Comments on: Wikipedia articles that are too technical.

Wikipedia articles that are too technical.

loquacious — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:36:29 -0800

Tonight I present to you Wikipedia articles that are too technical. Warning: Your brain may explode.

By: turing_test

turing_test — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:39:17 -0800

Wow, a link to a number of things that I am interested in. Thanks, loquacious!

By: nola

nola — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:40:00 -0800

Thanks I . . . *brain explodes*

By: Kwantsar

Kwantsar — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:40:22 -0800

Good poster. Bad post.

By: kuujjuarapik

kuujjuarapik — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:41:17 -0800

umm, most of the articles are empty.

By: barchan

barchan — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:44:17 -0800

Kuujjuarapik, you have to hit "article" in the tabs at the top of the Wikipedia page. The links go to the discussion portion of the article.

By: darksasami

darksasami — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:46:59 -0800

Not as cool as this Google search. Still cool, though.

By: abulafa

abulafa — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:47:52 -0800

Ok. That did it. That's the straw that made me stop giving money to wikimedia. For all the good they still do (the things I search for are consistently well-covered) the hall-monitors have taken over. What alien mind virus has made such a decent idea into some sort of finite-space analog where quality is second fiddle to conformity?

By: escabeche

escabeche — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:47:53 -0800

I don't quite get the point as regards the math articles. Yes, the page about "cohomological dimension" is technical. Too technical for most people who might stumble across it. But not too technical for anyone with the slightest reason to want to know what cohomological dimension is! The math articles on wikipedia are, by and large, one of the site's finest features; I use them all the time when I'm in a coffeeshop and need a definition or a theorem statement.

By: empath

empath — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:51:26 -0800

I've often looked at math and science articles on wikipedia and have understood maybe a third of what's on the page, and I think I'm a pretty bright guy. I think it's amazing that there are so many technical, detailed explanations on there, and I don't think they should be removed but I do think more attention should be paid to the 'cohomological dimensions for dummys' sections of the articles.

By: phrontist

phrontist — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:57:11 -0800

empath: Some topics simply have no "for dummies" explanation - it's silly to demand laymen's introductions to every arcane topic under the sun. It would be nice, but it's certainly no reason to condemn and article.

By: escabeche

escabeche — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:58:31 -0800

The point is that I don't think there is any sensible way of talking about cohomological dimension that doesn't presuppose that you are not, say, at least a first-year graduate student in pure math. It's not about being smart or willing to read carefully; it requires having spent years climbing the very grand heap of prior ideas in order to get to the place where cohomological dimension sits -- not all that near the top. (on preview, what phrontist said.)

By: washburn

washburn — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:01:30 -0800

I wonder why the links go to the articles' talk pages, rather than to the articles themselves. It seems like sound policy to make Wikipedia articles as accessible as possible, and that many of the articles on this list could be improved. I'm glad to see editors paying attention to this. This page explains Wikipedia's philosophy re accessibility, and it seems pretty much like common sense to me: Every reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that material is presented in the most widely accessible manner possible. If an article is written in a highly technical manner, but the material permits a more accessible explanation, then editors are strongly encouraged to rewrite it. I don't think this is cause for alarm.

By: kittyprecious

kittyprecious — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:07:02 -0800

For all the good they still do (the things I search for are consistently well-covered) the hall-monitors have taken over. I'm not familiar with the editing nuances of wikiworld, but it seems like these flags maybe don't get revisited when the articles in question get revised. For example, the complaint about aquifer (an object whose basic description is pretty simple) seems to have been addressed rather clearly.

By: TheOnlyCoolTim

TheOnlyCoolTim — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:09:43 -0800

Reading about stuff like cohomological dimensions is something that makes me hope for the future. It's like how they came up with the complex numbers many many years before anyone figured out you could use them to figure out electric circuits, before anyone was even trying to figure out electric circuits - what are they going to figure out how to do with the cohomological dimensions?

By: YoBananaBoy

YoBananaBoy — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:14:51 -0800

you have to hit "article" in the tabs at the top of the Wikipedia page. The links go to the discussion portion of the article. Ah. Thanks. Yesh, these must be too technical for me if I can't get to the article without a helpdesk ticket.

By: vronsky

vronsky — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:18:25 -0800

those articles made my head explode! warning:exploding heads

By: abulafa

abulafa — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:20:09 -0800

The one that turned me was the discussion of the Bridge Pattern. An anonymous editor's critique: "Why are there all these code samples?" A moderator responds favorably, belying a misunderstanding of the value of seeing the same concept illustrated across many languages. You learn nuance and best practice that way, and wikipedia was once a fine place to figure out comparative programming. Sure, give me an overview and justification, great. But give me the detail that editors are willing to provide, validate, and maintain.

