Essay talk:Site Proposal

Counting incoming links, and what kind of articles really help RW

 * "In the recent deletion logs there is velocity and acceleration. I cannot even begin to imagine how many articles about physics and astronomy on this website talk about these two things."

No need to imagine; they are still countable, without even using up a handful of fingers. I deleted those pages, keeping their talk pages as we normally do. In both cases, I first checked "What links here" and unlinked the two links I found. It still seems as if a few incoming links point at those deleted pages, but that is an artifact of the template presenting random science-related articles on various pages.

I agree that it sometimes helps to have a RW article on a supporting topic, free from the constraints Wikipedia imposes regarding encyclopedic verifiability and neutral point of view. Without those constraints, we are free to stick with the bare essentials, cut the bologna, and point out where bullshit is likely to be introduced in other sources on the same topic. Neither of the two articles I deleted are subject to the kind of controversy that would make RW treatment necessary or special. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 01:41, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't think I was clear with that comment. I did not mean how many articles link to velocity and acceleration, but how many talk about it. I imagine I could go to just about any article in the physics section and see some reference to velocity somewhere. We could combine acceleration and velocity with some other related basic elements to physics. Two linked to both, there'd be four for a combined article, and more, maybe.
 * And my problem isn't wikipedia's encyclopedic/NPOV nature, but that the articles tend towards the technical. The article on velocity, for example, looks a lot like an explosion of equations, and if you haven't taken calculus then reading the article isn't going to make sense, because you aren't going to know what "Delta V over Delta D" means.
 * What I am trying to say is that Rationalwiki is already acting as an educational resource, I just think we should make it official.--Logic and Empricism (talk) 17:44, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Your comment was clear; I mentioned incoming links because those were the places where some editor had thought it was worth pointing the reader at some further explanation. Looking for the word "velocity" in the mainspace, I see 36 articles using it. As to how many of those articles would benefit from hyperlinking the word, your guess is as good as mine.


 * ΔX/ΔT may be understood without studying calculus beforehand. At any rate, I think that taking on responsibility for basic math or science education would dilute our primary role, which is pointing out the nudity of the guy in the gold chair with the fancy hat, surrounded though he may be by well-paid tailors. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 18:23, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Also most of those articles were written in 2007 because of needing to beat CP in article creation etc. We really don't need them. Evil fascist oh noez 20:48, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The idea of Delta can be easily understood, but it isn't usually covered before calculus, so a person without a calc background is probably not going to know what Delta X means. And I don't think what I am proposing amounts to education, just providing an explanation of concepts which are important to other articles that are usually written either as highly technical articles or only the briefest possible explanation. This can severely inhibit the ability of a user to understand articles, some of which can be about highly technical matters. And again, I don't think that this would greatly change the function or content of the site, just make what has already been happening an official policy.--Logic and Empricism (talk) 21:57, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thats what Template:Wpl is for. Evil fascist oh noez 22:05, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I am aware of linking to wikipedia. A big part of the point of this essay was that wikipedia's articles are often highly technical. The article on GDP, for example, seems to assume that the reader already has an intermediate macroeconomics course under their belt, for example. And a similar situation is true of the article on unemployment. But both of these are relevant to Rationalwiki's goals--Logic and Empricism (talk) 04:16, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think Hamilton is right in that some of the "generic" articles are useful, mainly because they contain background information required to understand the arguments against bullshit. The question is where do we draw the line. I'm not sure an article on velocity or acceleration would be very useful, since most people understand these concepts intuitively and this is sufficient. However, there are some areas where concise and accurate supporting articles are a must: climate change, vaccines, Holocaust denial, radioactivity and genetic engineering are some of the examples. --Tweenk (talk) 00:41, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I only used velocity and acceleration because they were in the recent deletion logs, but I appreciate the support.--Logic and Empricism (talk) 02:26, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

All for this.
I love this idea. RW isn't a general encyclopaedia, but it personally makes sense that, in addition to refuting pseudo-science, pseudo-history, &c, to present accurate information on these topics. Plus there's the fact that the big wiki's often a lot more technical than RW is on those same topics, i.e. WP assumes the reader already has a significant background in the relevant field. WP makes it even worse by hardly ever explicitly stating what they expect from you (more than once I just was looking up some obscure subatomic particle and got calculus shoved in my face on Wikipedia). RW, however, has things like the maths level template to indicate what background is assumed from the reader. Plus there's things like South Korea where I got shat on for "DELETE, IT'S OFF-MISSION ZOMG!!!!!!!1!!!!!11!!!@!!!!@@!!!@22@@!!!!!!one!!Q1@!!!" The Heidelberg Kid (talk) 01:59, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know really anything about subatomic particles (or anything past Chem 101), so if I needed to research something on the subject it would probably all go over my head.--Logic and Empricism (talk) 02:26, 7 November 2012 (UTC)