1. Non-native speakers lack the competence necessary to make such pronouncements.
It’s false to deny that many non-native speakers acquire near-native competence. So if we think that ordinary native speakers have the right to pronounce on these questions, at least some particularly skilled non-native speakers should too. Perhaps the claim then is that there’s a high standard that only a few native speakers and no non-native speakers reach. It’s unclear what would motivate that view; given that language is something we all use, it is doubtful that e.g. the perspicacity of a particular construction should only be commented upon by the most skilled speakers.
2. Native speakers’ claims to influence languages should have priority over those of non-native speakers.
We might simply view this as obvious, in which case there’s something of a conflict of interest. I think the more plausible argument is grounded in the use of language. Someone who never uses French will not really have particularly important opinions on its use. The problem here is that it’s unclear why native speakers’ intuitions are really more important. The English language is surely just as important to a Nigerian civil servant who operates nearly entirely in English as it is to one in Whitehall. The difference between non-native speakers and native speakers don’t seem relevant unless we take being a native speaker per se to be of import.
They said "find the edited sentences always easier to read" and that's valuable regardless if you're a native speaker or not. Of course, what "better language" is as subjective as "clean code" so probably won't reach any consensus there.
But all of this is highly subjective in the end, so everyone's opinion is equally worth, native speaker or not.
> I find it just wild that people would object to better language.
They're either saying that their own sense of what is more legible is enough to define what is better, or they're buying into the pedantic arguments in TFA.
As to what is easier to read, I think the English Wikipedia should be written to be legible to native English speakers. This is better for everyone: native English speakers can read their Wikipedia, and English learners get exposed to actual English usage rather than a simplified version.
In this case, it's not obvious to me that any substantial portion of the English-speaking population sincerely gets confused by "comprised of". It feels much more like the insistence on not ending sentences in prepositions: a rule for the sake of having a rule.
EDIT: In fact, "comprised of" recently overtook "comprises" in published books:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22comprised+o...
Side note, there is an actual "simplified english" wikipedia. So even early learners who want a simplified resource have one aside from regular Wikipedia. https://simple.wikipedia.org/
It was a 30 second runaway comment and the latter part clearly doesn't hold up against scrutiny.
That subjectivity doesn’t equate to the equal worth of all opinions. It just means that no one opinion can be considered universal.
That lack of universality doesn’t mean that picking any one direction is as good as picking any other.
If I strongly prefer a Victorian style, giving my preference equal weight is likely to make the content far less valuable, because my preference is not a common one.
It would be necessary to examine the goals of the content: the audience it is intended for, the desired effect on that audience, the nuances lost by preferring audience B over Audience A, the impact of that loss, etc.
Everyone should be allowed to have a preference, absolutely, but applying individual preferences to content does not lead to equivalent outcomes.
Also, considering that plenty of non-native English speakers read the English Wikipedia, there is plenty of value in the English writing in the English Wikipedia being maximally clear without sacrificing the intended meaning of the text. Dismissing feedback out of hand on the basis of "well the person giving the feedback ain't a native English speaker" misses the point of Wikipedia being a resource for everyone.
Broadening this beyond Wikipedia, the English language itself "is comprised of" countless words and grammatical structures yanked straight out of other languages, often by non-native speakers importing features of their native languages for all sorts of reasons. Knowing this history, I hereby authorize non-native speakers to critique the language and elements thereof; it's just as much their language as it is mine, and they therefore have just as much a right to it as I do.
What tiny fraction of one percent of the edits would you estimate you have actually read?
I also wouldn't base your opinions of what makes for good English on the ramblings of one Wikipedian whose primary argument seems to be that they had to work hard to learn to use the word a particular way and so everyone else should for the rest of time.