Grants:IdeaLab/Simple English for Science articles: Difference between revisions

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*I've read many pages like this and it has often stopped me from making any progress with the material. [[User:JoeH93|JoeH93]] ([[User talk:JoeH93|talk]]) 15:50, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
*I've read many pages like this and it has often stopped me from making any progress with the material. [[User:JoeH93|JoeH93]] ([[User talk:JoeH93|talk]]) 15:50, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
*One of the fundamental drawbacks of science articles on Wikipedia that needs to be urgently addressed [[User:Chrisl1991|Chrisl1991]] ([[User talk:Chrisl1991|talk]]) 15:01, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
*One of the fundamental drawbacks of science articles on Wikipedia that needs to be urgently addressed [[User:Chrisl1991|Chrisl1991]] ([[User talk:Chrisl1991|talk]]) 15:01, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
* I completely agree that the lede of many articles needs needs to be significantly clearer. [[User:Stuartyeates|Stuartyeates]] ([[User talk:Stuartyeates|talk]]) 02:16, 18 March 2016 (UTC)


==Expand your idea==
==Expand your idea==

Revision as of 02:16, 18 March 2016

Simple English for Science articles
Invite the Simple English community to contribute to improvement of scientific articles, which are often too technical (to a point of being incomprehensible).
idea creator
SSneg
project manager
Mahusha
researcher
S L Happy
volunteer
JoshMuirWikipediaK CMS
this project needs...
community organizer
advisor
volunteer
join
endorse
created on09:43, 29 February 2016 (UTC)


Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

As this excellent article on Ars Technica put it, "Wikipedia fails as an encyclopedia, to science’s detriment..." because "...entries are excessively technical and provide almost no context, making them effectively incomprehensible".

In other words, you can understand a scientific article on WP only if you are a scientist in the field, but then you don't need the article, do you? And if you are not a scientist, the article provides zero value to you. In some cases, this might cause aversion to science or, more specifically, to Wikipedia being a source for scientific knowledge (as opposed to e.g. pop-culture, trivia, history, etc)

A lot of articles on economics, physics, computer algorithms, medical subjects are really hard to read. You probably know this quote, "Any scientist who couldn't explain to an eight-year-old what he was doing was a charlatan". Well, currently Wikipedia is more of a charlatan-pedia when it comes to scientific subjects.

What is your solution?

I suggest inviting the Simple English community (and everyone else) to create a sort of "Simple English" digest section in the scientific articles as well as cleaning up the articles for readability (for us, laymen).

Goals

  • Identify "Simple English" writing guides
  • Link to them on Simple English Wikipedia
  • Partner with en:WP:Year of Science

Get Involved

About the idea creator

I edit RU wiki and read EN wiki a lot. IRL I am an e-learning developer turned software entrepreneur. I love tech and UI/UX challenges.

Participants

  • Project manager I like science very much. Therefore joining this project. Mahusha (talk) 14:52, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Researcher It is true that some articles are very technical and difficult to understand in the first run. However, technical stuff has their own advantages as well as disadvantages. But making an article easy to read and understand is always preferable. S L Happy (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Volunteer I think it would be great if there was a technical option and a simple option. For me, as a 10th grader, I thoroughly enjoy the struggle of getting through a technical article, and the time I have spent to understand it gives me a solid grasp of concepts. However, for concepts such as spin (quantum physics), I had to refer to external sources. Potentially this simple option could give readers a starting point or an article summary, in which with this grasp they could go onto the more complex details. A current alternative is simple English. JoshMuirWikipedia (talk) 09:18, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Volunteer I would love to volunteer for this idea, writing down science articles in simple English, a fluent medium of communication for me, speaking and writing it more often than I would with my native language, growing up as a child. I suggest that the technical aspect of Science articles may be broken down into bits and pieces and integrated to articles, just like processes and vocabulary, so users may grasp and learn a whole new Science article without any loopholes, like a word unfamiliar to the ordinary reader. K CMS (talk) 12:49, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Endorsements

  • I like this idea, but I would frame it as changing how we think of the lede section of the article (which should summarize the contents and their importance clearly). There can be a place for both a clear and simple explanation and technical details, I think. -- phoebe | talk 20:47, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
    • I agree and think it is an urgent matter. I work mostly in swwiki and when starting science topics I usually cannot even go for translating the article lede sections as they are often way too complicated. I usually switch between several languages (incl. simple) to get an idea how to go ahead. Specially frustrating is a number of the medical articles we got from the Medical Translation Project as the translators often went word-by-word resulting in difficult English coming out completely incomprehensibly in translation. Kipala (talk) 09:44, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
  • My recommendation would be to run a competition with amazon voucher prizes for converting STEM articles to Simple Casliber (talk) 02:53, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
  • No Amazon please: see Criticism of Amazon--Kopiersperre (talk) 06:53, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
  • you could have a technical version and a basic version both in the standard english wiki

excellent idea by the way Nemoanon (talk) 03:40, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

  • I've read many pages like this and it has often stopped me from making any progress with the material. JoeH93 (talk) 15:50, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
  • One of the fundamental drawbacks of science articles on Wikipedia that needs to be urgently addressed Chrisl1991 (talk) 15:01, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I completely agree that the lede of many articles needs needs to be significantly clearer. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:16, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Expand your idea

Would a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation help make your idea happen? You can expand this idea into a grant proposal.

Expand into an Individual Engagement Grant
Expand into a Project and Event Grant