Of the World’s Knowledge
@encyclopedias.bsky.social
The Past, Present, and Future of the Encyclopedia
Edited by @emburke.bsky.social
Edited by @emburke.bsky.social
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
I think in the early days of Wikipedia there was an idea that it could be written like older encyclopedias. Going to a "everything must be cited" system in the English language version has been a large change.
September 21, 2025 at 10:40 PM
I think in the early days of Wikipedia there was an idea that it could be written like older encyclopedias. Going to a "everything must be cited" system in the English language version has been a large change.
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
I think a generation of students heard "don't cite Wikipedia as a source" and internalized "Wikipedia is unreliable" rather than "encyclopedias are secondary sources, go cite the actual primary source".
September 21, 2025 at 8:52 PM
I think a generation of students heard "don't cite Wikipedia as a source" and internalized "Wikipedia is unreliable" rather than "encyclopedias are secondary sources, go cite the actual primary source".
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
I used to love reading encyclopedias in elementary school. They were my own personal gifted and talented program.
October 18, 2025 at 4:53 AM
I used to love reading encyclopedias in elementary school. They were my own personal gifted and talented program.
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
wikipedia's data shows that AI is siphoning traffic away from the site, which is a danger to its sustainability. ironically Wikipedia is more important than ever to users who want reliable information instead of slop, and to AI companies that need it for training data www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors
“With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”
www.404media.co
October 17, 2025 at 1:15 AM
wikipedia's data shows that AI is siphoning traffic away from the site, which is a danger to its sustainability. ironically Wikipedia is more important than ever to users who want reliable information instead of slop, and to AI companies that need it for training data www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
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Which lucky KPop Demon Hunter is going to get Delusion–Frensen??
October 31, 2025 at 3:43 PM
Which lucky KPop Demon Hunter is going to get Delusion–Frensen??
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
How Similar Are Grokipedia and Wikipedia? A Multi-Dimensional Textual and Structural Comparison
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26899
The launch of Grokipedia, an AI-generated encyclopedia developed by Elon Musk's xAI, was presented as a response to perceived ideological and structural biases in W...📈🤖
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26899
The launch of Grokipedia, an AI-generated encyclopedia developed by Elon Musk's xAI, was presented as a response to perceived ideological and structural biases in W...📈🤖
November 3, 2025 at 5:02 PM
How Similar Are Grokipedia and Wikipedia? A Multi-Dimensional Textual and Structural Comparison
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26899
The launch of Grokipedia, an AI-generated encyclopedia developed by Elon Musk's xAI, was presented as a response to perceived ideological and structural biases in W...📈🤖
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26899
The launch of Grokipedia, an AI-generated encyclopedia developed by Elon Musk's xAI, was presented as a response to perceived ideological and structural biases in W...📈🤖
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
In 2008, Google created an ad-powered wiki encyclopedia called Knol, seen as a "Wikipedia killer" amid its highly-publicized launch. And the Wikimedia Foundation gave an unbothered response that I quite like: "the more good free content, the better for the world." Anyway Knol instantly flopped
October 29, 2025 at 2:37 PM
In 2008, Google created an ad-powered wiki encyclopedia called Knol, seen as a "Wikipedia killer" amid its highly-publicized launch. And the Wikimedia Foundation gave an unbothered response that I quite like: "the more good free content, the better for the world." Anyway Knol instantly flopped
Grokipedia does not appear to cite a single printed (on paper) source throughout the entirety of the encyclopedia. This is not dramatically different from Wikipedia's reliance primarily upon open-source online sources, but rather further exacerbates the many extant problems with this philosophy.
November 3, 2025 at 10:48 AM
Grokipedia does not appear to cite a single printed (on paper) source throughout the entirety of the encyclopedia. This is not dramatically different from Wikipedia's reliance primarily upon open-source online sources, but rather further exacerbates the many extant problems with this philosophy.
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
www.theguardian.com/technology/2... #Grokipedia 'Its knowledge culture is very iterative where making mistakes is a feature, not a bug. By contrast, the academic world is about building trust over time and scholarship over long periods during which the illusion that you know everything cracks'
In Grok we don’t trust: academics assess Elon Musk’s AI-powered encyclopedia
From publishing falsehoods to pushing far-right ideology, Grokipedia gives chatroom comments equal status to research
www.theguardian.com
November 3, 2025 at 10:15 AM
www.theguardian.com/technology/2... #Grokipedia 'Its knowledge culture is very iterative where making mistakes is a feature, not a bug. By contrast, the academic world is about building trust over time and scholarship over long periods during which the illusion that you know everything cracks'
The practice of building a new encyclopedia by directly pulling entire articles from extant competitors is by no means novel (Wikipedia originally did the same with the 11th edition of Britannica). #Grokipedia may, however, be the first encyclopedia in centuries to include zero cross-referencing.
