Charles Sanders Peirce, Who Trashes My Steels Options

[Yehudi]

How good an article does someone of Peirce's standing merit anywhere? And how good an article does Wikipedia deserve?

[Jon Awbrey]

Just be sure that derivative content does not turn up again later on, ab initio, as it were. 'Cause y'know, some people still consider that, er, impeachable.

Am I misreading this last line, or do you mean that he can't reuse your contributions to Wikipedia? I may be misreading your wording, because if that is your intent, you gave away any control over that text when you posted it to Wikipedia under GFDL.

By "Some People" I normally mean "Some Normal People", y'know — or maybe y'don't — People who observe the Norms Of Scholarly Ethics (NOSE) independently of what rag of license Some Other People affect to salute or honour on those selective self-servicing and summery occasions when it suits them to affect so.

Jon

This post has been edited by Jon Awbrey: Fri 16th May 2008, 5:10pm

[Peter Damian]

How good an article does someone of Peirce's standing merit anywhere? And how good an article does Wikipedia deserve?

The method I always use (to howls of derision, usually) is to construct an index of the relative standing of philosophers from reliable reference sources (which naturally does not include WP) then make sure the relative standing in WP is about the same. This may be stupid, but has the advantage of being completely objective and neutral.

For example see my Wikipedia Review page here:

http://www.wikipediareview.com/User:Ockham

MWB has the advantage of providing tags ('attributes') for this sort of thing.

Using this method, Peirce would achieve nearly the same ranking as Aristotle or Wittgenstein (which is absurd, but as I say it is neutral).

And now I have become intrigued by the Schroder.

The Schroder came in here

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=31011548

from an IP who was extensively editing the Peirce just before Awbrey's account was created.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Fri 16th May 2008, 5:59pm

[Jon Awbrey]

For ease of future discussion — and by this future I say Monday, Monday, Most Likely — here is the current CSP Article @ Wikipedia Review.

The Moon Letters in the Document History give us the following information:

Document history

Portions of the above article were adapted from the following sources under the [[GNU Free Documentation License]], under other applicable licenses, or by permission of the copyright holders.

• Charles Sanders Peirce, GetWiki.
  
  CODE
  
  GetWiki: Charles Sanders Peirce
  version: 13:20, 28 Feb 2007
  updater: Jon Awbrey
  comment: ndash
  
  
• Charles Sanders Peirce, Wikinfo.
  
  CODE
  
  Wikinfo: Charles Sanders Peirce
  version: 16:34, 6 Dec 2006
  updater: Jon Awbrey
  omment: correct interwikis & GFDL credits
  
  
• Charles Peirce, Wikipedia.
  
  CODE
  
  Wikipedia: Charles Peirce
  version: 02:25, 4 Sep 2006
  updater: Jon Awbrey
  comment: /* Scholastic realism */ formats
  
  
• Jaime Nubiola, Charles S. Peirce, Nupedia.

TGIF !!!

Jon

This post has been edited by Jon Awbrey: Fri 16th May 2008, 9:38pm

[Jon Awbrey]

And now I have become intrigued by the Schroder.

The Schroder came in here

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=31011548

from an IP who was extensively editing the Peirce just before Awbrey's account was created.

Those edits are due to Philip Meguire, ipse dixit in many places, for example, here.

Plus a large number of other NZ edits, not always admitted.

Jon

[Kato]

How good an article does someone of Peirce's standing merit anywhere? And how good an article does Wikipedia deserve?

Peirce deserved an article at least on a par with this lengthy biography,which sadly is lower than the Wikipedia biography on a google search.

I disagree with the assessment of Jon Awbrey's work. He was playing it pretty well until the article got derailed by someone's sockpuppets. I think some of Jon's writing on that article was too detailed and provided too many tangents for the Peirce novice like me. But Awbrey was making all kinds of concessions and working with others as per Wikipedia's touted goals.

[Peter Damian]

I disagree with the assessment of Jon Awbrey's work. He was playing it pretty well until the article got derailed by someone's sockpuppets. I think some of Jon's writing on that article was too detailed and provided too many tangents for the Peirce novice like me. But Awbrey was making all kinds of concessions and working with others as per Wikipedia's touted goals.

