I agree with everyone here and would add that no matter how hard to read, *any blog entry at all* on this Tech stuff is highly welcome, because it also serves as a written record to refer back to in various ongoing technical projects. Any documentation at all is better than none. I find myself regularly reading old blog entries in order to get a feeling for the purpose of ongoing work. Once begun, people rarely talk about the *why* part of their project, just their progress and the *what*.
Keep up the good work, Sumana! 2013/5/22, Lodewijk <[email protected]>: > I think what is even more helpful to people, is to avoid abbreviations as > much as possible, or explain them. For example: > * Up-Goer 5 (but there was a link next to it - which allows you to guess > what it means) > * SMOG (the stuff that is in the air, right?) > * FKT > > Usually this kind of abbreviations (without in-text explanation) makes > texts much harder to read. Even a link to an explanation is usually less > helpful than a few words of what it actually is (especially when reading > offline - yes, that world still exists). > > Anyway, aside from that, I think Quim has a point that jargon is much more > dangerous than complicated words. However, don't underestimate the amount > of non-native volunteers. I have all too often heard at meetings that > people felt insecure to participate in a discussion because they felt it > was above their level. Some native speakers have the habit of going all > wild with complicated words (this is not too common, gladly) and then you > realize that texts with long sentences with lots of long complicated words > are much harder to understand, even if you understand each word by itself. > > So this score thing Sumana linked to might indeed be helpful, but probably > only at longer texts. At short texts there is not enough critical mass to > be precise. > > Lodewijk > > > 2013/5/22 MZMcBride <[email protected]> > >> Sumana Harihareswara wrote: >> >When you're trying to write a blog.wikimedia.org entry or >> >wikitech-ambassadors email about a technical topic, but you want to make >> >sure nontechnical Wikimedians can read it, is there an automated check >> >you can run through? >> >> I'd recommend doing what we do on the wiki to make topics easier or more >> accessible: include a lot of links. The blog is worryingly low on links in >> each post, given that it's the blog of Wikimedia, king of [[links]]. >> Perhaps linking needs to be made easier in WordPress? >> >> I'm not sure there's much else to be said other than "avoid the use of >> (unexplained) jargon and write clearly and concisely." >> >> The Wikimedia blog is made up of several sub-blogs. The tech blog seems >> like it would inherently be more... technical than the community blog or >> the fundraising blog. Unless the larger issue is the audience question. >> That's a bit of a rabbit hole, though. >> >> MZMcBride >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l >> > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
