[WikiEN-l] Twitterpedia will win

[Ray Saintonge]

Carcharoth wrote:
> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 12:48 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> 2009/5/5 geni <geniice at gmail.com>:
>>     
>>> 2009/5/5 David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
>>>       
>>>> know in 140 characters or less. You should read the Twitterpedia
>>>> version of the Peloponnesian War. Soon, that's all we'll be able to
>>>> comprehend, 140 characters or less.
>>>>         
>>> Effectively thats what the opening sentences of wikipedia articles
>>> should already be (with the opening paras being the summery
>>> wikipedia).
>>>       
>> "The Peloponnesian War, which lasted from 431-404BC, was an Ancient
>> Greek military war, fought by Athens and its empire against the
>> Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta."
>>     
> Flabby wording with lots of redundancy.
>   
>> That's 167 characters. Think we could get a 140 character requirement
>> added to [[Wikipedia:Lead section]]?
>>     
> "The Peloponnesian War (431-404BC): Athens and its empire fought the
> Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta."
>
> The phrasing "Ancient Greek military war" is horrible in so many ways.
>
> Better still, have poetic summaries of Wikipedia articles:
>
> "In days of yore,
> in Ancient Greece
> on the wine-dark sea
> and over the olive-clad hills
> Athenian hoplites did battle
> with Spartan warriors
> over the islands of the Peloponnese"
>
> After Wikipedia Art, we have Wikipedia Poetry?
> Using Wikipedia articles as the inspiration for poems?
>
>   
This brings us full circle to pre-literate times when the great epics 
were passed on by rote.  Putting them in verse facilitated 
memorization.  It also facilitated official misunderstandings of 
Biblical proportions. Twitter and the short attention span of those who 
favour it turn historical insight into inanity.  Linking the "wine-dark 
sea" to the later Peloponnesian Wars already separates us from its 
association with the death of Patroclus in the Iliad.

Ec