Well, Awbrey undeniably wrote this:

In the beginning, while it is still evident to everyone concerned that these symbols are mined from the matrix of their usual interpretations, which are generally more diverse than unique, these abstracted symbols are commonly referred to as '[[uninterpreted symbol]]s', the sense being that they are transiently detached from their interpretations simply for the sake of extra facility in processing the more general thrust of their meanings, after which intermediary process they will have their concrete meanings restored.

+ When we start to hear these abstract, general, uninterpreted symbols being described as 'meaningless' symbols, then we can be sure that a certain line in our sand-reckoning has been crossed, and that the crossers thereof have hefted or sublimated '[[formalism]]' to the status of a full-blown [[Weltanschauung]] rather than a simple [[heuristic]] device.

+ What we observe here is a familiar form of cyclic process, with the crest of excess followed by the slough of despond. The inflationary boom that raises 'formalism' beyond its formative sphere as one among a host of equally useful heuristic tricks to the status of a totalizing worldview leads perforce to the deflationary bust that makes of 'formalist' a pejorative term.

+ The point of the foregoing discussion is this, that one of the main difficulties that we have in understanding what the whole complex of words rooted in 'form' meant to Peirce is that we find ourselves, historically speaking, on opposite sides of this cycle of ideas from him.

+ And so we are required, as so often happens in trying to read a writer of another age, to lift the scales of the years from our eyes, to drop the reticles that have encrusted themselves on our 'reading glasses', our [[hermeneutic]] scopes, due to the interpolant philosophical schemata that have managed to enscounce themselves in our unthinking culture over the years that separate us from the writer in question.

It is not very good writing, and the current article is certainly better now that stuff has been removed. Furthermore, at least some people currently in Wikipedia recognise this, and this fact has been used as a stick to beat Wikipedia review with for a long time (witness e.g. Shankbone's recent attack on WR/Awbrey.

It's not very nice to have to criticise someone's writing in public, but there comes a time when it has to be said. Awbrey does no favours for this place. I'll end with an assessment made by someone else on-wiki, which perfectly captures in my view what was wrong with his contributions:

Furthermore, his writing was, frankly, crap. JA did have useful thoughts, but he absolutely refused to write well, a rather critical requirement for a WP editor who claims "English at a professional level" in his userbox. JA chose to write in neither an accessible general audience style that Wikipedia generally seeks, nor in the precise if occasionally non-obvious statements of a careful philosopher or scientist. Instead, at least to my humble opinion, JA wrote in the pretentious blather of a college student who covers for the fact he didn't actually read the works with a haze of unclear statements. Now, this is just how some people write (and they are bad writers, which is unfortunate when they have insight to communicate), but it's also how good writers can cover for a lack of knowledge. Which was it? Beats me. He seemed smart enough, but I'm still not sure on some of his stances.

[Jon Awbrey]

Roses need weeding this morning …

Wine needs drinking this evening …

So I'll have to save the wikiφertilizing for another time, but if PD is going to cite eminent scholars and expert witlesses from Our Old Skool Wiki-P-U, then good practice dictates that he do it with attribution and contextual links. The Wikipedia Review demands a higher standard of evidence and scholarship than the surd of shoddy practices they are wonton to permit in Wikiputia.

Later, Dud(ess)es …

Jon

[Peter Damian]

Roses need weeding this morning …

Wine needs drinking this evening …

So I'll have to save the wikiφertilizing for another time, but if PD is going to cite eminent scholars and expert witlesses from Our Old Skool Wiki-P-U, then good practice dictates that he do it with attribution and contextual links. The Wikipedia Review demands a higher standard of evidence and scholarship than the surd of shoddy practices they are wonton to permit in Wikiputia.
Jon

What are you talking about? You mean, you didn't write that at all. OK then!

[Jon Awbrey]

I remind you, Peter, that pretending to be stupid does not work here, at least, not with me.

If you want to quote statements, provide names of the sources and references to context.

Gotta dash &madash;

Jon

[KamrynMatika]

Roses need weeding this morning …

Wine needs drinking this evening …

So I'll have to save the wikiφertilizing for another time, but if PD is going to cite eminent scholars and expert witlesses from Our Old Skool Wiki-P-U, then good practice dictates that he do it with attribution and contextual links. The Wikipedia Review demands a higher standard of evidence and scholarship than the surd of shoddy practices they are wonton to permit in Wikiputia.
Jon

What are you talking about? You mean, you didn't write that at all. OK then!

