[WikiEN-l] poor writing skills of some non-english speaking wiki contributors

[Toby Bartels]

JTDirl wrote in part:

>It may not sound politically correct to say this, but we do have a problem
>on wiki with the standard of english used in some articles by people who do
>not speak english as a first language. While the contributors write serious
>and worthwhile articles, their limited knowledge of english can produce
>articles that require major rewriting to reach a usable standard.

>My suggested solution: A special page perhaps listed on the Recent Changes
>pages at the top, to which people when they find grammatically and
>linguistically challenged articles can add them. Users when they have the
>time can work through these, rewriting or rewording them. We could even
>leave a message as part of the welcome note to new users telling them that
>we recognise that not everyone who contributes to wiki may speak english as
>a first language and that, if they have any doubts about their own ability
>to write a clear article in english, or if they simply want it
>double-checked, they can add it to that list.

>Pending a rewrite, a tag line could be added (similar to the 'contents is
>disputed' line already used) at the start of the article, indicating that
>this is a first draft and is being updated and edited to achieve a
>comprehendable form of english. That way, someone finding the article on a
>google search would not think its standard is reflective of wiki as a whole.

All of Wikipedia is already a draft that's being worked on,
and not only because of the quality of the grammar and spelling
(that's among the least of our worries!).
Supposedly, this is mentioned on [[Main Page]]
when we describe ourselves as a "project to create" in the present.
If you don't think that that's enough (a reasonable position),
then discussion of that could go on [[Talk:Main Page]]
(or [[Wikipedia talk:Welcome, newcomers]] or wherever).
However, I don't see bad English as an *especial* problem.

That said, you're certainly correct that it'd be nice to have a page
where we can report bad English that needs to be corrected.
I don't see why this needs to be a Specialpage,
much less needs to be linked to from Recentchanges.
Just create it in the [[Wikipedia:]] space, publicise it, and use it.
Better yet, it already exists: [[Wikipedia:Votes for rewrite]]!

The problem with this page is that it's hardly been used since last year,
so it needs to be cleaned out.  Either that won't take long,
or it will give people a good list of needy articles to start on.
In any case, once you start using it, you'll have to publicise it
to get others to both report problem pages and help fix them.
Hopefully, this mailing list thread will start doing just that!

(I used to watch this page, but it fell too low on my list of priorities.
I'll probably have more time for Wikipedia in July, however!)


-- Toby