Talk:Femur

Turgid intro
The following is my prompt and the reply from ChatGPT about the introduction to this article. I concur with GPT's wry assessment and suggest that the introduction be re-written so it can no longer be a target for GPT's--or a human's--well-earned scorn: "Prompt: "The introduction to the Wikipedia article on "Femur" uses much jargon and technical medical terms, making it hard to understand for the average reader. Write a sarcastic essay criticizing the introduction for being unfriendly to readers."

ChatGPT responds:

"Ah, the joy of reading Wikipedia articles! You can learn so much about any topic you want! That is, of course, if you're able to decipher the technical jargon that is often used in the introduction. Take for instance the introduction to the article on the femur - the largest and strongest bone in the human body. Now, for all those non-medical folks out there, brace yourselves for a ride into a world of perplexing terminology. You see, the femur is located in the thigh and it extends from the hip to the knee joint. It plays a significant role in supporting and moving the body, connecting the pelvis to the knee, transferring weight and force between the two. Oh, and let's not forget the bone marrow, which produces blood cells. But wait, there's more! Injuries to the femur can be quite serious and require medical attention. So if you're a normal person and have no idea what any of those words mean, then you might be out of luck. Who needs plain language when you can throw around medical jargon, right? Surely, the average person can easily understand words like "hip," "knee," "support," and "weight," but why stop there? Let's just throw in a few more complex words to make it extra confusing. Who cares if readers have to consult a dictionary just to get through the first sentence? It's not like we want everyone to understand the topic, right? In conclusion, if you're not a medical professional, then don't bother trying to read the introduction to the femur article on Wikipedia. You'll just be left scratching your head and wondering why anyone would use such confusing language. But hey, at least you'll know where to go if you ever break your thigh bone!"" DonFB (talk) 12:46, 1 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Collapsed per WP:NOTFORUM. Mathglot (talk) 18:49, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Intro--further talk
I decided to follow up the wise-guy interaction with ChatGPT above with a more serious discussion. It is excessively long and certainly qualifies as TL;DR. I regard it, however, as a stand-in for discussion with actual editors about the issue of overloading article introductions with reader-unfriendly jargon and technical terminology. My peeve about that extends far beyond the Femur article and applies to numerous articles whose introductions I've encountered in Google searches, or while browsing Wikipedia. I made zero edits to ChatGPT's responses, and corrected a typo I made; I also adjusted some line breaks to clearly separate the questions and answers. Comments (from real editors) invited.

Rewrite
Here is a further step toward a user-friendly rewrite of the Femur introduction. For additional (and wordy) background on this process, see the "Virtual discussion" above.

The following is my latest unedited interaction with ChatGPT:

User

The Femur introduction uses these words and [a] phrase of jargon/technical terminology: "proximal", "tetrapod vertebrates", "head", "articulates", "acetabulum", "distal". For each of these, can you show a substitute in plain English, while maintaining accuracy, that a layperson can understand.

ChatGPT

Sure, here are some possible substitutes for the technical terms used in the Femur introduction that you mentioned:

Proximal: "the end closest to the center of the body" Tetrapod vertebrates: "four-limbed animals with backbones" Head: "the rounded part of a bone that fits into a joint" Articulates: "forms a joint with" Acetabulum: "the cup-shaped socket in the pelvic bone that the femur bone fits into to form the hip joint" Distal: "the end farthest from the center of the body"

These substitutes maintain the accuracy of the technical terms while making the language more accessible to a layperson.

User

Good job. Now, using these plain English substitutes to replace the jargon, please rewrite the introduction that I displayed above of the text of the Femur article.

ChatGPT

Sure, here's a version of the Femur introduction that uses plain English substitutes for the technical terms:


 * "The femur (thigh bone) is the upper bone in the back leg of four-legged animals. The top of the femur fits into a socket in the pelvis called the hip joint, and the bottom of the femur connects to the shinbone (tibia) and kneecap (patella) to form the knee joint. The femur is one of the strongest and largest bones in the human body."

[end of chat]

I will keep an eye here for any comments or suggestions by editors. So far, things have been pretty quiet. If that remains the case, I will replace the current jargony introduction with the rewritten version, possibly with any slight change that might be appropriate (for example, "animals with four limbs" instead of "four-legged animals"). I reiterate that I am not trying to delete technical terms from the body of the article, only from the introduction, where they are not helpful to general, non-specialized readers and also violate multiple Wikipedia guidelines about writing introductions. DonFB (talk) 01:38, 5 May 2023 (UTC)