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Comment by haberman | Hacker News Reader

I like the sentiment, and I would extend it to websites for just about anything. Often I'll use Wikipedia to learn about X instead of going to X's own website because Wikipedia will at least say what it is instead of blowing a bunch of marketing-speak at me and asking me to download a PDF whitepaper.

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The other day I was in the bathroom and there was an Oxford dictionary in front of me, so I looked at the definition for 4 words (root beer, ginger, tumbleweed, ?) in a couple minutes. Then I realized if I had done that on Wikipedia it would probably take me an hour.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Comparing reading a dictionary definition to an encyclopedia entry, and complaining that the encyclopedia had more detail? Perhaps it'd be a fairer comparison if you compared reading the first paragraph of the wikipedia article to the dictionary definition

Perhaps it'd be a fairer comparison if he compared reading the Encyclopedia Britannica to wikipedia. Or perhaps he's trying to make the point that sometimes all you needed was a definition, and you should have <your favourite search engine>'d "define: root beer" instead of going to wikipedia to be distracted?

Yes, but I didn't knew the define trick, so Googling and going to the first result (always Wikipedia) is "consulting the dictionary" these days.

no, it's consulting the encyclopedia. There's a big difference between an encyclopedia and a dictionary...

Who opens m-w.com to check what something means? You just google it, Everyone googles it.

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