Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy/Archive 4

Participants -
Now that I've messed up the participants section, someone might like to fix it. I guess the easiest thing to do would be to cut it to a sub-page - any problems with doing that? Banno 21:26, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Barnstar


I'd like to set up a barnstar (see Barnstars on Wikipedia) specifically for excellence in writing or editing of a philosophy-related article. I thought about using this picture of Sophia surrounded by the Arts, but... now I'm hoping that someone with a bent to graphic design might come up with something better.

If others think it worthwhile, I'll propose it at Barnstar and award proposals. Banno 21:02, September 4, 2005 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Septem-artes-liberales_Herrad-von-Landsberg_Hortus-deliciarum_1180.jpg|thumb]]

Hi, cool idea. When I was putting together the Philosopher template (below), I found this alternate graphic - if you download it you can get it in quite good quality. FranksValli 03:06, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Alternately, we could just commandeer the Barnstar of High Culture:

Star of Sophia
What about this? (hey, I'm no graphic artist - you are welcome to have a go yourself)

I suggest we use this to acknowledge good work in the area of philosophy. Perhaps:
 * Set up a page for nominations and voting.
 * Only participants in WikiProject Philosophy are eligible to vote (ie, those who have their names listed at WikiProject Philosophy/participants
 * Those who get over some minimum (say, 5?) number of votes receive the award, and will have the star placed on their user page, and their names recorded for eternity on the Project page.

Comments? Banno 02:38, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

I think the idea is wonderful, and the several symbols shown are fine. I myself wish there were something with a good representation of Socrates, since I would imagine admiration for him as the archetypical philosopher is widespread. Really, Banno, I think you're providing some much needed leadership here, and you are to be congratulated. icut4u
 * It'd be easy to take a generic barnstar and photoshop a bust of Socrates onto the middle. --- Skubicki 05:50, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Global Justice
Hey there folks, I've just put my name on the board to help out with the WikiProject and I've been looking for an area where I could help out. I suppose the main area would be the area of my thesis, being global justice. If search for Global Justice you'll be taken to a stub which claims that global justice is an anti-capitalism thing. Anyone with much contact with political philosophy will know that that's not completely accurate. I'm thinking it would be good to perhaps set up a disambiguation page of some sort and create a Global Justice (Political Philosophy) article. There are a number of philosophers that have written on the topic in the wikipedia, and a few of them are stubs. It would be good to create a project to expand on them as well (I mean, the article on Thomas Pogge is a stub!).

I haven't posted this on the Open Tasks, as I wanted to get some feedback on approaching it first and to see if anyone else was interested in pursuing it with me.

--S.P.Daly 21:28, 6 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Welcome, Shanon. You are certainly right about global justice having inadequate cover. Just jump in and start writing, I'm sure you will find folk to discuss this issue. Banno 21:37, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Philosopher Template
Hi all - I propose a Philosopher Template to be added to all Philosophers. This will GREATLY improve our organization of the philosophy pages as a whole. Please note that I have seen a "Philosophy" template floating around somewhere that didn't specifically address philosophers. If someone could point me in the direction of this I'd appraciate it. If you are unsure of what a template is, take a look at this page: AEG_B.I. The idea is that a general template is made, which resides at Template:Infobox_WWIAircraft_Standard. If you take a look at the source code of the AEG_B.I page, you will notice that all of the values are nicely organized, so the only thing the user has to do is fill in variables (i.e. role = reconnaisance, first_flight = 1914). I would like to make a template for all the philosophers, and it would have this basic information (all of which is free to debate, of course!): Name, Date (born, died), Philosophical Era (see below), Famous Works, Directly Influenced by (philosophers who contributed to their thinking), Directly influenced (philosophers that were influenced by this philosopher), Most Known Ideas. The data most in question are the last three, but most notably "Most known for". My idea is to have some major features of their thought here. It could be a quote, a book, or an idea. For instance, Descartes could have "I think, therefore I am" AND/OR Cartesianism. The areas for "Directly Influenced by" and "Directly Influenced" are less controversial, but still more controversial to include than things like Name or Date. Just for quick reference, it would be very useful to be able to see which thinkers influenced a particular philosopher, and which philosophers were influenced by them. Here's a little example: Name = Socrates Directly Influenced by = Pre-Socratics, Sophists Directly Influenced = Plato Name = Plato Directly Influenced by = Socrates Directly Influenced = Aristotle Name = Aristotle Directly Influenced by = Plato Directly Influenced = Thomas Aquinas In the end, the completed template would look something like this (remember, it appears to the right of the philosopher article): There are definitely problems with the terminologies here, please especially focus on the titles for "Philosophers By Era" and make corrections. Also a little note - there needs to be a separate section for Modernist Philosophy. As it is now, the page for Modernism is focused mainly on the art and culture aspect. However, there is NO mention of Descartes, who was the start of the Modernist philosophical movement. It would also be cool to have each philosophical era have their own template background! Sorry this post is so long! FranksValli 03:00, 7 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Seems like a good idea, time to replace the generic infoboxes with philosophical infoboxes. Could also include Date and Place of Birth and Death for easy reference. -Yorick, Jester of Elsinore 03:08, 2005 September 7 (UTC)


