The world of online, free-for-all encyclopedias is very strange. A few days ago, I mentioned Wikipedia, where anybody (even non-registered folks) can edit anyone’s articles. As one might expect, there are problems caused by anti-social people, people with agendas, etc. Some authors have to spend a lot of time undoing spurious changes. On the other hand, for a group of serious, community-minded folks, the whole wiki thing is cool. I could see it used for a collaborative square dance teaching tips site, for example.

Another on-line encyclopedia-like community is Everything2. which describes itself as “grown from being a very simple user-written encyclopedia to a very complex online community with a focus to write, publish and edit a quality database of information, insight and humor.” Everything2 has an entry on square dance, with a fairly detailed write-up by “elflad” (who I think I know). Elflad has also written an entry on square dance formations, which is very detailed. Unfortunately, you won’t find Everything2 entries by googling; Everything2 keeps search engine spiders out of its databases. Also, you won’t find external links in Everything2; all links are to other existing or non-existing Everything2 nodes.