[WikiEN-l] On Clarity and Generalists

Sat Oct 15 11:22:29 UTC 2005

Snowspinner wrote

> Which is why I didn't simply append this to Jimbo's discussion - it  is a 
> separate one.

Don't get me wrong - I welcome a chance to talk about content on this list.

So far I have marked my card as

-J. Wales - celeb articles can be awash with facts and factoids but not add 
up to a good read at all
-D. Gerard - The Economist's style rocks

>This isn't just a matter of writing style - it' a  matter of focus. As a 
>general encyclopedia, we need to be targetted  at a general audience - that 
>means that, if nothing else, what the  New York Times identifies as major 
>events in someone's life are, for  our purposes, major events.

POV!  Sorry, for Derrida, some of us really don't accept that he was born 
again in Yale.  That is, he is a European philosopher (the French WP defines 
him as 'major French philosopher') and I'll take the [[Vincent Descombes]] 
view over those unreliable rascals at the NYT any day.

 >I'm not saying those are the only ones
> worth paying attention to - but then, I'd support an article on each  of 
> Derrida's publications, so I'm not worried, in the big picture,  about 
> crowding out the academic stuff. I don't think Cambridge and de  Man 
> should be the main focus of the article at all. I do think they  each need 
> their little sections, and that it would be irresponsible  of us to 
> exclude them.

Well, I actually know some of the Cambridge non placets.  Do they know from 
Derrida?  Actually, what they know is what they hate about deconstruction. 
Which is partly disowned by Derrida himself.

Anyway, much of the problem has been caused by the article being over-long, 
and not too much fun to edit.  Perhaps things will improve.

Charles