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Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

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Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#201

Post by singleshot_ »

ghayes wrote: post #125
p-e-w wrote: post #10

The justifications given in that essay leave a really bad taste in my mouth: > I believe using "comprised of" is poor writing, because > It's completely unnecessary. There are many other ways to say what the writer means by "comprised of". It adds nothing to the language. That's true for many, many other words. In fact, most instances of definite and indefinite articles "add nothing to the language", since the actual…

> > It’s illogical for a word to mean two opposite things. Auto-antonyms are actually quite common in English. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym

That's an arguable factoid.

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#202

Post by [deleted] »

jl6 wrote: post #122

Wow, there’s a lot of unjustified negativity in this thread. The whole encyclopedia (and a whole bunch of the wider world of computing) is built out of this kind of hyper-focused nerding over details. These changes don’t make your day worse. He’s not shoving it in our faces or claiming it’s going to save the world. We don’t know what’s going on in this editor’s life or what he “should” be doing with his time instead.…

[deleted]

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#203

Post by ouid »

p-e-w wrote: post #10

The justifications given in that essay leave a really bad taste in my mouth: > I believe using "comprised of" is poor writing, because > It's completely unnecessary. There are many other ways to say what the writer means by "comprised of". It adds nothing to the language. That's true for many, many other words. In fact, most instances of definite and indefinite articles "add nothing to the language", since the actual…

the justifications in the essay might be poor, but it is sensible to restrict the language of wikipedia to be as unambiguous as possible, given its status as "authoritative on most topics".

For an example in the other direction, wikipedia should ban the word inflammable. Its original meaning, which some authors will definitely prefer (if they are pedants), is entirely the opposite meaning of the colloquial meaning. Should wikipedia pick a meaning for the word, which people are free to ignore, or just outright ban it? (except in etymology wikipedia, where it is an example of a word, rather than part of the explanatory grammar)

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#204

Post by Gordonjcp »

FabHK wrote: post #103
p-e-w wrote: post #10

The justifications given in that essay leave a really bad taste in my mouth: > I believe using "comprised of" is poor writing, because > It's completely unnecessary. There are many other ways to say what the writer means by "comprised of". It adds nothing to the language. That's true for many, many other words. In fact, most instances of definite and indefinite articles "add nothing to the language", since the actual…

> That's true for many, many other words. Well, yes, but other words aren’t wrong and irritating to many readers. The point is that the usage in question has several disadvantages, but zero redeeming features. > "To comprise" and "to be comprised of" contain the same word, but not in the same sense. That’s not the point. “To shoot” and “to be shot” contain the same word, but mean opposite things, but that’s a well un…

Peter wasn't shot by Paul, it was John that was shot by Mark, and the whole Paul thing is a hoax.

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#207

Post by spcebar »

jl6 wrote: post #122

Wow, there’s a lot of unjustified negativity in this thread. The whole encyclopedia (and a whole bunch of the wider world of computing) is built out of this kind of hyper-focused nerding over details. These changes don’t make your day worse. He’s not shoving it in our faces or claiming it’s going to save the world. We don’t know what’s going on in this editor’s life or what he “should” be doing with his time instead.…

I wouldn't call this janitorial work. This seems to me to be less like someone cleaning a building than someone replacing every pencil in the building with a #2 pencil, because they believe that type of pencil is the correct type of pencil to use. They haven't made anything materially better, except by their own rigid definition of what the best pencil is--and maybe there are advantages of using a #2 pencil over a #3 pencil, but if you brought that pencil to work, there's a chance you brought that pencil because you prefer writing with it, and you wouldn't want someone, despite their best intentions, replacing your pencil with a 'better' one. Almost no one is going to look at the graphite and not be able to recognize words because it's a #3 pencil and not a #2 pencil.

In my opinion, this isn't what built Wikipedia, this is what made Wikipedia hostile to new contributors.

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#208

Post by jmholla »

lIl-IIIl wrote: post #168
SiempreViernes wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since there isn't agreement on this actually being janitorial work (in the sense that they are not simply enforcing the Wikipedia styleguide), this is not some completely innocent activity. No, this is in its essence very petty vandalism, an attempt to force his notion of grammar on the entirely of Wikipedia despite knowing this is forbidden. That this forcing is the intended goal is clear from their own description…

In "Reaction to the project" the author links to a "semi-vandalism" charge. You can read the discussion among Wikipedia editors there if you're interested (spoiler alert - most found it valuable and nobody thought it was vandalism).

That's by their own account. Multiple times they mention they don't do the best of caring about our tracking negative comments. They do however do the opposite. It's important to remember this is written by them and is all from their perspective.

Re: Wikipedia user edits over 90k uses of “comprised of”

#209

Post by crazygringo »

jl6 wrote: post #122

Wow, there’s a lot of unjustified negativity in this thread. The whole encyclopedia (and a whole bunch of the wider world of computing) is built out of this kind of hyper-focused nerding over details. These changes don’t make your day worse. He’s not shoving it in our faces or claiming it’s going to save the world. We don’t know what’s going on in this editor’s life or what he “should” be doing with his time instead.…

> He’s not shoving it in our faces

But he is?

When someone goes around "correcting" everyone's language and writes a manifesto about it, that sure is shoving to me. It's not working towards a consensus by trying to convince, it's unilaterally imposing, and creating work for others to undo if they disagree. If that's not shoving, I don't know what is.

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