[WikiEN-l] Accessibility of technical articles

[Charles Matthews]

On 17/02/2011 13:19, Carcharoth wrote:
> To take the Poincare conjecture example, compare the Wikipedia article
> to this accessible explanation. Should the Wikipedia article
> incorporate explanatory aspects similar to those used in the SEED
> magazine article?
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincar%C3%A9_conjecture
>
> http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/what_is_the_poincare_conjecture/
>
> I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I found the SEED magazine
> article more accessible and I learnt more from it.
Unfortunately the magazine article completely ducks the issue of what 
the conjecture is. Even on a charitable view, it confuses a necessary 
with a sufficient condition, which would be the *whole point*. This kind 
of this is actually why this one has not been solved yet on WP: we 
(rightly) don't allow people to waffle around the facts in order to 
claim they are explaining. (If you think we do badly, have a look at a 
standard mathematical encyclopedia: http://eom.springer.de/p/p073000.htm.)

Charles