A review of the Wikipedia and competing free online encyclopedias.

It seems everybody uses the Wikipedia these days, as it gives surfers a short-cut to relevant and concise information on nearly any topic.

The large number of sites that link to the Wikipedia have given its article a strong standing in regular search engine results, as well, bringing in even more visitors.

The question we ask is: Are there any serious free alternatives to the Wikipedia out there?

We have tested the content of several free online encyclopedias by doing a search for three topics we know quite a bit about: the renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno, our home country Norway and the search engine Google.

Wikipedia

The Wikipedia has now close to 8 million articles in 253 languages, 1.91 million of which are in the English edition.

It is written collaboratively by volunteers around the world and the vast majority of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet. This has led to a lot of debate and criticism.

All in all, however, most of the articles are informative and useful, and the collective nature of the adventure normally helps readers and writers identify and correct the most serious inaccuracies.

The article on Giordano Bruno is long and substantial and captures the Hermetic side of his philosophy.

The article on Norway is also informative. Encarta’s coverage of Norwegian politics is actually longer than Wikipedia’s, but Encarta cannot compete with the depth of Wikipedia coverage if we take all articles on Norway into consideration.

There are separate pages on the economy of Norway, foreign relations, language, literature, regions and more. The information in the main article is, as far as we can see, correct, although all the maps are missing the Svaldbard islands (Spitsbergen).

The article on Google is up to date and covers the most important aspects of the history and role of the Google history. There are other articles on Criticism of Google, Censorship by Google, and more. No other free online encyclopedia can compete with the breadth of Wikipedia’s Google coverage.

Columbia Encyclopedia (6th Edition)

Columbia contains nearly 51,000 entries. The current Sixth Edition claims to be one of the most complete encyclopedias on the web. The recent edition is from 2001, which makes it relatively up to date for most generic searches, although there were no entries for “Google”.

Our test search for Giordano Bruno led to a rather short article on the man, only enough to sharpen your appetite. The article does not mention Bruno’s hermetic connections and his attempt to revitalize what he considered to be the old Egyptian religion. This is a serious omission in our book.

The article on Norway is more extensive, though, although it contains at least one error (the Progessives are not mentioned as one of the three largest parties).

As a concise encyclopedia Columbia might work, but it cannot compete with Wikipedia.

Encyclopedia Britannica Concise

The full version of Britannica is a wonderful encyclopedia with volumes and volumes of long high quality articles on the most obscure topics. If you are serious about your encyclopedic habits, you might consider paying for full access to all 122,264 articles.

The Concise one volume is accessible for free, but gives too little to satisfy us.

The entry on Bruno is one paragraph, which fails to mention his Hermetic ideas (the full version does).

Norway is given one long, decent, paragraph. There is no entry for Google, although you do get access to some info on founders Brin and Page.

Note that the 1919 edition of Britannica is available for free. It does certainly not cover Google, but its articles on history and art can still be of interest.

World Book Encyclopedia

The World Book Encyclopedia is another concise search tool that might function as a kind of extended dictionary, but that cannot give the depth given by the Wikipedia.

The article on Bruno consists of two sentences, the one on Norway of five paragraphs. There is one paragraph on Google.

However, you may subscribe to World Book Online Reference Center to get access to all of the articles from the 22-volume print set, plus pictures and maps, videos and animations, sounds, and simulated historic Web sites. That might be an interesting bargain.

MSN Encarta

MSN’s Encarta site also includes entries from the concise encyclopedia. The five paragraph entry on Bruno are OK, but again references to his Hermetic occultism are missing.

The article on Norway, however, is substantial (12 web pages long) and to the point. Good!

To get access to the article on Google, however, you have to sign up for a Encarta Premium subscription. Strangely enough, the link that is supposed to take us to more info on the subscription takes us to a free Hotmail subscription form, and we were unable to find the correct sign-up form anywhere!

it is unclear what articles are free and what articles requires a subscription. It seems that most articles are public, though, making MSN Encarta a useful source for free online information.

Concise Hutchinson Encyclopedia

Getting access to the Hutchinson Encyclopedia and its 75,000 articles requires a subscription. The concise version is free, though, and found at the Farlex Free Dictionary.

The two paragraphs on Bruno do capture his interests in magic. The text on Norway is substantial, but contains only the historical presentation. The rest requires a subscription. The Google article is available to subscribers only (what is it that makes these sites hide their Google stuff?).

We have to conclude that the unpaid version of Hutchinson’s is not useful for our purposes.

There is no serious competitor to the Wikipedia

As far as we can see, the Wikipedia has no serious competitor on the net as regards free encyclopedia. MSN’s Encarta is worth a try, also in its free version, but all the other online encyclopedias we have tested are not useful for serious analytical work.

If one of the major encyclopedias decides to give free access to all its information, the picture may change. This is obviously a matter of economy.

In October 1999 Britannica opened up the whole encyclopedia for free online search, only to close it again in 2001.

We believe the reason was that Britannica feared that free online access would undermine printed and CD-ROM versions of the encyclopedia. They were probably right at the time. Now that the Wikipedia has become a major competitor to Britannica, however, the Brits should definitely take another look on the free online access model. Much has happened since 2001, including the growth of efficient pay-per-click advertising.

More on online encyclopedias, see HighBeam

You can discuss this article over at Sphinn