User talk:Patrick Welsh

Barnstar for Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

		The Philosophy Barnstar
		Thank you for all of the work you've done rewriting Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, it's honestly an amazing and impressive amount of work you've put into improving it and making sure that everything is well-cited and balanced. - car chasm (talk) 19:36, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Oh, you are very welcome! The article still needs a short section on the philosophy of art, but I think it is otherwise in pretty good shape (in terms of structural completeness, at least). PatrickJWelsh (talk) 19:39, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

H. S. (Henry Silton) Harris

Hi PatrickJWelsh. You recently created the article H. S. (Henry Silton) Harris. I noticed that we already have an article Henry Silton Harris and although the birthdates slightly differ, to me it looks as if they are about the same person. So I suggest a Merger. Your article clearly contains more detailed information but I think the other article has the better title, so maybe try to integrate your infos there; you may then leave H. S. (Henry Silton) Harris as a Wikipedia:Redirect. That's of course if we talk about one and the same person and not two who just happen to have died the same day and both be British-Canadian philosophers. --Proofreader (talk) 15:30, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Oh, yes. Definitely the same person. I didn't find the other page when I looked, however, because he only publishes under and is known by his initials. Is that enough of a reason to prefer this title (or even just "H. S. Harris")? Or is there a better way to deal with this? PatrickJWelsh (talk) 15:46, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I am not an expert on him, so maybe you best sort out the question of the correct article title with the other contributors to both articles. --Proofreader (talk) 19:06, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi there. I have merged the contents from H. S. (Henry Silton) Harris to Henry Silton Harris and created a redirect page from H. S. Harris. —Caorongjin 💬 10:41, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of that! PatrickJWelsh (talk) 14:00, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The article Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:41, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Working toward GA

Since you are also quite active on the article Philosophy, would you be interested in working toward a joint GA nomination? From my side, it's still a tentative project since non-trivial changes to major articles like this one can meet with a lot of resistance. So we would have to see how it goes. But so far, it has been relatively smooth. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:06, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Phlsph7,

I very much welcome collaboration on improving the article! I think the lack of opposition to my recent edits is mostly due to broad acknowledgement of the shoddy condition the thing was in. There are at least tens of people paying enough attention to check out my user page (which is good), but I think everyone who cares is just happy for someone else to be doing the work.

As to GA status over-and-above what it takes to make it a (merely colloquially) good article, I would need to hear more about what you are asking me to commit to. The article seems quite a ways from being good in either sense. Your summary of the history section will help, though. And I currently have time to make improvements based upon what I know, which is hardly nothing (I have a PhD in the field), but certainly far from everything. My willingness to do further research beyond what can be easily found in good online sources, however, is very limited.

Also, my only experience with GA criteria was ushering the Hegel article through the process. The article is stronger as a result, but I felt like I had to jump through a bunch of hoops that didn't make an sense (e.g., having to find sources to support claims effectively written into the TOC of a work that would never be contested by anyone). So that, and other technical Wikipedia policy stuff, would probably be an area where you would need to take the lead. But I'm good at both structural and copy-level editing, and I generally have little difficulty locating good scholarly sources to support true claims that actually require/merit a supporting citation. So we might make a good team. The discipline certainly deserves a much better article than it currently has.

So, I guess, just let me know more about what you're thinking?

In the meanwhile, I have a few more edits planned, and I'm keeping my hands completely off the History of philosophy section until you post edits for comments.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 15:48, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

An important part would be to clarify on the talk page what improvements are needed and to assess different ideas of doing so. Once we have a good idea, I have no problem if it's me doing the initial drafts while you fix and improve them to get them into shape.

My current idea is roughly the following:

• The section "Branches of philosophy" should have only subsections for the 4-5 major branches (maybe ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, logic, and aesthetics). They should correspond to the main divisions found in the academic literature. We add an extra subsection that deals with all the additional branches, maybe a maximum of one paragraph per branch. That would address the problem of "adding all kinds of sub-specialties, such as metaphilosophy", as you pointed out in one of your edit summaries
• It might be good to have a section on the influence of philosophy on other disciplines. This includes how it affects the sciences by discussing their presuppositions and methods, how it affects medicine and business by discussing their ethical sides, how it helps individuals become more rational & critical, etc. That section could also include criticisms of philosophy, for example, the claim that it is useless.
• The section "Outside the academic profession" could be replaced by something like "Sociology of philosophy". That includes the discussion of professional and non-professional philosophy and women in philosophy but would probably also address other issues (maybe how teaching & research worked in the past and in the present)

I haven't done a detailed research on these ideas so they might change a little depending on what I come up with. It would probably be a good idea to explore whether these ideas make sense and what else may be needed. Then we could raise them one by one on the philosophy talk page. What are your thoughts? Phlsph7 (talk) 16:21, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm game for that. Maybe get us started by copying this and your post above to the Philosophy Talk page?

