Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Almanac · Ask · Browse · FAQs · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Index · More Indices

1 Article Assessment
2 Category:Metaphysics
3 FAR input needed
4 Athens discrimination
5 Mentioning software freedom philosophy
6 Article assessment
7 Ayn Rand as a Philopsopher
8 Templates and Categories
9 Albert Einstein
10 not a priority - but still.
11 Ontological argument needs help

[edit] Article Assessment

We have been asked several times to join in with Version 1[[1]]. Since this gradation for article quality already exists, should the Philosophy Wikiproject simply adopt it? Banno 21:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Support - I think we should adopt it as soon as possible, and if used well it could really contribute to distinguishing which articles are truly in dire need of fixing, and which articles are simply lacking content, syle, or some other issue. At least it would be a simple and easy start (adopting it as is), and if it proved to be be cumbersome, or improvable, it could be discussed then and there. -Sam 21:25, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Oppose - from what I've seen, the whole thing is way too subjective. There's no real process behind it, as their is for FA and there is starting to be for GA. Incidentally, I'm planning to get involved in GA evaluation as a way of lifting up the quality of ALL articles. It nees to get a strict and discimplined as the FAC process has become. That's the only way to imrove articles here. Extremely thorough and unrelenting criticism. I've finally leaerned to appreciate that.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Thorough and unrelenting criticism helps decent articles become really good, but hurts articles that aren't already pretty good, by alienating those who might work to improve them. Taking a stub to a start IS an improvement, and has little to do with criticism. I don't think harsh criticism helps move a start to B either. If you want to focus your considerable energies on helping B articles up to GA, by tightening GA process, great! Good idea, but that doesn't mean that subjective, process-low approaches might not help pages in worse trouble. Bmorton3 14:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at the good article process and criteria. It would be a simple mater to arrange a cabal of philosophers to sort a list of good articles, by listing candidates in the philosophy Wikiproject task box. Banno 22:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, I don't see why the Philosophy article shouldn't be bumped up to A-class. Lucidish _{{ Ben S. Nelson }} 02:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Bumped up? Has it reached GA?? --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:33, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

It hasn't. GA is before A-class. Put it through GA, if you are that confident of it.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I thought A-class was a generic that was supposed to include both GAs and Non GAs "Good articles that may succeed in FAC should be considered A-Class articles, but being a Good article is not a requirement for A-Class." Still going through the GA process is a good way of pushing for A class.Bmorton3 14:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not sure about what the ranking system is exactly. It's clearly not Featured Article material right now -- there are barely any citations -- but it's somewhat better than what it was a year ago. More than anything else, I'd like fresh eyes to look at that page to give a dispassionate verdict. Lucidish _{{ Ben S. Nelson }} 02:05, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Lucidish, did you ask permission before you 'borrowed' Garth Kemerling's entire timeline?[[2]]. I noticed that he has no credit on any of those pages. How many others have his information without any citation? How many dictionary entries have you 'borrowed'? I think the man has worked hard enough to get some credit. 65.193.226.2 21:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)Sarah 16:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Metaphysics

Growing out of a discussion at the Talk:Crystal power page, I started a discussion at Category_talk:Metaphysics about the utility of the category, and the possibility of splitting the category into better recognized areas. On one hand, the metaphysics article seems to make a distinction between the popular def. of metaphysics (in a new age realm) and a more limited definition in the academic philosophy. Since category talk pages are pretty far off the beaten track, I am posting a message here to attract some further discussion from folks better versed than I. Cheers, --TeaDrinker 20:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FAR input needed

Very interesting talk page: I was hoping some regulars here would follow up on Wikipedia:Featured article review/Eigenvalue, eigenvector and eigenspace and Wikipedia:Featured article review/Omnipotence paradox: we need more votes and input on FARC for consensus. Thanks, Sandy 21:36, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Athens discrimination

This Athens account nonsesne is beginning to make me think that there really is an orchestarted plan to keep information away from the 99.5% of the species which does not reside in the US. What the HELL!! I'm expected to pay for access to every single article or travel to Rome to find a modern library!! Give me a break. How can I break into these damned systems?--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 17:31, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

What are you looking for? Lucidish _{{ Ben S. Nelson }} 02:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that's a very big question, indeed!! Perhaps it is to be able to leave something behind me to demonstarte that my existence and all of my sufferings have not been completely meaningless. No, that would be absurd since there can be no meaning in the acts of a single, finite phylogentically developmentally retarded chimpazee in an infinitely expanding universe which is probably one among an infinite number of infinitely expanding universes qithout end. Rather, I wish to try to defy the absurdity by trying to create a sort of provisional illusion of meaning out of nothing, in the existentialist sense. But I seem to not be able to even create this illusion of purpose. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 09:32, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I mean, what articles are you looking for? It doesn't look as though I have access to Athens, either (nor, evidently, do most Canadian institutions). But I might be able to access some other resources, assuming my university hasn't shut me out yet. Lucidish _{{ Ben S. Nelson }} 16:59, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, it has nothing to do with wikipedia. I have been studying the Lewis-Stalnaker interpretation of counterfactuals and I like to get different views, so I ran into this and got aggravated. I paid E30 for the Lewis book and it took about three weeks to arrive. I go on line and they ask me to pay $30 for to view a single article. Give me a break. Pain in the ass living in a rural part of Italy. All publications should be freely accessible to all people on the planet. What's the point of the Internet, if I have to go to the library. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that nobody in the academy actually wants anyone to ever understand what they have to say. It keeps up one's sense of awe and soforth.

