Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-08-30/Essay



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  • I disagree with the changes to pick-up sticks. Many games (e.g. Scrabble) involve scoring individual rounds but not tallying up scores across multiple rounds at the end of the game, so I would say if the rules do specify what to do with the scoreboard at the end of a session it should go in the article. That particular sentence you've deleted may be redundant because the same instructions also appear under the "winning" heading of the article, but the content needs to be preserved. Deryck C. 14:53, 30 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm moving this comment to next month's humour article. Barbara ✐  ✉ 00:20, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Barbara: You are welcome. Deryck C. 20:25, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean when you write that Scrabble involves "scoring individual rounds but not tallying up scores across multiple rounds at the end of the game"? Whether you keep a running total or save all the work to the end, one way or the other the scores are added up. EEng 12:30, 4 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree with Michael Kinsley's send-up of The New York Times article on corn. I believe it was Thomas Mann who said, "only the exhaustive is truly interesting." (How's that for erudition? Thomas freaking Mann!) As a drudge who delves into the obscure of which little is recorded, I try to squeeze meaning from every single word. The comment that people eat tree bark in times of famine would readily be referenced in the wikipedia article famine. The facts that Mr. Sturtevant was a farmer and educated at Harvard give us a sense of the man. Would that we knew more about the lives of Plato or Jesus from some ancient scribbler. Smallchief (talk)
Sure, except the article was about corn. I might add the Michael freaking Kinsley's pretty erudite himself.
I'm writing this post on my new laptop. It's a Lenovo. I bought it at Best Buy, where I got a great deal on an open box unit. In fact after offering it to me they couldn't find it in their inventory and I had to find it myself, and I made them feel so guilty about it that they took an extra $100 off. The salesman's name was Jerry and he had a blue shirt and tan slacks. He said he likes egg salad. I mention all this in case he founds a new religion and people want to know more about him 2000 years from now. EEng 21:17, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I look at Wikipedia as writing for people of 2000 years from now, who may not know what a Lenovo or Best Buy or salesman or egg salad is -- but some of them may want to know. Smallchief (talk) 07:12, 4 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In all seriousness I think 5-to-50 years should be our horizon. EEng 12:21, 4 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"I do not write for this generation. I write for other ages." A fact once lost, like an extinct species, is lost forever. Smallchief (talk) 10:39, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The sources we rely on and cite carry the definitive record of all the stuff we omit. EEng 02:32, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • As much as I agree with much of this, and often make such corrections myself with similarly arch edit summaries, some of this is wrong. The opening excerpt from Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft leaves out the important context that the thieves got into the museum after hours by dressing up as police officers—knowing that, it makes more sense to note that the guards had been effectively deceived. Daniel Case (talk) 15:15, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That info is in the article, just before the passage quoted. That the guards were deceived is apparent; the question is how we (Wikipedia) communicate to our readers the manner in which the guards came to realize they had been deceived. Given that we're definitely going to mention that the guards got tied up, it seems superfluous to mention that the bad guys apparently prefaced that action by declaring, following the old cliche, "This is a stickup!" EEng 21:17, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@EEng: I stand corrected; I read the article afterwards and saw that it was in the preceding sentence of that version. Context is important.

Better sourcing could help; AIR that article relies almost exclusively on online newspaper articles as sources. But Stephen Kurkjian, one of the reporters whose work is cited extensively, gives a much clearer account in his book The Master Thieves, about how the guards (more like nightwatchmen, really, as they didn't wear the uniforms that "guards" would suggest) were totally fooled until after they'd let the "cops" in (Kurkjian also points out how the timing, apparently deliberate, helped: it was right after St. Patrick's Day, a time when cops in a lot of large Eastern and Midwestern cities, but especially Boston, were going to be letting their guard down and so the museum's security was less vigilant as well). Daniel Case (talk) 04:42, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Does this means you're not sore at me anymore? EEng 05:27, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think many of the examples for image captions should be wary of accesibility issues. The essay relies a lot on assuming the reader can see the image, which for users using screen readers or with limited vision is not the case. The deleted text in the above captions may be useful for describing the image to those who cannot (clearly) see the image (due to bandwidth or physical limitation) and should at least be considered for alt-text. We should also be careful of alt-text that already exists because occassionally it says "refer to caption" and if the caption is removed (like in twist tie) or made less descriptive of the image, it can compromise the usefulness and accesibility of the page for visitors using screen readers. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 17:40, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The examples in this essay relate to the captions per se, which are for those seeing the image. Obviously the alt should be much more descriptive. Your point about being care not to remove caption material, without checking to see whether the alt relies on it, is a good one.
I've often thought that a great project would be to systematically add alts to images that don't have them (which is most of them – I myself almost always forget to add them). It's a huge unmet need, there are few opportunities for controversy, and it's something inexperienced or young editors can do without a big earning curve. EEng 19:25, 3 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • As someone who does a lot of editing, I agree with some of your comments, but keep in mind that the Wikipedia audience is quite broad. Call it the common reader, the general audience, the public. Everyone? In such a context, someone is going to write something that you as an educated person will find so obvious that it's not even worth mentioning. But there was a time in your life when you don't know that Paris was in France. And so on. Did you know there was a Paris, Texas? And so on. The quantity of examples you give is proof of your exasperation. A normal day at Wikipedia. Perhaps you expect too much.
    Vmavanti (talk) 01:21, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes indeed I know there's a Paris, Texas – it's linked from that example in the essay. Other than that I think there are few if any examples that rely on general knowledge rather than simple common sense. EEng 02:00, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As a geography geek, I would have to agree it is common sense. HOWEVER, thats the problem. Do you honestly believe we have a surplus of common sense, ANYWHERE?!?!?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coal town guy (talk • contribs)
On the subject of general knowledge, I recall my 13 or 14 year old daughter writing a school essay on Pompeii, the city destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 CE (general knowledge? necessary explanation?), which she concluded with the sentence: "After the eruption, everybody in Italy was dead."
My point is that, in an encyclopedia article intended for the general public, explanation is a good thing. Write with the assumption that, a thousand years from now, the total surviving knowledge about a subject is a wikipedia article. Smallchief (talk) 10:27, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand what the relevance of your Pompeii example. EEng 04:00, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]