Essays Low‑impact | ||||||||||
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I disagree strongly with readers first. For a very strange reason perhaps:
It divides people into editors and readers.
Our foundation principles state that everyone is an editor! All of our process is designed around the ability to edit pages.
Most people (probably you included) are editing wikipedia either because it's fun, and/or because it's useful for themselves. Why *else* would they contribute?
Kim Bruning 00:52, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
At first glance, I thought this policy said nothing nontrivial. After all, of course we are writing to be read. There's hardly any point in saying so. At second glance, I realized that it did say something nontrivial -- something that makes me very uncomfortable. Specifically, it is dangerous for anyone here to imply that they know better than the rest of us what The Readers want. It is, after all, the same unacceptable tactic as the old line, "the lurkers support me in email".
This is a wiki. People can speak for themselves. There is neither any reason nor any excuse for some editors to claim to speak for The Readers in criticizing the work of other editors. Doing so has frequently proven to be an abusive tactic of argumentation -- "you must do what I say, because otherwise you are Against The Readers." This tactic has been used in disagreements about image censorship, about the AD/BC and BCE/CE abbreviations, and so on, on WikiEN-L as well as on talk pages.
It is always unacceptable to arrogate to oneself the privilege of speaking for others. This "Readers First" proposal seems too much like an entering-wedge for that mistake. -- FOo 02:53, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
I like this. I think it is a good codification of common sense, and is very valuable as a general guideline to point people at. I'm not sure we need to make it a concrete policy, though; working out a sensible level of assumed technical knowledge from the reader is, and should remain, a judgement call by editors. For example, many maths articles ( C0-semigroup) are never going to be written in such a way that the average high-school student can grasp, nor should we bother, because these are deeply technical topics that the average high-school student would never have a need to look up. (My candidate for "Incomprehensible Article of the Week" would be Plastic -- we all think we know what plastic is in everyday use, but this article doesn't really help the everyday reader understand the topic). — Matt Crypto 11:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Trilobite. Maurreen (talk) 16:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately someone lobbed the "proposed policy or guideline" template on the project page. I never intended this to be policy or guideline. It's more a drive towards making more articles accessible to more people. After all, it's better to have an article that can be understood by 1,000 readers rather than none at all. The point here is that it is better still if 1,000,000 or 10,000,000 can understand and learn from it.
As far as how this is meant to pre-suppose what readers want - it only assumes that readers want accurate and informative articles that they can understand and that they enjoy reading. It makes no more assumptions than that. It's not meant to be a panacea to be applied everywhere (and it will not resolve or help the BC/BCE dispute). But it may improve other articles. Take the article on chromosomes, for instance. Don't look at it yet. What would you expect/want such an article to offer?
I think it should tell a reader not familiar with biology what a chromosome is and why it is important. It should explain to that same reader what it does. It may have a small section at the end containing technical details for someone with more advanced knowledge, but really I'd be surprised if there's much that can't be explained to a novice.
Now look at the article. It tells me nothing. Not what one is, not why it's important. To me (and I guess to anyone else who is unfamiliar with what a chromosome really is) it is meaningless. And it's here that Wikipedia ceases to function as a proper encyclopaedia. I also ask myself, what would it cost to those who already know quite a bit about biology if the article was more accessible. The answer's nothing - no information needs to be deleted, none should be removed. It's just a question of rephrasing so that more can comprehend.
This is what Readers First is about. Encouraging editors of articles to think about their audience - and in particular to aim for as wide an audience as possible. Einstein wrote a best-seller on relativity and Hawkings a best-seller on time (although the later chapters admittedly beat many people). They did show that complicated ideas can be explained to a general population. There's no reason why we should not try to make our articles as accessible to as many as possible.
If there's anybody who understands what chromosomes are and who has the patience to explain them to a layman, I'd be happy to work with them to show exactly how the article can be improved, jguk 19:24, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
The removal of the template implies that this page has been accepted by the community, which doesn't appear to be the case.
Jguk says above: "Unfortunately someone lobbed the "proposed policy or guideline" template on the project page. I never intended this to be policy or guideline. It's more a drive towards making more articles accessible to more people."
Being that the project page sets out a box specifically designating "Guidelines", it's hard to see how the page is not proposing "guidelines".
"Drive" is defined as "an organized movement to achieve some purpose". The page is not an organized movement, it is static instruction.
