Wikipedia:Wikipedia is human readable: Difference between revisions

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Wikipedia is a human readable encyclopaedia project, not a precise technical communication with exact technical specifications. What that means is that we strive to make our texts legible, and adapt the style of writing to that of a presumed reader (different for every article). This in turn means that semantic accuracy is quite low among our priorities. Certainly, Wikipedia should never use terminology that is outright wrong, but it simultaneously allows for a range of acceptable ways to express the same concept—including non-technical ones.

So, how to judge whether a certain term is acceptable? The simplest answer is that we turn to the relevant sources. If a source is deemed a reliable source or

Arguments that certain terms, if they are widely used by high-quality reliable sources, either convey "fake erudition" or "display ignorance" are invalid as reasons to avoid using those terms. It is just as wrong to replace all non-technical terminology with technical terminology, as it is to replace all technical terminology with non-technical terminology. Both are acts of disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point, and systematically going through Wikipedia using the search tool to remove instances of your pet-peeve is vandalism (if you know it to be used by reliable sources).

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 {{shortcut|WP:READABLE|WP:SEMANTICS|WP:NOTSEMANTICS|WP:ACCURACY}}
-'''Wikipedia is a human readable encyclopaedia project''', not a precise [[technical communication]] with exact technical specifications. What that means is that we strive to make our texts legible, and adapt the style of writing to that of a presumed reader (different for every article). This in turn means that semantic accuracy is quite low among our priorities. Certainly, Wikipedia should never use terminology that is outright wrong, but it simultaneously allows for a range of acceptable ways to express the same concept — including non-technical ones.
+'''Wikipedia is a human readable encyclopaedia project''', not a precise [[technical communication]] with exact technical specifications. What that means is that we strive to make our texts legible, and adapt the style of writing to that of a presumed reader (different for every article). This in turn means that [[Semantics (computer science)|semantic]] accuracy is quite low among our priorities. Certainly, Wikipedia should never use terminology that is outright wrong, but it simultaneously allows for a range of acceptable ways to express the same concept—including non-technical ones.
 So, how to judge whether a certain term is acceptable? The simplest answer is that we turn to the relevant sources. If a source is deemed a [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources|reliable source]] or
-Arguments that certain terms, if they are widely used by high-quality reliable sources, convey: "''fake-erudition''", or "''display ignorance''"; are invalid as reasons to avoid usage. It is simultaneously just as wrong to replace all non-technical terminology with technical terminology; as it is to replace all technical terminology with non-technical terminology. Both are acts of [[Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point|disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point]], and systematically going through Wikipedia using the [[WP:Search|search tool]] to remove instances of your pet-peeve is [[WP:Vandalism|vandalism]] (if you know it to be used by reliable sources).
+Arguments that certain terms, if they are widely used by high-quality reliable sources, either convey "''fake erudition''" or "''display ignorance''" are invalid as reasons to avoid using those terms.  It is just as wrong to replace all non-technical terminology with technical terminology, as it is to replace all technical terminology with non-technical terminology. Both are acts of [[Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point|disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point]], and systematically going through Wikipedia using the [[WP:Search|search tool]] to remove instances of your pet-peeve is [[WP:Vandalism|vandalism]] (if you know it to be used by reliable sources).