[WikiEN-l] On Clarity and Generalists

Fri Oct 14 21:18:14 UTC 2005

Snowspinner wrote

> All three of these people are going to be very, very disappointed.  Not 
> because [[Uncertainty principle]], [[Jacques Derrida]], and [[The  End of 
> History and the Last Man]] aren't there, or are excessively  short, but 
> rather because they are completely incomprehensible to  people who are not 
> already familiar with the topics. (And I say this  about [[Jacques 
> Derrida]] after spending two hours rewriting the thing)

Let's talk about Jacques, then.

Sorry to be picky, but you have actually destroyed the short sections after 
the lead.  I had worked quite hard on these.  That means that, unlike the 
favoured style where the reader gets told, told again, then told what 
they've been told - you think after the lead they should get the full-on 
biography.  Not helpful, in my book.

> The Derrida article, in its previous form, lacked sections explaining 
> deconstruction and the Paul de Man controversy.

I'm glad you've not gone overboard on de Man.  It's basically gossip, as is 
the Cambridge degree controversy.  The bust-up with Searle could be more 
illuminating than either (except I don't really have time for Searle ...).

>These exist in other  articles, to be sure, but they're also major concepts 
>to anyone  interested in Derrida, and their exclusion is a shocking 
>omission -  anyone looking for general information on Derrida would be 
>misinformed if they did not know these two things.

Right only on the first point, in my view.

<snip>

> Too much of the technical and academic writing in the encyclopedia  reads 
> like it was written for an MA paper, with the nuance, depth,  and 
> qualification that a professor expects from a student. These  articles are 
> not written for professors, nor for grad students - they  are written for 
> the uninformed. We cannot write for the uninformed in  the language we use 
> for experts.

> I don't know what can be done about this - particularly because the  bloat 
> Jimbo has identified as going on in articles like [[Bill  Gates]] and 
> [[Jane Fonda]] goes on in these articles as a sea of  academics adds a 
> paragraph or two about their pet interest in the  subject, until the 
> article has become unmanagable.

Edit.

Part of the trouble with le feu Jacques is that User:Buffyg is camped on the 
doorstep saying what can be said how.  Now, Jacques has undoubtedly been the 
target of slurs.  Slurs have no place in WP. Ergo, the article needs to be 
closely watched.  I pointed out long ago that the French article on Derrida 
was rather different.  But what do they know?  (Actually, not in such good 
shape right now.)

<snip>

>  You can qualify these distillations later -  "Although this is a 
> simplification of Derrida's thought," or  "Although this reading is 
> popular, it is also limited" both spring to  mind as the sorts of things 
> that can be said.

Yeah, but try shoehorning them in and you get a knee in the academic groin 
...

<snip>

> Citing  sources is a tool for referencing and verifying - it cannot 
> interfere  with the readability and usability of an article. A 
> meticulously  referenced but utterly unreadable article helps nobody.)

Now you're talking.  Agree 100% on that.

Charles 