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2008/12/9 Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk@googlemail.com>:
> About usability: I believe that one significant barrier for new Wikimedians
> is the jargon in the Wikimedia projects, mostly in discussions, but also in
> help pages:
> * Expressions from computer science: IP, bug, URL
> * Expressions from the Open Source movement: fork, stable version

Add to that "!vote". I program C and Perl, and it took me a while to
understand it.

--
Amir Elisha Aharoni

heb: http://haharoni.wordpress.com | eng: http://aharoni.wordpress.com
cat: http://aprenent.wordpress.com | rus: http://amire80.livejournal.com

"We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace." - T. Moore

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2008/12/9 Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk@googlemail.com>:
> About usability: I believe that one significant barrier for new Wikimedians
> is the jargon in the Wikimedia projects, mostly in discussions, but also in
> help pages:
> * Expressions from computer science: IP, bug, URL
> * Expressions from the Open Source movement: fork, stable version
> * Expressions from the net culture: imho, :D, lol, @ (directed to a person
> in a discussion)
> * For non native speakers of English: SNAFU, dude
>
> Jargon (sometimes specialist's language) cannot be totally avoided, and it
> is good for community cohesion. But it would be a good step towards
> usability thinking before using jargon: is it really necessary here, is it
> comprehensive to everybody, even if "help:glossary" mentions it?
>
> Ziko

Fortunately with the possible exceptions of IP and URL you don't
actually need any of those to edit wikipedia.

--
geni

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2008/12/9 Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk@googlemail.com>:
> About usability: I believe that one significant barrier for new Wikimedians
> is the jargon in the Wikimedia projects, mostly in discussions, but also in
> help pages:
> * Expressions from computer science: IP, bug, URL
> * Expressions from the Open Source movement: fork, stable version
> * Expressions from the net culture: imho, :D, lol, @ (directed to a person
> in a discussion)
> * For non native speakers of English: SNAFU, dude
>
> Jargon (sometimes specialist's language) cannot be totally avoided, and it
> is good for community cohesion. But it would be a good step towards
> usability thinking before using jargon: is it really necessary here, is it
> comprehensive to everybody, even if "help:glossary" mentions it?

We can try and improve the jargon to make it easier to guess what is
meant, but avoiding the jargon would make it take far too long to say
anything. Wikipedia: pages should avoid jargon as much as possible,
Talk: and Wikipedia_talk: pages (and those Wikipedia: pages that are
actually talk pages by another name) need the jargon and there isn't
much we can do about it.

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Ziko van Dijk wrote:
> About usability: I believe that one significant barrier for new Wikimedians
> is the jargon in the Wikimedia projects, mostly in discussions, but also in
> help pages:
> * Expressions from computer science: IP, bug, URL
> * Expressions from the Open Source movement: fork, stable version
> * Expressions from the net culture: imho, :D, lol, @ (directed to a person
> in a discussion)
> * For non native speakers of English: SNAFU, dude
>
On the English Wikipedia, and occasionally Commons, I'd put
Wikipedia-policy acronyms above all those in both frequency of use and
likelihood of confusing or putting off newbies.

-Mark


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2008/12/9 Delirium <delirium@hackish.org>:
> Ziko van Dijk wrote:
>> About usability: I believe that one significant barrier for new Wikimedians
>> is the jargon in the Wikimedia projects, mostly in discussions, but also in
>> help pages:
>> * Expressions from computer science: IP, bug, URL
>> * Expressions from the Open Source movement: fork, stable version
>> * Expressions from the net culture: imho, :D, lol, @ (directed to a person
>> in a discussion)
>> * For non native speakers of English: SNAFU, dude
>>
> On the English Wikipedia, and occasionally Commons, I'd put
> Wikipedia-policy acronyms above all those in both frequency of use and
> likelihood of confusing or putting off newbies.

At least those are generally linked, though.

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2008/12/9 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>:
> 2008/12/9 Delirium <delirium@hackish.org>:
>> Ziko van Dijk wrote:
>>> About usability: I believe that one significant barrier for new Wikimedians
>>> is the jargon in the Wikimedia projects, mostly in discussions, but also in
>>> help pages:
>>> * Expressions from computer science: IP, bug, URL
>>> * Expressions from the Open Source movement: fork, stable version
>>> * Expressions from the net culture: imho, :D, lol, @ (directed to a person
>>> in a discussion)
>>> * For non native speakers of English: SNAFU, dude
>>>
>> On the English Wikipedia, and occasionally Commons, I'd put
>> Wikipedia-policy acronyms above all those in both frequency of use and
>> likelihood of confusing or putting off newbies.
>
> At least those are generally linked, though.
>

I've got to admit I'm a bit disappointed that [[WP:SNAFU]] doesn't go anywhere.

the wub

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I am enormously skeptical that there is any realistic possibility of getting
anyone let alone unpaid volunteers to forego the use of abbreviations or
useful jargon.

