Although Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it is not bound by the same constraints as a paper

encyclopedia or even most online encyclopedias. The length, depth, and breadth of articles in
Wikipedia is virtually infinite. As Wikipedia grows, so will computing power, storage capacity,
and bandwidth. While there is a practical limit to all these at any given time, Wikipedia is not
likely ever to outgrow them.

Founder Jimbo Wales has stated his desire that Wikipedia should not become yet another
discussion forum. But it definitely is something different from a paper encyclopedia, and
Wikipedians should take advantage of that fact.

Contents
 1 No size limits
 2 Organization
 3 Style and functionality
 4 Timeliness and ease of editing
 5 Environment
 6 See also

No size limits
The most obvious difference is that there are, in principle, no size limits in the Wikipedia
universe. It is quite possible, for example, that when you finish typing in everything you want to
say about poker, there might well be over 100 pages, and enough text for a full-length book by
itself. This would certainly never be tolerated in a paper encyclopedia, which is why
Encyclopædia Britannica has such limited information on the topic (and on most other topics).

Plain text takes up an almost negligible amount of disk space. At seven letters per word, a 300
GB hard drive that costs around $40 US can hold 45 billion words, which amounts to 12.1
million words “per penny”. As of 2012, a 1 TB hard drive costs about the same amount that 300
GB used to cost when this article was first written. A 1 terabyte hard drive can hold 153.6 billion
words (1000 GB = 1 TB), which amounts to 38.4 million words per penny (and growing).

The Nupedia FAQ rightly warned about taxing a reader's patience with rambling prose, but
detailed subtopics and sub-subtopics enrich Wikipedia with information. There is no reason why
there shouldn't be a page for every single Simpsons character, and even a table listing every
single episode, all neatly cross-linked and introduced by a shorter central page. Every episode
name in the list could link to a separate page for each of those episodes, with links to reviews and
trivia. Each of the 100+ poker games can have its own page with rules, history, and strategy.
Jimbo Wales has agreed: Hard disks are cheap. [citation needed]

Organization
Of course, a 100-page thesis on poker is useless to someone who merely needs an article
summarizing the basic rules and history of the game. The purpose of a normal encyclopedia is to
provide the reader a brief overview of the subject, while a reference book or text book can
explain the details. Wikipedia can do both. Because Wikipedia is not on paper, it can provide
summaries of all subjects of interest and also provide exhaustive detail on those subjects,
conveniently linked, categorized, and searchable for readers who want more detail.

The key to avoiding information overload is to break an article down into sections and
subsections. Only if the topics of the subsections differ too much from the topic of the article
itself it is necessary to break an article into several pages. For example, Poker can be broken into
a basic "Poker" article which is only one page (about 30 KB) and links to "History of poker",
"Modern popularity of poker", and variations of the game, such as "Stud poker" and "Texas hold
'em". These will be much more searchable. As a more general example:

Acme, an overview

History of acme
Physical description of acme
Relationship with zeta

These can start out as section headings and be broken out into separate pages as the main article
becomes too long. On the other hand, a good article is broad in its coverage, so before creating a
stub about a fringe topic consider adding the information to an existing article to preserve the
context.

On the other hand, Wikipedia is not a general knowledge base of any and all information, full of
railroad timetables and comprehensive lists. But any encyclopedic subject of interest should be
covered, in whatever depth is possible.

And, of course, Wikipedia is on the Internet, but Wikipedia is not the Internet. For the Internet is
used for commerce, news, self-promotion, creative arts, useless rambling, pornography and a
whole host of other things not suitable for an encyclopedia, even one as limitless as Wikipedia.

Style and functionality