Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-10-10/Article quality criticisms

Comment

There are other major problems also worth addressing. The common one of these is that articles are pitched at too high a level. See, for example, Chromosome. I can't see why we shouldn't have an article a layman can understand on this, perhaps with still having technical details right at the end under a heading "technical details" that a layman can safely ignore. At present, it has no value to me. Nor can I help simplify or refactor it, because I have so little idea of what is going on. We are lucky to have many experts around on Wikipedia, but unfortunate in that too often they write articles that only other experts will understand. jguk 06:48, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we should make it clear that while technical articles are great, and we really want the important verifiable details, that can be done and still have an accessible overview for the layman. Maybe we should even strengthen policy recommendations to say that all articles should be focused on the average educated person with details only an expert could understand in their own subsection or according to Wikipedia:Summary style, in a sub article. As to quality issues, I've said it before, the radically open process is great as a start, but it can only get most articles to a certain level. To get to a significantly higher level of quality, it will require some type of stable branch where only qualified writers and editors can edit. Some system would have to be found to identify those editors, perhaps in a RFA like manner. - Taxman ^Talk 12:17, 11 October

2005 (UTC)

We don't have to compromise the openness of editing. We can integrate the products of the future Wikipedia DVD with our openly edited articles. The most important articles will go through a careful editing process for the DVD version, which will also be published on the website. The checked articles will be displayed in a top box with a clear "verfied version" label, while a bottom box contains the "live version". This way those seeking to just learn info can read the top box, and others drawn into editing their area can hop to the bottom and improve the article even more. lots of issues | leave me a message 04:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]