4 ms·

Paper encyclopedias are a joy of discovery. It was important to have a set on the shelf so as a kid I had a playing field where I could randomly open one up and

Paper encyclopedias are a joy of discovery. It was important to have a set on the shelf so as a kid I had a playing field where I could randomly open one up and find nothing but good content. The internet has slop, distractions, and pernicious falsehoods.

Bluestein 2y ago
We are going "full-circle" back to printing press-discovery days, and then, further backwards, beyond.-
mrguyorama 2y ago
Wikipedia is miles above the 80s encyclopedia collection my family had. There was only a single volume out of about 24, on things like science and mechanisms and STEM in general. The description of how heat pumps work, which included an entire page of diagrams that were straight up nonsensical, was so bad it took me until after college to undo the damage enough to actually understand the physics behind it. If you remember encyclopedias from before computers, 99% of the time you attempted to look something up, you found a singular paragraph, with no sources, barely introducing you to a topic. Even Microsoft Encarta on a bunch of CDs was that barren. Wikipedia has expanded the expected content and coverage of encyclopedias 10x, and has not significantly reduced accuracy despite a supposed "anyone can contribute" model. It's no coincidence in my life that I was constantly starving for knowledge until Wikipedia was created. Not that stumbling down wikipedia rabbit holes for hours on end made me a brilliant person or whatever, but it did give me a love for computing history and enough surface level knowledge to hang out around TheDailyWTF since I was 12, and that led to learning that I liked programming and a career in it that I definitely would not have found without wikipedia.
- FredPret 2y ago
  For breadth and content, there's no beating Wikipedia. There are some issues with one-sided moderation, but that's true of the paper encyclopedias as well. But having a non-internet reference is very good because it encourages learning and curiosity in a way that a website just doesn't. The main thing that's wrong with Wikipedia is that every other distraction online is just a click away.

Bluestein 2y ago

We are going "full-circle" back to printing press-discovery days, and then, further backwards, beyond.-

mrguyorama 2y ago

Wikipedia is miles above the 80s encyclopedia collection my family had. There was only a single volume out of about 24, on things like science and mechanisms and STEM in general. The description of how heat pumps work, which included an entire page of diagrams that were straight up nonsensical, was so bad it took me until after college to undo the damage enough to actually understand the physics behind it. If you remember encyclopedias from before computers, 99% of the time you attempted to look something up, you found a singular paragraph, with no sources, barely introducing you to a topic. Even Microsoft Encarta on a bunch of CDs was that barren. Wikipedia has expanded the expected content and coverage of encyclopedias 10x, and has not significantly reduced accuracy despite a supposed "anyone can contribute" model. It's no coincidence in my life that I was constantly starving for knowledge until Wikipedia was created. Not that stumbling down wikipedia rabbit holes for hours on end made me a brilliant person or whatever, but it did give me a love for computing history and enough surface level knowledge to hang out around TheDailyWTF since I was 12, and that led to learning that I liked programming and a career in it that I definitely would not have found without wikipedia.

FredPret 2y ago
For breadth and content, there's no beating Wikipedia. There are some issues with one-sided moderation, but that's true of the paper encyclopedias as well. But having a non-internet reference is very good because it encourages learning and curiosity in a way that a website just doesn't. The main thing that's wrong with Wikipedia is that every other distraction online is just a click away.