Meanwhile, in response to your bullets:

• Yes, the section on Branches of philosophy needs some reorganization—although by no means anything radical. You probably noticed me check in on the Philosophy project Talk page about the Outline page. So far no one seems to care (except for one person who wants to argue with me about whether such a page should exist, which is not helpful). If I don't hear from anyone very soon, I will be making some edits on my own authority in an effort to improve both pages.
• I fear this section would be quite short. You are probably familiar with the expression, "Aesthetics is to art what ornithology is to birds"? I'm afraid this generalizes further than I would like. But I would love to be shown wrong.
• I agree that the section Outside the academic profession needs to be rethought. What you propose is a promising direction.

Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:40, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Copying all these ideas to the philosophy talk page at once may be too much information to get concrete and helpful feedback. Since these ideas can be addressed independently of each other, it may be better to raise them one at a time. If you want to start with the branches section, feel to copy the text on it and start a new post or write down your own ideas. I would probably address that once I'm done with the history section.

Before you get started, it may be a good idea to identify some good overview sources that have these divisions and mention them so we don't just impose our own views. For example, the entry "Philosophy" of the Oxford Companion to Philosophy talks about three main branches: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics. Or from the MacMillan Encyclopedia of Religion: As primary branches of philosophy, one might cite ethics, epistemology, logic, aesthetics, metaphysics, and ontology. Or [1] lists logic, epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics. I think the basic idea is to reduce the main subsections to 3-5. We can let the reliable sources decide which ones they are. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:31, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Steps ahead

I'm happy that our GA nomination worked out fine. It's also good that we didn't have to wait too long since many of my other nominations take up to 6 months and sometimes more before they get reviewed.

By the way, we are eligible for a Level 2 Vital Article GA award. I usually ask for the prize money to be directly donated to GiveWell's All Grants Fund but you are free to make separate arrangements for your half (see the past discussion at User_talk:The_wub#Level_2_vital_article_GA_promotion).

I was thinking about making a Did you know nomination for philosophy. This has to be done in the next 7 days. The article is well-sourced so the main difficulty would be to find an interesting hook.

I'm also considering an FA nomination at some point. This would probably be a big step since, as far as I can tell, neither of us has much FA experience. I wanted to see first how my other nomination goes and I would get back to you later to discuss the issue unless you have other plans. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:11, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Phlsph7,

Yes, I'm happy to have been of help! Thanks for doing so much of the heavy lifting.

I had no idea there was an kind of reward attached to this. That is so generous of the wub! Usually I prefer local giving, but in this case I'm entirely happy send my portion of the prize together with yours. Please consider yourself authorized to speak for me on this matter.

Here are a couple DYK ideas (which could also be combined):

• that Issac Newton's opus on physics was at the time considered a work of philosophy?
• that most of the individual sciences formed part of philosophy until they reached their status as autonomous disciplines?

I don't have strong feelings about this, however. If you have another idea, I'm sure it will be fine with me.

As to an FA nomination, I'm happy to help with content issues, but I'm not so sure I want to sign on to argue over the finer points of the Wikipedia MOS, which I am kind of afraid is what a lot of that process would be. Feel free to check in again, however, if you decide to proceed with this. I haven't looked at the criteria since I made the decision against nominating the Hegel article.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:47, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

What do you think of the following as a DYK nomination? I added a few options to your suggestions and provided the corresponding sources. Feel free to add or remove options or to make other adjustments. It would be up to the reviewer to decide which one fits best.

