Encyclopedia
Encyclopedia (also encyclopaedia, cyclopedia or cyclopaedia, from Greek
enkyklios paideia, roughly "general education") is a large [1]book (or a
series of books) providing structured summary of wide knowledge in one or
many fields of knowledge (such as [2]mathematics, [3]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 [4]index). The
largest and most famous encyclopedia to date is the online [5]Wikipedia
created by volunteers in [6]free culture spirit, however Wikipedia suffers
from significant issues such as [7]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 [8]LRS
wiki.
Encyclopedias are [9]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 [10]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 [11]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
[12]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 [13]free as in freedom, the knowledge, information
and data contained in it is in the [14]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 [15]copyrighted, as well as e.g. the mere selection of which
facts to include; always be very careful).
Since an encyclopedia will typically focus on encompassing wide knowledge,
as the other side of the coin its disadvantage will also oftentimes be
shallowness, it will go into greater depth only on very important topics,
although very big encyclopedias largely eliminate this issue and go fairly
deep on all subjects; encyclopedias specialized on some particular subject
can also afford to provide in-depth knowledge.
{ A favorite pastime 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 }
Great nerds read encyclopedias linearly from start to finish just like a
normal book, which may help expand one's knowledge as well as ignite
curiosity in new things and spot some cool interesting facts. { And yet
bigger nerds write their own encyclopedias. ~drummyfish }
Similar terms: encyclopedias, which also used to be called cyclopedias in
the past, are similar to dictionaries and these types of books often
overlap (many encyclopedias call themselves dictionaries); the main
difference is that a dictionary focuses on providing linguistic
information and generally has shorter term definitions, while
encyclopedias have longer articles (which however limits their total
number, i.e. encyclopedias will usually prefer quality over quantity).
Encyclopedias are also a subset of so called reference works, i.e. works
that serve to provide [16]information and reference to it (other kinds of
reference works being e.g. world maps, tabulated values or [17]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).
These are some nice/interesting/benchmark articles to look up in
encyclopedias: [18]algorithm, [19]anarchism, Andromeda (galaxy),
Antarctica, Atlantis, atom, [20]axiom of choice, [21]Bible, [22]big bang,
[23]black hole, [24]brain, [25]Buddhism, [26]C (programming language),
[27]cannibalism, [28]capitalism, castle, [29]cat, [30]censorship,
[31]central processing unit, [32]chess, Chicxulub, China, [33]color,
comet, [34]communism, [35]computer, [36]Creative Commons, [37]Deep Blue,
[38]democracy, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, [39]depression,
[40]determinism, [41]dinosaur, dodo, [42]dog, [43]Doom (game), [44]Earth,
[45]Einstein, [46]Elo, [47]Encyclopedia, [48]entropy, [49]ethics,
[50]Euler's Number, [51]evolution, [52]font, [53]football, [54]fractal,
[55]free software, [56]game, gigantopythecus, [57]go (game), [58]god,
[59]GNU project, [60]hacker, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, [61]hardware,
[62]Hitler, [63]Holocaust, [64]homosexual, [65]human, [66]infinity,
[67]information, intelligence, [68]Internet, [69]IQ, Japan, [70]Jesus,
[71]Jew, [72]language, [73]Latin, [74]life, [75]light, lightning,
[76]Linux, [77]logarithm, [78]logic, [79]love, Mammoth, [80]mathematics,
Mariana Trench, Mars, Milky Way, Moon, [81]morality, Mount Everest,
[82]music, [83]necrophilia, [84]number, [85]Open Source, negro,
[86]nigger, pacifism, [87]pedophilia, [88]penis, [89]pi, Pluto, [90]prime
number, [91]quaternion, Pompei, [92]Quran, [93]race, Roman Empire,
[94]sex, [95]sine, [96]schizophrenia, [97]software, [98]Stallman
(Richard), [99]star, Stonehenge, [100]suicide, Sun, Tibet,
[101]technology, Tetris, [102]time, Titanic, [103]transistor, Troy,
Tyrannousaurus Rex, [104]UFO, [105]universe, [106]Unix, Uruk, [107]Usenet,
Valonia Ventricosa (bubble algae), Vatican, Venus, video game,
[108]Wikipedia, [109]woman, [110]World War II, [111]World Wide Web, ...
