Talk:DHSA

Jargon
The sole phrases in this article that are not jargon are "the bacteria that is responsible for tuberculosis infections" and "that are deficient in this enzyme are less lethal than wild-type bacteria". Phrasing like "catecholic intermediate" (which the pipe to Catechol does little to explain to the average reader), "cholesterol catabolism", "iron-dependent extradiol dioxygenase enzyme" & "oxidative ring opening of 3,4-DHSA to 4,9-DSHA" are inappropriate anywhere outside a Biochem text. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 07:46, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I strongly disagree that there is no place for technical language in Wikipedia articles (see for example Make_technical_articles_understandable). There is a hierarchy of articles from the general that should be understandable to a wide audience (like enzyme) to more technical ones like this article where accessibility to a wide audience is less critical.  Also please keep in mind WP:IMPERFECT. Boghog (talk) 08:17, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I have worked hard to make this article understandable to a wide audience. While the article could certainly be further improved, I think most people will now understand what this molecule is, how is produced, and why it is important. Please also note that the use of some technical terms are unavoidable and necessary to make this article valuable to a technical audience.  Hence there is more than sufficient justification for taking down the technical tag. Boghog (talk) 09:59, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

The average reader would probably recognise the words "cholesterol" & "tuberculosis" and write the rest off as so much science-babble. A reader with a university-level background in hard sciences would probably recognise it as being about an obscure mechanism in the digestive process of a historically important, and potentially recurrent, disease -- but not get anything much out of the detail. A biochemist would ignore the baby-talk of the article and go straight to the cited papers.


 * Thank you for your constructive edits! I think they have definitely made the article easier to understand.  Cheers.  Boghog (talk) 11:12, 10 April 2011 (UTC)