No, he means that you didn't say who you got that quote about his writing from or where.

[Peter Damian]

I remind you, Peter, that pretending to be stupid does not work here, at least, not with me.

If you want to quote statements, provide names of the sources and references to context.

Why?

[edit] try Googling "his writing was, frankly, crap"

The awful bit with 'interpolant' is here

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=33563004

which is part of a whole swathe of edits in January 2006 here

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...&oldid=33484651

But that is quite enough. I only responded to prodding in the first place, and have kept quiet about the Awbrey problem since I joined, until now. And I shall say no more.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sat 17th May 2008, 6:13pm

[Jon Awbrey]

Yes, Yes, we've all seen this game before.

The only thing I've learned from this Niche of the Web over the past four years is that you can't have intelligent discussions with Anonymous Cowards.

No matter how innocent the use of a pseudonym may seem at first, it is like a rancid bandage too long plastered over a gangrenous wound and too long unchanged to serve its original remedial purpose, hiding a hole in the soul where all the pus of deep unconscious infection abscesses and swells, until the whole festering fistula eventually undermines the integrity and intellect of even the most well-intentioned person.

Jon

This post has been edited by Jon Awbrey: Sat 17th May 2008, 9:32pm

[Peter Damian]

No matter how innocent the use of a pseudonym may seem at first

But referees are usually anonymous. Are you saying one cannot criticise atrocious writing on an anonymous basis? Why not?

[Jon Awbrey]

No matter how innocent the use of a pseudonym may seem at first

But referees are usually anonymous. Are you saying one cannot criticise atrocious writing on an anonymous basis? Why not?

Cf. Previous remarks about pretending to be stupid.

Jon

[Moulton]

When Socrates said, "I am an ignorant man," was he only pretending to be ignorant?

[Jon Awbrey]

When Socrates said, "I am an ignorant man," was he only pretending to be ignorant?

Keep making that face — one day it will stick.

Oops, too late …

Jon

[Peter Damian]

Cf. Previous remarks about pretending to be stupid.

Perhaps it is you pretending to be stupid. How can the validity of a critical remark possibly depend on the anonymity of the critic? All we should be interested in is the criticism itself. The criticism is that the samples of writing above, which at first you pretended were not your own, are perfectly atrocious.

I note that you haven't attempted to defend the writing. You simply insult me for pointing it out, and call me stupid. Wasn't this the sort of behaviour that got you banned from the other place?

[edit] Your sufferings clearly have not been your lessons.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sun 18th May 2008, 4:47pm

[Jon Awbrey]

Cf. Previous remarks about pretending to be stupid.

Perhaps it is you pretending to be stupid. How can the validity of a critical remark possibly depend on the anonymity of the critic? All we should be interested in is the criticism itself. The criticism is that the samples of writing above, which at first you pretended were not your own, are perfectly atrocious.

I note that you haven't attempted to defend the writing. You simply insult me for pointing it out, and call me stupid. Wasn't this the sort of behaviour that got you banned from the other place?

This emusingly nostalgic retrospective SlimVignette on Wikipediot Diablogue is brought to you by Peter Damian, probably not his ®eal Name™, for the benefit of all those recovering Wikipediots who may have forgotten those crusty but still deloved e-pis-odes of The Games Wikipediots Play.

And now, back to our irregularly scheduled deprogramming …

Jon

[Peter Damian]

Cf. Previous remarks about pretending to be stupid.

Perhaps it is you pretending to be stupid. How can the validity of a critical remark possibly depend on the anonymity of the critic? All we should be interested in is the criticism itself. The criticism is that the samples of writing above, which at first you pretended were not your own, are perfectly atrocious.

I note that you haven't attempted to defend the writing. You simply insult me for pointing it out, and call me stupid. Wasn't this the sort of behaviour that got you banned from the other place?

This emusingly nostalgic retrospective SlimVignette on Wikipediot Diablogue is brought to you by Peter Damian, probably not his ®eal Name™, for the benefit of all those recovering Wikipediots who may have forgotten those crusty but still deloved e-pis-odes of The Games Wikipediots Play.

And now, back to our irregularly scheduled deprogramming …

Jon

Again, your sufferings clearly have not been your lessons. "The pretentious blather of a college student who covers for the fact he didn't actually read the works with a haze of unclear statements".

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sun 18th May 2008, 5:04pm