What is the best letter in an encyclopedia? If you are super nerdy, you
may start to search for your favorite starting letter -- this if [112]fun
and may also help you e.g. decide which volume of your encyclopedia to
take with you when traveling. Which letter is best depends on many things,
e.g. the language of the encyclopedia, its size, your area of interest and
so on. Assuming [113]English and topics that would be interesting to the
readers of [114]LRS wiki, the best letter is most likely C -- it is the
second most common starting letter in dictionaries, has a great span and
includes essential and interesting terms such as [115]computer, [116]C
programming language, [117]cat, [118]communism, [119]capitalism,
[120]chess, [121]christianity, [122]collapse, [123]CPU, [124]color,
[125]culture, [126]copyleft, [127]compiler, [128]creative commons,
[129]cryptography, [130]copyright, [131]car, [132]cancer, [133]cellular
automata, [134]consumerism, [135]cosine, [136]Chomsky, [137]CIA,
[138]cybernetics, [139]cracking, [140]chaos, [141]carbon, [142]curvature,
[143]chemistry, [144]censorship and others. As close second comes S, the
most frequent letter in dictionaries, with terms such as [145]Stallman,
[146]science, [147]shader, [148]semiconductor, [149]silicon,
[150]software, [151]sound, [152]socialism, [153]state, [154]selflessness,
[155]speech recognition, [156]steganography, [157]square root,
[158]sudoku, [159]suicide, [160]speedrun, [161]space, [162]star, [163]Sun,
[164]sine, [165]Soviet union, [166]schizophrenia, [167]set, [168]suckless,
[169]shit, [170]sex and others. { This is based on a list I made where I
assigned points to each letter. The letters that follow after C and S are
P, M, A, E, T, L, R, F, D, G, I, B, H, U, N, W, V, J, O, K, Q, Z, Y, X.
~drummyfish }
Notable/Nice Encyclopedias
Here is a list of notable encyclopedias, focused on general knowledge
English language ones. The most notable ones are in bold. Please do check
also encyclopedias in other languages that you speak (or which you can
easily autotranslate), we can't list those here but there are many large
and awesome ones, for example the Russian [171]Lurkmore/neolurk/etc. (e.g.
https://neolurk.org).
{ See also https://wikiindex.org/. ~drummyfish }
name year legal status format ~articles comment
legendary enc., major edition,
Britannica 9th 1889 PD (old) 25 vol. one of "Big Three", partly
edition digitized (archive.org,
wikisource, ...)
legendary enc., major edition,
Britannica 11th 1910 PD (old) 29 vol. 40K one of "Big Three", mostly
edition digitized (both scan and txt),
PC incorrect :)
Britannica nice, short descriptions,
Concise 2002 proprietary 1 vol. 2000p 28K condensed from the main
Encyclopedia multivol. Brit., piratable pdf
Britannica online ...now proprietary online 130K bloated, high quality articles,
unpaid is limited and with ads
proprietary? Wikipedia alternative, high
[172]Citizendium 2006... (NC) online 18K censorship, faggots have
unclear license
Chambers 1 vol republication of old
Encyclopedia 2001 proprietary 1 vol. 980p multivol. enc. (going back to
(new) 1800s, already PD),
topic-sorted
NOT TO BE CONFUSED with
Collier's New 1921 PD (old) 10 vol. Collier's Encyclopedia
Encyclopedia (different one), digitized on
Wikisource (txt)
high quality, lots of
Columbia 1935... proprietary 1 vol. ~3Kp ~50K information { Read the 1993
Encyclopedia edition, it's super nice.