Anyway, I can help you in this particular matter. Send me your email address at my talk page and I'll email you the article. Lucidish _{{ Ben S. Nelson }} 16:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. We all tend to take for granted what works well in our own country. Inter-library loan works remarkably well in the U.S. I live in Seattle. Our public library system has a little under a million volumes (including copies), not a bad collection, but it's remarkable sometimes what they lack. Still, I'm consistently impressed how often they can track down and borrow a book on my behalf if it is to be had anywhere in the U.S. I take it from what you say that this doesn't work similarly in Italy. - Jmabel | Talk 04:08, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mentioning software freedom philosophy

A modern philosopher called Richard Stallman has been developing questions and answers which are raised by societies increasing use and reliance on software. He argues that everyone should be free to use, modify, and redistribute the software they use - and he argues that these are fundamental human rights. Being also a very practical philosophy, the underpinning ethics are often missed. Many look at his work as technical, like the GNU/Linux operating system, but it is not a technical project it is an ethical one, and it is one which started in 1983. 23 years isn't long in terms of many of Philosophy's greats, but it's not a new thing and it's not dwindling away. My question is, where should I note this philosphy? It is already being described in free software movement, but what philosophy pages should link there and on what overview page should I put a 1 paragraph description? Gronky 15:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I would add a discussion of this to the Philosophy of information page, which doesn't have much ethics on it yet, privacy ethics and information is another great topic to add to it. Bmorton3 15:27, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks BM3. Much better answer than I was about to give: applied ethics or philosophy of law. I hadn't even heard of philosophy of information, but that definitely would be the right place for it. It reminds me of David Chalmers' comment on his website: "if I'm interested in X, I just tell people I'm studying the philosophy of X."

So, you still insist on sticking around, eh?? (;--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 15:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, glad I asked. I've started a sectoion at: Philosophy_of_information#Software_freedom_philosophy which I'll do some more work on soon. Gronky 16:06, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Even better, one of my students asked me if there was such thing as Philosophy of Information the other day, and I rambled about Informatics briefly and then directed him to the WP articles on Informatics and Philosophy of Information for a beginning start. This is where WP, even WP Philosophy really shines, on looking up bare bones beginnings of something you know very little about, for clues on where to look further. Bmorton3 16:15, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Figures. The founder (or co-founder) of this field, Luciano Floridi, is another extremely talented researcher and knowldegable fellow who had to leave Italy because of the anti-science, anti-research attitudes of the politicians over here. Latin, Greek, poetry and art. Everything else is just technè for the inferior gents. Bizarre. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 18:41, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article assessment

user:Dbuckner has suggested using a category to locate poor pages. This will cause some difficulty with the categories (see our talk pages). Does anyone know of a suitable template we could pilfer to use for marking pages needing attention? Banno 21:40, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with the cleanup template? Lucidish _{{ Ben S. Nelson }} 03:35, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

There's a whole slew of them: attention, cleanup (ranging from broad to more speficic kinds of cleanup), verify, expert-attention (or whatever it is) and so on.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:02, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

You may be intending to to something like "philosophy attention", in which case I would just take one of the current ones and modify it a bit. This should be easily done.--Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

What's the big deal? Just tell me the EXACT wording you have decided on and I can create a modified template. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 08:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ayn Rand as a Philopsopher

There is an RFC currently open at Talk:List of political philosophers about whether Ayn Rand should be included on that list. There was also an RFC this summer at Talk:List of major philosophers about whether she should be included on that list that did not truly resolve the matter and is being actively debated. I can't think of a better group of editors to opine on these matters than those who participate in this WikiProject. Discussion on those talk pages will, of course, be most helpful than discussion here. GRBerry 22:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Templates and Categories

I copied a conversation started between Banno and I on Talk:List_of_major_philosophers#templates to Category_talk:Philosophy#templates about attaching a category to the philosophy banner template. If anyone can check it out and comment, that would be great. - Sam 14:25, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 18:51, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] not a priority - but still.

I couldn't sleep last night, so I made a bunch of userboxes for the WikiProject. I have no idea if the group here wants to even concern itself with adpoting an "official" one, but I thought it would be nice to be able to have something we could advertise a little more uniformly, and at the very least, its fun. Check them out at user:Sdorrance/box and user:Sdorrance/box2 - there's very little difficulty to tweaking them and putting your favorite philosopher as the picture... - Sam 18:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Lovely, thanks. Lucidish _{{ Ben S. Nelson }} 02:01, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ontological argument needs help

A large portion of the Ontological argument page was blanked due to sourcing issues. I was wondering if anyone at this project had the time and resources to perhaps restore some of the content, or write new similar content, this time using reliable sources. What was removed and I believe needs to exist in some form or another is a section on "Philosophical assumptions underlying the argument" and perhaps more critical commentary on Anselm. Any other attention that could be given to this article on other matters would also be appreciated. Thanks for your consideration.--Andrew c 02:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../w/i/k/Wikipedia_talk%7EWikiProject_Philosophy_3232.html"