BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time - Home Page the mammoth undertaking that was the Encyclopédie – one of its editors, D’Alembert, described its mission as giving an overview of knowledge, as if gazing down on a vast labyrinth of all the branches of human knowledge, observing where they separate or unite and even catching sight of the secret routes between them. [Download] [Listen]

This introduces a fascinating discussion of how the great French Encyclopedia (the one that begat all others, in a manner of speaking) came to be. What was particularly enlightening (no pub intended) was how similar the Encyclopédie's fate was similar to that of Wikipedia's.

1. They were both inspired by great ideas of collecting and mediating knowledge with the purpose of changing the world. Although, both have a “neutral point of view” policy. Often, in Wikipedia, the discussion of an entry is just as informative as the entry itself.
2. They were both edited by some of the great minds of our time. Although, that is yet to be determined in the case of Wikipedia. But more importantly, they were produced cumulatively. An interesting parallel to empty links in Wikipedia were references to entries that never appeared (and even one duplicate entry) that are a prominent feature of the Encyclopédie.
3. They both ran afoul of people attempting to censor its output. Wikipedia had some spoof entries and the entry on JFK or the Pope are locked for open editing. The Encyclopédie said some unfavorable things about Geneva which got it into trouble. (In both cases this was a result of breaking a policy of neutrality).
4. They both took a liberal view of authorship. See for instance here. It is telling that the Wikipedia’s entry on the Encyclopédie relies heavily on an old Britannica entry. In that same way there were entries in the Encyclopédie that would be considered plagiarized by today’s standards. With more than half entries (37870) in the Encyclopédie, authorship is undetermined, and many were written collaboratively without attribution. It even appears that Voltaire tried to “fork” the Encyclopédie when it came under pressure.
5. And most importantly, they both rely on community involvement for their success. Many entries in the Encyclopédie were contributed by volunteers. But it also depended on subscribers for financing.

Of course, there are probably as many differences as there are similarities. For instance, people generally do not discuss Wikipedia entries in cafes (although they may talk about it in general). And nobody is trying to make money from Wikipedia whereas the Encyclopédie was a massively commercial enterprise.

I take it to be an interesting example, however, of how similar certain patterns in history of social development can be, the current technology notwithstanding (another good example is You’ve Got Mail vs. The Shop Around the Corner). But that is not to deny the differences that are inexorably interwoven with the similarities. No matter what is the level of difference/similarity it should definitely give pause to those denigrating Wikipedia with respect to commercial, centrally edited encyclopedias. In a way, those have become stogy and have lost much of the zest and vibrancy that powered these two projects. (For instance, Wikipedia already contains a link to the program that triggered this thought).