OTOH (LOL), I believe that there are MediaWiki software extensions (which I
enjoy using at Wiktionary) that allow a window to pop up when a highlighted
word is clicked. Inmy expereine the content is from Wiktionary. Wiktionary
has all of the menioned terms and special characters defined (except for the
open-source movement terms) and would be a possible source for definitions.
(At present, it explicitly exclude terms that are solely WikiJargon from the
main dictionary and relegate them to an Appendix page. ) Alternatively
enwikt could be used as a source for a special-purpose glossary that served
as the target for the extension. FWIW.

On Tue, Dec 9, 2008 at 9:55 AM, Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk@googlemail.com>wrote:

> About usability: I believe that one significant barrier for new Wikimedians
> is the jargon in the Wikimedia projects, mostly in discussions, but also in
> help pages:
> * Expressions from computer science: IP, bug, URL
> * Expressions from the Open Source movement: fork, stable version
> * Expressions from the net culture: imho, :D, lol, @ (directed to a person
> in a discussion)
> * For non native speakers of English: SNAFU, dude
>
> Jargon (sometimes specialist's language) cannot be totally avoided, and it
> is good for community cohesion. But it would be a good step towards
> usability thinking before using jargon: is it really necessary here, is it
> comprehensive to everybody, even if "help:glossary" mentions it?
>
> Ziko
> --
> Ziko van Dijk
> NL-Silvolde
>

--
Dennis C. During

But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully
believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest
animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions ? -- Charles Darwin
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Ziko van Dijk wrote:
> About usability: I believe that one significant barrier for new Wikimedians
> is the jargon in the Wikimedia projects, mostly in discussions, but also in
> help pages:
> * Expressions from computer science: IP, bug, URL
> * Expressions from the Open Source movement: fork, stable version
> * Expressions from the net culture: imho, :D, lol, @ (directed to a person
> in a discussion)
> * For non native speakers of English: SNAFU, dude
>
> Jargon (sometimes specialist's language) cannot be totally avoided, and it
> is good for community cohesion. But it would be a good step towards
> usability thinking before using jargon: is it really necessary here, is it
> comprehensive to everybody, even if "help:glossary" mentions it?
>
> Ziko

It surprised me that the jargon didn't mention the really wikimedian
terms: AGF, RFA, NPV, NOR, NLT, BLP, NPA, AFD, db...

After IAR and BOLD, you're blocked for NPA and NLT on a BLP article
where you didn't follow NPV, although the other part didn't AGF.
OTOH, the article could have been deleted per G4 or G10. Maybe you
should complain to ARBCOM, but wait, I better shut up per BEANS, DNFTT.


I don't consider myself an outsider, still -as a contributor to
different wikis- I don't know by heart what's an 'A3.1416 deletion' or
the proper templates and pages to start a deletion procedure for an
image with a disputable source.

Acronyms may still be worked out, others are unrelated, unless you
already know it. Worse, each wiki has its own [[WP:WP]] creating their
dialect.

Is it good, is it bad? Probably neither, but something to have really
into account for usability.


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On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 12:48 AM, Platonides <Platonides@gmail.com> wrote:
> It surprised me that the jargon didn't mention the really wikimedian
> terms: AGF, RFA, NPV, NOR, NLT, BLP, NPA, AFD, db...
>
> After IAR and BOLD, you're blocked for NPA and NLT on a BLP article
> where you didn't follow NPV, although the other part didn't AGF.
> OTOH, the article could have been deleted per G4 or G10. Maybe you
> should complain to ARBCOM, but wait, I better shut up per BEANS, DNFTT.
>
>
> I don't consider myself an outsider, still -as a contributor to
> different wikis- I don't know by heart what's an 'A3.1416 deletion' or
> the proper templates and pages to start a deletion procedure for an
> image with a disputable source.
>
> Acronyms may still be worked out, others are unrelated, unless you
> already know it. Worse, each wiki has its own [[WP:WP]] creating their
> dialect.
>
> Is it good, is it bad? Probably neither, but something to have really
> into account for usability.

It is good because it represents social development. And you are right
about usability. Maybe all talk pages should have special words
highlighted with "on mouse over" function which opens a small frame
which explains its meaning.

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