2009/3/3 Michael Snow <[email protected]>: > I've made this observation before, but I think it bears repeating. At > least on the English Wikipedia, a frequent practice is to start a > section called "Criticism and controversy" or some variation thereof. > This indicates to me an utter failure to write an actual biographical > article. If we can't figure out how to integrate something into the > overall picture of someone's life, then we're definitely failing to > provide the context to actually understand the controversy, probably > giving it distorted emphasis, and possibly lacking the material to treat > the person as the subject of an independent article. Quite often, of > course, the back-and-forth in that section ends up overwhelming any > other content instead.
If bad writing were curable by guidelines and policies, English Wikipedia would be brilliant prose from end to end. It isn't - there's a discernible "Wikipedia style" which is flat, grey and neutralised. Useful for spotting plagiarism of it. Good writers are thin on the ground - most editors are more skilled at researching and referencing, and can write a decipherable sentence. - d. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
