Category talk:Wikipedia articles that are too technical

Why is this category even needed? Julyo 21:33, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Extreme agreement - In addition to the other comments that not all knowledge in an "encyclopedia" is going to be accessable to the novice, I think everyone is getting hung up on what is and isnt an "encyclopedia" in the first place. Wikipedia has transended "encyclopedia" and has become the central repository for any information that people wish to be captured and shared with the world. Its very success stems from its singular nature. If there were 100 "wikipedias", not only would most people not bother to contribute content to all 100; they wouldnt bother to contribute to any 1 because it would only reach 1/100th of the "world". Wikipedia is the one place where a single act of authorship can reach the whole world. It is not, therefore, just an "encyclopedia", and not just a place for universally accessable content. For that, get a set of World Books. PolyGlot 04:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I am concerned, this is not about "dumbing down", but rather about explaining certain subjects in more detail, or finding better analogies. The idea is that this tag would be applied if someone thinks that something could be made more clear. It could be as simple as replacing "H²O" (or "dihydrogen oxide", if someone is trying to be clever) with "water" -- exact same thing, but it looks far less technical and laypeople will find it a lot more readable.

--Scott McNay 05:52, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree - The purpose of an encyclopedia is knowledge, and full knowledge is better than partial or watered-down knowledge. I think these articles merit applause and encouragement - not dumbing down. If someone doesn't fully understand something, they can click on the link to the article that explains the concept they don't understand. That's the beauty and point of hypelinks. Let's not dumb things down. 207.67.132.210 02:12, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have any particular opinion on this category, but I disagree with your comment re "dumbing down". It's possible to make at least some difficult-to-understand article comprehensible to a layperson without "dumbing them down". Having hyperlinks to the simpler concepts is all well and good, but often they may be of little or no help in understanding the current entry at hand. --Jacj 22:41, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Something like this category is very much needed. There are a number of articles that are not readable except to someone already fairly expert in the subject area. This is a general encyclopedia, not a graduate-level textbook. The articles here need revision - not dumbing down, but, as the template says, expansion to "make it accessible to non-experts — without removing the technical details". -R. S. Shaw 18:15, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

And yet, articles covering graduate-level material will never be understandable to those who don't have some training and prior knowledge. There are already way too many math articles in this category that don't deserve to be here, algebraically closed is a great example. It's not too technical at all -- meaning, it's perfectly understandable, to anyone who has a hope of understanding it. Please do not indiscriminately apply this category to articles (esp. math) unless you are within some neighbourhood of the expertise level. (Meaning, don't go putting these tags on category theory articles if you've only had high school algebra or calculus.) Revolver 15:52, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Most of the math articles on this list do not need to be dumbed down. People who do not understand the current "Differential Geometry" article, for instance, would not benefit from some meaningless bs instead, in fact, such things might be detrimental & produce wrong impressions. --- Aug. 8 2005

This category is fully justified. I get so frustrated when I want to look something up and I go there and don't understand it for beans. While I understand some things need to be technical in order for you to understand them, and that you can't understand them without understanding the pre-requistites, as the user who said about the math articles if you wanted to look up an article on Calculus, in order for it to be dry and simple, it would have to be a HUGE article, because in order to understand it you first have to understand algebra, some geometry and trigonometry (because these maths are part of it) then the article would have to contain all the information on these maths as well. It simply can't be summed up in simple words in a few paragraphs or even a single article.

But, sometimes being techinical when it isn't necessary just makes things harder to understand. The purpose of more complicated words is so you can make a point quicker with words which can condense things into less words and be more succinct. I have a decent vocabulary, but I even I find myself bewildered by sometimes simple articles. It seems people here want to impress and dazzle people with their eloquent and complicated usage of words. Take these two examples how being wordy just makes something simpler harder to understand.

Simpler: "We have a main bus B undervolt"

Unnecessarily complicated: "We are currently monitoring a significant decrease in the electrostatic potential of the secondary electron conduit"

Next, a fictional example, but still shows my point.

Simpler: "Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations you'd fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova, and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?"

Unnecessarily complicated: "There are significant differences in operating parameters between the process of engaging a hyperdrive propulsion system for a jump to superluminal speed, and the process of using aircraft to aerially distribute pesticides over agricultural territory. If you do not perform percise computations prior to the hyperspace jump, it is likely that your flight path will come within close proximity to dangerous celestial phenomena, such as a star or supernova. There is a high probability that a collision or close-proximity encounter with such a dangerous phenomenon would result in the premature termination of your journey."

Check this out for more examples, http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Technobabblator.html

I found this article by doing a google on "wikipedia too technical" and found this list. Though, I had seen the banner before on other articles. Because today I was looking up the celsius/centrigrade scale and like so many other articles which has frustrated me with it's technicality, where I seek to find information and come away with nothing because I didn't fully understand the article, I wondered if anyone else is having this problem. There is, for any of you who are also having problems, this wiki http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (but it certainly doesn't have as many articles as this one) and to polyglot I think there are 100 wikipedias, or possible even more, there's wookiepedia for starwars, memory alpha for star trek, a stargate wiki, one of everquest, any many others. This is definitely not the only wiki out there. There are lots on every subject. The snare (talk) 03:58, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like people have a lot to say about this category. It's very understandable though. The reason I had a look in this talk page in the first place was because I thought: "What is the difference between this category and 'Wikipedia articles needing context'?" Dessydes 01:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This category is appalling. It's ironic that I stumbled across it just after finally finding an article that contained actual information on a technical topic, rather than stuff I could have learned by reading marketing materials. I hope nobody uses the contents of this category as an impetus to dumb the named articles down, a process that would only serve to limit their usefulness. Please don't. --- Aug. 22 2006.

I've updated both Category:Wikipedia articles that are too technical and Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible based on comments in both places. --Scott McNay 03:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

'Wouldn't it be great if everyone everywhere in the world had access to the sum of all human knowledge?' -Unknown

Although, this may not be completely wise (as in the case of crazy dictators and the like) I think it's what Wikipedia should strive for.Dannery4 04:21, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Couldn't pretty much every math article be put in this category? Almost without exception, they are incredibly obtuse and seem to be exercises iin showing how smart the writer by delving into archane topics instead of simply explaining the concept simply and succinctly. 63.249.108.250 05:15, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Many advanced math topics rigorously define term in the title, without providing examples, good analogies or pictures. The concept itself is often simple, but presented in a way so no one understand who sees it first time on Wikipedia... Non-expert writings elsewhere are not 100% precise but they have the ability, to give the layman the AHA! moment about the concept, after that the Wiki page becomes clear too. Why don't we combine the two? Calmarius (talk) 15:58, 18 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

delete

Can we delete this category now? We've got notices for "needs an experts attention". If you feel an article is too complex, but can't trim it yourself, that's obviously because it needs to be trimmed by an expert. So I'd say delete this & any similar categories.

And this category has obviously beeen used only haphazardly. I'm finding many articles here that consist of one paragraph and a "please expand" tag. JeffBurdges 10:33, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]