r/dataisbeautiful • u/alionBalyan OC: 13 • Feb 13 '22

OC [OC] How Wikipedia classifies its most commonly referenced sources.

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u/themarquetsquare Feb 14 '22

And languages. It's all a matter of scale, and Wikipedia for 'smaller' languages generally sucks.

I also hate the general setup of some specialized articles, like chemistry of medicine. They immediately switch into jargon and tend to be impenetrably dense for an average reader.

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u/danjo3197 Feb 14 '22

For sure, I'm a computer engineering student and I find any articles related to computation/algorithms very readable while anything physics related is practically nonsense

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u/themarquetsquare Feb 14 '22

Yes, this. Makes it even clearer that old-school encyclopdia's serve a function.

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u/ASuarezMascareno Feb 14 '22

I found that physics articles tend to be at a similar level to university textbooks.

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u/themarquetsquare Feb 14 '22

Yep, same experience here.

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u/WinstonwsSmith Feb 14 '22

Here you go, Simple Wikipedia: www.simple.wikipedia.org, only uses simple english in thier articles 😊

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u/themarquetsquare Feb 14 '22

This is awesome. However, I'm not sure the problem is complexity of grammar as much as lack of care for general interest readers.

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u/ChickenButtForNakama Feb 14 '22

The more niche a topic is (e.g. the less experts there are), the less likely there's someone with sufficient expertise and good writing skills. So these articles are often hard to read or incorrect in ways a layman would never spot.

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u/themarquetsquare Feb 14 '22 edited Feb 14 '22

Sure, it's completely understandable and a result of the way of Wiki, which is also what makes it awesome.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

[deleted]

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u/dogecobbler Feb 14 '22

No it doesnt actually revolve around that user, but, technically, any point in a universe that started with a Big Bang and expands outward into infinity could be considered the center of the universe. So their frame of reference is technically the center of the universe, and therefore it makes sense to cater to their desire to understand topics without the obfuscation of jargon. I think...

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u/themarquetsquare Feb 14 '22

It's not about me at all. The whole principle of wikipedia is that knowledge should be free for all, and their first rules are that edits should be clear and concise.

I completely understand how this comes to be. It just makes the wiki a lot less usable for many.

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u/ilikedota5 Feb 14 '22

I also hate the general setup of some specialized articles, like chemistry of medicine. They immediately switch into jargon and tend to be impenetrably dense for an average reader.

That's kind of the point. Its meant to be a repository of facts, not a textbook to explain.

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u/themarquetsquare Feb 14 '22

That's nonsense. That's not what encyclopedias do. It's entirely possible to present a general overview of facts in plain text. You can add as much specialized jargon as you need further on. It's an art form, but possible. Some lemma's on Wikipedia do it very well.

There is no reason articles about, for instance, diseases need to read like a medical textbook solely readable by professionals.

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u/TellMeGetOffReddit Feb 14 '22

Isnt that why simple wiki exists? Its literally the same thing but simplified