Dear Tom, I couldn't agree more. And I remember that I understand Amir's blog entries quite well, in sharp opposition to some other WMF technical guys' blog entries...
A copy-editor with an eye for newbies, non techies, non native speakers of English etc. would be a great idea. Kind regards Ziko 2012/2/18 Tom Morris <t...@tommorris.org>: > Since Wikipedia started in 2001, great effort has been put into > ensuring that it is readable, clear and understandable by visitors. > Good Wikipedia writing is clear, concise, comprehensive and > consistent. Excellent Wikipedia writing is, according to English > Wikipedia's featured article criteria, "engaging, even brilliant, and > of a professional standard". Wikipedia editors work hard to remove > buzzwords, unnecessary jargon, peacock terms, marketing-speak, weasel > words and other similar clutter from their work. > > And it's not just Wikipedia: all of the Wikimedia projects aspire to > write clearly, neutrally and factually. English Wikinews says simply: > "Write to be easily understood, to make reading easier." > > Sadly, documents and communication from the Foundation, from chapters, > from board members and so on often fall far short of these sentiments. > > There are certain places where it is to be expected that communication > won't necessarily be clear: I wouldn't expect a non-programmer to be > able to understand some of the discussions on Bugzilla or > mediawiki.org, but the Foundation's monthly report is something > editors should be able to understand. > > From January 2012, under Global development's list of department highlights... > > "India program: Six outreach workshops in January in partnership with > the community as part of an effort to increase outreach and improve > conversion to editing" > > An outreach workshop... to increase outreach. Is that a workshop to > train editors on how to do outreach? Or is it a workshop for newbies > teaching them how to edit? Enquiring minds want to know. > > Later on in the same document: "We concluded an exercise on distilling > learnings from all Indic communities and started the process of > seeding ideas with communities." > > I was bold and changed "learnings" to "lessons". What is a learning? > How does one distill a learning? And "seeding ideas with communities"? > The idea, presumably, is the soil, into which one puts each different > community. I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. > > This one is a howler from a subpage of the movement roles discussion: > > "At the same time, for Wikimedia to adopt the best of the Olympic > movement would probably raise the bar on accountabilities for chapters > and other organizations" > > Accountabilities, plural? I can understand accountability, the state > of being accountable to another. But I have no idea what > accountabilities are. Can you collect them like Pokémon cards? And how > would one raise the bar on accountabilities? Would that mean some > accountabilities can't quite reach the bar? (Also, the idea that we > could learn anything about accountability, singular or plural, from > the Olympics strikes me as hilarious given the extensive history of > corruption at the IOC.) > > If you search on Meta, it is possible to find lots and lots of other > documents from the Foundation filled with corporate lingo. Projects > are 'scoped', and there is a list of 'deliverables' -- not just any > deliverables but 'specific deliverables' -- along with 'next steps' to > deliver, err, those deliverables while 'going forward'. > > I can't be the only one who reads these things and whose brain stalls > or goes into reverse. There have been numerous things where I've had > to ask Foundation contacts to explain things in clear and simple > language to me. I don't think I'm particularly stupid or uninformed. > Nor do I think that the people who write in the manner I've described > do it consciously. But we do need to fix it. If well-educated, > informed native English speakers struggle with learnings and > accountabilities and so on, what about those who don't natively speak > English? When people see sloppy, buzzword-driven language, they wonder > if this reflects sloppy, buzzword-driven thinking, or perhaps > obfuscation. Clear writing signals the opposite: clear thinking and > transparency. > > I'm not suggesting we all need to write as if we're editing Simple > English Wikipedia. But just cut out the buzzwords and write plainly > and straightforwardly like the best writing on Wikipedia. > > What can be done about this? > > There seem to be two possible solutions to this problem: one involves > hiring a dominatrix with a linguistics degree to wander the San > Francisco office with handcuffs, a bullwhip, a number of live gerbils > and plentiful supplies of superglue, and given free reign to enforce > the rules in whatever way she deems fit. The other, which involves far > fewer embarrassing carpet stains, is to empower the community to fix > these problems. Have a nice little leaderboard on Meta, and encourage > community members to be bold, fix up bad writing, bad grammar and > buzzwords. Reward their efforts with barnstars and the occasional > thank you messages on talk pages. > > Commit to clear writing by adopting a policy of "copyediting almost > always welcome" for chapter wikis, Foundation documents and as close > to everything as possible. There are volunteers in the movement who > happily spend hour after hour copyediting on Wikipedia and Wikinews > and Wikibooks and so on. Give them the opportunity to fix up the > language used by the Foundation and the chapters. > > Remember: how can community members support and become more deeply > involved with the work of the chapters and the Foundation if they > can't understand what you are saying? > > -- > Tom Morris > <http://tommorris.org/> > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- ----------------------------------------------------------- Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter http://wmnederland.nl/ ----------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