I'm also not a big fan of getting stuck in discussion on MOS details. On the bright side, this may mean that there are no obvious other and more serious problems. And they are often relatively easy to solve, like replacing one word with another or adding/removing subsection headings. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:11, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

@Phlsph7, I don't care for the one on philosophy as a spiritual exercise because I think a lot of people mistaken think this is what philosophy is today. Otherwise they look good to me! Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 15:33, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

I removed the spiritual exercise hook and started the nomination, see Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Philosophy. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:57, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

I was thinking about getting started with the preparations for an FAC of Philosophy and I wanted to see if you would join again. I understand if you prefer not to since most of the work would be about getting the article in tune with many of the intricacies of wiki policies and guidelines rather than making substantial content changes. For example, in relation to the reference section, we would have to make sure that all references have ISBNs or other identifiers (e.g. OCLC), that they all use title case, and that the page ranges are short and precise. At some point, we would probably also need to get one more peer review to ensure that at least all the obvious things are FA-ready. What do you think? Phlsph7 (talk) 07:32, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Phlsph7, thanks for offering to include me on this, but I think my Wikipedia energies would be more fruitfully (and enjoyably) spent on articles that need more basic attention in terms of organization and content. Don't hesitate to tag me, though, on any issue where I might be of assistance. I also follow the article and will probably chime in on my own from time to time, assuming you do get the process underway. Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 13:38, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for all the help so far. I'll see how the process goes. If improvement ideas come to your mind then I would be happy to hear them. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:57, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Hey @Phlsph7,

The biggest issue I would expect to come up with additional reviewers is the lack of integration of the material on non-Western traditions into sections outside of History.

This doesn’t bother me because I think readers are well served by that material.

If I were to come at the article from the perspective of a developmental editor, however, I would have to point out that these independent traditions are not the same thing as what originated in Ancient Greece. To say that they are all one thing called "philosophy" imposes an artificial unity as if from nowhere (but actually from the Western tradition, which frames the article's entire presentation). And any syncretistic integration would be entirely revisionary.

This leaves as a fix, per the limits of my own imagination, rewriting the material on non-Western traditions through the prism of their encounters and engagement with Western philosophy. As they are written, this would not be hard to do. But the coverage would be curtailed, which I think would be a shame—because I expect a lot of readers coming to the article are looking for something other than Western philosophy.

(As best I have been able to determine just by way of an entirely unscientific survey of the departmental sites of major Indian, Chinese, and Japanese universities, the study of philosophical and religious traditions are frequently lumped together into one department. The courses, however, seem to be either-or in much the same way as they would be as offered at an R1 university in North America, where they would, however, typically be split between two or more separate departments. No idea, however, how to integrate this into the article, much less how to properly source it.)

I have a few other ideas for minor improvements that I never got around to doing the research necessary to implement. I'll share those on the article Talk page.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 23:34, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

You mention a valid point here that is also discussed in the academic literature. Philosophy can be defined in a narrow sense as rational systematic inquiry or in a wide sense that includes all kinds of religious teachings. Depending on how philosophy is defined, the history of philosophy is only the history of Western philosophy or Western philosophy is just one among countless equally valid traditions.

I tried to strike a balance between these two camps. The current presentation is well supported by the reliable sources but it may have the result that neither camp is happy. I don't think that presenting Indian and Chinese philosophy primarily through their encounters and engagement with Western philosophy is feasible: it would mean a lot is removed except for the part on modern philosophy. In this regard, see also Aza's criticism in the GA review about how the relevant passage should not give too much emphasis to the "Western view of Chinese philosophy".

In relation to integrating the material on non-Western traditions into other parts: the difficulty here is that we have to follow the reliable sources. For example, if you look at an overview source on the philosophy of language, it does not discuss much in terms of the contributions of Hindu or Daoist philosophy to this field. I'm sure one could dig around and find something to add. However, this would likely be undue weight since we only have one paragraph to provide an overview of the entire discipline. However, I'll keep this point in mind to see whether there are some better opportunities for this type of integration. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:09, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

As a small first integration step, I added a short paragraph on the influence of philosophy on politics, including, Russia, China, and India. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:20, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

DYK suggestion

... that most of the individual sciences formed part of philosophy until they reached their status as autonomous disciplines?

... that Ludwig Wittgenstein understood philosophy as a linguistic therapy that aims to dispel misunderstandings caused by the confusing structure of natural language?

... that in the ancient period, philosophy was seen as a spiritual exercise to promote well-being by leading a reflective life?

... that Issac Newton's opus on physics was at the time considered a work of philosophy?

... that Bertrand Russell advocated philosophy as a means to free oneself from prejudices and self-deceptive notions derived from common sense?