October 28, 2025 at 9:40 AM
The practice of building a new encyclopedia by directly pulling entire articles from extant competitors is by no means novel (Wikipedia originally did the same with the 11th edition of Britannica). #Grokipedia may, however, be the first encyclopedia in centuries to include zero cross-referencing.
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia contains copied Wikipedia pages
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia contains copied Wikipedia pages
Ironic.
buff.ly
October 28, 2025 at 12:50 AM
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia contains copied Wikipedia pages
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
Elon Musk says he's launching a competitor to Wikipedia called Grokipedia
Elon Musk's Wikipedia Competitor Is Going to Be a Disaster
Remember when Grok praised Adolf Hitler?
gizmodo.com
September 30, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Elon Musk says he's launching a competitor to Wikipedia called Grokipedia
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Unlike Twitter, these bad boys never go down.
May 22, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Unlike Twitter, these bad boys never go down.
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
In a new feature by Observer, Wikimedia Foundation leaders speak candidly about how Wikipedia – built by people, not machines – has unintentionally become the powerhouse of the AI revolution and the potential pitfalls of using its content without attribution. 🧵⬇️ (1/3)
May 29, 2025 at 4:03 PM
In a new feature by Observer, Wikimedia Foundation leaders speak candidly about how Wikipedia – built by people, not machines – has unintentionally become the powerhouse of the AI revolution and the potential pitfalls of using its content without attribution. 🧵⬇️ (1/3)
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
Excuse you, it was actually a phase where I got distracted by all the other cool entries in the World Book Encyclopedia every time I had to look something up for a project. There was nothing more riveting on God's green earth than whatever was immediately alphabetically before my homework subject.
Are you neurotypical or did you have a phase where you would read the dictionary and/or thesaurus for fun?
January 4, 2025 at 2:11 AM
Excuse you, it was actually a phase where I got distracted by all the other cool entries in the World Book Encyclopedia every time I had to look something up for a project. There was nothing more riveting on God's green earth than whatever was immediately alphabetically before my homework subject.
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
Posing with a TV on wheels and a set of World Book Encyclopedia. (1960s)
December 31, 2024 at 8:22 AM
Posing with a TV on wheels and a set of World Book Encyclopedia. (1960s)
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Encyclopedia > Dictionary
December 29, 2024 at 6:25 PM
Encyclopedia > Dictionary
Mountweazels were fictitious articles intentionally printed by encyclopedias in an effort to later reveal efforts by competitors to blanket plagiarize whole editions.
The origin of the term is delightful. As a copyright trap, the New Columbia Encyclopedia in 1975 included an entry on the fictitious Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, a photographer who died in an explosion while on assignment for the (also fictitious) Combustibles magazine. Excellent.
December 28, 2024 at 7:29 AM
Mountweazels were fictitious articles intentionally printed by encyclopedias in an effort to later reveal efforts by competitors to blanket plagiarize whole editions.
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
Back in 2022, I wrote for Slate about why Elon Musk attacks Wikipedia: www.sourcenotes.blog/p/why-elon-m...
December 27, 2024 at 8:15 PM
Back in 2022, I wrote for Slate about why Elon Musk attacks Wikipedia: www.sourcenotes.blog/p/why-elon-m...
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
My family could not afford Britannica. We had to settle for Encyclopedia Americanna. It came with a set of 10 additional Science books that I also read from cover to cover. The salesman who came to our house later turned out to be the actor who played the ne'er-do-well ex-husband on Golden Girls.
December 27, 2024 at 5:25 PM
My family could not afford Britannica. We had to settle for Encyclopedia Americanna. It came with a set of 10 additional Science books that I also read from cover to cover. The salesman who came to our house later turned out to be the actor who played the ne'er-do-well ex-husband on Golden Girls.
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
It's doing the rounds that Wikipedia supposedly spent $50 million on "DEI", or c. 29% of its budget which sounds a bit steep (even if, like me, you're inclined to be sympathetic to DEI projects), but if you actually read the report (here: meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimed...) it turns out that...
December 25, 2024 at 11:29 PM
It's doing the rounds that Wikipedia supposedly spent $50 million on "DEI", or c. 29% of its budget which sounds a bit steep (even if, like me, you're inclined to be sympathetic to DEI projects), but if you actually read the report (here: meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimed...) it turns out that...
Reposted by Of the World’s Knowledge
Well, I always saw Encyclopedias as a introduction to research a subject
If I want to know more about it, I will go after the bibliography, usually listed on the articles.
A Encyclopedia is a start point, not the end of the path.
If I want to know more about it, I will go after the bibliography, usually listed on the articles.
A Encyclopedia is a start point, not the end of the path.
December 26, 2024 at 4:11 PM
Well, I always saw Encyclopedias as a introduction to research a subject
If I want to know more about it, I will go after the bibliography, usually listed on the articles.
A Encyclopedia is a start point, not the end of the path.
If I want to know more about it, I will go after the bibliography, usually listed on the articles.
A Encyclopedia is a start point, not the end of the path.