User:Doom
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Too much about me is available over here:
http://obsidianrook.com/doomfiles
Some more wikipedia-centric musings:
The act of writing is an attempt at communication between human beings.
It can not be done without making assumptions about what the audience is likely to know.
An encyclopedia article is a general introduction to a subject which necessarily glosses over some details.
Extreme detail places a cost on the reader: time and mental effort has to be expended. So every article should begin with some sort of summary of the subject, an explanation of why the reader might be interested in delving into the detail that follows.
(Example: don't begin an article about a person with straight, chronological biography. Whatever is of interest about this person, it's not likely it occured at the beginning of their life. First discuss the acheivements, then back-up and do a biographical section, if that seems adviseable.)
An encyclopedia article can not be a simple compendium of facts: it's meant to be read by human beings, and it has to be of interest to the audience.
The facts that are presented must be selected and filtered.
(Consider the now common legal technique of attempting to drown the opposition with more data than they can possibly digest. "Disclosure" is required, but nothing prevents them from giving far more than is needed to make it as hard as possible to find anything of significance.)
But the manner of presentation also has to flow as readable prose. Terseness is not the only critereon for good factual writing.
Spend some time pondering the difference between trying to achieve a "neutral point of view" (the stated goal of wikipedia) and an objective one.
A quotation from Neutral_point_of_view
- A special case is the expression of aesthetic opinions. Wikipedia articles about art, artists, and other creative topics (e.g., musicians, actors, books, etc.) have tended toward the effusive. This is out of place in an encyclopedia; we might not be able to agree that so-and-so is the greatest guitar player in history. But it is important indeed how some artist or some work has been received by the general public or by prominent experts. Providing an overview of the common interpretations of a creative work, preferably with citations or references to notable individuals holding that interpretation, is appropriate. For instance, that Shakespeare is one of the greatest authors of the English language is a bit of knowledge that one should learn from an encyclopedia.
Other random material (currently, the "Peacock-Weasel Miscegenation" style guide):
Sandbox of Doom