Slashdot Mirror
'Maybe Wikipedia Readers Shouldn't Need Science Degrees To Digest Articles About Basic Topics' (vice.com)
Wikipedia articles about "hard science" (physics, biology, chemistry) topics are really mostly written for other scientists, writes Michael Byrne, a reporter on Science beat at Vice's Motherboard news outlet. From the article: This particular class of Wikipedia article tends to take the high-level form of a scientific paper. There's a brief intro (an abstract) that is kinda-sorta comprehensible, but then the article immediately degenerates into jargon and equations. Take, for example, the page for the electroweak interaction in particle physics. This is a topic of potentially broad interest; its formulation won a trio of physicists the Nobel Prize in 1979. Generally, it has to do with a fundamental linkage between two of the four fundamental forces of the universe, electromagnetism and the weak force. The Wikipedia article for the electroweak force consists of a two-paragraph introduction that basically just says what I said above plus some fairly intimidating technical context. The rest of the article is almost entirely gnarly math equations. I have no idea who the article exists for because I'm not sure that person actually exists: someone with enough knowledge to comprehend dense physics formulations that doesn't also already understand the electroweak interaction or that doesn't already have, like, access to a textbook about it. For another, somewhat different example, look at the article for graphene. Graphene is, of course, an endlessly hyped superstrong supermaterial. It's in the news constantly. The article isn't just a bunch of math equations, but it's also not much more penetrable for a reader without at least some chemistry/materials science background.
I have a Ph.D. in physics, and I find the average science article on a subject that I don't already know to be way too technical. They usually lack any sort of overview for non-experts.
I do like technical detail in the article-- but not instead of the article.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
There's a difference between a difficult subject and obfuscation for a pretense of erudition.
The point is usually I can't yet, because I can't understand the current explanation.
Just cut-and-paste the first paragraph. Then leave out the rest. We do NOT need to "dumb down" Wikipedia. If someone doesn't want the technical details, they can just STOP READING after the first paragraph.
For the electroweak interaction, the first paragraph is fine, and is all a non-nerd needs. If anyone continues to read, it is because THEY WANT THE DETAILS.
Wikipedia has plenty of problems, but "too much correct information" is NOT one of them.
Writing for someone not a specialist in the field is not at all the same thing as dumbing down. It's also not an exclusive relationship. Writing a section for the layman does not preclude writing another for the domain specialist.
I'll just leave this here:
“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” Albert Einstein
so, there is information and there is communication. I've had text books that have no errors but are incomprehensible and others that also have no errors but are crystal clear. Same thing. Wikipedia is, often (and especially in physics) the crap textbook.