References

Sources

• Tuomela, Raimo (30 September 1985). Science, Action, and Reality. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 1. ISBN 978-90-277-2098-6.
• Shivendra, Chandra Soti (2006). Philosophy of Education. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. pp. 15–16. ISBN 978-81-7156-637-2.
• Joll, Nicholas. "Metaphilosophy". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Archived from the original on 15 May 2019. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
• Biletzki, Anat; Matar, Anat (2021). "Ludwig Wittgenstein: 3.7 The Nature of Philosophy". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Archived from the original on 8 September 2018. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
• Banicki, Konrad (2014). "Philosophy as Therapy: Towards a Conceptual Model". Philosophical Papers. 43 (1): 7–31. doi:10.1080/05568641.2014.901692. S2CID 144901869. Archived from the original on 13 February 2022. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
• Grimm, Stephen R.; Cohoe, Caleb (2021). "What is philosophy as a way of life? Why philosophy as a way of life?". European Journal of Philosophy. 29 (1): 236–251. doi:10.1111/ejop.12562. ISSN 1468-0378. S2CID 225504495. Archived from the original on 13 February 2022. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
• Cotterell, Brian (29 August 2017). Physics And Culture. World Scientific. p. 458. ISBN 978-1-78634-378-9.
• Maddy, Penelope (2022). A Plea for Natural Philosophy: And Other Essays. Oxford University Press. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-19-750885-5.
• Russell, Bertrand (1912). The Problems of Philosophy. p. 91.
• Pojman, Louis, P.; Vaughn, Lewis, eds. (2009). Philosophy: The Quest for Truth (7th ed.). Oxford University Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)

Barnstars for you!

		The Original Barnstar
		Thanks for improving the article Philosophy! Your work is excellent. The person who loves reading (talk) 17:16, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

		The Good Article Barnstar
		Thanks for improving a level-1 vital article to GA! Sadly, a much more generous offer expired just 3 months ago. The person who loves reading (talk) 17:16, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

By the way, a much more generous offer expired just 3 months ago. The person who loves reading (talk) 01:58, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

Much congrats on fulfilling the rewards board challenge, Patrick! Feel free to consider me a co-sponsor of the GA barnstar. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:36, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Why thank-you all! The article really was in quite an embarrassing state—especially for a discipline that prides itself on clarity of expression and the sound organizational presentation of ideas! Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 05:34, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

DYK for Philosophy

On 7 October 2023, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Philosophy, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that physics, chemistry, and biology were all part of philosophy before they became separate disciplines? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Philosophy. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Philosophy), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:02, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Precious

Hegel philosophy

Thank you for quality articles around philosophy, especially Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and then Philosophy in collaboration and with higher ambition, for "I'm good at both structural and copy-level editing", - Patrick, you are an awesome Wikipedian!

You are recipient no. 2885 of Precious, a prize of QAI. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:52, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt — So kind of you to offer this token of recognition!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 13:36, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, - great to meet you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:43, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

New page reviewer granted

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Congratulations on your reviewer status!

Hi PatrickJWelsh,

I just read your talk page, and love that you are covering phenomenology! I look forward to reading it, and congratulations on reviewing your first article (what brought me here) :-)

Best, Mwikiforce (talk) 15:49, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Tom Glaze

I noticed you tagged Tom Glaze - a U.S. state supreme court justice - for notability. Please be more careful in the future. BD2412 T 05:50, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

You are right. That was a bad call. Thanks for the note and for your attention to the article!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 18:47, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this well. As it was, it could have been tagged for needed better sources, but I have cleaned it up now. BD2412 T 23:30, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

November Articles for creation backlog drive

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October 2023 NPP backlog drive – Points award

		The Reviewer Barnstar
		This award is given to PatrickJWelsh for collecting more than 50 points during the October 2023 NPP backlog drive. Thank you so much for taking part and contributing to the drive! Hey man im josh (talk) 01:56, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

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Era changes

Thank you for your edits at Aristotle and Essence, however please be aware that as per WP:ERA one should not arbitrarily change the calendar era notations BC/AD to BCE/CE (or vice versa) on any given article without first attaining consensus for the change at the talk page. Thank you.— Crumpled Fire • contribs • 06:44, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Crumpled Fire,

Thanks for the note. My change, however, was not arbitrary. A specifically Christian dating system is not appropriate in the context of either of these articles. BCE/CE is to be preferred for the same reason as gender-neutral language; BC/AD is exclusionary with no offsetting benefits. (Also, to put Christ in the first sentence of an article about Aristotle is bizarre. Or, in blandly Wikipedian terms, its inclusion is not supported by reliable sources.)