By: krippledkonscious

krippledkonscious — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:27:17 -0800

From the list, the link to the Banzai Pipeline entry caught my eye. In question is the use of jargon employed in describing Pipeline's particular wave mechanics:

When hit by a north swell, the peak becomes a true A-frame, with Pipe closing out a bit and peeling off left, and the just-as-famous Backdoor going right. As the size at Pipe increases, over 12 feet usually, Second Reef starts cracking, with longer walls, and more size. At an extreme size Third Reef starts to bomb out.

Seriously, that got me stoked. But I think this entry is on the wrong list - it needs to be moved to "Wikipedia articles that need more technical info, brah."

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:28:20 -0800

it seems like these flags maybe don't get revisited when the articles in question get revised Usually "serious" flags add those boxes at the top of the article. Like "biased" or "doesn't cite sources". (Maybe it changes the page template.) This flag is just a category, and I think people just ignore categories.

By: bonehead

bonehead — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:29:51 -0800

Some topics simply have no "for dummies" explanation I disagree with this sentiment, both generally and in detail. One of the most profound things an old prof of mine once told me was that if you can't explain the gist of a topic to an interested layman in a sentence or two, then you really don't understand it yourself. There are plenty of examples of people who can do this well. Feynmann was a master at it: read his Six Easy Pieces. See Hawking's A Brief History of Time. See Holldobler and Wilson's The Ants. I could name a dozen more covering all the fields of scientific inquiry. Is it hard to do this well? Sure, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth a try. I do not support dumbing down the articles one bit, but brief introductions in plain language help even experts orient themselves to a topic.

By: escabeche

escabeche — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:38:57 -0800

One of the most profound things an old prof of mine once told me was that if you can't explain the gist of a topic to an interested layman in a sentence or two, then you really don't understand it yourself. I do think that's profound, but I also think it's false. I review popular math books all the time. Some of them are really first-rate (John Derbyshire's book on the Riemann hypothesis is a good example.) They don't try to explain the gist of the topic to laymen in a sentence or two; they use a whole book. And still, they don't really come close to a gist. At best, you get a milligist. I hope I don't seem cranky about this, but I really do believe that you can't learn very much mathematics without concerted study.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:39:52 -0800

Sometimes it takes a whole book to give a dummy's explanation. Simon Singh is really good at this. See his books on the Big Bang and Fermat's Last Theorem. But he does it by explaining each concept as he goes along, and Wikipedia already has that... you just have to follow the links.

By: chlorus

chlorus — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:45:59 -0800

This is silly. For example, could someone please explain to me how an article about the Boltzmann Equation could be any less technical without omitting important information? The intro is fine for us liberal arts majors, we just stop reading when we get to the funny looking symbols and letters.

By: R. Mutt

R. Mutt — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 20:48:37 -0800

The highly technical things I know about "Contemporary Art Production" ain't listed... WTF Wikipedia???

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:08:55 -0800

I found the articles to be largely accurate (perhaps missing a nuance here & there) and far from incomprehensible, or "too technical". If I had the time, I'd sign up as an editor, merely to correct some of the more glaring (minor) errors that I noticed. I have a mental list of about 387 things I'd prefer to see corrected, in the collective interests of other lay readers like me.

By: mendel

mendel — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:25:45 -0800

All this is is a list of articles for which some Wikipedia user has put the "This article is too technical" infobox on the article's discussion page. That's it. It's not a Wikipedia-official list, or a particular damnation -- it's just a list of articles that someone (and not the same person every time) thought was too technical and would therefore like someone who knows the subject to take a look and see if it could benefit from simplifying. (The reason that the talk pages are linked is because the "too technical" cleanup tag goes on the talk page, so that people reading the article itself helpfully remain ignorant of the claim.)

By: porpoise

porpoise — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:30:37 -0800

Wait - the articles aren't actually made unavailable because someone flagged it as "too technical," right? This is just a plea for someone to ... wait, bollux up a perfectly informative page into a "biphenyl degradation for dummies?" I dunno - would including links explaining the background for certain terms/ideas required to "understand" a particular wiki page be sufficient to remove the "too technical" flag? Using the biphenyl example, rudimentary ideas that are required to understand the body of the article are linked. From definitions of an organic compound, chemical formula, or even crude oil to methods such as distillation, salient information about it's handling by providing a definition for flashpoint, and even related products like liquid crystals. It also has links to explain common chemical reactions like coupling reactions to more specific reactions like the Suzuki and the Ullmann. Maybe this particular post wasn't such a great one to flag as "too technical." empath - ... and have understood maybe a third of what's on the page, and I think I'm a pretty bright guy What were limitations to you're understanding the other 2/3rds of a page?

