3 ms·

I wish they also spent on the reverse: automatic rephrasing of the (many) obscure and very poorly worded and/or with no neutral tone whatsoever. And I say that

I wish they also spent on the reverse: automatic rephrasing of the (many) obscure and very poorly worded and/or with no neutral tone whatsoever. And I say that as a general Wikipedia fan.

philipwhiuk 9mo ago
WP:BOLD and start your own project to do it.
- vintermann 9mo ago
  Or be extra bold, and have an AI bot handle the forum politics associated with being allowed to make nontrivial changes.
  - embedding-shape 9mo ago
    Great way to get banned :) I've made a bunch of nontrivial changes (+- 1000s of characters), none of them seems to have been reverted, never asked for permission, I just went ahead and did it. Maybe the topics I care about are so non-controversial no one actually seen it?
alt227 9mo ago
I would hate it so much if all the articles on Wikipedia were suddenly all rewritten to have a smiliar tone and style. Its beauty is its diversity.
- KolmogorovComp 9mo ago
  It’s explicitly in Wikipedia’s goal to keep a neutral tone. See WP:neutral
tonymet 9mo ago
there are many copy editing projects that do this. If you mean the left leaning tone / bias, that will be a bit more spicy. But general grammar, tone, ambiguity , superlatives – that’s the goal of copy editing. I copy edit typesetting , for example.
- KolmogorovComp 9mo ago
  > If you mean the left leaning tone / bias, that will be a bit more spicy. But general grammar, tone, ambiguity , superlatives – that’s the goal of copy editing No, no I mainly mean non-neutral phrasing and/or too personal. Especially for people’s articles. (“And they released that greeeat album! But unfortunately the critics did not understand them… Booh!)
  - tonymet 9mo ago
    I agree. Wikipedia Cleanup is a good starting point. Or look for a Wiki Project to join. I've found the best way to learn and contribute is to jump into an existing project. Usually direction is the hardest thing . You can of course dive into an article and make changes, but you'll often get pushback (warranted or unwarranted) and that can be discouraging. It's a somewhat natural feedback loop.
    - KolmogorovComp 9mo ago
      Pure styling work is boring and not worth human time anymore (for "good enough" result, starting from bad) IMO, considering how "good" AI has become to that (while still being assisted).
      - tonymet 9mo ago
        it can be a good way to practice automation and AI workflows.

I wish they also spent on the reverse: automatic rephrasing of the (many) obscure and very poorly worded and/or with no neutral tone whatsoever. And I say that as a general Wikipedia fan.

philipwhiuk 9mo ago

WP:BOLD and start your own project to do it.

vintermann 9mo ago
Or be extra bold, and have an AI bot handle the forum politics associated with being allowed to make nontrivial changes.
- embedding-shape 9mo ago
  Great way to get banned :) I've made a bunch of nontrivial changes (+- 1000s of characters), none of them seems to have been reverted, never asked for permission, I just went ahead and did it. Maybe the topics I care about are so non-controversial no one actually seen it?

alt227 9mo ago

I would hate it so much if all the articles on Wikipedia were suddenly all rewritten to have a smiliar tone and style. Its beauty is its diversity.

KolmogorovComp 9mo ago
It’s explicitly in Wikipedia’s goal to keep a neutral tone. See WP:neutral

tonymet 9mo ago

there are many copy editing projects that do this. If you mean the left leaning tone / bias, that will be a bit more spicy. But general grammar, tone, ambiguity , superlatives – that’s the goal of copy editing. I copy edit typesetting , for example.

KolmogorovComp 9mo ago
> If you mean the left leaning tone / bias, that will be a bit more spicy. But general grammar, tone, ambiguity , superlatives – that’s the goal of copy editing No, no I mainly mean non-neutral phrasing and/or too personal. Especially for people’s articles. (“And they released that greeeat album! But unfortunately the critics did not understand them… Booh!)
- tonymet 9mo ago
  I agree. Wikipedia Cleanup is a good starting point. Or look for a Wiki Project to join. I've found the best way to learn and contribute is to jump into an existing project. Usually direction is the hardest thing . You can of course dive into an article and make changes, but you'll often get pushback (warranted or unwarranted) and that can be discouraging. It's a somewhat natural feedback loop.
  - KolmogorovComp 9mo ago
    Pure styling work is boring and not worth human time anymore (for "good enough" result, starting from bad) IMO, considering how "good" AI has become to that (while still being assisted).
    - tonymet 9mo ago
      it can be a good way to practice automation and AI workflows.