My copy edits were made in the context of other revisions that I did, indeed, first discuss on the talk pages. To check in specifically about such a minor improvement quite simply never occurred to me.

If you have a good reason for digging back through the edit histories in order to alter stable versions of the articles, please take it to their talk pages per the policy you cite.

For these reasons I'm reverting your changes. If you wish to pursue the discussion, feel free to copy and paste from this in your justification for using Christian terminology.

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

The guideline specifically states you need to attain consensus for an era change on the talk page, which you failed to do. BCE/CE isn't "to be preferred for the same reason as gender-neutral language" is, as Wikipedia has an explicit guideline favoring gender-neutral language while it has no preference for BCE/CE over BC/AD. You say "a specifically Christian dating system is not appropriate", and yet I doubt you'd have a problem with the explicitly European polytheistic elements of the same "Christian" dating system (i.e. "Thursday" is Thor's Day, "January" is Janus' month) being used in the same article; it's not a valid argument, it's just your personal point of view. There have been many attempts to change Wikipedia's guideline in favor of BCE/CE (or vice versa), such as Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/BCE-CE_Debate, all of which have failed. There was nothing "stable" about your arbitrary change of BC/AD to BCE/CE, and it is not at all warranted unless you explicitly obtain consensus to do so. I am restoring the era style you arbitrarily changed. Please do not continue to arbitrarily change era styles, or your behavior may be subject to administrator intervention.— Crumpled Fire • contribs • 18:03, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Wow! I've been editing for a couple of years, and that's the fastest I've ever seen someone move to an administrative threat. Although I would be curious to see how that would go for you, I am creating talk posts for Aristotle and for Plato, whose article also gets a lot of traffic and needs to be updated.

If you actually want to stand behind any of the arguments above, please restate them under the new thread. In their present form, I don't believe any are sound. Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 19:41, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

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New page patrol May 2024 Backlog drive

New Page Patrol | May 2024 Articles Backlog Drive
On 1 May 2024, a one-month backlog drive for New Page Patrol will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles patrolled. Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive. Each review will earn 1 point. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:15, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Literary Fragment

Hi! Thanks for reviewing the Literary fragment article I've been working on. I appreciate your comments, and I've attempted to address the issues with the lists on the page. If you have time, I'd appreciate if you would have another look and let me know if you think incorporating the lists into the document and referencing the notable examples is sufficient to address the issue with the lists? Alsonamedbort15 (talk) 03:14, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Alsonamedbort15,

Thanks for checking in about this! The sources you added to the lists do indeed address my concern, and I will remove the template accordingly. A more fully developed article would probably confine itself more to figures individually discussed in the body of the article, but it's entirely good and appropriate for a start- or C-class article to mention them in this way.

You might review MOS:LAYOUT in making further improvements. All of the "Further reading", for instance, should be collected together at the end. I also do not think that "Notable examples" needs its own sub-head in two- or three-paragraph sections.

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 19:29, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

De mortius nil nisi Bonum

I did not add/edit on the article Summum Bonum, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_mortu-is_nil_nisi_bonum the phrase "de mortius nil nisi Bonum" and with due respect to the author but was simply requested on talk to add on the Heading see also regarding the word "Bonum" a Latin origin meaning good and not to deny the fact that a challenge coin actually exist that is marked with the phrase Summum Bonum. Does philosophy deny a fact due to Bias existence or. Someones saying such information exist, it would be appreciated to at least explained to me the reason for you to deny my voice on talk on the Summum Bonum article respectfully (The Summum Bonum (talk) 23:18, 9 July 2024 (UTC))

It does not matter that it is true that you can buy such-and-such challenge coin and so-and-so website. Please see WP:PROMOTION and WP:ENCYCLOPEDIC for an explanation. Patrick (talk) 18:47, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Response to accusation of Canvassing

This is my response to the accusation you made against me on Talk:Dasein and also on my user-talk page (which included notifications to @Velho: and @NONIS STEFANO:); specifically, that I violated the guideline on WP:CANVASSING (including also your wording about "game the consensus process").

