4 ms·

What's wrong with the articles written by experts for people who seek deeper knowledge? It's not like many people read articles on advanced math on their spare

by kbart 9y ago

What's wrong with the articles written by experts for people who seek deeper knowledge? It's not like many people read articles on advanced math on their spare time during coffee break. I like Wiki precisely for the fact that I can find most of technical material I need on certain topic in a single place as opposed to shuffling back and forth through the hundreds of pages on a book. If you can't apprehend a certain topic, it means you need more background in a certain field and you should start from more simple topics. I hate this trend of "dumb everything down" -- expertise require work and dedication, you can't expect to be able to read Wiki article on advanced technical topics in 2 minutes and think you know it.

nils-m-holm 9y ago
I agree that there is a fine line between dumbing down and making a topic accessible to a broader audience. However, most authors these days definitely err on the side of being elitist including, unfortunately, Wikipedia. I, for my part, am back to buying books on certain topics, just because Wikipedia has become obtuse.
- kbart 9y ago
  These "elitists" give their own spare time to write Wiki articles for no compensation, calling them like this is simply rude imho. Yes, I agree that there are many articles that lack proper introduction or are low quality overall, but that's the whole point of Wikipedia -- if you see something is missing, you can make it better. It's a voluntary activity, you can't demand anything here, or even more so, blame somebody, who actually did something, for not putting enough effort to make it more accessible.
  - nils-m-holm 9y ago
    (1) I did not call them elitists, I said they err on the side of being elitist. (2) Of course I can criticize their work, even if their effort is voluntary, and no obligation to help arises from that. (3) I'm not demanding anything, I simply turn toward other sources. If the intention of Wikipedia volunteers is to make knowledge accessible, they are doing an increasingly bad job. Letting them know that is a service, IMO.
    - rwnspace 9y ago
      >If the intention of Wikipedia volunteers is to make knowledge accessible, they are doing an increasingly bad job. Letting them know that is a service, IMO. I think 'make knowledge accessible' has too many interpretations to say that article complexity leads to a bad job of it. I'm sure a Korean-Sengalese dictionary is very accessible, but not to me. A single page that gets every reader from A to B regarding the same knowledge/concept is rarely possible. It's a little reminiscent of Feynman's famous answer to 'How do magnets work?'. I wonder if the author of the article had found https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page before sitting down to write. If they're not simply engaging in wishful thinking, perhaps they actually want a fork of Wikipedia's STEM articles, with train tracks and mouse-over 'ELI16' definitions.
      - nils-m-holm 9y ago
        Ok, so let's be more precise. What I expect an accessible work to do is to explain things using terms that are as simple as possible. This does not mean to explain it like the reader was a child but, most of all, to avoid one simple pitfall: Imagine you learn A, then learn B (which builds on A), and finally learn C (which builds on A and B). Now you have the knowledge to explain A more correctly and elegantly in terms of C, and you do so. However, your beautiful and correct definition of A depends on C, which depends on B, which depends on A. So your reader has to understand C in order to grasp A and A in order to grasp C. This pitfall has nothing to do with necessary complexity -- not avoiding it is simply bad didactics.
- ll55tt 9y ago
  I don't necessarily agree with this. Many of the articles could do a better job at unpacking the material. Take a look at some of the more technical articles for math, there is a significant lack of examples, and even the pages that have examples lack the explanation about why the example is important/useful.
WillReplyfFood 9y ago
"If you cant explain it in such a way that somebody who never heard of it does understand it, you did not understand it." The problem is that you trying to perfect the article by your own admission do not write for the wikipedia audience.

by kbart 9y ago

nils-m-holm 9y ago

I agree that there is a fine line between dumbing down and making a topic accessible to a broader audience. However, most authors these days definitely err on the side of being elitist including, unfortunately, Wikipedia. I, for my part, am back to buying books on certain topics, just because Wikipedia has become obtuse.

kbart 9y ago
These "elitists" give their own spare time to write Wiki articles for no compensation, calling them like this is simply rude imho. Yes, I agree that there are many articles that lack proper introduction or are low quality overall, but that's the whole point of Wikipedia -- if you see something is missing, you can make it better. It's a voluntary activity, you can't demand anything here, or even more so, blame somebody, who actually did something, for not putting enough effort to make it more accessible.
- nils-m-holm 9y ago
  (1) I did not call them elitists, I said they err on the side of being elitist. (2) Of course I can criticize their work, even if their effort is voluntary, and no obligation to help arises from that. (3) I'm not demanding anything, I simply turn toward other sources. If the intention of Wikipedia volunteers is to make knowledge accessible, they are doing an increasingly bad job. Letting them know that is a service, IMO.
  - rwnspace 9y ago
    >If the intention of Wikipedia volunteers is to make knowledge accessible, they are doing an increasingly bad job. Letting them know that is a service, IMO. I think 'make knowledge accessible' has too many interpretations to say that article complexity leads to a bad job of it. I'm sure a Korean-Sengalese dictionary is very accessible, but not to me. A single page that gets every reader from A to B regarding the same knowledge/concept is rarely possible. It's a little reminiscent of Feynman's famous answer to 'How do magnets work?'. I wonder if the author of the article had found https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page before sitting down to write. If they're not simply engaging in wishful thinking, perhaps they actually want a fork of Wikipedia's STEM articles, with train tracks and mouse-over 'ELI16' definitions.
    - nils-m-holm 9y ago
      Ok, so let's be more precise. What I expect an accessible work to do is to explain things using terms that are as simple as possible. This does not mean to explain it like the reader was a child but, most of all, to avoid one simple pitfall: Imagine you learn A, then learn B (which builds on A), and finally learn C (which builds on A and B). Now you have the knowledge to explain A more correctly and elegantly in terms of C, and you do so. However, your beautiful and correct definition of A depends on C, which depends on B, which depends on A. So your reader has to understand C in order to grasp A and A in order to grasp C. This pitfall has nothing to do with necessary complexity -- not avoiding it is simply bad didactics.
ll55tt 9y ago
I don't necessarily agree with this. Many of the articles could do a better job at unpacking the material. Take a look at some of the more technical articles for math, there is a significant lack of examples, and even the pages that have examples lack the explanation about why the example is important/useful.

WillReplyfFood 9y ago

"If you cant explain it in such a way that somebody who never heard of it does understand it, you did not understand it." The problem is that you trying to perfect the article by your own admission do not write for the wikipedia audience.