Random Rants - Wikipedia Woes & Matt Cutts Videos
Posted by on August 18, 2006 at 01:30 PM
Wikipedia Copy Woes
A few weeks ago, I was doing research on the term "Semantic Web" and came across this Wikipedia Definition.
What caught my eye immediately was this block of text that appeared above the entry:
"This article or section seems not to be written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia entry.
Please improve the article or discuss proposed changes on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions."
What are they trying to say - that it doesn't sound completely affected and full of academic jargon? Although I do respect how resourceful Wikipedia is, the editors have forgotten an important point in that online copywriting is a far different beast than copywriting for some venerable academic tome.
I'm not saying that Wikipedia entries should turn into subjective essays full of personal opinions, slang, or God forbid, run-on sentences. But couldn't they at least be a little bit more engaging?
Maybe I'm playing with fire here suggesting that Wikipedia entries need to lighten up a bit. But I completely disagree that they should have to be written in a "formal tone".
I instead recommend that we listen to the wise words of Nick Usborne when he asks why on earth we continue to focus on "bringing an 'ATM' style to the most interactive, vibrant, networked, warm and essentially human communications space imaginable."
Here's another interesting link I found on Wikipedia: Wikipedia Articles Needing Style Editing. Who decides which articles get relegated to this sorry category? A bot? I wonder.....
New Video Posts from Matt Cutts
Am I the only person who is less than thrilled that Matt Cutts is now answering juicy SEO questions via video? Well, I have a good reason. I wear a hearing aid, and his videos are definitely not closed captioned.
I find it ironic that a representative of Google, with its mission to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", would present data in a video-only format.
It's a usability nightmare for a variety of reasons, from the fact that most professionals can't disturb their coworkers by playing noisy videos at their desks to the fact that it's hard to go back and re-read or reference a favorite excerpt to the fact that, oh yeah, I can't even hear him in the first place. (Was that a run-on sentence?)
Disclaimer: I think Matt Cutts' blog is a valuable resource, and one that the SEO community is very grateful for. I just wish I could hear what he was saying.
Tags
wikipedia
matt cutts
Category
SEO Observations
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Comments (2)
Posted on August 22, 2006 08:55 AM
Sarah, I couldn't agree more with your comment on captioning ... and some of us have technical limitations that would prevent us for accessing that content. My computer speakers are pre-podcast boom, which means I have to track down a set of head phones to understand an online audio file. I also identify with your comment on close quarters requiring a polite, quiet, way to access content. I've been in cube environments for more than half my 20 years working. The bigger the company, the smaller and more dense the cube. Not that office walls solved the problem; most are thin enough to let a phone call carry through to next door.
Posted on August 18, 2006 05:08 PM
Sarah, Wikipedia banners are placed by individuals who believe an article needs an overhaul of one sort or another. They are all placed manually; bots don't place clean-up tags. It's a common misconception that there's some sort of monolithic "they" over at Wikipedia; the tags you refer to were placed by individual editors, probably with a bit of discussion on the talk page. As for changing the tone of the project: it's an encyclopedia. It may be on the internet, using an extremely dynamic and modern method of communication and collaboration, but it's still an encyclopedia. An informal tone on Wikipedia would be inappropriate for the same reason an overly formal tone would be inappropriate for this blog: the tone currently used is more appropriate for the ends sought.