Responding to your concern, I would like to bring the following points to your attention:

• I was the first to initiate a discussion about the content issue on the article talk page. I did this to open the discussion to interested editors, regardless of whether they agree with my opinion.
• After your initial response there, which seemed to be irreconcilable with mine (not to mention apparently ignoring several of the points I made), and after carefully reviewing the policy WP:DISPUTE, I chose to request additional help via WikiProject Philosophy, using neutral wording concerning the issue itself. I did this to invite additional editors into the discussion; again, regardless of whether they agree with my opinion.
• In my original post on the article talk page, I listed prior edits to the material in question, so that anyone following this issue can see the relevant edit history. Assuming that those who edited the affected material in the past might be interested in the discussion, I invited them, on their user-talk pages, to comment if interested. WP:CANVASSING apparently holds that such invitations are allowed ("On the user talk pages of concerned editors. Examples include: Editors who have made substantial edits to the topic or article" -- the topic being the affected article content, and the editors being those who added that content).
• Regarding @Remsense:'s comment on the article talk page about "votestacking": I did not exclude anyone. If there's a more neutral way to notify editors with previous involvement in the affected material, then I don't know what it is.

The above are my reasons for disagreeing with your accusation against me. And, since it so happens that the person making the accusation (you) is also the same person whose edit is being questioned, it's unclear to me if your accusation is unbiased; but, per guideline WP:ASSUMEGOODFAITH, I decline to make any conclusion about it either way (e.g., it's possible you really thought that I violated the guideline). Conceivably, you could have similarly assumed good faith on my part, or simply decline to make a conclusion either way, but you chose instead to level the accusation against me (which I believe to be a false accusation, by the above reasoning), and I feel disappointed about that. At a minimum, since my motivations have been questioned, I hope that this clarifies what they actually were.

In case there is any further discussion, I would like to bring your attention to the following policies and guidelines:

• WP:ASSUMEGOODFAITH: "If criticism is needed, discuss editors' actions, but avoid accusing others of harmful motives."
• WP:DISPUTE: "Try to avoid discussing conduct issues on article talk pages."
• WP:TALK#NOMETA: "Extended meta-discussions about editing belong on noticeboards, in Wikipedia-talk, or in User-talk namespaces, not in Article-talk namespace."

Your kind attention to the above is appreciated. -- HLachman (talk) 03:59, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

You specifically invited people whose contributions were being challenged; this is perfectly reasonable to question as borderline WP:VOTESTACKING—which in any case was not that big of a deal, as people were made aware of that context to the conversation, and no one doubted you were acting in good faith. I would ask that you in turn assume good faith of them, as it was worth their notifying others of that context in any case. Remsense ‥ 诉 04:04, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Regarding your comment ("no one doubted you were acting in good faith"), my comments above address the assertion that I "violated" a guideline (aside from whether one calls that good faith or not). I explained above why I did not violate it (even quoting the guideline). By contrast, in my way of assuming good faith, I don't accuse people of violating anything if I'm not sure they really did (just my way of being, don't know if others agree). Regarding "borderline votestacking", it would be more constructive if you would offer some suggestion about "If there's a more neutral way to notify editors with previous involvement in the affected material" (quoted from above). I'm not sure how it's constructive to question whether I'm doing something wrong (like "votestacking") if you don't know of a better way to do that either. Also, regarding your comment ("ask that you in turn assume good faith"), I'm pretty sure I've shown good faith at every step of the way, and if I haven't, then please quote specifically where I didn't. Otherwise, let's just get on with improving the article content. -- HLachman (talk) 04:35, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

No one is threatening you or anyone else with sanctions. So please, @HLachman, just help all of us help one another to improve the article. No one involved is in any serious violation of policy or guidelines.

Let's instead reorient ourselves around what WP:RS have to say about the topic of the article. Probably also best to do this on that article's talk page—unless it actually is about me, in which case, by all means continue here. Patrick (talk) 05:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

To respond:

• "No one is threatening you or anyone else with sanctions." Actually, I never said or implied anything about "sanctions", "threatening", etc. I have no concern about that. Therefore, what I'd suggest to you is to not assume I meant something I didn't actually say (like anything about "sanctions"). The benefit of not making such assumptions is to keep these conversations shorter, and not perpetuate the back-and-forth by way of additional misunderstandings.
• "just help all of us help one another to improve the article". That's all I was trying to do. But when I'm told that I violated a policy, then it's worthwhile to respond, especially if there was no violation, at least for the sake of accuracy. Or if someone posts on my User-talk page (as you did), then I suppose I should respond. Or if someone misunderstands me (like in your assumption that "sanctions" was an issue), then I may as well clear up their apparent misunderstanding. In fact, I'd rather not have discussions on User-talk at all, but when there's an obvious misunderstanding, I figure I may as well help clear it up.
• Given that I don't want to spend time posting on User-talk, my hope is that after I've offered my clarifications or corrections, the conversation is over and we can get back to the article (as I said above, "let's just get on with improving the article content"). But then if someone follows up with additional misunderstandings, then it draws me back into having to clear them up again. I'm assuming that if someone has a misunderstanding, they'd want it cleared up.

