Wikipedia vs. Other Encyclopdias

Wikipedia is the holy grail of internet knowledge. It has just about everything in just about every language. While many English Teachers attack it as a bad source for information, in reality it is on par with every other Encyclopedia with only slight differences.

• Way more information: Due to its community building style Wikipedia is easily over a hundred times bigger than the second biggest English Encyclopedia:  Encyclopædia Britannica. This is certainly a plus as information is what you are looking for. Plus its information is cited so you also have a list of site to acquire more information

• The Error Difference: While Wikipedia has been found to contain errors, these errors are not more common in Wikipedia than they are in other Encyclopedias. Naturally, because of the difference in content addition, Wikipedia's errors tend to be unobvious minor falsities where other encyclopedias are merely lacking in information.

• Vandalism and Trolls: Due to Wikipedia's openness to content change it is easy for a vandal or troll to add falsities and slurs into any page. This is usually quickly fixed within a few minutes by any of the huge amount of Wikipedians watching the page or a random reader who sees it and fixes it himself. Keep in mind though that minor pages tend to be unwatched and can be easily vandalized (Often by English Teachers 'demonstrating' how easy it is to vandalize their own school's page).  In contrast, if a hacker were to change things in a ton of  Encyclopædia Britannica it might take years to be noticed.

• Language Difference: Sadly, the encyclopedia that the average Joe can edit sounds exactly like that, the average Joe. Where Professional Encyclopedias are easy to read and sound erudite, Wikipedia tends to read like it was written by a crowd of average people, which it was. On the opposite side of the spectrum more difficult topics read as if they were written by people who have an understanding of the most complicated things, which it probably was.

• Update Difference: If someone dies, it is updated to Wikipedia within the day. However your home encyclopedia isn't going to change unless you buy the next update, which could be years from now. This applies to the rest of its topics too. Anytime there is a breakthrough or something new it is quickly added to Wikipedia.

Overall, I think Wikipedia isn't going to fall to classic encyclopdias. As time goes on and Wikipedia is hammered out by the tons of users and readers, it will be a giant ruling with an iron fist.