Communal online encyclopedias represent oneof the latest resources to be found on the Internet. They are in many respectslike traditional printed encyclopedias, however, is that any internet user cancontribute a new article or make an editorial change in an existing one. As aresult, the encyclopedia is authored by the whole community of Internet users.The idea might sound attractive, but the communal online encyclopedias haveseveral important problems that make them much less valuable than traditional,printed encyclopedias.

　　交互式在线百科是互联网上新的资源模式。在线百科在诸多方面与传统纸质百科全书类似。但是在线百科同传统纸质百科不同的地方在于任何一个网民都可以创建或者编进词条。因而，可以说在线百科是由所有网民共同编辑的。这个想法听起来可能很不错，但是跟传统纸质百科全书相比，在线百科也因此具有了一些严重的问题。而这些问题将很大程度地削减在线百科的价值。

　　First, contributors to a communal onlineencyclopedia often lack academic credentials, thereby making their contributionspartially informed at best and downright inaccurate in many cases.

　　Traditional encyclopedias are written bytrained experts who adhere to standards of academic rigor that non-specialistscannot really achieve.

　　首先，在线百科信息的提供者往往缺乏学术资格，因为他们提供的信息很多时候不够完美，甚至是不够精确的。传统的百科全书是由受过良好训练的专家编撰的。这些专家符合严格的学术标准，而这一点是业余人士无论如何都达不到的。

　　Second, even if the original entry in theonline encyclopedia is correct, the communal nature of these onlineencyclopedias gives unscrupulous users and vandals or hackers the opportunityto fabricate, delete, and corrupt information in the encyclopedia. Once changeshave been made to the original text, an unsuspecting user cannot tell the entryhas been tampered with. None of this is possible with a traditionalencyclopedia.

　　第二，即使在线百科词条最初是正确的，但是其互动的特性允许一些无原则的用户，蓄意破坏的人以及黑客们伪造、删除和篡改条目。当原始的版本被篡改之后，那些对条目深信不疑的用户不能发现问题。而这样的情况是不会发生在传统百科全书中的。

　　Third, the communal encyclopedias focus toofrequently, and in too great a depth, on trivial and popular topics, whichcreated a false impression of what is important and what is not. A child doingresearch for a school project may discover that a major historical eventreceives as much attention in an online encyclopedia as, say, a singlelong-running television program. The traditional encyclopedia provides aconsidered view of what topics to include or exclude and contains a sense of proportionthat online “democratic” communal encyclopedias do not.

　　第三，在线互动百科对于绯闻和流行话题的关注过多过深，这一点使大家对孰轻孰重产生错觉。孩子可能会通过在线百科完成学校留的作业。这时，他可能会发现在线百科上面，重大的历史事件所受的关注度跟一档长线播出的电视节目是一样的。而在传统百科中，对于内容的取舍和均衡是非常注意的，而这一点在具有“民主性”的在线百科上是没有体现的。