By: porpoise

porpoise — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:33:48 -0800

Oh... can I flag post on some random over-exposed celebrity as "too technical" because I find the the subject matter alien and I lack the associated cultural knowledge to appreciate why that celebrity matters?

By: spock

spock — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:07:18 -0800

There are 200 pages in this section of this category. Miss Shirley, hold my calls.

By: christopherious

christopherious — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 23:12:23 -0800

I'm still with bonehead, others here and with the originators of this flag. In the majority of cases, it is certainly possible to at least include some text that attempts to summarize the scope of the article and it appears that many of the articles with this flag either don't attempt to do so, or do it inadequately. That's not the same thing as saying that Wikipedia editors need to water down their content in any way, and it's certainly not a suggestion that any layperson reading such a summary would come away with a full grasp of the subject. And porpoise, although your question may have been rhetorical/sarcastic I think the answer is actually yes (sort of). It's still specialist knowledge that requires specialist training.

By: [expletive deleted]

[expletive deleted] — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:10:59 -0800

These are some of Wikipedia's finest articles. They are written not for a general audience, but for the average person seeking a definition of the term. What the fuck is wrong with that? Here's an examle: Cytochrome P450 reductase; as someone who has taken one semester of microbi and one of biochem, this is at the limit of what I can comprehend prima facie. I may have to follow a few links, but I don't have to do a search to know what NADPH is. I actually learned something from this article. I needed to read up on Cytochrome P450, but what of it? I have lost 20 minutes and gained a fuller understanding of the composition and nature of electron supply chains, the way reducing potential is used for energy inside the cell, steroidogenesis and hepatic detoxification. Thanks Wikipedia! Stay too technical.

By: Catfry

Catfry — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:50:02 -0800

I can understand the argument that some things are very difficult to, and doesn't neccessarily have to be explained in laymans terms. The example with cohomological dimensions, and that only people who would have a chance of understanding what the article was about, would read up on it in the first case, is easy to understand. But in the cases where you have a topic that has a greater likelyhood of interesting the ordinary me, I find it annoying when the article is filled with technical words, all the way through, and neither in the overview nor anywhere else is there given room for 'ordinary language'. Medical text on wikipedia is very prone to this juxtaposition between a likelyhood of being of interest to a great deal of ordinary people, but having been written only with others, proficient in the language of the profession, in mind.

By: jeffburdges

jeffburdges — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 03:29:43 -0800

It's a bogus category. I see most articles there are not too complex. And two complex is subjective. In fact they have categories for "needs expert attention". If you feel an artcile istoo complex, it probably means it needs an expert to trim it down.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 05:53:56 -0800

It's not a Wikipedia-official list, ??? This is Wikipedia. Everything is just a list put together by some random users.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 05:54:54 -0800

And of course, since it's Wikipedia, you can remove any of the articles that you think don't belong in this category.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:36:42 -0800

I was actually just thinking of this the other day. One of the coolest things about wikipedia is that as you get into more technical issues, you get more technical writing. I disagree with this sentiment, both generally and in detail. One of the most profound things an old prof of mine once told me was that if you can't explain the gist of a topic to an interested layman in a sentence or two, then you really don't understand it yourself. You ought to be able to explain it, but a sentence or two? I mean I don't know what your area of expertise is, but how could you explain a non-deterministic finite state automata in a sentence or two? Or context free grammar? You could maybe explain those things in a few paragraphs, but not one or two sentances. I found the articles to be largely accurate (perhaps missing a nuance here & there) and far from incomprehensible, or "too technical". If I had the time, I'd sign up as an editor, merely to correct some of the more glaring (minor) errors that I noticed. I have a mental list of about 387 things I'd prefer to see corrected, in the collective interests of other lay readers like me. Dude, you don't need to sign up to edit! The next time you see something you want to correct, correct it! Just press the 'edit' tab at the top. The only reason to sign in is if you want to keep track of the work you're doing, otherwise it goes under your IP.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 07:41:48 -0800

For all the good they still do (the things I search for are consistently well-covered) the hall-monitors have taken over. The behavior I find most amusing, as a former Wikipedian, is this tendency ... well, I'm not sure how to label it, but essentially, Wikipedians love to flag something as needing work of one kind or another — they never love to actually do the work they're flagging the article for.

