http://therulingzeitgeist.wordpress.com/2007/12/13/leengwistiks-ees-guhrate/

You might also get a kick out of this scene from a movie about Wittgenstein, whom you might find interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0cN_bpLrxk

Perhaps I muddied my argument by lumping together encyclopedias and dictionaries; I had a bunch of tantalizing tangents bouncing around in my head and I gave in to the urge…

I have every intention of employing encyclopedias for the rest of my life (Larsen, Bebbington, and Noll sits on both our shelves). As you amply argue, they have great utility. Even so, I think it valuable to muse about the ways in which we emplot definitions, the way in which we shape words (and the contexts in which we place them) to fit our presuppositions. Imagine the contrast between reformedwiki and wesleywiki…

Per your final paragraph I believe that we are in fundamental agreement. The internet allows for the contestation of definitions out in the open. Formal definitions were once the reserve of cloistered, educated elites (Miriam Webster and co.), but today the balance has shifted. The contest over definitions has become more open and transparent as a result.

But to engage your post more seriously: I think that encyclopedias have more use than you give them credit for.

First, encyclopedias and dictionaries don’t really present themselves as the be-all and end-all of truth. Perhaps high schoolers (and debaters) treat them as such, but nobody else labors under that misapprehension. Dictionaries in particular are almost exclusively descriptive, rather than prescriptive, and they always include multiple definitions. Encyclopedias also don’t pretend to be final word, but rather an interpretation like any other. Perhaps the made pretensions to finality at one time, but postmodern squeamishness has taken care of that. So, for example, I feel free to accept the article about Jonathan Edwards in “American National Biography” as valuable, but I reject the article about David Brainerd in the same encyclopedia as nearly worthless.

Second, I think that sometimes encyclopedias don’t come at the end of the quest for knowledge, but somewhere near the beginning. For an example close to our own research fields, take the “Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals” by Larsen, Bebbington, and Noll. That work isn’t the final word on evangelicalism; rather it was a tool that leaders in the field created to help others on their way to writing about the history of evangelicalism.

Third, the alphabetical system might be a bit odd, but what else would you use? Encyclopedias and dictionaries are non-linear information sources, forced into the linear mold of the printed book. Electronic encyclopedias have been freed from that particular constraint. Besides, encyclopedias often do what they can to structure the information logically. For example, the “Encyclopedia Britannica” has a taxonomy of knowledge that takes up much of one volume. Most other encyclopedias try to do the same thing for their subject matter. Even Wikipedia tries to structure its knowledge through the use of tags, portals, and the like.

Fourth, encyclopedias are convenient places to store essential factual information that doesn’t really fit anywhere else. So, if I wanted a fairly comprehensive list of all the revivals in the United States, I wouldn’t expect to find it in a monograph or an article or even in a synthetic history. I would look in “The Encyclopedia of Religious Revivals in America.”

Fifth, I’ll grant that you some niche encyclopedias are weird. (”Encyclopedia of the Future” or “Encyclopedia of UFOs,” anyone?) But the niche encyclopedias do help people in their particular specialization. So, if I were writing about evangelicalism I’d use the “Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals,” but if I were writing about science I’d need the “Dictionary of Scientific Biography.”

True, I haven’t said anything about your particular topic: the online niche encyclopedias. Most of them do fall into the weird category. But let’s give them time. Wikipedia has only gained a bit of academic respectability in the past couple years. It will take some time for these niche wikis to figure out what content is important, to find contributors, to find ways to make sure that the information is valid, and the like–but I’m confident that the niche online encyclopedia is going to be an important feature of academic research eventually. As an example of the type of niche online encyclopedia that could eventually be useful, take the Orthodox Wiki (obviously it’s not there yet): http://orthodoxwiki.org/