[WikiEN-l] Eschatology and Wikipedia

[Carcharoth]

On jargon, I still think "Neutral point of view" was a terrible name
that confused neutrality with lack of bias. You cannot sum up a policy
like NPOV in a single phrase, so in that case, I think NPOV is better
than saying "neutral" something. Sometimes a Wikipedia "term of art"
can be misleading and the abbreviation is *less* misleading.

On interfaces, I think the main improvements will probably be in the
realm of templates and how references are added. At least that is what
I am hoping for. Talking of other interface things, what do people
think of LiquidThreads, which looks like it is in use on some wikis
now, from what I can see.

Carcharoth

On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 10:55 AM, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway at gmail.com> wrote:
> The single best way to improve usability of Wikipedia would be to
> scale back the use of jargon.
>
> if you look at early discussions in those days they were usually held
> in plain English, with very little jargon.  I've tried to keep up that
> style, but it is now quite rare.
>
> I don't see why this should be. Our policies have perfectly good
> English language names, "Neutral point of view", "What Wikipedia is
> Not", "Verifiability", and so on.  There's absolutely no need to
> replace these English phrases with gobbledygook.
>
> We have no strictures against this exclusive practice, mainly because
> it was seen as obviously undesirable in the early days.  But
> communities inevitably acquire exclusive practices as they
> develop--it's seen as one way to identify yourself to other people as
> a member of the "in" group. And so now when I discuss matters on
> Wikipedia talk pages even I, an editor since 2004, find myself
> shuddering inwardly at the impact of all the alphabet soup. If the
> damage this practice does to the openness of the community were more
> widely recognised it would be possible for us to agree to scale it
> back, but it just isn't on the map.
>
> in all conscience I cannot see anything wrong with our user interface.
>  It's exemplary, and its having changed so little in all this time is
> good evidence of that. If we were to try to emulate monstrosities like
> the ever-changing Facebook it would be a step backwards from our
> unflinching commitment to a good, clean, simple interface.
>
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