The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was DELETE. The debate is complete in itself, so I don't think I'm going to write a long closure statement here: a good number of learned people advocate clean deletion of this, and whilst there is learned support for retention also, it is clearly not the consensual position. (Aside: I don't like the argument that there exists a topic that is unsuitable because of the internal operations of this wiki; the internals should be fixed, not the articles deleted). -Splash - tk 23:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This article will always be either biased, incomplete, patchy, and unhelpful (as it is now) or exceedingly long (like the London Philosophy Study Guide, which is linked at the bottom of the page, have a look at the vast number of subsections needed to do the job--epistemology, for example, has no less than twenty, and on a wiki it would probably become a lot more). Even if it were to become long, it would be controversial and very prone to edit warring rather than being encyclopedic. Furthermore, this list has no utility to anyone: If one wants to know what to read in epistemology (for example), one should just go to the article "epistemology", and (in an ideal world at least) the references at the bottom of the page would be where to get started; if one already has an understanding of the broad topic epistemology, then one could go straight to a more specific article on whatever epistemological issue interests them (perhaps the Gettier problem) and consult the references given there. There is nothing this page can do that our other articles don't do better (and even those are already prone to plenty of controversies over what is to count as sufficient references). KSchutte 21:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The previous deletion debate is here. It was withdrawn by nominator. --Bduke 22:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - KSchutte becomes frustrated when he removes Ayn Rand's name from a list and someone else (often me) puts her name back (that is really the only edit warring that has been going on). When this has happened enough times, he decides the the list should be deleted. This is the pattern that has presented itself over time and with several lists before this one. He states that the list has no utility but he has no statistics of use to back that statement up. He doesn't know what use it is getting. If I want to look at publications in philosophy I want to use a list and not go hopping to each of the topic areas. We do know that many editors have made many contributions over a long time - and their work shouldn't be trashed. He complains about the list being too long. Length is a function of the subject's complexity and I'm not aware of any posted standard saying what a just-right length would be. This list isn't there to satisfy KSchutte's view of things (e.g., bias, completeness, length, or Rand-free) - it is to be a useful tool for someone interested in philosophy publications. Sorry if I sound snippy, but there is a kind of arrogance to wanting to delete the work of many other people because you can't have it just the way you want it. Steve 22:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Response. If you actually have a look at the edit history, my friend, you'd find that many or even most of the significant contributions to this list have been made by myself. My present disgust with your behavior is irrelevant to whether this is or ever could be a good article. Also, you selectively mention my removal of Rand from various lists without mentioning my repeated defense of the inclusion of Rand on several other lists (such as List of philosophers born in the twentieth century and list of women philosophers). I do want her removed where she is inappropriate. How startling!
Furthermore, I'm not complaining that the article is too long. One of my complaints is that it is not nearly long enough. It should be as long as the London Philosophy Study Guide, and I believe that reaches at least one hundred pages. - KSchutte 22:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. There are problems about inclusion in this list and other related lists which are part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls. I have tried to get a debate on the inclusion criteria that are listed at the top of the page from a template at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Science pearls. I have suggested:
"This is a list of important publications in {{{1}}}, organized by field.
Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as significant or important:
Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic of considerable significance.
Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly.
Introduction – A publication that is a particularly good introduction or survey of a topic at either an elementary or advanced level, and that has also made a significant impact on the discipline such as changing the way it is taught, being the current best-selling textbook in the field, or having been an exceptionally important previous textbook in the field, or in other ways.
Influence – A publication which has significantly influenced the world.
Assertions of significance or importance should be supported by cited sources or by a properly referenced article on the publication elsewhere on Wikipedia.
Would this change to the template help to make this list better? I would prefer to improve the inclusion criteria, settle the long standing edit war about Rand and keep the list. Note that, unlike other lists in the Project, this list does not have sentences for each entry giving a description of the entry and a reason, per the criteria in the template, of importance. --Bduke 22:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Response: I think philosophy is unsuited to this sort of thing on a wiki. While it can be done well by professionals (as the London Philosophy Study Guide proves), it is absurd to think that a subject that has been studied as long as philosophy (texts don't really become outdated in the way that books on programming or neuroscience do) and has contained as diverse a collection of viewpoints as philosophy does could ever survive the POV controversies on a wiki. If there is some way to retain the article with no list at all (but rather links to uneditable things like the LPSG) that would be nice, but that seems to be "What Wikipedia is Not". Add to this the additional problem that people are far more inclined to think they know philosophy without studying it than they are likely to think that they know what a scientist knows. If you talk to the writers of the LPSG and convince them to let it into the public domain, I'd be glad to transcribe it here even in the face of the problems, and we'd have a nice useful list that would be a hundred printed pages or so, and then people would probably add their quackery and it would be only slightly noticeable. On any list under fifty printed pages long, the quackery is extremely obvious, disingenuous, and harmful to anyone who may think she is learning something important about philosophy by reading it. - KSchutte 22:48, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Anyone who is pondering whether a list of this sort is possible should get a reminder of how big philosophy is by looking at the List of philosophical topics. - KSchutte 23:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Although I was initially a fan of this list, and lists like it, I'm afraid I have become disillusioned. I think the primary purpose for this list is that it can provide a reading list for people interested in a particular topic. In this respect, I think the reader would be better served by an appropriately referenced and complete article on a given