tpo6

In the reading passage, communal online encyclopedias could have some disadvantages that would make them less practical than traditional ones. However, the professor indicates that besides the shortcomings, their convenience could really benefit the public and the improvement of encyclopedias. And she argues about reasons of it in three parts matching with the reading.

Firstly, in the reading, contributors are regard as lack of academic capability, so the encyclopedias online would be full of errors. But the lecturer said that the method of communal online could make errors less than ever since they are so easier to correct than the traditional encyclopedias. Since we can never find a paper version with no mistake at all, this is the only way we could get as closely as possible to perfection so far.

Secondly, people worried about hacking problems that some people with high technology skills and inappropriate motivations could change the crucial part of the encyclopedias and damage the whole idea. In the presentation, professor gives us the explanation that users could only get access to the reading version of the original writing format and there is a person who would read users' opinions and correct the words specifically.

Finally, in the reading passage, the online encyclopedias could bring up similar attention from audience with topics that should not be valued as the same importance, such as major historical issues and TV series programs. In fact, as mentioned in the speech, traditional encyclopedias gave too little space for people to submit their comments, which make it hard to tell the different interests of audience with different topics. Indeed, the online encyclopedias could set no limitation on users' length of reviews, so this would be helpful to reflecting more diverse public tastes.