 * Ah yes, good idea. I knew I was forgetting something  :).  I just added Place of Birth and Death.  Date was already on there, but it can be expanded into "Date of Birth" and "Date of Death" if that looks better.  Feel free to play around with that template.  -FranksValli 03:17, 7 September 2005 (UTC)


 * This is a quite excellent idea - my only change would be to match the eras used with "Category:Philosophy by era", which itself needs work. Banno 20:38, September 7, 2005 (UTC)


 * I have to agree that this is a great idea. Does anyone know if there is a list of different philosophical 'schools' anywhere--perhaps this information could be included in the box if it is available?  Not academic schools, but groups of like-minded philosophers, such as empiricists, existentialists, sophists, etc.  I have seen category breakdowns into metaphysics, logic, etc.. but not so much information on this sort of a split.  WhiteC 04:06, 12 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't know if there's one document that has them all as a list, but if one looks through almost any good history of philosophy or dictionary of philosophy, one can find the main ones listed there. Jeremy J. Shapiro 08:03, 12 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I meant is there such a list anywhere in Wikipedia?  To me, this seems to be an important way to categorize philosophy, or at least the history of philosophy.  WhiteC 03:47, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Category:Philosophical schools and Category:Philosophy by tradition, although both are scratchy. Banno 09:12, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comments everyone - I hope we can use this. The philosophical schools and traditions aren't really well-defined sometimes.  I think we should just have an area in the box that says "Philosphical tradition/school" so it will be easier to decide what goes in that box and what doesn't.  I've started a list, but it probably has things that shouldn't be there.  Anyhow, hopefully this will be useful:
 * Agnosticism, African philosophy, Alexandrian school, Analytic philosophy, Anarchism, Atheism, Cambridge Platonists, Coherentism, Contextualism, Continental philosophy, Continental rationalism, Communism, Critical theory, Deconstructionism, Deism, Eastern philosophy, Egoism, Empiricism, Epicureanism, Ethical egoism, Existentialism, Frankfurt School, Hermeneutics, Humanism, Integral theory (philosophy), Kyoto School, Marxist philosophy, Modernism, Neoplatonism, Mysticism, Objectivism, Phenomenalism, Postmodernism, Pragmatism, psychological egoism, Rationalism, Relativism, Reliabilism, Religious philosophy and doctrine, Scholasticism, School of Brentano, Scotism, Situated ethics, Situational ethics, Skepticism, Solipsism, Sophism, Stoicism, Transcendentalism, Young Hegelians, Vienna Circle, Western philosophy
 * -FranksValli 03:27, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I just picked up this very cool book - "One Hundred Philosophers: The Life and Work of the World's Greatest Thinkers". It is perfect to use for this new template - it has the usual name, birthdate/deathdate, birthplace/deathplace, major works, in addition to "main interests" and "influences/influenced", and a short summary of their philosophy.  Some thinkers even have an "in a nutshell" section.  I've edited the template again based on these ideas, plus some of the good criticism that you guys offered above (i.e. modifying Philosophers by Era).  This is gonna be fun to implement. FranksValli 04:54, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
 * In regard to influences, would it be worthwhile splitting it up into positive and negative influences? For example, the difference between Newton and Hume in their influence on Kant. Also listing the influenced as "all who came after" isn't of much help. I've made a small edit in that regard. Aquinas' work on theology should be highlighted. --- Skubicki 05:34, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh, and perhaps "Summary" should be retitled as "Quote" or something like that? So examples could be things like "I think, therefore I am", and "There is no such thing as a language". --- Skubicki 05:43, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input on this! Maybe instead of splitting it up into positive/negative influences, people who had a negative influence on a particular thinker can be listed, for example, as this: David Hume (negative influence).  Or something to that effect?
 * Also, I think that a quote section is a good idea, but I'm not sure a short summary quote can be found for everyone. Maybe we can keep the summary section (or delete?) and add the quote section to be separate? FranksValli 08:12, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, as it stands, what is entered under "Summary" isn't really a summary. The entries for Areas of Interest and influences give a much better summary of the work of the philosopher. Maybe there could be a generic entry which is basically a statement of (one of) the philosopher's famous doctrines, whether that is a "Most Known Idea" or "Summary" or "Quote" or whatever. I like your idea for negative influences. If we really wanted to be terse it could just be something like "Hume (contra.)". The convention being that the philosophers were mostly in agreement with each other unless otherwise indicated. --- Skubicki 08:24, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean about the summary - it is kind of awkward. I think you're right that the other fields give enough of a clue of what he's about, so I took it out.  The negative influences part sounds good.  I'm going to paste Aquinas's info into his main page, and I'll make the generic template this weekend, so hopefully it can start getting used  :) FranksValli 08:41, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I've made use of the template for Donald Davidson. --- Skubicki 04:02, 17 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I entered the template for David Hume and someone edited it to make it a bit thinner (35% instead of 40%). I think it looks better. I've edited it here accordingly. What do people think? --- Skubicki 07:32, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me! FranksValli 09:09, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Looks great! WhiteC 03:24, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Science pearls
Hello, Please notice this project. I hope that the List of publications in philosophy will be adopted by the philosophy porject. Thanks,APH 06:18, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Post-analytic Philosophy
There's been a number of trends in recent American philosophy which have been loosely grouped under the rubric of "Post-analytic philosophy". Perhaps this is just an empty buzzword, but it is gaining some currency so perhaps it'd be worthwhile starting an article on it. Content could include: what characterises post-analytic philosophy, in particular, as opposed to analytic and Continental philosophy (it's not JUST a combination of the two). So the resurgence of pragmatism, interest in later Wittgenstein, interdisciplinary approaches, greater historical and global awareness, etc. Also, notable writers: Rorty, Putnam, Cavell, Taylor, etc. Thoughts? --- Skubicki 04:16, 17 September 2005 (UTC)


