[WikiEN-l] What to do about our writing quality?

[Ray Saintonge]

George Herbert wrote:
> People who know how to write will look at typical articles as a
> morass.  I often have that reaction.  Most Wikipedians are fact,
> detail, and policy oriented rather than working to make the literature
> aspect as compelling as possible.
>
> Of our potential failings, I would rate this as somewhat less
> important than factual errors, lack of sufficient facts or details,
> lack of images, or policy violations such as OR in an article or NPOV
> failures.  Our value as an encyclopedia is lessened if people don't
> like reading articles.
>
> The single factor most affecting how far people read, once you find
> the page and assuming at least minimally competent writing, is whether
> there are images on the article.  Prose quality comes in a moderate
> second to that.
>
> >From our goals as a project, the other potential failures are
> important to us (and in making us a resource deserving of people's
> trust, to the extent they trust and use us).
>
> It's generically true that we need more images, and higher quality images.
>
> It's often easier or more attractive for literate people to critisise
> the writing, though.  And they're not wrong.
>
>
>   
Let's not confuse issues of accuracy with issues of style.

Images are a matter of style, and are often little more than a graphic 
representation of the 10-second sound byte.

AFAIK Melville did not include illustrations with his most famous 
novel.  It is a thick novel, and the absence of illustrations was no 
impediment to its being read.  Later publishers might have done so, 
particularly those who dumbed things down for an audience of children.

Ec