This article needs copyediting. Well, copyedit it.
This article has a trivia section. Well, assuming that that's a bad thing (I don't, but they do), integrate it into the main article's text.
This article is written from a fictional point of view. Well rewrite it.
This article has too many kumquats. Well pick 'em, for God's sake.

Seriously, those folks on Wikipedia are, to my eyes, an amazing example of how mankind, if left to form its own bureaucracy by mass rule and forcefully shepherded by a scary Ayn Randic meglomaniac, can create one hell of an amusement that rivals the government for inefficiency and failing at its essential purpose.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 07:44:53 -0800

I use them all the time when I'm in a coffeeshop and need a definition or a theorem statement. To drop into casual conversation, or perhaps to spice up that poem you're about to recite?

By: davy

davy — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:17:23 -0800

I saw no mention of fellatio, so why do so few folks get it right?

By: yohko

yohko — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:20:06 -0800

if you can't explain the gist of a topic to an interested layman in a sentence or two, then you really don't understand it yourself. There are plenty of examples of people who can do this well. Feynmann was a master at it: read his Six Easy Pieces. See Hawking's A Brief History of Time. I think these books are longer than a sentence or two.

By: davy

davy — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:45:02 -0800

"If you can't explain the gist of a topic to an interested layman in a sentence or two, then you really don't understand it yourself." Here's one: somebody please explain in a sentence or two the gist of Shiite theology. Not Muslim theology generally, not the political notion of who should rule the Muslim community, but those theological concepts that separate Shia from Sunni.

By: davy

davy — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:46:09 -0800

Note that I'm not holding you to a limit on the length of the sentences nor am I forbidding subordinate claues.

By: davy

davy — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:47:59 -0800

subordinate claues Or subordinate clauses either. (I'm starting to think I need to clean my keyboard thoroughly, sorry.)

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:15:42 -0800

I got into an argument in a taproom with a buddy of mine and wikipedia settled it for us. We were shooting pool and talking about enzymes that regulate glucocorticoid action in the brain. See we knew 11-Beta Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase was the name of a family of enzymes that catalyzes the conversion of inert 11 keto-products to active cortisol, or vice versa and regulates acccess of glucocorticoids to the steroid receptors but he was saying coenzymes composed of ribosylnicotinamide 5'-diphosphate coupled to adenosine 5'-phosphate by pyrophosphate linkages were used as a cofactor and I said no, it must be nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate because it's a coenzyme composed of ribosylnicotinamide 5'-phosphate coupled by pyrophosphate linkage to the 5'-phosphate adenosine 2',5'-bisphosphate. As turns out, they're both cofactors - Thanks Wikipedia!

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:00:48 -0800

The central theological concept that separates the Sunnis and the Shiites is whether religious leadership is to be determined by egalitarian means and statecraft or through bloodline (of the prophet Mahammad), heirarchy and divine inspiration, respectively. Of course - given the iteration of heirarchy in Shiite sects (Twelver Shiism, Sevener Shiism, the Zaydis, the Alawites, the Druzes) it's tough to get your Shiite straight, so your point is taken. Like saying "Martin Luther" in explaining the difference between Catholics and Protestants. But I think the issue is making a complex point clear rather than overall brevity.

By: vsync

vsync — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:51:47 -0800

WCityMike:

The behavior I find most amusing, as a former Wikipedian, is this tendency ... well, I'm not sure how to label it, but essentially, Wikipedians love to flag something as needing work of one kind or another — they never love to actually do the work they're flagging the article for.

I beg to differ. As someone that has participated in both sides of that system, I see the value of flagging an article for later followup. The simplest argument in favor of this system is the same that applies to open-source software development: just because you can't — or don't have the time to — code (write encyclopedia articles) doesn't mean you can't help development by participating in the absolutely critical peer review process. I can get terribly distracted but even I realize that if I'm hunting for something specific: information on a software development tool, say, and I find a semi-terrible article that nevertheless points me in the right direction, it's not a good idea for purposes of time management to stop and spend an hour fixing everything wrong with the article. But I can make a note so that someone who does have the time knows where to start, and so that someone having trouble reading the article knows it's not simply a problem with their reading comprehension. I've flagged articles, I've outright edited articles, I've done work based on others' flags, and I've gone back and implemented my own suggestions later. I'm proud of each of those instances because in each case I've contributed in a tiny way to improving a public resource. Better than scratching dirty words in the walls and throwing cigarette butts all over the street, anyway. And with that, I'm done with both Wikipedia and Metafilter for the day and off to do some real work.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 15:07:56 -0800

