Our Manual of Style is lengthy, comprehensive and really sucks to read. Compare to something really readable, like Fowler's or Strunk & White. Or even Chicago. Have you ever picked up these books and thought "this is really good, I can use this stuff"? I'd hope you had.
But, rather than being a guideline for thoughtful application by editors seeking guidance in writing effective encyclopedia entries, it's become a sequence of programming instructions for bots.
So here's an attempt to make the intro readable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style&diff...
Our MOS should be something that editors should *want* to read.
Anyone want to help recast the rest of the megabytes of MOS as thoughtful guidance in English, rather than programming instructions for bots?
- d.