Wikipedia talk:WikiProject General Audience

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I'm not sure about how projects work ... where would a discussion on why pages are hard to understand fit ? Here I guess :) I vote, we blab a bit here about problems, goals, methods, then try to refactor it into something more meaningful on the project page.

When looking up articles on probabilities and statistics, I noticed there were a few terms I wasn't entirely familiar with. So naturally, I looked them up, and often found out that they were quite complicated - much more complicated than what was needed to understand the original article, since they would go into the theoretical bases in raw mathematics, etc. That is normal - for basic concepts, you have a lot to say about there theoretical foundations, but makes things a bit of an endlessly recursive maze.

So, I created Glossary of probability and statistics to "take notes" as I went along - to have the basic definitions that were sufficient to understand the other articles, regrouped in one place. I tried to stick to simple definitions with examples when possible, but hey, it's far from being a finished.

So one thing I think this project can help is :

  • When and how to make glossaries ?
  • How to use them ? (I don't know where to link to my statistics glossary, though it would definitely fit well in a "prerequisites" template)

See Category:Glossaries or List of glossaries - having a universal procedure for dealing with those could be neat.

Also, I think talking about the history of ideas, of science can make a page easier to understand. When did the concept appear ? What did it give birth to ? Is it still used ? Flammifer 10:08, 21 September 2005 (UTC)


We could also make this project interact with :

I'm sure quite a few projects have talked about how to make their articles more reachable. So, we should probably use this project to try to collect that kind of experience.

Some interesting discussion on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Science :

The pupa article is fairly typical of many biology-related pages. There are two main directions that such pages tend to move in. The first is a basic description of the topic for students who need help with their homework. Such articles tend to be uninteresting to scientists who actually know something about the topic. The second direction is towards including the types of information that are of interest to scientists. When a few people with scientific training start to take an interest in a wikpedia article, you start to see references and links to on-going research. Biology articles that have not attracted the attention of scientists tend to contain over-simplified generalizations that are technically wrong and ignore the interesting details of the topic. A vague sense of outrage or disgust may be the reaction of many scientists when they see a wikipedia article like pupa for the first time.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Science says, "a good scientific article should be understandable by the "general public", as well as interesting to the scientifically inclined."

Seems like a pretty good summary. Flammifer 17:11, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Intentional obfuscation by "experts"

