Talk:Agnosticism/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Jamesx12345 (talk · contribs) 21:36, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

I'll review this over the next few days. Jamesx12345 21:36, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Part 1

 * 1) First line - not sure about the use of the phrase "truth values" - maybe just "truthfulness"?
 * 2) "Thomas Henry Huxley, an English biologist, coined the word agnostic in 1869.[4] However, earlier thinkers have written works that promoted agnostic points of view." - "The word agnostic was coined by Thomas Henry Huxley, an English biologist, in 1869, but earlier thinkers have written works that promoted agnostic points of view." - ref 4 is redundant to 15 in Etymology, perhaps just move it?
 * 3) "Protagoras was exiled from Athens and his books were burnt because of his Agnostic beliefs" - maybe remove this - some confusion with full stops here.
 * 4) Final para of intro could do with contemporary agnosticism, demographics, personalities etc.
 * 5) "According to philosopher William L. Rowe, in the popular sense an agnostic is someone who neither..." - repeated almost verbatim from intro.
 * 6) Refs for Huxley quote should be next to the "said"
 * 7) Likewise ref 15 should be after "rejects all claims of spiritual or mystical knowledge."
 * 8) "often has a meaning close to "independent"" - "can mean independence from some parameters" (or something like that.)


 * Thanks, I am fixing them:
 * 1) A wikilink has been already given for Truth value: is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth., that may be able to explain the truth values.
 * 2) Moved the ref 4 to Etymology sub-section here
 * 3) Removed the line about Protagoras here.
 * 4) Please clarify the "final para of intro". Do you mean the last line of the lead?
 * Yes - there is probably some scope for expansion there.


 * 1) Removed the repeated text here.
 * 2) Moved all the refs for quotes before "said", "writes", etc here.
 * 3) Done, fixed here.
 * 4) Done here. Fai  zan  09:38, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Part 2

 * 1) Qualifying agnosticism has just 1 ref early on.
 * Removed the un-referenced text.


 * 1) The alarm clock analogy is confusing - I'm not quite sure what it's meant to say.
 * Removed the un-cited analogy. That has apparently no relation with the reference.


 * 1) "is literally stating" - rm literally - the rest of that paragraph is a bit weak.
 * Removed. Reduced the paragraph a bit, the categories are referenced.


 * 1) The History section is a bit confusing - the first main is not used in the text, and the one for Huxley could instead be linked in the prose. I'm also concerned about the brevity - it's probably borderline on the broadness of coverage.
 * main templates have been removed and instead they have been linked to the prose, as these were not the main articles of the philosophers' agnostic views solely. The usage of words is mainly dealing with their quotes.

Part 3

 * The quote from the Rig Veda should be sourced - can be found here or here - and linked.
 * Done here.


 * The section on Greek philosophy is extremely short, and a reference is required for the rejection of certainty.
 * The section has been expanded a bit and references have been added.


 * ...prove the existence of God" - needs a ref (should be quite straightforward.)
 * Added references.


 * Charles Kingsley can be linked.
 * Linked.


 * On a similar vein, there is a great deal of these letters - I see no problem with that now, but others might think differently.
 * Only your thinking matters.


 * "Huxley's agnosticism is believed to be a natural... metaphysical issues are fundamentally unknowable." - needs a few references.
 * The paragraphs have been removed. There was no such reference for this "natural consequence", it appeared to be personal commentary to me. The Huxley quote in the second paragraph was already stated above, so it was also removed.


 * "he claims that agnosticism is "the very reverse of atheism"" - this rather leaves the reader hanging - I think a short explanation would be nice.
 * Yeah that is right. But the book of Ross is not available for preview in Google. There is no such content on "reverse of atheism" in Google Search. I think that if it causes more problems, the line can be removed.


 * The section on Bertrand Russell also needs a few more refs.
 * Added references


 * Ref 43 can be moved to "Russell states:"
 * Done.


 * I would delink Homeric - Greek mythology might be more useful.
 * Replaced "Homeric gods" with "Greek mythology"


 * Demographics is extremely short, and is probably not sufficiently broad (in my opinion) to meet the criteria at present. Atheism has a section that could provide some inspiration.
 * Expanded the Demographics section. Took the references from the Atheism article and putted the agnostic figures. Also took the images which were supposed for both of the agnosticism and atheism.


 * "repudiate" is a highly unusual word - I'm sure there is a simpler one.
 * Replaced it with "deny".


 * It's unclear what is sourced from ref 56 - is it for the whole paragraph?
 * Fixed, that reference was only for Islam, and not for all the three Abrahamic Religions, and had no place there. Replaced the text according to the original reference.


 * The Religious criticism section is quite unclear in places, especially the paragraph starting "Islam tends to completely..."
 * Removed the line about Islam. Applied fixes


 * Is there more atheist criticism of agnosticism than Dawkins? I think there must be somewhere.
 * I have trimmed the text there that was not meant for criticism.


 * The citations are a bit inconsistent - for example, Britannica should use cite encyclopedia, the books in the bibliography are not using cite book (and are missing some information), and some the rest of the cites have some individual quirks to be ironed out.
 * Fixed all the Britannica's references. Fixed the books in the bibliography.

Thanks for responding to my comments quickly - I'm being quite harsh, but this is a very important article and it would be good to get it looking like a proper GA.


 * I'm very happy to pass it now - I've read through it again and it is much more informative and readable than it was just a few days ago. There is still some scope for expansion, however, so you could enter The Core Contest and see what you can make of it. Well done! Jamesx12345 17:50, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Passed GA review. Jamesx12345 21:37, 11 February 2014 (UTC)