On 2 June 2010 12:42, David Lindsey <dvdln...@gmail.com> wrote: > So, then, why are we trying? Why do the "best" Wikipedia articles look more > and more like (poorly done) journal literature reviews full of technical > terms and requiring substantial background knowledge to understand? I, for > one, despite several years of college mathematics find nearly all math > articles largely incomprehensible because they are clearly not aimed at the > general reader. But, the general reader IS Wikipedia's audience, and we > should write the articles that best serve him.
It's because ability to look up and cite facts is a lot more common than actually being a good writer. There's little cure for this apart from actual good writing being applied. The "best" articles are the creation of algorithmic and judgement-impaired FA/GA review processes. You get what you measure. How to measure good writing? Personally I would prefer an article to have all the details on a subject and imperfect lumpy writing than be polished with details smoothed away. Wikipedia is a work in progress, and I see nothing wrong with that being visible. But that's just me, I wouldn't generalise it to everyone. The easy thing concerned Wikipedians could do is at least make sure article summary intros are well-written and concise without losing important detail - remember that the lead should ideally be a standalone short article in itself. (The mobile gateway presents articles this way by default, for instance.) That said, sometimes I'm freshly amazed by this thing we've built. I looked up [[Betelgeuse]] yesterday (because of the rumours that it was about to finally go supernova [*]) and, of course, found myself with about thirty tabs on supernovae, giant stars, neutrinos, why neutrinos have mass ... it was all *really good*, *impeccably referenced* and *up to date*. Some of the writing was clunky, but I'm enough of an editor and popular science fan to have been able to untangle bits. This Wikipedia thing - it's often really very good indeed, you know. - d. [*] Bad Astronomy: Is Betelgeuse about to blow? http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/06/01/is-betelgeuse-about-to-blow/ _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l