  • I've encountered a problem that while experts in the field are less than 1% of the general population, they spend an inordinate amount of time ensuring that the articles in their field remain too technical for the general public. The 99% of the people in the general public might make an occasional edit or comment, but generally give up once one of these "experts" reverts their edits designed to make it readable by non-experts. Any ideas on how we can handle this situation ? StuRat 22:09, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
I've encountered this myself, at Talk:Spacetime. I'm not sure what the best response to this sort of thing is. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 22:33, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
My response in the case of Boolean algebra was to leave that article alone, since there were too many "experts" protecting it from being made readable. Instead, I made a new article under a different name, Boolean logic, figuring they might allow me to make that one readable. It seems to have helped somewhat, although 3 of the PhDs have followed me to the new article. So far they have been willing to let me make the new article readable, but I'm not sure if they will just wait until I am gone and turn it into unreadable technical gibberish, like the original article. Time will tell, I guess. I also used this strategy on an earlier article I wrote, curve fitting, as a simplifaction of interpolation and regression analysis, and it semed to work there. StuRat 23:57, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
  • StuRat's characterization above is inaccurate. The fact is that the Boolean algebra article is not about what he thought it was. I thought he had finally understood that, but it appears that I was wrong, at least as of 21 September. He was working under the fixed idea that Boolean algebra was about some complicated aspects of the material now treated at Boolean logic, but that is not the case; it is simply about a different topic altogether (though certainly one with logical and historical connections to the one he was thinking of). --Trovatore 06:30, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
I certainly understood that you've been saying that, however I don't agree. To me, it's as if there was an article on "cats" and one group wanted it to be about the larger group, the feline family (lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, etc.) while the other group wanted it to be about house cats. While they could have all been covered in the same article, if the group wanting to talk about wildcats in the wild refused to allow any discussion of house cats, even though house cats are a subset of the cat family, it would then become necessary to create a new article for house cats. Once two articles existed, one would expect them to diverge, with the feline family article excluding most of the discussion of house cats and the house cat article excluding most of the discussion of the feline family. The fact that the articles are different doesn't mean that house cats are not still a subset of the feline family, however. Your characterization of me as "not understanding" when I do understand, but disagree, seems to be a typical strategy of the PhDs to discredit anyone who disagrees with them. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is not intentional, but an accident, in your case. StuRat 14:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
The article Boolean algebra is about a particular sort of algebraic structure, similar to (but more complicated to define than) a group or ring. Those are the simple facts of the case; it's not a question of agreeing or disagreeing. You can't "understand but disagree" unless you at least understand something about what an algebraic structure is; of that I've seen no evidence.
The Boolean logic article treats two rather different topics: The algebra of subsets of a given set, and the logic that that algebra (or any Boolean algebra) follows. Only the former topic is analogous to your housecat, and yes, that analogy could be made. But that topic is discussed, briefly, at Boolean algebra. To demand more would be like insisting that ring (mathematics) spend a lot of time talking about the integers, just because the integers are familiar and form a ring. --Trovatore 19:58, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
In the above para I had linked "algebra of subsets of a given set" to algebra of sets, but unfortunately that article isn't about what I thought it was. Removed link. --Trovatore 20:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Actually, on looking at Boolean logic again, I don't see that it mentions even the algebra of subsets of a given set, as an object. So there's not even the analogue of a housecat in Boolean logic. At most, there's some cat hair from which the presence of two housecats might be inferred (the one mentioned, and the two-element Boolean algebra, which is also never discussed as an object). --Trovatore 22:07, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
Let me clarify that the above is not a criticism of the Boolean logic article; far from it. The Boolean logic article at the moment sticks to the logic and to its applications and does not cloud the issue by bringing up Boolean algebras, or any particular Boolean algebra. I think that's just fine. But it isn't a simplification of the Boolean algebra article; it's an article about a different (and simpler) topic. --Trovatore 01:01, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
...but still close enough to each other that they could have both been covered in one article, much like one article covering both housecats and wildcats. StuRat 01:12, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
No, they aren't. And if you'll learn what a Boolean algebra is, and what people study about them, you'll see why. It's really not that hard, and I encourage you to do it -- but start with a simpler algebraic structure first, like a group (and don't just learn the definitions; learn a little of the theory). --Trovatore 01:22, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Assumed basic knowledge of audience

By the way, what basic knowledge should readers be assumed to have? I've usually thought articles should be written for someone with roughly a high school education; does this seem right? Is it reasonable to assume an understanding of algebra? ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 13:16, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I think the audience will vary with the article. An article about a basic concept, like addition, might have an even younger audience while an article about a very advanced topic, like instanton, might have a more educated audience. Rather than setting the goal to be any particular education level, I would say we should make each article accessible to the "widest audience possible". For some advanced topics, there may not be any way to make them accessible to those with only high school educations, but we should still try to make them as accessible as possible, perhaps to people with some college, rather than leave them in PhD-only form. StuRat 15:11, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Scope of project

Does this include articles that seem to be written for a fan base, like for example Star Trek? --AllyUnion (talk) 02:26, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I would say so. For example, if the article talked about "warp factor" or "phasors" without explaining those terms, I would say we could help there. StuRat 02:43, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Trampolines