~drummyfish }
[173]Conservaped. 2006... proprietary online 52K American fascist wiki, has
basic factual errors
by James Hughes, nice, quality
Larousse Desk 1995 proprietary 1 vol. 800p 200K? general overviews,
Reference Enc. topic-ordered { I bought this,
it's nice. ~drummyfish }
Domestic 1802 PD (old) 4 vol. shorter articles, partially
Encyclopaedia digitized on Wikisource
longer articles, one of "Big
Encyclopedia 1820... PD (old) ~30 vol. Three", several editions (1906,
Americana 1920) partly digitized on
wikisource
informal/fun/"offensive" but
Encyclopedia 2004... PD (CC0) online 15K valuable info (on society,
Dramatica tech, ...), basically no
censorship, no propaganda
Encyclopedia of 1999... CC BY-SA online ~3K focused on Marxism, quality,
Marxism shorter articles
alternative to Wikipedia
Everybodywiki 2017... CC BY-SA online ~300K allowing articles on non
notable things and people
Google Knol ~2010 proprietary online failed online enc. by Google,
archived on archive.org
Grolier
Multimedia 2003 proprietary CD
Encyclopedia
GNU CIDE 2012... GPL online/elec. ~123K GNU English dictionary, forked
from old Webster's dictionary
Illustrated kid-friendly, nice pictures,
Family 1997 proprietary 2 vol. 920p 5K USA bias, piratable
Encyclopedia
Wikipedia fork, no SJW
[174]Infogalactic 2016... CC BY-SA online 2M censorship, FOR PROFIT (you can
buy article control lol), can't
make accounts
Leftist encyclopedia, currently
[175]Leftypedia 2020... GFDL online ~200 NOT littered by SJWs, writing
about all branches of the
"left"
[176]LRS wiki 2021... PD (CC0) online/elec. 500 best encyclopedia, focused on
tech/society, no censorship
Wikipedia fork, online, no SJW
[177]Metapedia 2006... GFDL online 7K censorship, ATM limited account
creation, "pro-European"
fascism
Micro$oft enc., low quality
Microsoft ...2009 proprietary electronic 62K articles (errors), MS
[178]Encarta propaganda (no free software
etc. lol), is on archive.org
New World made by some church, quite nice
Encyclopedia 2005... CC BY-SA online ~15K articles (often heavily
rewritten from Wikipedia)
Proletariat wiki, similar to
[179]ProleWiki 2020... proprietary online ~3K Leftypedia but focused on
Marxism-Leninism.
Simple English Wikipedia with simpler language
Wikipedia 2001... CC BY-SA online 200K and simpler explanations,
censored
The New American 1879 PD (old) 16 vol. partially digitized on
Cyclopaedia Wikisource (txt)
The New partially digitized on
International 1905 PD (old) 20 vol. Wikisource
Encyc.
The Nuttall 1907 PD (old) 1 vol. 16K short articles, oldschool,
Encyclopaedia digitized (gutenberg)
[180]Vikidia 2006... CC BY-SA online 4K "Wikipedia for kids", probably
as censored as Wikipedia
Webster's short descriptions, digitized
Unabridged 1864 PD (old) paper 476K (gutenberg)
Dictionary
[181]Wikidata 2012... Pd (CC0) online/elec. 109M database, Wikipedia sister
project
largest and most famous,
[182]Wikipedia 2001... CC BY-SA online 6M EXTREME PSEUDOLEFTIST
CENSORSHIP AND POLITICAL
PROPAGANDA, free culture
Wiktionary 2002... CC BY-SA online 1M dictionary, Wikipedia's sister
project, many language versions
archived old Wikipedia, less
Old Wikipedia 2001 GFDL online 19K censorship,
https://nostalgia.wikipedia.org
contains dictionary, general
Pears' Cyclopedia 1897 PD (old) 1 vol. 740p knowl. maps, reference etc.,
scanned on archive.org
interesting and useful
World Almanac and 1868... some PD 1 vol. information, data and facts
Book of Facts (old) from old to new age,
US-centered
best selling print enc., large,
The World Book 1917... proprietary 22 vol. 17K high quality but for younger
audience, US propaganda
(anticommunism etc.)
