TIL that readability tests suggest most Wikipedia articles are too sophisticated for their readers.
Have you read some of the articles on math subjects? It's like they're written for mathematicians by mathematicians.
Even some mathematics concepts I have a decent grasp on ... the corresponding wikipedia entry reads like an alien language.
At what baseline should contributors be writing articles or edits? Like 10th grade reading level?
I always hear people appreciate brevity and clarity, but that seems a pretty tough task for certain subjects like the aforementioned math ones.
For a complex topic, what would be a better alternative?
Having a 1000000000 word article that contains all the alien language (jargon) and basic education needed to build up to the explanation?
A short, simple, and completely wrong explanation?
Thats what makes the wiki format so great. When I have no clue what a word means, it's probably blue and I can just follow the link to find out. The problem arises when I'm 20 links in and realize "yeah maybe there's a reason people have phd's in this topic".
That's why they made Simple Wikipedia.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/ is a good alternative sometimes and I'm glad it exists, but that's almost the opposite problem.
It does seem like they make an effort, their style guide starts out with "Probably the hardest part of writing a Wikipedia article on a mathematical topic, and generally any Wikipedia article, is addressing a reader's level of knowledge." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Mathematics
Fuck em