[...] I would very very much like to see the creation of a special class of math articles, which allow the naive reader to "trampoline" between basic (grade-school/high-school level) and advanced (post-doc) concepts. I nominate torus for this class, and possibly Riemann hypothesis as well (although clearly that doesn't extend down to grade school). The "trampoline articles" would be kind-of-like featured articles, in that extra special care would be taken to make them accessible, and make them into springboards into complex topics. Just as featured articles, the trampolines might get extra love an attention with regards to edits. (And, for any articles that are not trampolines, the too technical tag may be shot on sight.) linas 00:37, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the statement "(And, for any articles that are not trampolines, the too technical tag may be shot on sight.)", I strongly disagree. Every Wiki article should be made accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of if it is designated as a "trampoline". StuRat 23:58, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I think the idea is that the trampolines may give us greater accessibility than we might be able to reach in the upper-level articles alone. If that were the case, we should only need to consider articles "too technical" if they're too difficult to approach from the lower articles. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 02:42, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Repeating this sentiment I have expressed elsewhere: articles should not be subclassed. Education-level material should go to Wikibooks, which is perfect for this sort of thing. "Entry-level" information should go in the main article along with the "technical" information. Wikipedia should endeavour to remain solely a reference work, not an educational work. Dysprosia 09:20, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
(missed this comment first-time around) Two things:
  • linas' suggestion is not at all the same as subclassing, if that is what Dysprosia meant.
  • I think some standardised way of indicating how much knowledge the reader needs to get something out of the article would be very good for accessibility, perhaps with pointers to where to learn. I don't think that a series of WP articles is going to suffice to enable the reader to internalise the knowledge they need to understand truly advanced topics: more like a series of wikibooks, and there doesn't seem to be much appetite to write those.
--- Charles Stewart 14:43, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
Indicating required knowledge is not our responsibility. Let me repeat again, Wikipedia is/should be a reference work.
Your statement that "there doesn't seem to be much appetite to write those" hasn't much to back it up. I'd be happy to write more wikibooks (I have started some there), but they require a lot of time and effort which I don't have these days. At least a Wikibook would be written with the intent to instruct, and thus would be better suited for those wanting to learn. Dysprosia 22:22, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe I should call them portals instead; I still want the article to be short. Look at the example of a torus. The article could give formulas for the surface area and volume, without explaining what these are, but it should use wording accessible to a grade-school or high-school student (which is when students find out about area and volume). The article should indicate that the torus can be made geometrically flat, and is of genus 1, without much explaining what these are, but still written in a jargon-free way. Thus, the interested college student may become motivative to find out what "genus" means, or to try to find out how something "obviously curved" like a torus can also be flat. Explain that the torus is an example of a topological group, and work out the group action at a level accessible to a college student, so that someone unware of topolgoical groups may be encouraged to look up and find out "what the heck is a topological group". Explain that its universal cover is R^2, that is flat space modulo a lattice, and so has a covering group of Z x Z. Note that this is analogous to how symmetric spaces and homogenous spaces are constructed in general. Next, the article might mention periodic and aperiodic orbits/geodesics and use the word "ergodic" in their description. Again, with only a light amount of explanation, but written so that the curious student may get a clue of what "ergodic" means, and might then be motivated to dig deeper. Finally, present torus as a Riemann surface, using a simple-enough language to engourage the reader to sudy Riemann surfaces and complex manifolds. The goal is to get a high-school student to realize that there's more to this torus thing than one might first guess: the torus article becomes a portal to many different branches of math. linas 23:15, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the torus article should be accessible to the most general audience possible, but then again, I believe it's Wiki policy that ALL articles should be made so. In the case of a torus, calling it "donut-shaped" and showing pics of common items with a toroidal shape (like bicycle inner tubes and O-ring washers) would make it accessible even to elementary age children. While most topics can't be made so easy to understand, they should always be made as simple to understand as is possible. The complex theory sections are fine, too, and should be included later for the benefit of PhDs. (I doubt if many casual readers will have any interest in them, but at least the info is there should they develop an interest.) StuRat 23:50, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A suggestion

I think that what you guys are doing here is great, but I have a suggestion. You seem to be a bit confrontational in your views of how experts are maintaining articles—that is, you think of them as being obfuscatory on purpose and needing to be overcome. That may be true sometimes, but more often I suspect that experts are simply unwilling to accept simplified statements that are inaccurate.

