[WikiEN-l] specialised encyclopaedias (was Re: To: Jimmy Wales - Admin-driven death of Wikipedia)

Sun Jun 11 09:49:52 UTC 2006

Sorry to be a geek, but 4 series? It must be more than that. 3 TOS, 7 TNG,
6/7 DS9, around 4 VOY.

On 6/11/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/11/06, Mark Gallagher <m.g.gallagher at student.canberra.edu.au> wrote:
> >
> > While still at school, I ran across a /Star Trek: The Next Generation/
> > encyclopaedia (it was in the school library, believe it or not).  It
> > included descriptions of all characters and their history (that is,
> > their real-world history[0] ... how the show's creators went about
> > recruiting actors, how they'd originally envisioned the characters[1],
> etc.
>
> I own the 1999 version of the Star Trek Encyclopaedia, covering the
> four series and the nine movies up to that point. It's just like the
> one you describe, it's concise and accessible for non-fans (although I
> doubt how many non-fans would be reading it - but the point is they
> could read it if they wanted).
>
> Importantly, it treated the fictional stuff as "true", like a reader
> of an encyclopaedia within the fictional universe would expect, but it
> simultaneously presented information about the shows, the actors, etc
> alongside the fictional stuff, without each trying to pretend that the
> other didn't exist. It's hard to describe, but I think it's a
> marvellous example of how encyclopaedias should address fictional
> matters.
>
> > I think this qualifies as a specialist encyclopaedia, and I don't see a
> > problem with Wikipedia including analogous content --- provided we keep
> > in mind that a) it has to be relevant to people who don't already know
> > heaps about TNG, and b) it has to stay neutral and not be packed with
> > fan theories and other such crud.
>
> Indeed. WP is of course a generalist encyclopaedia, and although it is
> not paper, and can include much more material than other generalist
> works, we should always be writing for a generalist audience [1].
> There are now, of course, specialist wiki encyclopaedias for these
> subjects (like Memory Alpha and Wookiepedia) which are a much better
> place for specialist content.
>
> [1] Science articles are another area where there are some excellent
> articles written so that they can be broadly understood, and others
> which are far too detailed for the generalist reader.
>
> --
> Stephen Bain
> stephen.bain at gmail.com
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-- 
Joe Anderson

[[User:Computerjoe]] on en, fr, de, simple, Meta and Commons.