CZ Talk:Charter/Definitions

I read in US History encyclopedia about the history and metamorphosis of the encyclopedia. The first thing that caught my attention was that encyclopedias do seem to specialize, ie. "American Encyclopedia of Social Sciences." They started as a storehouse of information - a place to gather all knowledge in one place. However, they took a stance that in the dawn of the information age, the purpose of the encyclopedia may need to change. This source's last sentence said, "The explosion of electronic sources in many ways supplanted the "storehouse of facts" that was one of the major original functions of encyclopedias. The vast quantity of immediately accessible information made the encyclopedia's purpose of providing an authoritative "systematic survey" of knowledge even more essential in the information age." The phraseology "systematic survey" got my attention. D. Matt Innis 02:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

On first hearing it, I like "systematic survey" a lot. It doesn't have a generally accepted meaning, but it has the right "feel." Certainly, when Internet-based information systems make browsing like taking a sip of water from a fire hose at full pressure, system is needed. Context is needed. One could reasonably argue, as an example, that a good set of Related Article pages are a starting point on system. Howard C. Berkowitz 02:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I think "systematic" is what felt right, too - along with authoritative. The fire hose is a perfect analogy. We're harnessing that information and putting it in one place - under the watchful eye of the experts in those fields. D. Matt Innis 03:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

How about:

• As an encyclopedia, Citizendium strives to be a systematic collection of information provided under the auspices of the authority of experts...

by the way, I looked up auspices just for kicks and one of it's defintions is "kindly endorsement and guidance"!

D. Matt Innis 03:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)