On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 11:13 AM, wjhonson@aol.com wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tue, 5 May 2009 12:35 am Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Twitterpedia will win
Redundant text - "the X war was a war" duh :) Try this:
"The Peloponnesian War (Ancient Greece, 431-404BC), took place between Athens and its empire, against the Eponymous League led by Sparta. Rock on!">>
Why do you have to state "Ancient Greece" ? And remove "The" Also "was" is much shorter than "took place"
"Peloponnesian War (431-404BC), Athens and its empire, against the Spartan-led Eponymous League."
Much shorter!
Eventually, the shortening ends up in the telegraphese beloved of newspaper headline writers and infobox entries. Here is the infobox data from the article (minus the map):
Peloponnesian War Date: c. 431–April 25, 404 BC Location: Mainland Greece, Asia Minor, Sicily Result: Peloponnesian League victory Territorial changes: Dissolution of the Delian League Belligerents: Delian League (led by Athens) ; Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) Commanders (Delian League): Pericles, Cleon, Nicias, Alcibiades, Demosthenes Commander (Peloponnesian League): Archidamus II, Brasidas, Lysander, Alcibiades
None of the summaries so far have mentioned the result of the war, nor the name of the Delian League, nor the location of the war. The names of the commanders should be omitted.
And sometimes it is the *last* sentence of a well-written lede section that gets to the heart of the matter:
"Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of countryside, and destroying whole cities -- the Peloponnesian War marked the dramatic end to the fifth-century-B.C. golden age of Greece."
That told me more than the dry facts of the first sentence (which is also needed). The initial sentence of the middle paragraph is important as well: "The Peloponnesian War reshaped the Ancient Greek world."
And I still think the Wikipedia-articles-as-poetry option could be interesting! :-)
Carcharoth