A Paper Analog of Wikipedia Would Be Ridiculous and Unmanageable

Wikipedia is very different from the encyclopedias we once used, in that it is added to daily and edited constantly. If you were to print out the entirety of Wikipedia on paper, it would fill a lot of bookshelves. How many would vary, because I would require the large print version. And no one has calculated how much paper it would take to print out more than one language version -they vary in more than just language. But the real functionality of Wikipedia is the constant edits. Randall Munroe's What If project (previously at Neatorama) was asked how many printers you would need to keep up with the real-time edits to Wikipedia. There are approximately 100 edits made every minute, so you'd need a lot of paper, but only six laser printers. The "Wikiprintia" project would require about 300 cubic meters of paper every month, although that would depend on page size and font, too. And manpower, which would also cost money. Commenters recommended moving to the newer ink tank printers, but altogether, trying to keep up on edits using paper is a fool's errand. At the least, we finally get a What If? video where everyone doesn't die. -via Laughing Squid