On Mon, Apr 14, 2003 at 04:07:54PM +0200, Rotem Dan wrote:
Prior knowledge, background, and education. A lot of articles assume the reader is fairly (or even highly in the scientific articles) educated and knowledgeable in the subject of the article. For each article there should be an extensive background paragraph(s), which specifically states what the article is about, it's general field and it's uses in "Real life":
Linking is the right answer here, in my opinion. You shouldn't have to wade through a thorough grounding in computer science before reading about how LL parsers work. Instead, [[Computer science]] and [[Compilers]] should be prominently linked, along with each technical term used.
I think - * Everybody should be able to understand broadly what an article is describing (LL Parsers are a technique used in computer science to interpret text, or something. You get the idea, I'm sure)
* Everybody should be able to learn whatever they need to understand any given article merely by clicking within wikipedia. Obviously this is a [[platonic]] wikipedia that has the sum of all human knowledge contained within it :-)
* Everybody should *not necessarily* be able to understand an article just by reading it
Oh, and many "borrowed" phrases from non-English languages are an inseparable part of English vocabulary, in my opinion. If I mean per se, or de facto, or de jure, I should be able to say so. Don't steal away the richness of the language for the sake of avoiding making people expand their vocabulary, please!
Jason Williams wrote:
Linking is the right answer here, in my opinion. You shouldn't have to wade through a thorough grounding in computer science before reading about how LL parsers work. Instead, [[Computer science]] and [[Compilers]] should be prominently linked, along with each technical term used.
I think -
- Everybody should be able to understand broadly what an article is describing (LL Parsers are a technique used in computer science to interpret text, or something. You get the idea, I'm sure)
Yes, absolutely. Articles should begin with a clear overview. "LL Parsers are a technique used in computer science to interpret text" is a great begininng. The article can get very technically dense straight away after that -- the layperson already has a quick idea of *what* this thing is, and what they need to learn about before they can tackle the detail.
On the matter of cultural bias, I have mentioned this somewhere in our policy pages. Don't for instance assume the reader has any idea what "Thanksgiving" is -- things like that are important to bear in mind.
I always think: "write for an intelligent Martian, who is capable of following links" ;-)
Jason Williams wrote:
Oh, and many "borrowed" phrases from non-English languages are an inseparable part of English vocabulary, in my opinion. If I mean per se, or de facto, or de jure, I should be able to say so. Don't steal away the richness of the language for the sake of avoiding making people expand their vocabulary, please!
plus [[de facto]] and [[de jure]] are articles AFAIK!
Jason Williams wrote:
Linking is the right answer here, in my opinion. You shouldn't have to wade through a thorough grounding in computer science before reading about how LL parsers work. Instead, [[Computer science]] and [[Compilers]] should be prominently linked, along with each technical term used.
I agree, this is what I meant, in fact (well not "extensive paragraph", but a "short wikified sentence" is fine). This guideline should be clear on the wikipedia manuals and guides.
Note: Consider that in the "printed edition", an article about "LL parsers" that doesn't relate to [[Computer scinece]] would seem completely obscure..
I think -
- Everybody should be able to understand broadly what an article is describing (LL Parsers are a technique used in computer science to interpret text, or something. You get the idea, I'm sure)
Yes, I agree, but this doesn't happen in all articles.
- Everybody should be able to learn whatever they need to understand any given article merely by clicking within wikipedia. Obviously this is a [[platonic]] wikipedia that has the sum of all human knowledge contained within it :-)
Yeah :-)
- Everybody should *not necessarily* be able to understand an article just by reading it
I agree, but good books should be referenced (Jimbo's potential money-making machine... ;-) )
Oh, and many "borrowed" phrases from non-English languages are an inseparable part of English vocabulary, in my opinion. If I mean per se, or de facto, or de jure, I should be able to say so. Don't steal away the richness of the language for the sake of avoiding making people expand their vocabulary, please!
I am not a linguist, I more-or-less agree on this (I used "lingua franca" myself :}), I think that authors should be selective when using these "rich" phrases (I have no Idea what "de jure" is, but that does not make me an idiot). It had been shown extensivly in recent years that intelligence is a cultural measure. I tried once to take an American "Intelligence" test (In english), I failed miserably, because I was not familiar with the "rich" or "advanced" areas of the language.
I will have a very strong difficulty reading english books written by shakspeare, yet I can read poetic text in hebrew. As I said, the condition is pretty good in wikipedia (sometimes the language would seem even over-simplified.. ). Overhall, Engilsh is a pretty simple language, when compared to chinese, for example..