[WikiEN-l] What makes a good article?

[Jake Nelson]

On 2/27/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem with all our processes is that they cater to the lowest common
> denominator - be it the LCD of reader, or LCD of writer. (Of course, in a
> few cases, they cater to a very rarefied audience - I have in mind some
> science articles which are completely incomprehensible to anyone not
> familiar with the field.)

Hell, look at most of our math articles. Random example: [[Domain
(mathematics)]]. The very first section, before the TOC:

"
In mathematics, a domain of a k-place relation L ⊆ X1 × … × Xk is one
of the sets Xj, 1 ≤ j ≤ k.

In the special case where k = 2 and L ⊆ X1 × X2 is a function L : X1 →
X2, it is conventional to refer to X1 as the domain of the function
and to refer to X2 as the codomain of the function.
"

That's terribly obscure terminology and symbols for something that I
learned in 7th-grade algebra class. It gets a little better when you
get down to the "Domain of a function" section, but a fair number of
people will have been scared off by then. What's worse is that the
links fail to provide information about what the various symbols and
phrases mean. When there is a linked article, it's often more
incomprehensible than the one it should be clarifying.

We need to work on readability, especially in the first sections of articles.

-- Jake Nelson
[[en:User:Jake Nelson]]