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Wikipedia is not the sum of all knowledge. It's an encyclopedia. Many people seem confused about what that means. Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi
by ubernostrum 8y ago
Wikipedia is not the sum of all knowledge. It's an encyclopedia. Many people seem confused about what that means.
Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia we find:
Wikipedia seeks to create a summary of all human knowledge in the form of an online encyclopedia, with each topic covered encyclopedically in one article.
- beefsack 8y agoThat's not a useful comparison, "sum of all knowledge" isn't the same as "summary".
- ubernostrum 8y agoA "summary of all human knowledge" that deliberately follows up with "well, actually not all human knowledge" is either dishonest or a failure.
- siddboots 8y agoThey are different statements. They just sound similar. "The sum of all human knowledge" would suggest that everything in Wikipedia is known to be true, and everything known to be true is in Wikipedia. In "a summary of all human knowledge," the indefinite article and the word summary both imply a point of view. The sentence says that the knowledge has been abridged, and therefore, that there exists an abridger. It says that Wikipedia is one among many possible summaries.
- ubernostrum 8y agoAn abridged summary is one thing. An abridged summary that editorially chooses which knowledge is worthy of summarizing is another thing. Wikipedia is the latter. The "all knowledge" bit should not be part of the description, because it's not true. Wikipedia actually attempts to create "a summary of selected portions of human knowledge, chosen by those users with the most willingness to endlessly argue on the internet about what should and should not be included".