Following somewhat from Jimbo's discussion earlier, a trio of scenarios: A young student - perhaps in high school - by happenstance hears a lecture on physics. He grasps only a little of it, but what he understands seems exciting. One thing mentioned as very interesting by the lecturer is the "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle." In a fit of exitement, he goes home and checks Wikipedia to understand this concept. A freshman is considering majors. He has heard of an English professor who is interesting and hip, and arranges to meet him in his office hours to hear about his class next semester. The professor is doing an intro class on something called "literary theory," and mentions one person in particular - Derrida - as someone who will "blow the student's mind." The student, intrigued, goes to look up Derrida. A man is finding himself more worried about the current political situation. He is reading the paper more. He happens upon a mention that Bush is not an "End of history" person, a phrase associated in some way with someone named Fukuyama. He goes to Wikipedia, and types in "End of History" to try to understand more about this theory that apparently informs the political discussion. All three of these people are going to be very, very disappointed. Not because [[Uncertainty principle]], [[Jacques Derrida]], and [[The End of History and the Last Man]] aren't there, or are excessively short, but rather because they are completely incomprehensible to people who are not already familiar with the topics. (And I say this about [[Jacques Derrida]] after spending two hours rewriting the thing) The problem with all of these articles is that they are not written for generalists. They are written for specialists and semi- specialists. Terms are regularly introduced without definition - in the End of History article, the main definition of the term is a quote from Fukuyama that refers to "the end point of mankind's ideological evolution," and then immediately goes into a bit on Marxism, particularly "historical materialism" and the "historical dialectic," as well as some references to Hegel, none of which are explained. Obviously these things cannot be explained fully in the article, but they need to be dealt with - a sentence or two, just enough to get the reader through to the next concept without totally losing it. The Derrida article, in its previous form, lacked sections explaining deconstruction and the Paul de Man controversy. These exist in other articles, to be sure, but they're also major concepts to anyone interested in Derrida, and their exclusion is a shocking omission - anyone looking for general information on Derrida would be misinformed if they did not know these two things. I've fixed that, but still - the article has an overwhelming focus on Derrida's interpretations of Heidegger - a fascinating topic on which books can be written, but not the most important information, nor the most understandable to someone who doesn't know a lot about Heidegger - something I will hazard a guess our Heidegger article isn't that helpful about either. And then there's the Uncertainty Principle, which is a sea of equations of tremendous use to someone versed in physics and mathematics, but of no use to someone who hears the phrase and wants to know what it's all about. Nowhere in the lead paragraphs is the common formulation that "You can never know, with absolute precision, the position and movement of an electron, and in fact the more you know about one, the less you can possibly know about the other." Nowhere. Yes, I know the UP is more complicated than that. And I'm not saying some, maybe even all of those equations shouldn't stay. But I am saying, that needs to be out there, first and foremost. Too much of the technical and academic writing in the encyclopedia reads like it was written for an MA paper, with the nuance, depth, and qualification that a professor expects from a student. These articles are not written for professors, nor for grad students - they are written for the uninformed. We cannot write for the uninformed in the language we use for experts. I don't know what can be done about this - particularly because the bloat Jimbo has identified as going on in articles like [[Bill Gates]] and [[Jane Fonda]] goes on in these articles as a sea of academics adds a paragraph or two about their pet interest in the subject, until the article has become unmanagable. But we have to do something - simply put, we're a crappy resource on a number of topics that, in order to maintain a wide level of respect, we need to be a good resource on. A quick approach, I think, is to remember the importance of phrases like "Simply put," "in the popular conception," "at its core," "in layman's terms," and the like - phrases that come before a distillation of ideas. You can qualify these distillations later - "Although this is a simplification of Derrida's thought," or "Although this reading is popular, it is also limited" both spring to mind as the sorts of things that can be said. But the fact remains, we have apparently completely forgotten the concept of the summary in our writing on Wikipedia. (And I blame the rush for sources for some of this - I frequently find myself sifting through articles and getting lost in a sea of block quotes from Derrida or Fukuyama. In most cases, if the reader could find Derrida or Fukuyama easy to read and comprehend on their own, they would not be looking them up in an encyclopedia. Citing sources is a tool for referencing and verifying - it cannot interfere with the readability and usability of an article. A meticulously referenced but utterly unreadable article helps nobody.) -Snowspinner _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

All three of these people are going to be very, very disappointed. Not because [[Uncertainty principle]], [[Jacques Derrida]], and [[The End of History and the Last Man]] aren't there, or are excessively short, but rather because they are completely incomprehensible to people who are not already familiar with the topics. (And I say this about [[Jacques Derrida]] after spending two hours rewriting the thing)

The Derrida article, in its previous form, lacked sections explaining deconstruction and the Paul de Man controversy.

These exist in other articles, to be sure, but they're also major concepts to anyone interested in Derrida, and their exclusion is a shocking omission - anyone looking for general information on Derrida would be misinformed if they did not know these two things.

Too much of the technical and academic writing in the encyclopedia reads like it was written for an MA paper, with the nuance, depth, and qualification that a professor expects from a student. These articles are not written for professors, nor for grad students - they are written for the uninformed. We cannot write for the uninformed in the language we use for experts.

I don't know what can be done about this - particularly because the bloat Jimbo has identified as going on in articles like [[Bill Gates]] and [[Jane Fonda]] goes on in these articles as a sea of academics adds a paragraph or two about their pet interest in the subject, until the article has become unmanagable.

You can qualify these distillations later - "Although this is a simplification of Derrida's thought," or "Although this reading is popular, it is also limited" both spring to mind as the sorts of things that can be said.

Citing sources is a tool for referencing and verifying - it cannot interfere with the readability and usability of an article. A meticulously referenced but utterly unreadable article helps nobody.)

Not going to go into the bulk of this here, but I think this is the heart of the disagreement here - yes, the Cambridge degree and the de Man controversy are, from an academic perspective, largely gossip. But they're gossip that has generated a tremendous amount of generalist interest, and it's irresponsible of us not to focus on them.

Which is why I didn't simply append this to Jimbo's discussion - it is a separate one.

This isn't just a matter of writing style - it' a matter of focus. As a general encyclopedia, we need to be targetted at a general audience - that means that, if nothing else, what the New York Times identifies as major events in someone's life are, for our purposes, major events.

I'm not saying those are the only ones worth paying attention to - but then, I'd support an article on each of Derrida's publications, so I'm not worried, in the big picture, about crowding out the academic stuff. I don't think Cambridge and de Man should be the main focus of the article at all. I do think they each need their little sections, and that it would be irresponsible of us to exclude them.

That's certainly an opinion which can be represented. But that presented by the NYT is also a major mainstream opinion on the subject. It can of course be said that European Derrida scholars think the NYT sucks, but simply pretending the NYT's view does not exist and is not held by millions of other people is strange.

Is Wikipedia simply a general encyclopedia? I always thought it was more than that. I think the goal is really to include general information and specific information, and let the user navigate easily between the two. Maybe I'm wrong about this, though. It's an interesting question.

As flawed as the NYT obituary was, it does need to be grappled with as the mainstream understanding of Derrida, and if that voice is silenced, that's bad NPOV writing. Better to let the popular understanding weigh in, and then include information on where its limitations are.