Jguk has been opposed to instruction creep in the past. If this material is kept, I don't see that it deserves its own page. Maurreen (talk) 22:57, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm very glad that this has been written as it's absolutely spot on. There is no point in writing to a level higher than that of Mr Average - no-one who is already expert in a particular area would come reading about it in Wikipedia, but so many articles have ended up being written to that level. The articles on drugs are perfect examples: many, many people are interested in the likes of fluoxetine and paracetamol, but much of either article is inpenetrable. Let me put it this way: my mum recently wanted know more about both, and I naturally pointed her to Wikipedia. Needless to say, when I read those articles I wasn't in the least bit suprised that she'd come away disappointed. Dan100 ( Talk) 22:22, July 30, 2005 (UTC)
I have a single, simple recommendation for anyone who is concerned about accessibility. Rather than preaching and magnifying instruction creep, instead simply proceed in normal Wiki fashion:
There is no need for any "movement", and certainly no need to pound on the spurious, harmful Readers-vs.-Editors myth.
By the way, I'd like to specifically repudiate and condemn the claim that "there is no point in writing to a level higher than that of Mr Average". When I read an encyclopedia entry, I do so to raise my level of knowledge of the subject matter. If the article is so simplistic that it is unable to tell me anything I don't already know, it fails. Likewise, if the article uses dumbed-down language in an effort to avoid " jargon" (that is, precise language used by practitioners), then it leaves me unable to talk about the subject with anyone who really does know it. (Experts use jargon not to obfuscate, but because jargon offers a level of precision unavailable in ordinary language. This is as true in science as it is in knitting.) -- FOo 16:55, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
As an editor of many years, this is the first time I have stumbled across this. What a superb brief summary. I should like to expand it, but that of course would not be the point – do you know how many pages WP:MOS has? I don't!
I may, however, quote it in WP:RFD, my usual hangout and (you may have guessed) a near typo to this. It encapsulates what we try to do at RfD: Not what is "right" in some abstract editor way, but what will serve our readers best? We must make educated guesses across the realms of all topics, but we have a good bunch who sort it out as best we can, without malice and with much intelligence It's good place to hang out since there is such a variety of topics from across the speculum.
Superb. Si Trew ( talk) 07:03, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
The main point of this essay (which could use a nutshell, btw) seems to be that editors should keep in mind readers, many of whom may be different than themselves. I'm looking for an essay to cite that expresses something similar but very distinct from this: that the interests of editors and readers are distinct, and that content in mainspace should be tailored for readers rather than editors. Such an essay would be cited, for instance, to rebut proposals to further blur the front-end and back-end portions of WP, or to explain the differences between Wikipedia and WP:About. Does such an essay exist? Sdkb ( talk) 06:57, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
Essays Low‑impact | ||||||||||
|
I disagree strongly with readers first. For a very strange reason perhaps:
It divides people into editors and readers.
Our foundation principles state that everyone is an editor! All of our process is designed around the ability to edit pages.
Most people (probably you included) are editing wikipedia either because it's fun, and/or because it's useful for themselves. Why *else* would they contribute?
Kim Bruning 00:52, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
At first glance, I thought this policy said nothing nontrivial. After all, of course we are writing to be read. There's hardly any point in saying so. At second glance, I realized that it did say something nontrivial -- something that makes me very uncomfortable. Specifically, it is dangerous for anyone here to imply that they know better than the rest of us what The Readers want. It is, after all, the same unacceptable tactic as the old line, "the lurkers support me in email".
This is a wiki. People can speak for themselves. There is neither any reason nor any excuse for some editors to claim to speak for The Readers in criticizing the work of other editors. Doing so has frequently proven to be an abusive tactic of argumentation -- "you must do what I say, because otherwise you are Against The Readers." This tactic has been used in disagreements about image censorship, about the AD/BC and BCE/CE abbreviations, and so on, on WikiEN-L as well as on talk pages.
It is always unacceptable to arrogate to oneself the privilege of speaking for others. This "Readers First" proposal seems too much like an entering-wedge for that mistake. -- FOo 02:53, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
I like this. I think it is a good codification of common sense, and is very valuable as a general guideline to point people at. I'm not sure we need to make it a concrete policy, though; working out a sensible level of assumed technical knowledge from the reader is, and should remain, a judgement call by editors. For example, many maths articles ( C0-semigroup) are never going to be written in such a way that the average high-school student can grasp, nor should we bother, because these are deeply technical topics that the average high-school student would never have a need to look up. (My candidate for "Incomprehensible Article of the Week" would be Plastic -- we all think we know what plastic is in everyday use, but this article doesn't really help the everyday reader understand the topic). — Matt Crypto 11:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Trilobite. Maurreen (talk) 16:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately someone lobbed the "proposed policy or guideline" template on the project page. I never intended this to be policy or guideline. It's more a drive towards making more articles accessible to more people. After all, it's better to have an article that can be understood by 1,000 readers rather than none at all. The point here is that it is better still if 1,000,000 or 10,000,000 can understand and learn from it.
