Proposal:More Graphs and Less Math=More Approachable
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Summary
Articles, especially science articles should be encouraged to use more graphs to visually explain math formulas, particularly at an article's beginning.
Proposal
Create an incentive to make science articles more approachable to the general public by encouraging the use of at least one graph to illustrate every formula. Scientific American does a good job of illustrating ideas with graphs using a minimum of formulas.
Motivation
As someone with a large math background I am comfortable with formulas, but as well described in the New York Times best seller, Innumeracy, the vast majority of people are intimidated by numbers and especially formulas.
If we wish to make Wikipedia articles less intimidating to the general public, wherever reasonable, we need to discourage formulas at the beginning of articles and provide graphs wherever feasible.
Key Questions
Do we want to make Wikipedia more approachable, less intimidating to the general public?
Is there a painless, rapid, free and maybe even online way to make formulas into example graphs?
Potential Costs
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innumeracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innumeracy_(book)
Community Discussion
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