Cormac Lawler wrote:
On 10/24/05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
(This is something to watch out for when you're overly proud of your writing - if someone adds new information to the article in clunky, horrible prose, you have to resist the urge to remove the blemish!)
Work with it - the zen of the wiki :-)
I know, I know. I didn't realise explicitly that content beats prose quality until I was doing an interview where I was asked about prose quality and content. I answered, thinking out loud, that articles will tend to go in a quality cycle of excellent prose, then a clunky lump of important information added, then smoothed out to excellent prose, rinse and repeat. And that if forced to choose, information beats elegant prose, though the latter is always a good idea.
In particular, I realised guiltily that I have reverted clunky new information because it broke up elegant prose. Bad! Wrong! Don't do that! I swore to grit my teeth and resist in future.
- d.