A good example of the difficulties is outlined in today's featured article on the Island Fox. The bit on the main page includes the sentence "Its small size is a result of [[island dwarfing]], a kind of [[allopatric speciation]]". Come again! To find out what that means you have to wade through the technical article [[island dwarfing]] and [[allopatric speciation]] - and to begin to understand the latter, you also have to try to understand [[speciation]]. I think it means - "It is small because it is on a small island", but why not just say that?
I have made a proposal called "Wikipedia is not an academic text" on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not , though I am sure others can think of a better wording. I suggest putting an explicit statement under a Wikipedia "policy" - and then maybe forming a WikiProject to simplify technical articles. The first aim would be to encourage existing editors of articles to simplify them - perhaps by subst'ing boilerplate text onto article talkpages outlining that the article seems to use too technical language and we'd like it to use non-technical language so it can have a wider audience - maybe also with an offer of a non-expert to help.
Jon (jguk)
Fastfission wrote:
I just want to say -- what we are talking about here is not "academic style" but more accurately "technical style" -- something accessible only to experts of certain types of information (which can be philosophy or electronics or what have you). Plenty of academic writing is nothing of the sort and should not be lumped in as such! (the academic squeals)
The goal is to write well and comprehensibly for people with non-technical backgrounds. Of course, there are times when our Wiki technology allows us not to re-invent the wheel each time something comes up, but of course this must be an issue of judgment rather than strict policy.
FF
On 7/9/05, Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:
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Jon wrote:
A good example of the difficulties is outlined in today's featured article on the Island Fox. The bit on the main page includes the sentence "Its small size is a result of [[island dwarfing]], a kind of [[allopatric speciation]]". Come again! To find out what that means you have to wade through the technical article [[island dwarfing]] and [[allopatric speciation]] - and to begin to understand the latter, you also have to try to understand [[speciation]]. I think it means - "It is small because it is on a small island", but why not just say that?
(could you turn on word-wrap please)
Being of a small size is advantagous on an island, so over time through natural selection the animal evolves to become smaller. I'm not an expert on it, but it's probably due to competition for resources - resources on an island are limited and smaller animals need less resources.
Allopatric speciation is where two seperated groups of a species become physically seperated (e.g. by water or mountain ranges), and over time, through natural selection, they evolve different characteristics due to the different environments they inhabit, eventually resulting in 2 different species, as the two different groups have sufficiently different characteristics that they cannot reproduce, or their offspring are not fertile.
Hope this explains it for you,
Chris
- -- Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org
It *does* say that. Anyone can understand that this is what "island dwarfing" means. And it says some more too, this phenomenon has to do with something called "allopatric speciation". If you're not in the know about that you can read the relevant article, helpfully linked to. If you're not interested in knowing you skip the link and move on. And it's not unreasonable to use the word "speciation" in an article about a species. You wouldn't explain what a "diesel motor" is in an article about a particular type of truck.
I'm sure there are pages where Wikipedia is unnecessarily written in an inaccessible and technical style but I don't think this is a very good example.
The risk in always trying to simplify down to the level of an absolute beginner in the relevant field (zoology in this case) is that the article can get cluttered or information lost.
Of course this is a matter of good taste and balance and reasonable people can disagree.
Regards, Haukur
On 7/10/05, Jon thagudearbh@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
On this example I disagree. When I read this article, yesterday, my impression was that it was the most perfect main page article I've ever read. Very well written, not too long or technical, and small number of links that sparked my interest.
A better example of what you're talking about is [[Basalt]]. It's unreadable for non-geologists.
A better example of what you're talking about is [[Basalt]]. It's unreadable for non-geologists.
Yes, basalt could do with a layman's introduction, though of course we should keep all the advanced information as well.
But let's be careful not to split everyone into "laymen" and "experts". There's a wide continuum between those who know nothing about geology/zoology/etc. and those who have doctorates in the field. We have undergraduate students, high school students, avid amateurs etc. I think *those* people may the most likely readers of a Wikipedia article about [[basalt]].
Regards, Haukur