As far as how this is meant to pre-suppose what readers want - it only assumes that readers want accurate and informative articles that they can understand and that they enjoy reading. It makes no more assumptions than that. It's not meant to be a panacea to be applied everywhere (and it will not resolve or help the BC/BCE dispute). But it may improve other articles. Take the article on chromosomes, for instance. Don't look at it yet. What would you expect/want such an article to offer?
I think it should tell a reader not familiar with biology what a chromosome is and why it is important. It should explain to that same reader what it does. It may have a small section at the end containing technical details for someone with more advanced knowledge, but really I'd be surprised if there's much that can't be explained to a novice.
Now look at the article. It tells me nothing. Not what one is, not why it's important. To me (and I guess to anyone else who is unfamiliar with what a chromosome really is) it is meaningless. And it's here that Wikipedia ceases to function as a proper encyclopaedia. I also ask myself, what would it cost to those who already know quite a bit about biology if the article was more accessible. The answer's nothing - no information needs to be deleted, none should be removed. It's just a question of rephrasing so that more can comprehend.
This is what Readers First is about. Encouraging editors of articles to think about their audience - and in particular to aim for as wide an audience as possible. Einstein wrote a best-seller on relativity and Hawkings a best-seller on time (although the later chapters admittedly beat many people). They did show that complicated ideas can be explained to a general population. There's no reason why we should not try to make our articles as accessible to as many as possible.
If there's anybody who understands what chromosomes are and who has the patience to explain them to a layman, I'd be happy to work with them to show exactly how the article can be improved, jguk 19:24, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
The removal of the template implies that this page has been accepted by the community, which doesn't appear to be the case.
Jguk says above: "Unfortunately someone lobbed the "proposed policy or guideline" template on the project page. I never intended this to be policy or guideline. It's more a drive towards making more articles accessible to more people."
Being that the project page sets out a box specifically designating "Guidelines", it's hard to see how the page is not proposing "guidelines".
"Drive" is defined as "an organized movement to achieve some purpose". The page is not an organized movement, it is static instruction.
Jguk has been opposed to instruction creep in the past. If this material is kept, I don't see that it deserves its own page. Maurreen (talk) 22:57, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm very glad that this has been written as it's absolutely spot on. There is no point in writing to a level higher than that of Mr Average - no-one who is already expert in a particular area would come reading about it in Wikipedia, but so many articles have ended up being written to that level. The articles on drugs are perfect examples: many, many people are interested in the likes of fluoxetine and paracetamol, but much of either article is inpenetrable. Let me put it this way: my mum recently wanted know more about both, and I naturally pointed her to Wikipedia. Needless to say, when I read those articles I wasn't in the least bit suprised that she'd come away disappointed. Dan100 ( Talk) 22:22, July 30, 2005 (UTC)
I have a single, simple recommendation for anyone who is concerned about accessibility. Rather than preaching and magnifying instruction creep, instead simply proceed in normal Wiki fashion:
There is no need for any "movement", and certainly no need to pound on the spurious, harmful Readers-vs.-Editors myth.
By the way, I'd like to specifically repudiate and condemn the claim that "there is no point in writing to a level higher than that of Mr Average". When I read an encyclopedia entry, I do so to raise my level of knowledge of the subject matter. If the article is so simplistic that it is unable to tell me anything I don't already know, it fails. Likewise, if the article uses dumbed-down language in an effort to avoid " jargon" (that is, precise language used by practitioners), then it leaves me unable to talk about the subject with anyone who really does know it. (Experts use jargon not to obfuscate, but because jargon offers a level of precision unavailable in ordinary language. This is as true in science as it is in knitting.) -- FOo 16:55, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
As an editor of many years, this is the first time I have stumbled across this. What a superb brief summary. I should like to expand it, but that of course would not be the point – do you know how many pages WP:MOS has? I don't!
I may, however, quote it in WP:RFD, my usual hangout and (you may have guessed) a near typo to this. It encapsulates what we try to do at RfD: Not what is "right" in some abstract editor way, but what will serve our readers best? We must make educated guesses across the realms of all topics, but we have a good bunch who sort it out as best we can, without malice and with much intelligence It's good place to hang out since there is such a variety of topics from across the speculum.
Superb. Si Trew ( talk) 07:03, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
The main point of this essay (which could use a nutshell, btw) seems to be that editors should keep in mind readers, many of whom may be different than themselves. I'm looking for an essay to cite that expresses something similar but very distinct from this: that the interests of editors and readers are distinct, and that content in mainspace should be tailored for readers rather than editors. Such an essay would be cited, for instance, to rebut proposals to further blur the front-end and back-end portions of WP, or to explain the differences between Wikipedia and WP:About. Does such an essay exist? Sdkb ( talk) 06:57, 14 March 2020 (UTC)