 * An interesting notion. Perhaps it would be a good article to include, although I don't care for the term much myself. What would you include? Richard Rorty, obviously, but we need more than just his work to develop the theme. Might it be better to work on the Rorty article first? It is far too brief. But, if you find the itch irresistible, go ahead and start the article. I'll have a go at helping where I can.


 * Welcome, and nice work on Davidson, well done. Banno 05:09, 17 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I took your point on Rorty, and I've been going back through some of his stuff in order to fix up that article. But just on this topic: I think it was in Truth and Progress where he mentions "post-positivistic analytic philosophy". Perhaps it'd be worthwhile updating the Analytic philosophy article to include analytic philosophers who have pursued this trend towards a more holistic approach. --- Skubicki 14:38, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Articles nominated for deletion
The aforementioned articles have been nominated for deletion. Uncle G 00:08, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project
Hi, I'm a member of the Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-Class and good B-Class articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any articles on philosophy? We are also looking for FAs like Free will as well. Please post your suggestions here. Cheers!--Shanel 06:24, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Identity (philosophy)
The Identity (philosophy) page needs a cleanup from somebody familiar with philosophy. I've tried to clean up this page and sort out the Identity page, mostly because they struck me (and other visitors) to be disorganized to an extreme, but I lack the subject expertise needed to take the task any further. Regards Bryan 03:33, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo
The page Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo needs to be looked at; it largely seems to take Fenyô's claims at face value. See his website, http://www.infinitysociety.org/index.html, for background information.

