> and certainly can not be up to the standard of an encyclopedia This is a common expressed sentiment. When I read it, I find myself wondering if the people ex

> and certainly can not be up to the standard of an encyclopedia This is a common expressed sentiment. When I read it, I find myself wondering if the people expressing it have ever used an encyclopaedia. I old enough to have grow up with them. Mum and dad brought two of the in fact. One was called something like "World Book". You couldn't possibly be reffering to that. It had 24 volumes lavishly illustrated. I remember one illustration in particular. It was a nuclear powered plane. I still the scowl on dad's face when he saw it. We then got the Britannica. Undeniably very good. But it was just 24 books. When you have to cover every topic on the planet in that space you only get a good summary on each one. It cost thousands, maybe tens of thousands in today's money, and was of course out of date the day it was delivered. It was great for background information, but it wasn't detailed enough for even a high school project - you have to supplement it with the school library. To put numbers on the difference. Britannica has 40 million words, the English Wikipedia has around 4.7 billion - about 100 times more. In Wikipedia articles the have seen a bit of activity for a decade or so (just about every topic Britannica covers would be in that category on Wikipedia) most of them will be as good as Britannica and importantly, have far better references. Or to put it another way, I don't think the kids of today know how far we've come since the age of dead trees.