Wikipedia has pretty much destroyed the encyclopedia. Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger killed it in the library with a letter opener and a plug.
That's not necessarily a form of praise of the web-based compilation, but I wouldn't say Wiki's completely useless. Look, Wikipedia's great for getting trivia and overall factoids about shows, events, and public figures, but such a conglomeration of dozens upon dozens of edits and reviews will be bound to get things wrong. The days of going to a library and leafing through volumes of time-weathered information are over, and the costs of printing outweigh the benefits of digitizing everything.
But if I were to create an encyclopedia for my favorite things—namely anime, natch—I'd have to build from each letter organically. I'd likely grow my entries for each year, assigning one essential title for each letter, then building around them with other terms. While it would be easier to do it using Japanese kana, using the English alphabet is always a fun challenge. Good luck with the entries for L, Q, X or V!
So I challenge fans to construct their own listings for 2011, focusing on one entry for each letter of the alphabet. I present my own 2011 Anime Encyclopedia, complete with my favorite shows, actors, groups, songs, and random terminology from the past year. It's pretty easy to do, really. Just get a listing of the past year's shows from Wik...
Dammit.
