Talk:Metropolitan Life North Building

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I have made some copyedits to remove redundancy and to simplify some sentences. For example,

I have replaced: :"Currently, however, there are no known plans to "finish" the building."

by "However, there are no known plans to "finish" the building."

These sentences mean the same thing, because the present tense ("are"0 indicates the current condition. "Currently" adds no meaning here - it just takes up space.

And I have replaced: "The building as it exists today, which has 2,200,000 square feet (200,000 m²) of space, was constructed in three stages"

by "The building, which has 2,200,000 square feet (200,000 m²) of space, was constructed in three stages"

"As it exists today" also adds no meaning here.

I have replaced "currently" in a couple of other places by "now", which means the same things, but is shorter and simpler. Ground Zero | t 23:40, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but do keep in mind that this is not Simple English Wikipedia, we can write to a target audience that understands what "currently" means; simplification is not always a good thing. Also "The building as it exists today" draws a distinction between it and the planned building. I don't plan on reverting, though. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:41, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a matter of Simple English, but of better writing. Good writing does not use bigger, moe complicated words when shorter, simpler words convey the same meaning. I do not see how "currently" is better than "now". It is longer, but I don't see how that is better.

The planned building could not be said to have any square feet of space, or to have been constructed. If the sentence were about the planned building, it would have to be written differently, something along the lines of "The building, which would have had 2,200,000 square feet (200,000 m²) of space, would have been constructed in three stages". I do not think that he sentence, as I have edited it, is ambiguous.Ground Zero | t 04:16, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]