copyrighted, as well as e.g. the mere selection of which facts to include; always be very careful).

{ A favorite passtime of mine is looking up the same term in different encyclopedias and comparing them -- this can help get to the essence of actually understanding the term, as well as revealing censorship and different views of the authors. ~drummyfish }

Similar terms: encyclopedias, which also used to be called cyclopedias in the past, are similar to dictionaries and these works often overlap (many encyclopedias call themselves dictionaries); the main difference is that a dictionary focuses on providing linguistic information about the terms and has shorter term definitions, while encyclopedias have longer articles (which however limits the total number of terms it may contain). Encyclopedias are also a subset of so called reference works, i.e. works that serve to provide information and reference to it (other kinds of reference works being e.g. world maps or API references). A universal/general encyclopedia is one that focuses on human knowledge at wide, as opposed to an encyclopedia that focuses on one specific field of knowledge. Compendium can be seen almost as a synonym to encyclopedia, with encyclopedias perhaps usually being more general and extensive. Almanac is also similar to encyclopedia, more focusing on tabular data. Micropedia is another term, sometimes used to denote a smaller encyclopedia (one edition of Britannica came with a micropedia as well as a larger macropedia).

Notable/Nice Encyclopedias

Here is a list of notable encyclopedias, focused on general knowledge English language ones that are preferrably publicly available (or easy to get).

{ See also https://wikiindex.org/. ~drummyfish }

name year legal status format ~articles comment
Britannica 11th edition 1910 PD (old) 29 vol. 40K legendary enc., part of "Big Three", digitized (gutenberg, txt), uncensored facts on race etc.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia 2002 proprietary 1 vol. 2000p 28K nice, short descriptions, condensed from the main multivol. Brit., piratable pdf
Britannica online ...now proprietary online 130K bloated, high quality articles, unpaid is limited and with ads
Citizendium 2006... proprietary? (NC) online 18K Wikipedia alternative, censored, faggots have unclear license
Collier's New Encyclopedia 1921 PD (old) 10 vol. NOT TO BE CONFUSED with Collier's Encyclopedia (different one), digitized on Wikisource (txt)
Columbia Encyclopedia 1935... proprietary 1 vol. ~3Kp ~50K high quality, lots of information { Read the 1993 edition, it's super nice. ~drummyfish }
Conservaedia 2006... proprietary online 52K American fascist wiki, has basic factual errors
Desk Reference Encyclopedia 1995 proprietary 1 vol. 800p 200K? by James Hughes, nice illustrations, quality general overviews { I bought this, it's nice. ~drummyfish }
Domestic Encyclopaedia 1802 PD (old) 4 vol. shorter articles, partially digitized on Wikisource
Encyclopedia Americana 1820... PD (old) ~30 vol. longer articles, part of "Big Three", several editions (1906, 1920) partially digitized on Wikisource
Encyclopedia Dramatica 2004... PD (CC0) online 15K informal/fun/"offensive" but valuable info (on society, tech, ...), basically no censorship, no propaganda
Everybodywiki 2017... CC BY-SA online ~300K alternative to Wikipedia allowing articles on non notable things and people
Google Knol ~2010 proprietary online failed online enc. by Google, archived on archive.org
Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia 2003 proprietary CD
Illustrated Family Encyclopedia 1997 proprietary 2 vol. 920p 5K kid-friendly, nice pictures, USA bias, piratable
Infogalactic 2016... CC BY-SA online 2M Wikipedia fork, no SJW censorship, FOR PROFIT (you can buy article control lol), can't make accounts
LRS wiki 2021... PD (CC0) online/elec. 500 best encyclopedia, focused on tech/society, no censorship
Metapedia 2006... GFDL online 7K Wikipedia fork, online, no SJW censorship, ATM limited account creation, "pro-European" fascism
Microsoft Encarta ...2009 proprietary electronic 62K Micro$oft enc., low quality articles (errors), MS propaganda (no free software etc. lol), is on archive.org
Simple English Wikipedia 2001... CC BY-SA online 200K Wikipedia with simpler language and simpler explanations, censored
The New American Cyclopaedia 1879 PD (old) 16 vol. partially digitized on Wikisource (txt)
The New International Encyc. 1905 PD (old) 20 vol. partially digitized on Wikisource
The Nuttall Encyclopaedia 1907 PD (old) 1 vol. 16K short articles, oldschool, digitized (gutenberg)
Vikidia 2006... CC BY-SA online 4K "Wikipedia for kids", probably as censored as Wikipedia
Webster's Unabridged Dictionary 1864 PD (old) paper 476K short descriptions, digitized (gutenberg)
Wikipedia 2001... CC BY-SA online 6M largest and most famous, EXTREME PSEUDOLEFTIST CENSORSHIP AND POLITICAL PROPAGANDA, free culture
Old Wikipedia 2001 GFDL online 19K archived old Wikipedia, less censorship, https://nostalgia.wikipedia.org
Pears' Cyclopedia 1897 PD (old) 1 vol. 740p contains dictionary, general knowl. maps, reference etc., scanned on archive.org
World Almanac and Book of Facts 1868... some PD (old) 1 vol. interesting and useful information, data and facts from old to new age, US-centered
The World Book 1917... proprietary 22 vol. 17K best selling print enc., large, probably high quality
The World Book 1917 1917 PD (old) 8 vol. 3K nicely readable
Uncyclopedia 2005... proprietary (NC) online 37K parody, fun enc.