Connolley improves a philosophy article!, well ... Options

[Peter Damian]

I have something about this here http://ocham.blogspot.com/2011/02/willliam...-existence.html

He removes a perfectly valid observation about the 'existential quantifier' here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=410824145 with the comment 'this article is essentially entirely about philosophical goo and dribble. lets not taint it with anything like maths'.

Right.

Now William Connolley “British software engineer, writer, and blogger on climate science” has had a go. I generally appreciate Connolley’s contributions to Wikipedia. He has worked hard to reinforce rational and reasonable and ‘scientific’ approach to articles on science and junk science and pseudoscientific nonsense generally, and that is not so bad. But his attempts at improving “Existence” perfectly illustrate the problem when people who are intelligent and articulate but educated in one subject area try to tackle another subject in which they are perhaps not so competent.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Thu 3rd February 2011, 8:17pm

[Lar]

I have something about this here http://ocham.blogspot.com/2011/02/willliam...-existence.html

He removes a perfectly valid observation about the 'existential quantifier' here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=410824145 with the comment 'this article is essentially entirely about philosophical goo and dribble. lets not taint it with anything like maths'.

Right.

"philosophical goo and dribble" ??? ... what a charmer!

[radek]

I have something about this here http://ocham.blogspot.com/2011/02/willliam...-existence.html

He removes a perfectly valid observation about the 'existential quantifier' here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=410824145 with the comment 'this article is essentially entirely about philosophical goo and dribble. lets not taint it with anything like maths'.

Right.

Now William Connolley “British software engineer, writer, and blogger on climate science” has had a go. I generally appreciate Connolley’s contributions to Wikipedia. He has worked hard to reinforce rational and reasonable and ‘scientific’ approach to articles on science and junk science and pseudoscientific nonsense generally, and that is not so bad. But his attempts at improving “Existence” perfectly illustrate the problem when people who are intelligent and articulate but educated in one subject area try to tackle another subject in which they are perhaps not so competent.

I think his point is not that it is an invalid observation, but rather that it is not what the article is currently about. If you allow a stretched analogy it's a bit like putting in the fact about the area of the circle divided by the square of its radius into the article on (chocolate, lemon, blueberry) pie.

I'm not sure I agree with him - there is some "formal logic/math" stuff that is discussed in the body of the article and as such having something about it in the lede would appear to be justified - but it's a different point he's making.

[Peter Damian]

Connolley replies here

People don't talk about me much, so I'll point you at ocham.blogspot.com. It is even kind, in parts, but the problem he points out - the difficulty of maintaining an article like [[Existence]] - is quite genuine. I'm currently hacking through various "esoteric" bits of wikipedia removing cruft (I even started [[Gurdjieff Foundation]]), and Existence was but one minor victim of my ghastly surgery. I don't agree with "Ockham" - my attitude is that maths doesn't really belong in an article that is predominantly philosophy, but I don't care enough on that subject to argue hard.
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2011/02/will...e_existence.php

Problems with Wikipedia? Really?

[lilburne]

Problems with Wikipedia? Really?

If he's looking for something to do, he could work on Rutherford, the DNB has 8 pages, WP lists streets named after him.

[Peter Damian]

Well now he is tackling the enormous and bloated http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=414107236 Urantia Book article, one word at a time. Will take about a month I suppose, and then there are about 1,000 more articles like that.

Just send it to RfD, Will. Alternatively, get a life.

[KD Tries Again]

I missed this earlier. A philosophical discussion of existence which doesn't mention the existential quantifier would be absolutely worthless. But I take Peter's general point - this is another striking example of how hopeless a project it is to have technical articles edited by non-experts; the additional problem in this case is that perfectly intelligent readers unfamiliar with the subject don't realize how inadvertently destructive the edit is.

This post has been edited by KD Tries Again: Wed 23rd February 2011, 10:55pm