A solution might be try to work more closely with experts; explain your concerns, and ask them to help write the article in a better way. Writing an accurate article on a hard concept that's generally readable is actually harder than simply understanding the concept, and (as Feynmann said) an excellent test of one's own understanding. They ought to react well to a request like that, because articles should be clearer; if they don't, I'm happy to help either in trying to convince them or (if it's something I know) in helping fix it up. -- SCZenz 06:50, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. Yes, I agree. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 12:12, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Regarding the statement "experts are simply unwilling to accept simplified statements that are inaccurate" ... that really is one and the same with saying they intentionally obfuscate articles. It wouldn't appear so at first, so let me explain using electrons as an example.
To a reader unfamiliar with electrons, the Dalton model (where each is in a circular orbit about the nucleus) is a necessary first step to understanding orbitals, shells, valence electrons, bonding, etc. The experts, however, would argue that this model is incorrect and needs to be removed and replaced with a discussion of Quantum mechanics and collapsing the probability function, topics fully beyond the average reader's comprehension level.
So, the two goals of making articles accessible to all and avoiding any simplifications are inherently at odds with each other. Therefore, the decision must be made to place one goal above the other. We place accessibility as the more important goal, while the experts do not. This schism inevitably will lead to conflict. The only long term solution may well to have one article for accessibility and another for the experts. This might even lead to an eventual division of Wikipedia into two such collections of articles (such proposals have been made). StuRat 16:36, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
I think springboard articles are useful in many cases, and this could be one. Why not have a Dalton model article, with both historical information and a helpful description of the model, along with a note explaining that a more correct modern model can be found at electron or wherever? Then at electron, have a link to the Dalto model article that says it explains some concepts in an easier way but isn't technically correct. I refuse to believe it's necessary to split Wikipedia into an encyclopedia that's right but nobody reads, and one that's wrong but sounds good. -- SCZenz 17:53, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree on what you suggest, but think that is what I was saying, having two different articles, one for each group. Whether they are organized into two different Wikis is a minor issue. Also, the simple to understand articles only need to START with the simple stuff, it is fine for them to progress to more complex material later. And the complex articles do have an audience, it's just tiny, being the academic post-graduate audience. StuRat 01:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I think you've missed SCZenz's point a little bit. The answer is not to have an inaccurate article about electrons, but rather an accurate article about the Dalton model. The model doesn't give a perfectly accurate description, but there's no need for us to describe anything inaccurately. --Trovatore 00:36, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
In that case the electron article would be completely unreadable to a general audience, saying an electron is something like "a theoretical subatomic particle obtained by collapsing the wave-probability function in accordance with the laws of quantum mechanics". On the other hand, if a basic intro was included using the Dalton model, this could then lead the user into the more complex material.StuRat 01:14, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
You're being a little bit silly here. The electron article says no such thing, and it's accurate; physicists do describe electrons as particles. This can't be compared to nonsense claims such as that a Boolean algebra is "a mathematical object that can be either true or false" (Celestianpower's formulation to be fair, not yours). But they shouldn't be described uncritically as being in orbit about the nucleus, though there's nothing wrong with describing that formulation as an approximation. The claims that were made about Boolean algebras weren't approximations; they were just flat wrong. --Trovatore 03:54, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
From what had been written on the talk page and on other articles, that was what I'd been told. I was told explicitly that an algebraic structure was the same as a mathematical object and that a truth value was a value that could be either true or false. So I formulated that version. As I've said, I'm not a mathematician but why was I told something false on tghe talk page, let alone something I couldn't understand on the article itself. If I was utterly in the wrong direction then I apologise but that's what I was told on the talk page. --Celestianpower háblame 16:24, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I didn't write the material in question in Boolean algebra, so won't comment on it. For electron, a nice compromise would be to say "an electron can be thought of as a spherical particle in a circular orbit about the atom's nucleus", with the full description included later. StuRat 13:55, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree, StuRat, that we're saying very similar things about how these issues should be handled. Although one point where we may sort of differ is that, as Trovatore indicated, articles should begin with simple