MetaFilter: it's tough to get your Shiite straight

By: Chuckles

Chuckles — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 14:03:17 -0800

The one that turned me was the discussion of the Bridge Pattern. Ya, that is a good example.. The graphic doesn't even have a representation of a bridge pattern. If they mean that the graphic itself is the bridge pattern (seems to be the case), they should say that explicitly (like, with a box around the whole thing labeled 'design pattern'). On top of that, the connection symbols used in the diagram have no meaning to me, and certainly no meaning at all to a general audience. And another, from the article:

One thing all shapes can do is draw themselves.

Huh? And I'm only getting started.. From the design pattern article:

Design patterns gained popularity in computer science after the book Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software was published in 1994. ... The scope of the term remained a matter of dispute into the next decade.

Heh.. Perhaps this is the root of the problem. There seem to be a lot of "new" concepts in software engineering that only serve to muddy the actual issues. I guess that is a common property in every young field - it takes time for the language to settle. On the other hand, software engineering is in a unique position.. In software you can always layer another level of abstraction onto what has gone before, and you can always claim that the new level is actually something new, rather than just some guys latest pet way of describing the same old thing. I mean, software is inherently just more and more layers of abstraction anyway, so.. If that mechanism is at work here, it is in the interest of the person promoting the new term to muddy the water, so that the overlap isn't obvious. Nah, that second possibility must be wrong, 'cause the article says:

the practical application of design patterns is a phenomenon

Phenomenal! Too bad they haven't settled on a definition yet.

By: Chuckles

Chuckles — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 14:14:13 -0800

One of the most profound things an old prof of mine once told me was that if you can't explain the gist of a topic to an interested layman in a sentence or two, then you really don't understand it yourself. As a matter of personal philosophy, I totally agree. However, to add a little objectivity, one might say that this is more provable as it applies to an entire field, rather than an individual practitioner. Which is, I guess, just an abstracted way of interpreting my screed on software engineering :P

By: mdn

mdn — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 18:38:26 -0800

One of the most profound things an old prof of mine once told me was that if you can't explain the gist of a topic to an interested layman in a sentence or two, then you really don't understand it yourself. Well, if it were as simple as that, then we'd all understand everything, wouldn't we? Clearly even those easy explanations for the layman don't really make everything completely clear... In a way it's a misguided hope of our capacity as teachers, and a stupid expectation to have of our students, to think that issues of real complexity, and honestly, long, hard drudgery, can be communicated so neatly. That's not to say you can never open a topic up, show someone why it's interesting, or give them a peek into what you study, but I dunno if that can be called "the gist", and even then it really depends on the topic, and what about it is so interesting. I would say that the ability to explain complex topics in simple terms is probably not indicative of how well you understand the complex topic to start with. Some people are just good at explaining things straightforwardly. Sometimes they also have a very good grasp of the higher order difficulties, but sometimes, they are simply thinking the whole time in a more boxy configured straightforward model that's easier to translate to lay terms. And sometimes the people who can't explain in lay terms have trouble because they're still fundamentally lacking a real sense of the big picture, but sometimes it's because they have so many details and complications that to them, telling the boxy straightforward model is missing the entire point of the investigation and a complete waste of time, that's nothing to do with their research.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:23:41 -0800

Well, unfairly to you, I'm replying very late, but: just because you can't — or don't have the time to — code (write encyclopedia articles) doesn't mean you can't help development by participating in the absolutely critical peer review process. [and] it's not a good idea for purposes of time management to stop and spend an hour fixing everything wrong with the article. You've misunderstood the crux of my statement. I am not arguing that there is something inherently wrong with the act of flagging an article for a certain problem. I am saying that the concept of flagging an article is being heavily abused on Wikipedia, because slapping an abbreviated tag (with the slapping of that few-letter tag often even automated by 'bot') is inherently easier than creation, citation, and copyediting; it is also abused there as a weapon of internal politics. Nothing is wrong with actually tagging an article for a problem. But when it takes the place of actually writing for most Wikipedians and still allows them to maintain the self-illusion that they are making a substantial contribution, then its misuse becomes a problematic trend (that shows little sign of abatement). To use your analogy, there's nothing to submit to peer review if people don't actually keep contributing code — and if those people who actually code end up having their code mangled by countless peer reviews, they're going to lose most of their desire to contribute further code.