So I hope that clears that up. I'll also respond to your message below. -- HLachman (talk) 05:42, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi there, and thanks for this note —

In my message on your talk page about canvassing, I made a point of explicitly stating that I assumed you were unaware of the guideline. On the article talk page, I made a point of stating my openness to the considered views of everyone involved regardless of how they got there. So I think I'm doing fine on WP:GOODFAITH.

If you seriously think that my edits here amount to editorial misconduct, please by all means escalate. Just be sure to first familiarize yourself with WP:BOOMERANG.

Otherwise, please use the article talk page to explain what it is that is even at stake in the inclusion of this one sentence that I deleted a year ago for being off-topic. You obviously feel very strongly about its inclusion, but I genuinely do not understand why.

(And hey!—if you can somehow make a Heidegger article hinge on Hegel's Logic, I will give you a barnstar. The sourcing, though, must be very strong.)

In all events, I'm trying to make the best of the situation by taking what might otherwise be a timesink as an occasion to make some other, more general improvements to an article that would certainly benefit from further attention.

All best, Patrick (talk) 05:01, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

To respond:

• "explicitly stating that I assumed you were unaware of the guideline". Yes, you did in user-talk (which hardly anyone would normally read), but not in the article-talk, where the assertion about violation was unqualified. You might have qualified it there too, but the better way would be to not say I violated anything, since I didn't. The objective statement, obviously, is that I invited certain others into the conversation, and you said that too, and that's fine. In short, I'm not demanding that you do anything in particular, just suggesting what would have come across better, and maybe you can consider it in the future.
• "stating my openness to the considered views of everyone involved". As I am as well (as I said in the article-talk). On this point, we agree.
• "editorial misconduct, please by all means escalate". No need -- I never said I think that.
• "You obviously feel very strongly about its inclusion". No comment -- how I feel is not the topic (just as if you feel very strongly about its exclusion, I have no comment on that either).
• "but I genuinely do not understand why". The reasons for my article-talk post are given in the post. If anything's not clear, you can quote the text that's not clear and I can try to clarify.
• "if you can somehow make a Heidegger article hinge on Hegel's Logic". Not interested. I don't think I ever said or implied anything about that.
• "trying to make the best of the situation by taking what might otherwise be a timesink". As am I. As I shared above, I'd rather not spend any time at all posting on user-talk (although sometimes it's needed to clear up misunderstandings).

Again, I hope that helps clarify, and I hope there are no further misunderstandings, and we can move on from this user-talk timesink. As I said previously -- let's just get on with improving the article content. -- HLachman (talk) 06:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Fantastic. Absent compelling objections, I will be proceeding with the revisions I've already outlined within the next day or two. (Which, of course, we can always revisit at any time if you are otherwise occupied.) And, once again, it would help a lot if you could explain what you think is so incredibly important about this[2] edit. Because I'm baffled. Patrick (talk) 06:44, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

To respond:

• "I will be proceeding with the revisions I've already outlined within the next day or two." I'm assuming you mean the Jaspers content and the hatnote (in your numbered comments). I have no opinion about that. My article-talk section was intended to deal only with the question of the removed text. If there are other content matters, I suggest starting a new article-talk section, so as not to complicate the existing section.
• "what you think is so incredibly important". To me, it's not about "incredibly important", just a question of better or worse. I thought the article was better when it included the removed text, and the article-talk page is the ordinary place to discuss article improvements.
• "I'm baffled." Maybe you missed my previous comment ("The reasons for my article-talk post are given in the post. If anything's not clear, you can quote the text that's not clear and I can try to clarify."). So far, I haven't seen you quote anything of mine that you consider unclear. Just saying that you're "baffled" doesn't help identify what it was that you didn't understand. In my 1st post, there were 9 numbered points, in the 2nd, 6 bulleted points, and in the 3rd, 6 more bulleted points. That's a total of 21 points presented. Your meaning is that all 21 of them were incomprehensible to you? Or only a few? Which ones? It would help if you'd point out which items were not clear to you (preferably on the article-talk page, not here in user-talk).

