Eric B. Rakim wrote:
From that it became obvious to me that he hadn't even read
the article because it should be pretty damn obvious to anyone that an article titled "XFree86 logfile" is about the XFree86 logfile. And that I told him that, whereafter he listed all other six articles I had written:
I took a look at the [[XFree86 logfile]] article, and my impression is that although it contains information that would be useful to someone who is trying to debug XFree86, it doesn't really belong in the Wikipedia. Someone else here suggested putting it into a computer manual in WikiBooks, and I think that's a good suggestion.
The difference between [[XFree86]] and [[XFree86 logfile]] is that [[XFree86]] really *is* an "encyclopedia" article. It begins with a lead paragraph that explains, even to a relative novice, what XFree86 is: "an open source implementation of the X Window System.." By contrast, [[XFree86 logfile]] begins as follows:
When XFree86 starts, it creates a logfile which contains information about what happened when XFree86 started. It contains information about what modules were loaded, which color depth that is used etc. The file is especially useful when something goes awry, as reading it can help you find exactly what went wrong.
This reads like a technical manual, not an encyclopedia. As a lead paragraph, it leaves something to be desired. It mentions several concepts that are not explained and are not easily understood by a naive reader, who would likely be left wondering, "What's a module?" or "How do I 'read' the file?" Such a reader would be left even more confused upon reading the next sentence in the article:
The file almost always resides in "/var/log/XFree86.0.log", ofcourse, where it is placed is configurable.
The questions that I imagine arising include, "Where is '/var/log/XFree86.0.log'?" "What does it mean to 'reside' there?" "How is it 'configurable'?" Someone who is not already fairly knowledgeable about Unix will be thoroughly confused by this language.
Of course, even the [[XFree86]] article would be esoteric and uninteresting to someone who does not use Unix. However, its lead paragraph does at least provide enough contextual information that even someone who is ignorant about Unix could quickly understand the gist of the article.
Some of this could be addressed by putting more context into the article, e.g., the lead paragraph could begin, "The XFree86 logfile is a computer file that logs information about operations of the [[XFree86]] interface that runs under many Unix-like operating systems."
The real problem, though, is that the topic itself is inherently so technical in nature that no amount of rewriting will make it accessible to a general reader. An "encyclopedia" should be a collection of articles that are accessible even to readers who are not specialists. Articles of this type often can be written even about obscure topics. For example, the article on [[Chandigarh]], a city in India, is easy to understand even for someone who knows nothing else about India. I don't think this is really possible with an article about [[XFree86 logfile]], which by its very nature requires a fairly high level of computer literacy on the part of the reader.
I don't think the article should be deleted, but I think it should be relocated out of the Wikipedia and into a more specialized information resource, such as WikiBooks.
--Sheldon Rampton
Before I disagree with one little bit of what Sheldon has written, let me say that I do agree with him completely regarding his suggestions of how the article could be edited to make it read less like a technical document and more like an encyclopedia article.
Sheldon Rampton wrote:
The real problem, though, is that the topic itself is inherently so technical in nature that no amount of rewriting will make it accessible to a general reader. An "encyclopedia" should be a collection of articles that are accessible even to readers who are not specialists. Articles of this type often can be written even about obscure topics. For example, the article on [[Chandigarh]], a city in India, is easy to understand even for someone who knows nothing else about India.
I don't think that the criterion that you are using here is going to be very helpful for us. The counter-example that I would give is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-adic_number which is accessible in 2 clicks from the home page.
The topic of "P-adic numbers" is "inherently so technical in nature that no amount of rewriting will make it accessible to a general reader."
I have taken graduate level courses in Real Analysis, Stochastic processes, etc. So I am not a "general reader". And yet, I find this particular article to be extremely challenging, even though I have a fair amount of background and interest in the topic.
I don't think anyone would argue (would they?) that [[P-adic number]] should go on wikibooks. But surely [[XFree86 logfile]] is more accessible than many hundreds of articles on mathematical or scientific concepts.
--Jimbo
On Wed, 19 May 2004 23:57:18 -0500, Sheldon Rampton sheldon.rampton@verizon.net wrote:
The difference between [[XFree86]] and [[XFree86 logfile]] is that [[XFree86]] really *is* an "encyclopedia" article. It begins with a lead paragraph that explains, even to a relative novice, what XFree86 is: "an open source implementation of the X Window System.." By contrast, [[XFree86 logfile]] begins as follows:
When XFree86 starts, it creates a logfile which contains information about what happened when XFree86 started. It contains information about what modules were loaded, which color depth that is used etc. The file is especially useful when something goes awry, as reading it can help you find exactly what went wrong.
This reads like a technical manual, not an encyclopedia. As a lead paragraph, it leaves something to be desired.
I've added a new lead sentence, which I think is an improvement.