The World Book 1917 PD (old) 8 vol. 3K nicely readable
1917
Uncyclopedia 2005... proprietary online 37K parody, [183]fun enc., "more
(NC) normie friendly dramatica"
See Also
* [184]wiki
* [185]Jargon File
* [186]wikiwikiweb
* [187]memopedia
Links:
1. book.md
2. math.md
3. history.md
4. index.md
5. wikipedia.md
6. free_culture.md
7. censorship.md
8. lrs_wiki.md
9. awesome.md
10. collapse.md
11. wikipedia.md
12. free_speech.md
13. free_culture.md
14. public_domain.md
15. copyright.md
16. information.md
17. api.md
18. algorithm.md
19. anarchism.md
20. axiom_of_choice.md
21. bible.md
22. big_bang.md
23. black_hole.md
24. brain.md
25. buddhism.md
26. c.md
27. cannibalism.md
28. capitalism.md
29. cat.md
30. censorship.md
31. cpu.md
32. chess.md
33. color.md
34. communism.md
35. computer.md
36. creative_commons.md
37. deep_blue.md
38. democracy.md
39. depression.md
40. determinism.md
41. dinosaur.md
42. dog.md
43. doom.md
44. earth.md
45. einstein.md
46. elo.md
47. encyclopedia.md
48. entropy.md
49. ethics.md
50. e.md
51. evolution.md
52. font.md
53. football.md
54. fractal.md
55. free_software.md
56. game.md
57. go.md
58. god.md
59. gnu.md
60. hacking.md
61. hardware.md
62. hitler.md
63. holocaust.md
64. gay.md
65. human.md
66. infinity.md
67. information.md
68. internet.md
69. iq.md
70. jesus.md
71. jew.md
72. language.md
73. latin.md
74. life.md
75. light.md
76. linux.md
77. log.md
78. logic.md
79. love.md
80. math.md
81. morality.md
82. music.md
83. necropiilia.md
84. number.md
85. open_source.md
86. nigger.md
87. pedophilia.md
88. penis.md
89. pi.md
90. prime.md
91. quaternion.md
92. quran.md
93. race.md
94. sex.md
95. sin.md
96. schizo.md
97. sw.md
98. rms.md
99. star.md
100. suicide.md
101. technology.md
102. time.md
103. transistor.md
104. ufo.md
105. universe.md
106. unix.md
107. usenet.md
108. wikipedia.md
109. woman.md
110. wwii.md
111. www.md
112. fun.md
113. english.md
114. lrs_wiki.md
115. computer.md
116. c.md
117. cat.md
118. communism.md
119. capitalism.md
120. chess.md
121. christianity.md
122. collpase.md
123. cpu.md
124. color.md
125. culture.md
126. copyleft.md
127. compiler.md
128. creative_commons.md
129. cryptography.md
130. copyright.md
131. car.md
132. cancer.md
133. cellular_automaton.md
134. consumerism.md
135. cosine.md
136. chomsky.md
137. cia.md
138. cybernetics.md
139. cracking.md
140. chaos.md
141. carbon.md
142. curvature.md
143. chemistry.md
144. censorship.md
145. rms.md
146. science.md
147. shader.md
148. semiconductor.md
149. silicon.md
150. software.md
151. sound.md
152. socialism.md
153. state.md
154. selflessness.md
155. speech_recognition.md
156. steganography.md
157. square_root.md
158. sudoku.md
159. kys.md
160. speedrun.md
161. space.md
162. star.md
163. sun.md
164. sin.md
165. ussr.md
166. schizo.md
167. set.md
168. suckless.md
169. shit.md
170. sex.md
171. lurkmore.md
172. citizendium.md
173. conservapedia.md
174. infogalactic.md
175. leftypedia.md
176. lrs_wiki.md
177. metapedia.md
178. encarta.md
179. prolewiki.md
180. vikidia.md
181. wikidata.md
182. wikipedia.md
183. fun.md
184. wiki.md
185. jargon_file.md
186. wikiwikiweb.md
187. memopedia.md