statements, but never wrong ones. The biggest part of my point, though, was regarding how to approach the problem: working with experts, rather than perceiving yourself as fighting against them. -- SCZenz 06:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I believe I have tried to compromise. For example, just deleting all the content unreadable to a general audience would be my first instinct, but I don't do that, since it would no doubt upset the PhDs. I have, however, insisted on introdutions, at least, being readable by a general audience. And even then, I have only done so for articles which the general audience is likely to encounter. StuRat 13:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I think what you're insisting on is right. The question is, do you ask for them to help make things more understandable? My impression, from your language and "first instinct" above, is that you might make more progress if you did more asking and less preemptive editing and confronting. But hey, if your standard of reasonableness is not vandalizing a couple thousand physics and math articles, that's your deal. I'll just say that, if there are specific cases where you've talked to "PhD's" and they haven't been responsive, let me know and I'm willing to help. -- SCZenz 20:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
You may call removing material that isn't readable vandalism, but I don't. However, as I said, I don't do that anyway. The comment about asking before making any changes isn't in accordance with the "be bold" policy, which states you should fix any problems you see. Also, if you want to take the example of the Boolean algebra article, there were comments going back years stating how unreadable it was, yet nothing had been done. For example, at the very top of the talk page was this comment, by one of the founders of Wikipedia:
(The following discussion occurred prior to Feb 25 2002)
Explain to me why the word "lattice" has to be mentioned in an article called "Boolean algebra" at all. For Chrissakes, Boole isn't even mentioned in the article! Sheesh! --LMS, who would have to go back to his books to set things right.
StuRat 20:37, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
WP:BOLD doesn't mean you should jump in and write something that's wrong. As I said above, writing a generally-understandable, accurate article on something is harder, and requires a better understanding, than writing an arcane academic article on it. I have no idea what fields you might be an expert in, but that's the reason that I personally don't edit articles in biochemistry. For all that, you're obviously welcome to be bold with any article; but you sure can't complain if someone who knows the subject and can cite a source reverts you. To avoid that, discussing first might be nice; WP:BOLD actually does say that's a good idea if you think your changes might not be agreed with.
As for action sometimes not being taken, there's lot of stuff to be done that's behind on Wikipedia. That's the part I've been offering to help with. -- SCZenz 02:03, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I will keep that in mind. But surely you can see my point, that if one of the founders of Wikipedia complained about the article being too complex over 3.5 years ago, and many others since then, and it still hadn't been fixed, you can't blame Celestianpower for deciding to be bold and trying to fix it. And you will also note that, as a result of their changes, and my support for the effort, the article's intro was finally improved. Based on the record, I am rather skeptical that any such improvement would have taken place otherwise. I am also rather skeptical that the intro will remain readable by a general audience. StuRat 03:02, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Please do join the project if you'd like to help out. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 03:29, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Improvement drive

Asteroid deflection strategies is currently nominated on WP:IDRIVE. Support the article with your vote if you would like to see it improved on the article improvement drive!--Fenice 18:25, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Scientific peer review

A scientific peer review has been started and we're looking for Wikipedians who are members of the scientific academic community to run for the board. If you want to give it a shot come over and post a little about yourself. New nominations are being accepted until the 00:00 on the 17th March.

The project aims to combine existing peer review mechanisms (Wikipedia peer review, featured article candidate discussion, article assessment, &c.) which focus on compliance to manual of style and referencing policy with a more conventional peer review by members of the scientific academic community. It is hoped that this will raise science-based articles to their highest possible standards. Article quality and factual validity is now Wikipedia's most important goal. Having as many errors as Britannica is not good–we must raise our standards above this. --Oldak Quill 18:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm rather disappointed that making the article readable by a general audience is not included in your list of criteria. If you need anyone to check for that, please let us know. StuRat 18:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I quickly wrote the list of criteria - it is certainly not exhaustive. --Oldak Quill 22:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I see. Would you be willing to add that criterion to the list ? StuRat 02:45, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 13:44, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:47, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

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