topic (as KSchutte has already mentioned). Doing this is better because it presents the material in context, allowing the reader to see in what ways individual pieces have been influential. I am concerned about the dangers of bias in a list like this. Judging influence objectively in any discipline is very hard, especially so in a discipline like philosophy where there are many different "camps" who often attempt to reduce the importance of people from the other camps. Even when not intended, bias of this sort will have a substantial impact. Because we don't have representatives from all of the different philosophical movements who are active on wikipedia (much less this list), I don't think the "averaging of POVs" strategy will pan out here. This is especially true since the reaction of many people will be to include as much as possible in the list, thus reducing its usefulness to readers. I'm afraid that I don't think that this list can ever provide a fair representation of what it purports to do. --best, kevin[kzollman][talk] 23:43, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep any subject should be suitable for this if there are enough publications. I don't see why philosophers should be assumed to be less reasonable than other scholars. DGG 05:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Are you suggesting that KS and myself are assuming philosophers are less reasonable than other scholars? I must say I fail to see how. --best, kevin[kzollman][talk] 05:35, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I must agree with Kevin. Besides, let's not fail to notice that the analogous list for political science has been deleted (I'm assuming, since it is linked to but doesn't exist), the list for biology has been nominated for deletion twice, and the list for computer science has been nominated for deletion once as well. It isn't just a problem for philosophers; it is a problem for every field. - KSchutte 16:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I can't really disagree with KSchutte and Kzollman. It's doomed to be an unwieldy, overlong, partial, and unbalanced list. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 17:31, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete -- possibility to move to Wikibooks; such a list is inherently "unencyclopaedic", as it can never be adequately sourced to the agreement of editors, and is contrary to WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE. --LeflymanTalk 20:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete To quote myself, from the article's talk page, last year: "For my money, lists such as this are NPOV traps. It is not possible to come up with criteria that will achieve general agreement, and so the list will be a continual source of conflict - the present is a case in point....I think that lists such as this would be better removed; the task they might perform is better served by Category:Philosophical literature. This cat ought contain all such items for which there are Wikipedia articles. Time spent on this pointless debate would be better spent on improving the cat, or improving the article on Rand's book." Banno 21:31, 10 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Banno. it is a pov trap, but the category is too. --Buridan 03:42, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I think the list of philosophers is very well organized and serves virtually the same purpose as this article. I also think a list of publications would be a better fit for Wikibooks. uriah923(talk) 05:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I think kzollman has hit the nail on the head. This list is unlikely to ever meet the Wiki criteria for such lists - NPOV, "comprehensive" etc. I think it far better to make sure that each of the main articles on schools/periods of philosophy include the key works mentioned - which no doubt they do/will. Madmedea 08:36, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Unmanageable. And, as per Banno, POV problems are inherent in this type of article. Simões (talk/contribs) 16:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, the article itself has some problems, but the field is narrow enough to be clearly defined by non-POV criteria. I think it should be limited to English language publications and acc. renamed AlfPhotoman 17:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment What is your justification for such a judgement and what are your qualifications to make that judgement? Most of the votes to delete so far have come from individuals who are already or are working to become professional philosophers. The same can't be said for most of the votes to keep. Also, your language comment is puzzling (and apparently unrelated to everyone's concerns here). Did you mean the list should include only things originally written in English or did you mean it should exclude anything lacking a published English translation? Why? - KSchutte 06:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is relevant. Since much of this debate is centered around the probability that agreement can be reached I think that the opinion of professionals (or almost professionals) should be taken more seriously. Assuming that what people say on their userpages are true, among those who voted everyone who holds (or are working to get) advanced degrees in philosophy voted delete, KS and I both have MA's and are persuing PhDs (both in the UC system, although at different schools), Simoes is a graduate student in philosophy (at U of Houston), and Mel is a professional philosopher at Oxford. --best, kevin[kzollman][talk] 18:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Though his userpage doesn't mention them, I'm sure Banno has similar qualifications. - KSchutte 22:56, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I must point out that the publication list is not more subjective than the list of philosophers. The list of philosophers list the people and the list of publications list their work. We do try to find criteria that will be satisfying. The aim is to create a list the most experts in the field will agree of their importance. In the worst case such a list can be constructed by consulting such experts. As for the size of the list, I do agree that a too large list is not useful. We plan to take care of this problem by splitting the list to sub list. APH 12:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The aim is to create a list the most experts in the field will agree of their importance. Even if we had a bank of pre-chosen experts to consult, I submit that there will not be agreement over what to include. Now, deciding who gets to count as an expert in philosophy is difficult (for instance, am I, an ABD graduate student?) and representing their beliefs adequately will be even more so. --best, kevin[kzollman][talk] 14:44, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In many areas we do have a pool of experts. In physics there are Nobel Prize laureates. In computer science there are Turing award winners. People appearing in the list can also be considered as expert to their sub topic. I contacted such experts in computer science and they thought that the list is very valuable and help making it even better. I think that a graduate student can be considered as an expert to a sub field and so is a professor. APH 06:52, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, fuck it, let people randomly hop around the category system until they find what they want. Kappa 05:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As it was not directly relevant to the deletion discussion, I have moved the comments regarding profanity to the talk page. Please continue the discussion there. --best, kevin[kzollman][talk] 18:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
