From: Carl Beckhorn cbeckhorn@fastmail.fm Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scientists told "publish in Wikipedia or else" To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 10:24:01PM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081216/full/news.2008.1312.html
This is very exciting! The first article appears to be [[SmY]], and I don't see any glaring problems with it. The two diagrams could use a footnote in each of their long captions, but there are three references provided that seem reasonably on this topic. Of course some people will complain that it's too technical, but that's an issue to take up at WP:PEREN.
- Carl
I'd imagine a simple solution would be to ask if the authors can tone down the technical language a bit. Something along the lines of "we layman be not learned enough to understand".
[[User:Lifebaka]] Jonathan Hughes
On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 08:50:28PM -0500, Jonathan Hughes wrote:
Of course some people will complain that it's too technical, but that's an issue to take up at WP:PEREN.
I'd imagine a simple solution would be to ask if the authors can tone down the technical language a bit. Something along the lines of "we layman be not learned enough to understand".
Yes, that's a reasonable suggestion.
The debate about "too technical" has been going on for years and will not stop anytime soon. The question on the other side is, "if you don't already know what these basic terms mean, how can you understand what's being said in this article?".
If the authors just remember to link all the technical terms that may be unfamiliar, that would be a good start. Also, keeping the lede as untechnical as possible is a good practice. Even if someone cannot read the rest of the article, a good lede conveys the basic points as a sort of micro-article.
- Carl
As I read their announcement, the intention is to have the Wikipedia article be non-technical. The first paper being reported there seems to be appropriate to Wikipedia. But then, its a comprehensive paper, on a suitable broad topic. If it is their intention to apply ttheir proposal to imilar papers, such as ones presenting t he genome of a particualr orgnaism, then all shouldgo well.
But most scientific papers even in good journals are by far too specific to be suitable as Wikipedia articles. If they start trying to insert those, our reaction will probably force them to come to the realization that there is a difference between an encyclopedia and a summary of primary research papers--in which case they might want to consider having their own site for t he summaries they want. Some journals, such as PLOS, already do publish lay summaries.
On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 8:54 PM, Carl Beckhorn cbeckhorn@fastmail.fm wrote:
On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 08:50:28PM -0500, Jonathan Hughes wrote:
Of course some people will complain that it's too technical, but that's an issue to take up at WP:PEREN.
I'd imagine a simple solution would be to ask if the authors can tone down the technical language a bit. Something along the lines of "we layman be not learned enough to understand".
Yes, that's a reasonable suggestion.
The debate about "too technical" has been going on for years and will not stop anytime soon. The question on the other side is, "if you don't already know what these basic terms mean, how can you understand what's being said in this article?".
If the authors just remember to link all the technical terms that may be unfamiliar, that would be a good start. Also, keeping the lede as untechnical as possible is a good practice. Even if someone cannot read the rest of the article, a good lede conveys the basic points as a sort of micro-article.
- Carl
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From: "David Goodman" dgoodmanny@gmail.com Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 9:02 PM
As I read their announcement, the intention is to have the Wikipedia article be non-technical. The first paper being reported there seems to be appropriate to Wikipedia. But then, its a comprehensive paper, on a suitable broad topic. If it is their intention to apply ttheir proposal to imilar papers, such as ones presenting t he genome of a particualr orgnaism, then all shouldgo well.
But most scientific papers even in good journals are by far too specific to be suitable as Wikipedia articles. If they start trying to insert those, our reaction will probably force them to come to the realization that there is a difference between an encyclopedia and a summary of primary research papers--in which case they might want to consider having their own site for t he summaries they want. Some journals, such as PLOS, already do publish lay summaries.
It is nice to know that someone likes our work over there, and I do not see that more fingers is necessarily going to be taxing. If you hav a mind for what is either hard or tedious (if not both), and I do not see that even ten percent of Nature subscribers are going to read and heed that call, then welcome...I estimate that much less than ten percent of subscribers also write for Nature, even counting letters.
There are welcome templates. If you learn about a newbie from their ignorance of policy, then make sure they get the pillars or something besides the specific piece they are ignoring.
On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 8:54 PM, Carl Beckhorn cbeckhorn@fastmail.fm wrote:
On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 08:50:28PM -0500, Jonathan Hughes wrote:
Of course some people will complain that it's too technical, but that's an issue to take up at WP:PEREN.
I'd imagine a simple solution would be to ask if the authors can tone down the technical language a bit. Something along the lines of "we layman be not learned enough to understand".
Yes, that's a reasonable suggestion.
The debate about "too technical" has been going on for years and will not stop anytime soon. The question on the other side is, "if you don't already know what these basic terms mean, how can you understand what's being said in this article?".
If the authors just remember to link all the technical terms that may be unfamiliar, that would be a good start. Also, keeping the lede as untechnical as possible is a good practice. Even if someone cannot read the rest of the article, a good lede conveys the basic points as a sort of micro-article.
- Carl
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-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
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