[WikiEN-l] Making Wikipedia a multi-cultural encyclopedia

[Rotem Dan]

Jason Williams wrote:

>Linking is the right answer here, in my opinion. You shouldn't 
>have to wade through a thorough grounding in computer science
>before reading about how LL parsers work. Instead, [[Computer
>science]] and [[Compilers]] should be prominently linked,
>along with each technical term used. 
>
I agree, this is what I meant, in fact (well not "extensive paragraph", 
but a "short wikified sentence" is fine). This guideline should be clear 
on the wikipedia manuals and guides.

Note: Consider that in the "printed edition", an article about "LL 
parsers" that doesn't relate
to [[Computer scinece]] would seem completely obscure..

>I think -
> * Everybody should be able to understand broadly what an article
>   is describing (LL Parsers are a technique used in computer
>   science to interpret text, or something. You get the idea,
>   I'm sure)
>
Yes, I agree, but this doesn't happen in all articles.

> * Everybody should be able to learn whatever they need to understand 
>   any given article merely by clicking within wikipedia. Obviously
>   this is a [[platonic]] wikipedia that has the sum of all human
>   knowledge contained within it :-)
>
Yeah :-)

> * Everybody should *not necessarily* be able to understand an
>   article just by reading it
>
I agree, but good books should be referenced (Jimbo's potential 
money-making machine... ;-) )

>
>Oh, and many "borrowed" phrases from non-English languages are an
>inseparable part of English vocabulary, in my opinion. If I mean
>per se, or de facto, or de jure, I should be able to say so. Don't
>steal away the richness of the language for the sake of avoiding
>making people expand their vocabulary, please!
>  
>
I am not a linguist, I more-or-less agree on this (I used "lingua 
franca" myself :}), 
I think that authors should be selective when using these "rich" phrases 
(I have no Idea what "de jure" is,
but that does not make me an idiot). It had been shown extensivly in 
recent years that
intelligence is a cultural measure. I tried once to take an American 
"Intelligence" test (In english),
I failed miserably,  because I was not familiar with the "rich" or 
"advanced" areas of the language.

I will have a very strong difficulty reading english books written by 
shakspeare, yet I can
read poetic text in hebrew. As I said, the condition is pretty good in 
wikipedia (sometimes
the language would seem even over-simplified.. ). Overhall, Engilsh is a 
pretty simple language,  when
compared to chinese, for example..