Talk:Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Comparison of SEP to Wikipedia
I moved this to Comparison to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Charles Stewart 10:12, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Unless somene preferably the author can defend his errors section, I'm going to remove it in a couple of days. Notwithstadning that it comes across as a little, ahem, strange... but e.g. the two statements on capitalism are not mutually exclusive. Thanks
 * Hi, I'm the editor who added the errors section. The errors both deal with capitalism because of the nature of the article, not with my personal views.  Please assume good faith in this regard.  I'm OK with you moving the errors to the Wikipedia page, though.  Just don't remove them.--Urthogie 21:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, hi, I appreciate the reply. It seems to me that the "error" in Stanford and the proof do not strictly rule each other out: i.e. it is not strictly an error. It is possible that global capitalism is "widening the gap between north and south" AND global capitalism decreases famine. I suspect that the "race" error is similar. Can we have a third opinion on this?
 * The entire sentence is included, but the error is not in the "north south" gap part. its when she says "working to further marginalize women, ethnic or indigenous minorities, and the disabled in the so-called Third and Fourth Worlds."  Secondly, how is the race error similar?--Urthogie 00:58, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The quote you give does not, again, rule out Stanford's "error". I will look at the race stuff, but it gives me a bit of a headache because I'm not familiar with the use of the terms. Even if wikipedian's agree with you I would still suggest moving it. It does seem some-what out of place: but thats not my main concern. ETA: "Despite a complex history of biological essentialism in the presentation of racial typologies, the notion of a genetic basis to racial difference has been discredited; the criteria different societies (at different times) use to organize and hierarchize “racial formations” are political and contingent" Two things can be said. The topic is divided enough for there to be legitimately different opinions on whether a genetic basis to racial difference has been discredited: it is therefore wrong to describe it as an "error". Secondly the term "racial difference" may be being used by Heyes to describe something different to 'diffentiation among the races' as used by Risch (the scientist cited by you), perhaps speciation. I suggest that it would be better to use the info you have in the race sections, rather than sticking just one (stipulative) error under wiki's Stanford/Wikipedia page.


 * I agree with you that it should be moved, but your understanding of the error's is completely flawed. There are no two opinions on whether races have somewhat of a genetic basis.--Urthogie 03:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I guess thats a discussion you ought to be having elsewhere. Is it ok if I delete then, and you can decide what you want to do with the text?
 * Don't delete it unless you plan to move it also.--Urthogie 19:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Jeepers, can't you move it, its your work! Yeah, I have to say that I don't agree that the errors are errors, though I may be wrong, and I don't know where it could go. I will delete soon, as one can access old data: once you've accessed the data via the history tabt, click 'edit'. Thanks


 * I moved it to Comparison to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Qxz 07:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

License
I take it from the copyright page that all the mentions on the site of it being "Free" actually refer to the cost to access and not the licensing? --Gwern (contribs) 02:05 5 April 2007 (GMT)
 * precisely. the website has copyright info, and articles are credited to individuals. they want to maintain free access, as it obviously costs them to produce it.76.252.223.197 (talk) 03:03, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

how many times does SEP appear in WP Philosophy and Political articles?
I am concerned this one source is overused as a source in almost all Philosophy and Political articles. The POV appears to tilt to the left. Many of the article authors, and sources are virtual unknowns. Darkstar1st (talk) 20:22, 12 May 2010 (UTC)


 * If you are curious, search Wikipedia with the base URL and count the hits; most articles using the SEP will obviously also be linking to it. --Gwern (contribs) 16:34 26 May 2010 (GMT)


 * I found 1394 for Stanford, compared to the more well known(higher google ranked)iep.utm.edu, which has only 402. I suggest this source is being over-used in WP.  Any ideas how to balance the sources? Darkstar1st (talk) 19:39, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Google Rank doesn't necessarily correspond to anything; I don't remember any of my philosophy courses/teachers ever mentioning any iep.utm.edu, but they did SEP.
 * If there is a problem to remedy here, it can be remedied by hard work. I suggest you start with the first article and go from there... --Gwern (contribs) 19:57 26 May 2010 (GMT)


 * Good point. Here is an example of why SEP may be unbalancing WP; Peter Vallentyne, wrote the libertarianism SEP article, and uses himself as a source four times. He also uses H. Steiner, who he collaborated with on three of his own cited works, as a fifth source.  Self-sourcing is accepted in SEP, but not WP?  Darkstar1st (talk) 14:21, 27 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Shockingly, self-sourcing is rampant outside of Wikipedia; I read a newspaper today in which every other article seemed to have self-sourcing. To say nothing of the academic papers! --Gwern (contribs) 14:46 27 May 2010 (GMT)


 * Well said, therefore, should we review the use of SEP until the sourcing is corrected? It appears these articles in WP, which rely on SEP as a source, are victim of self-sourcing by proxy.  Darkstar1st (talk) 14:50, 27 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Their self sourcing might not be that bad. I think the peer review process would likely catch any purely circular reasoning: I cite myself, thus my article must be good as i have citations, from a source that is good, as the source wrote this article. i know it sounds crazy, but if you are the expert on a subject, want to write an encyclopedic article on the subject, and are willing to submit your article, with sources that are your own publications, you are probably highly confident that peers will still pass it after scrutinizing it for any errors related to self importance. This wouldnt work for a lot of subjects, but some academic and scientific disciplines can probably do it. We are allowed to quote experts, so why not quote experts who rely on their own work, in some fields?(mercurywoodrose not logged in)76.252.223.197 (talk) 03:09, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Funding sources?
The SEP is funded by a variety of sources, including many universities. Should we add a section about which universities fund SEP?Or is this unnecessary? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.142.124.39 (talk) 18:53, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The fundraising commitments for the SEP are listed here: http://plato.stanford.edu/fundraising/commitments.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.142.124.39 (talk) 19:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I suspect it would be boring to read and tricky to update to list all the universities as there are dozens if not hundreds and they will change from year to year as universities add and drop support.  How is described in the article already and so the best method if a list is desired is giving the link in the external links section.  The only exception I can think of would be for the three universities that mirror the encyclopedia as well as provide funds   --Erp (talk) 07:06, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

What is the WP:RS for calling SEP an "encyclopedia"?
What is the WP:RS for calling SEP an "encyclopedia"? It self-admits to containing original research, unlike a real encyclopedia. When one asks the question of Ed Zalta, he simply shrugs his shoulders. Calling it an "encyclopedia" is like (but less dangerous than) calling alternative medicine "medicine". (This comment is not meant to be disparaging of SEP, since not onlhy are its encyclopedia articles very good, but its original research articles, while not technically encyclopedia articles, are also very good.) ParkSehJik (talk) 01:41, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that their peer-reviewed articles are certainly reliable sources. --181.164.97.184 (talk) 22:12, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Related data visualization project
Saw this and thought it might interest the community. It needs to be viewed on a desktop browser. [] TimTempleton (talk) (cont)  14:25, 24 February 2021 (UTC)