Communal online encyclopedias represent one of the latest resources to be found on the Internet. They are in many respects like traditional printed encyclopedias collections of articles on various subjects. What is specific to these online encyclopedias,

Communal online and traditional encyclopedia differ in respect of contributors and their level of authority, content management security and domain as well as importance of area they focus. The lecture and the reading passages differs in terms of those three points of view.

The online encyclopedia can detect error in reference that it used for the reader according to the speaker, which is not possible in traditional rather those wrong references are kept decade long. The contributors of traditional encyclopedia have a level of expertise in academy claimed by the passage. On the contray, it is anyone who can contribute to the content.

Online encyclopedia follows two rules to about the security on who can change the content. Firstly, crucial contents can not be changed. Secondly, special editors can eliminate bad and unauthenticate contents. But the passage argues that hackers, unscrupulous users and vandals can alter the content. But this is not true for the online encyclopedia stated by the speaker.

Online communal encyclopedia has no problem about space. As a result, they can focus on academic as well as different categories. But traditional encyclopedia have space limitation and focus on only important subject area according to the passage.