Readability of wikipedia is too low

[shadowmanwkp]

A recently published paper and newly launched site "readability of wikipedia", states that wikipedia is too hard to read for people with not much knowledge of English. Along with the site, the findings were also published in "First Monday." According to the research, 73,5 per cent of the articles are "moderately hard" or even "very hard" On top of that, 45 per cent of the articles are "hard" or "very hard" to read.

The research was conducted using the Flesch Reading Ease test. This test analyzes a text based on the lengths of words and the lengths of the sentences. The higher the score, the easier a text is to read, which is detailed here. Interestingly, the "simple English version" of wikipedia is also deemed too hard to read, scoring 60 points, while 80 points would be expected for people with not much English knowledge.

You can read more in the source material:

readability of wikipedia

An online version of the paper (highly detailed in-depth stuff)

 

[ferofax]

Which is why we have it in OTHER languages.

And Wikipedia, by virtue of being a -pedia, is meant to use encyclopaedic level of English. It's NOT supposed to be easy, but formally informative.

 

[Costello]

the simple english version seemed simple enough to me, to be honest.
honestly I was surprised when I learnt that there was a "simple english" version...
I mean, this is the internet right? if you come across a word you don't know, you just look it up on a search engine and voila...

 

[Bladexdsl]

learn english than problem solved

 

[Veho]

I mean, this is the internet right? if you come across a word you don't know, you just look it up on a search engine and voila...

You come across a word you don't know, you look it up on Wikipedia

I thought this was about the typeface or the layout or something, not about "oh, our program thinks it has long words". Besides, it depends on the article. The more scientific articles have longer words, no big surprise there. But the more mundane articles, for example about movies or celebrities or food, are written in a more informal style and don't have scary long words, and don't require advanced knowledge of English.

 

[jalaneme]

wikipedia is available in other languages so why didn't they take advantage of that unless they can't read their own languages either? it just shows how dumb they are.

 

[Gahars]

Here's an encyclopedia free and open to the public, and they still find something to complain about. It's ri-wiki-lous!

 

[Necron]

wikipedia is available in other languages so why didn't they take advantage of that unless they can't read their own languages either? it just shows how dumb they are.

There are some intances (it has happened to me a lot) when the English article has more relevant information or is more complete.

But... about the results of the studies, that is not Wikipedia's problem, but the people not knowing English.

 

[gamefan5]

That's not wikipedia's problem. It must be the internet making people dumber.
Wikipedia, is a fricking enyclopedia, it was never made to be 'easy to read'.
Just learn proper english. You know? English with grammar. Problem solved.

 

[MasterPenguin]

73,5 per cent of the articles are "moderately hard" while 45 per cent are "hard" or "very hard" to read.

73.5 + 45 = 118.5%. 118% of Wikipedia is hard to read... Indeed.

 

[Izen]

BREAKING NEWS: People who have trouble reading English are having trouble reading English articles; totally unnecessary test confirms common sense theory.

 

[Law]

breaking news: stupid people can't read. Website that has information stupid people need unreadable by target audience.

 

[jumpman17]

73.5% + 45% = 118.5%

So...they've evaluated articles that haven't even been created yet?

 

[Deleted-236924]

Learn English, then. Problem solved.

I've fixed your post.

wikipedia is available in other languages so why didn't they take advantage of that unless they can't read their own languages either? it just shows how dumb they are.

What if English is their own language?
And that they don't know any other languages?

 

[ferofax]

wikipedia is available in other languages so why didn't they take advantage of that unless they can't read their own languages either? it just shows how dumb they are.

To be fair, I dislike reading online stuff in my own language (Tagalog), lol. It's not that I hate the language, it just feels so... cheesy. But then again, literacy-wise, I'm much more fluent in English than in my own language.

 

[Bitbyte]

73.5% + 45% = 118.5%

So...they've evaluated articles that haven't even been created yet?

"We found that 73.5 percent of all articles scored below the suggested goal of 60 (Standard), whereas 45.0 percent could even be qualified as difficult or worse (

 

[Fishaman P]

73.5% + 45% = 118.5%

So...they've evaluated articles that haven't even been created yet?

"We found that 73.5 percent of all articles scored below the suggested goal of 60 (Standard), whereas 45.0 percent could even be qualified as difficult or worse (

 

[gamefan5]

Learn English, then. Problem solved.

I've fixed your post.

wikipedia is available in other languages so why didn't they take advantage of that unless they can't read their own languages either? it just shows how dumb they are.

What if English is their own language?
And that they don't know any other languages?

I'm pretty sure most people that reads english can't understand Wikipedia. That's why the word 'proper' and 'grammar' were used.
I actually wasn't kidding around when I made my post.

 

[jumpman17]

73.5% + 45% = 118.5%

So...they've evaluated articles that haven't even been created yet?

"We found that 73.5 percent of all articles scored below the suggested goal of 60 (Standard), whereas 45.0 percent could even be qualified as difficult or worse (

 

[Ultymoo]

Wikipedia - Extra Simple English Edition:

This is Joe.
Joe is doing science!
Science, Joe, Science.


ulternitivly u kud rite en rtickle liek dis