this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2026
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Science Memes

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Science isn't a filing cabinet of facts, it's a conversation. For example, a photo of an eel or other localized wildlife counts because most people never see one, and wonder is the first step of inquiry. A car meme counts if it makes you curious about what's under the bonnet. If you want to talk about something you noticed in the world, chances are someone else wants to talk about it too.

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[–] Zagorath@quokk.au 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yeah that seems to be how Wikipedia does things. It tripped me up earlier today on a different page. Bizarre. Just go left to right, top to bottom. Reading order.

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I believe this is because many languages will interpret that differently, and Wikipedia having contributors from around the world writing in different languages, decided that clockwise is a good universal instruction that is more difficult to mistranslate.

If the instructions were "left to right" and then "top to bottom", a bad translation might end up making it mean the top to bottom first and left go right last.

Reading order

In Arabic (and a few other languages too), things are read RTL, and plenty of Asian languages, at least traditionally, are read top to bottom first.

Doing it clockwise is seen as a more universal instruction I guess? And I don't think it's too hard to figure out. I might also be to make the instruction more concise!

[–] Zagorath@quokk.au 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Wikipedia has entirely different versions in different languages. This page is on the English Wikipedia.

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)
  1. having something consistent can reduce confusion among contributors, particularly for those who are translating pages between languages and

  2. there are other reasons too, like making the instruction more concise

[–] yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Clockwise order isn't the same as reading order. The correct order is:

  1. The top left image (because it says "from top left")
  2. The top right image
  3. The bottom right image
  4. The bottom left corner

It helps if you imagine a circle around the images with arrows pointing in clockwise direction, like this:

Drawing of 4 squares in a 2x2 grid, which represent the pictures. A circle with arrows pointing in a clockwise direction surrounds the squares. The squares are numbered according to the order described above.

(EDIT: I made a correction to the drawing. I put the wrong order in the original drawing.)

They could have just put the images in reading order though, especially when there are only 4 of them. It would be way less confusing :/

[–] Zagorath@quokk.au 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Clockwise order isn’t the same as reading order

Yes, I know. That's what my comment is criticising.

[–] yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

Oh, sorry, I thought you were talking about in which order you're supposed to "read" the pictures. I only understood it now.

[–] cenzorrll@piefed.ca 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"Clockwise" is universally known by all cultures, reading order varies.

So when translating to a different language, you can't just say reading order, you have to change the article instead of just translating

[–] Zagorath@quokk.au 1 points 1 week ago

That's how Wikipedia works. Each language is an entirely separate article, maintained by entirely separate people. Not a simple translation of English Wikipedia.