A few days ago I noted the problem that many articles which could be written for a wide audience, are written in too technical or complicated terms. I think someone mentioned the article on "Basalt" was a good example of an article which a general reader should be able to understand, but which is currently written in too complicated language for the average reader to understand.
I've created a page, called Readers First, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Readers_First . The idea is to outline to editors what the problem is and to give suggestions as to how to eliminate it. The aim being that, where those supporting the idea come across an article written in a way that can't be generally understood, Readers First is noted on the talk page, together with suggestions for improvement. I suppose I see it as a "train the editors" tool to try to make Wikipedia a better information resource for all. Of course, some, maybe most, will ignore it - but if we're to improve a lot of articles wholesale, we need to get buy-in from the major editors of those articles, rather than plough through Wikipedia slowly improving articles one by one.
I'd welcome constructive comments on the Readers First talk page.
Kind regards
Jon (jguk)
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I agree with the general idea but there are some details where I think your proposal goes further than is practical. Take this:
"Try to avoid jargon - but where it is particularly relevant or where it is necessary, explain all jargon clearly on the article page - a link to another article is not enough."
Taking 'jargon' to mean 'technical terms' I think this is not always practical. Is 'chromosome' a technical term? How about 'nucleotide'? I don't think it's practical to explain those terms in every single molecular biology page where they are used. If someone who doesn't understand these terms is reading the [[Polymerase Chain Reaction]] page chances are she won't understand the context anyway - even if the terms were briefly explained.
Redundant explanations make a page cluttered. Short explanations are often imprecise to the point of being wrong or not helpful. And one of the great advantage of reading Wikipedia (online) is the ability to click on technical terms for more information.
Technical terms are (usually) not just a method for ivory tower academics to keep the commoner out. They're a necessary component of the foundation of knowledge in their respective disciplines.
It's just not practical to explain everything from first principles in every single article.
Regards, Haukur
Maybe these discussions should take place on the talk page of the article?
- Ryan
Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
I agree with the general idea but there are some details where I think your proposal goes further than is practical. Take this:
"Try to avoid jargon - but where it is particularly relevant or where it is necessary, explain all jargon clearly on the article page - a link to another article is not enough."
Taking 'jargon' to mean 'technical terms' I think this is not always practical. Is 'chromosome' a technical term? How about 'nucleotide'? I don't think it's practical to explain those terms in every single molecular biology page where they are used. If someone who doesn't understand these terms is reading the [[Polymerase Chain Reaction]] page chances are she won't understand the context anyway - even if the terms were briefly explained.
Redundant explanations make a page cluttered. Short explanations are often imprecise to the point of being wrong or not helpful. And one of the great advantage of reading Wikipedia (online) is the ability to click on technical terms for more information.
Technical terms are (usually) not just a method for ivory tower academics to keep the commoner out. They're a necessary component of the foundation of knowledge in their respective disciplines.
It's just not practical to explain everything from first principles in every single article.
Regards, Haukur
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
From: Jon thagudearbh@yahoo.co.uk
I've created a page, called Readers First, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Readers_First . The idea is to outline to editors what the problem is and to give suggestions as to how to eliminate it.
In case people still think I was making stuff up when I suggested that included in this "Put the readers first" campaign was the idea of removing BCE/CE, I simply note today that jguk has used this exact argument today in a Talk: page in order to support the use of BC/AD instead of BCE/CE. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AElam&diff=19807258&...]
Jay.
On 7/28/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
In case people still think I was making stuff up when I suggested that included in this "Put the readers first" campaign was the idea of removing BCE/CE, I simply note today that jguk has used this exact argument today in a Talk: page in order to support the use of BC/AD instead of BCE/CE. [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AElam&diff=19807258&...]
Jay.
Nevertheless, the proposal is genuine, well-intended (imho), and is (I think) quite sensible. Let's try debating the proposal, not Jon's actions.
Sam
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Haukur Þorgeirsson wrote:
I agree with the general idea but there are some details where I think your proposal goes further than is practical. Take this:
"Try to avoid jargon - but where it is particularly relevant or where it is necessary, explain all jargon clearly on the article page - a link to another article is not enough."
Taking 'jargon' to mean 'technical terms' I think this is not always practical. Is 'chromosome' a technical term? How about 'nucleotide'? I don't think it's practical to explain those terms in every single molecular biology page where they are used. If someone who doesn't understand these terms is reading the [[Polymerase Chain Reaction]] page chances are she won't understand the context anyway - even if the terms were briefly explained.
Redundant explanations make a page cluttered. Short explanations are often imprecise to the point of being wrong or not helpful. And one of the great advantage of reading Wikipedia (online) is the ability to click on technical terms for more information.
Technical terms are (usually) not just a method for ivory tower academics to keep the commoner out. They're a necessary component of the foundation of knowledge in their respective disciplines.
It's just not practical to explain everything from first principles in every single article.
Precisely.
Writing an article which uses technical terms or jargon, afraid that the average reader won't know what it is, but don't want to explain it right there and then? Insert square brackets here :)
Conversely: Reading an article which has some strange technical term or jargon which you don't understand? Provided one exists, click on the link. No link to click on? Edit the article, insert square brackets, save, and click on the link.
In short, I think that having to explain every term used in every article it is used in is a Bad Thing, and doubleplusunwiki.
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--- Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Writing an article which uses technical terms or jargon, afraid that the average reader won't know what it is, but don't want to explain it right there and then? Insert square brackets here :)
Having too many parenthetical asides does upset the flow of an article. So in those cases, all the quick explanatory comments should either go in ==Terminology== section at the start of the article, or less ideally, in a numbered ==Notes== section at the end of it.
See the ==Umlauts and diaereses== section at [[Heavy metal umlaut]] for an example of the former. I have yet to see a good example of the later.
-- mav
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Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Writing an article which uses technical terms or jargon, afraid that the average reader won't know what it is, but don't want to explain it right there and then? Insert square brackets here :)
Having too many parenthetical asides does upset the flow of an article. So in those cases, all the quick explanatory comments should either go in ==Terminology== section at the start of the article, or less ideally, in a numbered ==Notes== section at the end of it.
I briefly considered writing a long rant about how paper encyclopedias do this (eg. ".. in 1234 Foo invaded Bah (see FOOISH INVASION OF BAH)..." ) :) Yes, the other way it is done on paper (and in academic papers) is with numbered footnotes. Although perhaps where context is important to the meaning in an article, footnotes would be appropriate.
See the ==Umlauts and diaereses== section at [[Heavy metal umlaut]] for an example of the former. I have yet to see a good example of the later.
The footnote templates are working on it :)
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