Meanwhile, I'll write a response to your "Wow" comment and post it later today. -- HLachman (talk) 07:40, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Twenty-one points about policy and article history is actually kind of the problem. Just find a source that makes the connection you want to make and revise the article to clarify that connection. If the material belongs in the article, it should not be difficult to also provide a few short paragraphs of additional explanation should it be challenged by another editor. Patrick (talk) 15:49, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Complaining about the number of listed points is immaterial to the conversation. It's simply my writing style, that I sometimes organize my thoughts in lists. Your thoughts, on the other hand, are organized in the form of many sentences in many paragraphs. I did not complain about how many sentences you used, but by your logic, that alone would render your comments as being part of "the problem" (not that I'm making that argument, it's only what your logic would imply). Also, what you still haven't done is quote anything I said that you found to be unclear, even while complaining that you were "baffled" and "genuinely do not understand". It's not particularly constructive to keep repeating generalized complaints about being confused, and then refusing to point out what it was that confused you. At this point, what we have is that I've presented reasons to include the wording in question, and you've presented reasons to exclude it. As I said already, I'll add a response to your "Wow" comment in the article-talk page. This section of your user-talk page is titled as being about the canvassing accusation, and we're done with that, so please create a new space for further discussion if you have additional meta-issues. But the best choice is to stop dwelling on meta-issues, and (I'll say it again) just get on with discussing how to improve the article (preferably on the article-talk page). -- HLachman (talk) 21:18, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Agree that it is best to continue on article talk page.

Also, my "Wow" was only an expression of surprise that such a small edit to such a niche article would attract so much attention from multiple editors. If it read as the expression of a dismissive attitude towards you, that was in no way my intention. Although I am frustrated with the conversation, I have no wish to insult you or anyone else involved. I will strike it lest it appear that way to others. Patrick (talk) 01:58, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Not a problem. I wasn't complaining about the word, only using it to identify which post I was referring to. -- HLachman (talk) 22:42, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Anachronistic terms

Hello Patrick, I wanted to check whether you are ok with restoring some of the information removed in this edit, possibly in a weakened form. I understand that you are concerned about describing philosophers with terms that were invented after their life. However, I feel that some of this information is helpful to readers, for example, if they learn that many ancient philosophers held empiricist views. As far as I'm aware, high-quality sources are not shy about using anachronistic terms, like labeling various ancient philosophers as empiricists. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:31, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for checking in about this! I intended to follow up myself, but wanted to wait until the article was at least provisionally settled.

My basic objection is to history being presented as if it were just a bunch of ultimately unsuccessful attempts to grasp some subject matter (in this case, knowledge) as we understand it today. There are plenty of people smarter than me who do indeed hold such a view, but the article is already slanted in this direction by relegating history to the bottom (instead of at the top as a constitutive part of what the field is, which is where I, at least, am inclined to believe it belongs).

Still, although I don't love it, I do support the current TOC as appropriate for readers of such a broad-scope encyclopedia article. When it does get to history, however, why can't that just be taken on its own terms? Because if history actually were just a bunch of people, through no fault of their own, not quite getting it, then it's not clear why we should include such a section at all.

By all means, however, do continue to edit the article according to what you think might best serve readers. If I think something is not quite right, I will bring it up on the talk page.

Cheers, Patrick (talk) 20:03, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to find a middle way regarding the use of anachronistic terms. I agree that the article should not present theories proposed by past philosophers as unsuccessful attempts. If you come across formulations that imply this dismissive view, I would be happy to fix them. At the same time, we should be careful about placing the history section in the spotlight since many overview sources don't have a history section. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:17, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

New pages patrol September 2024 Backlog drive

New pages patrol | September 2024 Backlog Drive
On 1 September 2024, a one-month backlog drive for new pages patrol will begin. Barnstars will be awarded based on the number of articles and redirects patrolled. Barnstars will also be granted for re-reviewing articles previously reviewed by other patrollers during the drive. Each article review will earn 1 point, and each redirect review will earn 0.2 points. Interested in taking part? Sign up here.
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:10, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

One year!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:06, 7 October 2024 (UTC)