I don't think it is pity to reduce an 800 word article down to under 200
words. Instead of something readable you end up either with a Who's Who
entry - filled with insider abbreviations and obscure wording that must
be decoded or something so bland it has no value to anyone intrested
enough to look it up.
On 3/14/2012 4:41 PM, foundation-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
Dear Robin,
There are several reasons for making a text not too long. Pity with
the reader is one of them.
My point here is that even Brittanica is inherently very English
centric. Why should an obscure ficticious 17th century event in the U.K.
be of more value than an equally obscure event in Honduras (or
wherever)? If I were living in Honduras, I'd be much more interested in
MY local history - which is quite likely to be relevant to my situation
instead of something in a country I'd never visited. Inverting the
situation - If I visit the U.K. I want to be able to access information
on the event in the U.K. but I don't care about Honduras. This is an
ordinary person's perspective - not that of a scholar searching for
obscure information wherever it may be.
I personally try to be reluctant with generalizations about Wikipeda
language versions. They usually are not true. It's often like the
thing that the grass in the neighbour's yard is greener.
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