Ouch! Do you mean astronomy is boring, or my writing about astronomy? I do try to write articles that are interesting for people who might only have a passing interest in astronomy but it's easy for a scientist to forget what's interesting to people not in the field. That's partly why I sought peer review for Herbig-Haro object, because I was half afraid I was going to spend lots of time on something no-one would be interested in. Astrocruft, if you like. Please tell me if I'm heading that way!
The general point is that for many featured articles, only one person might be interested in writing about a subject, but its appeal should be broad based if it really represents the best of Wikipedia. I'm not particularly fussed about architects in colonial New Zealand, for example, but Giano's articles on Benjamin Mountfort etc are interesting enough to keep me reading right through.
WT
-----Original Message----- From: Ryan Norton [mailto:wxprojects@comcast.net] Sent: 03 October 2005 11:32 AM To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: Taking your eyes off the ball
I would argue that featured articles that, say, Worldtraveller, writes (mostly dealing with advanced astronomy stuff) are about as interesting as watching paint dry - but they are obviously GOOD articles - and that's the point. The whole "it's only interesting to the author" argument is nonsense because its such a relative thing.
Thanks, Ryan
Worldtraveller wrote:
Ouch! Do you mean astronomy is boring, or my writing about astronomy?
I think his point is that what is "interesting" is as much a property of the reader as it is of the subject material; perhaps moreso. One could say that "interest is in the eyes of the beholder".
- Ryan
On 10/3/05, Ryan Delaney ryan.delaney@gmail.com wrote:
Worldtraveller wrote:
Ouch! Do you mean astronomy is boring, or my writing about astronomy?
I think his point is that what is "interesting" is as much a property of the reader as it is of the subject material; perhaps moreso. One could say that "interest is in the eyes of the beholder".
Indeed. And we shouldn't stop people from writing about what interests them, regardless of how niche it might be, as long as it's something that somebody else might find interesting or useful. About the only exception I would draw to this are geneaologies and memorials to lost pets, the former because the stock wiki format isn't as useful as a system expressly designed for geneaologies, and the latter because they're just strange.
Kelly
Hi there :),
Ouch! Do you mean astronomy is boring, or my writing about astronomy? I do try to write articles that are interesting for people who might only have a passing interest in astronomy but it's easy for a scientist to forget what's interesting to people not in the field. That's partly why I sought peer review for Herbig-Haro object, because I was half afraid I was going to spend lots of time on something no-one would be interested in. Astrocruft, if you like. Please tell me if I'm heading that way!
The general point is that for many featured articles, only one person might be interested in writing about a subject, but its appeal should be broad based if it really represents the best of Wikipedia. I'm not particularly fussed about architects in colonial New Zealand, for example, but Giano's articles on Benjamin Mountfort etc are interesting enough to keep me reading right through.
WT
Don't get discouraged! You're articles are some of the best around here! I think often though with technical subjects like this it can be tough to write for the layman :). Anyway, I'm still offering responses on your peer reviews :).
Thanks, Ryan
[[User:RN]] at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RN Ryan Norton at wxforum: http://wxforum.org