On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 11:41 PM, Ms. Anne Frazer <fraz...@bigpond.com>wrote: > > However, when I read your words, the essence of your comments is clear in > that part of your message is couched in attacking good prose because it is > too difficult to read and understand. I remind myself that you don't mean > to engage in a call for the dumbing down of articles in the 'Wikipedia > Encyclopedia' when you suggest that they are too difficult to comprehend by > 'the man in the street', (my phrase, and a commonly used one) by which I > mean the 'ordinary citizen', the 'ordinary person'; it is a much used > phrase I sardonically use in tandem with an apology to women. But here I > have strayed from the clear and concise message I would like to be able to > convey to you; so back on track... > > Good writing requires attention to good rules on writing; to a degree this > is the rule rather than the exception. The magnificent work-in-progress > that is the Wikipedia encyclopedia becomes much-lauded because people from > all over the world and from all walks of life will and do contribute to it > growth. If we begin to consider lowering the bar of excellence to some > point of middle acceptance we are acting exclusively; we are not acting in > good faith; we are not acting inclusively.]
The issue is not with the high standard of prose, the issue is with reader comprehension. I'm a fairly bright person at this, and I cannot make heads or tails of the theoretical properties of the Higgs boson[1], much less what the caption of the second image means[2] without about twenty minutes of reading. For a reference work, that's a bit iffy. It's supposed to be a jumping point to grasp the subject. Really, it's not about style. It's about understanding, because without out that you cannot teach. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_Boson#Theoretical_properties 2. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:One-loop-diagram.svg "A one-loop Feynman diagram<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_diagram> of the first-order correction to the Higgs mass. The Higgs boson couples strongly to the top quark <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_quark> so it might decay into top–anti-top quark pairs if it were heavy enough." -- ~Keegan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