Has anyone heard of this guy? Should the page go to AfD as being about a non-notable philosophaster? Do any recognized philosophers take him seriously? (If not, he could still be notable as a social phenomenon, if enough New Yorkers recognize him, but the article would need a rewrite.) --Trovatore 02:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Combining the Portal:Philosophy and Category:Philosophy was brilliant!
Whoever thought of redirecting Portal:Philosophy to the category is a genius. This will allow us to set up any kind of directory system we want (above the actual Category) and head wayward readers off at the pass. As you are no doubt alertly aware, the category system in Wikipedia is extremely cumbersome, easily corrupted, and not so easily repaired/maintained/updated. The portal, on the other hand, which sits directly above the category, can be used to provide a centralized replacement article directory system, or at least serve as the front door to one. Go for it! 06:30, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

How can I get a listing of all subpages, including an entire subpage tree?
Hi. I'm Go for it! 06:30, 23 November 2005 (UTC). And I'd really appreciate some help on this question. I'm trying to learn my way around the WikiProject Philosophy, and any help you could provide would sure make my day. Thanks.

Is there a way to get a list of outgoing links?
Searching through a long article for all the outgoing links is time consuming. Is there a command or quick procedure for getting a listing of such links? Go for it! 06:30, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Is there a way to get an outgoing links tree?
This would be even better. It would serve as a tool to help find new philosophy articles that we could then include in our linking structure (imbedded article links, see alsos, topic lists, categories, and templates). Go for it! 06:30, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I gave the portal a face lift. How do you like it?
I touched up the portal a bit. Needs more work, but it's a start. Let me know what you think. Go for it! 06:30, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

How exactly do all those links (in "What links to here") connect to WikiProject Philosophy?
I've tried to find the links from all those articles, and I couldn't. The links are hidden/imbedded somewhere -- it seems to have something to do with Plato's picture. I'd like to disconnect those links to make "What links to here" a better tracking tool. Right now it tells us almost nothing, because it tells us too much. All those stub articles can be tracked from the stub's template page. Can anyone help me out here?

Go for it! 09:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY: Templates can be made to update from any page!
I don't know is this is a commonly known feature, but it sure shocked the hell out of me...

When templates include subheadings, those templates can be updated by editing the subheading section in any of the articles that the template is in!

This is a double-edged sword, and I'm still learning the in's and outs of this useful trick. One problem is that in order to make shared "See also" lists worthwhile, such as a standard reference list of lists to be displayed at the end of each list, all the lists need to be included, which means the current page's listing will be listed in itself -- I've had to include a special message to prevent users from deleting the links to the current page (which are bolded and inactive when on that page but disappears from every page when deleted from any), and if users erase the dead link on every page the template is displayed, they will erase the entire list of lists!

I've found a couple ways to disable this feature while still using the subheadings, but they only work well in specific situations. Check out the See also sections in the Philosophy main article and in all the lists listed therein to get a gander at the new system. I plan to write up some instructions once I've learned more about the benefits, applications, and limitations of this tool.

Go for it! 09:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Project: Integrated Navigation System for Philosophy
I've been building a nav system (started it even before I got my username) to see and traverse the structure of philosophy articles on Wikipedia. So far, it has the following components:


 * Philosophy Quick Topic Guide (template) - it's fairly well refined, but runs the risk of growing too large. Our job will be to keep it streamlined.  It needs to be kept to a maximum number of lines, standardized to a specific screen resolution.   In the early stages of development of this template, it got included in far too many articles, but will suffice until more refined templates are designed to take its place in the lower tiers of the philosophy hierarchy.
 * Lists - I've created the List of basic philosophical topics and the List of philosophical isms, and have been gathering (into the other parts of this nav system) all the general philosophy topic lists. Please let me know if there are any I missed.
 * "See also" templates - these include a list of philosophical lists and a list of general (top of the hierarchy) topics. So far, I've placed these templates in the Philosophy main article, and on all the general philosophy topic lists that I could find.

I've found the Category system much too tedious to build a significant structure, and I've found that other users rake over whatever garden I've tended in short order. The link system outlined above, by contrast, has so far shown itself to be quite stable (though the verdict is still out on the "See also" templates).

I've been linking these all together in various ways, and I'm currently in the process of hooking them into the top of the philosophy article hierarchy (Portal:Philosophy, Philosophy main article, other general philosophy articles, the general philosophy lists, etc.) I'm almost done, and just have the "See also" templates to hook-in to the Portal (with some added formatting, of course).

Go for it! 09:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Integrated Nav System Goals
The goals of this project include:


 * 1) Improve the presence of WikiProject Philosophy throughout the subject of philosophy, to get more people cooperating in an organized way on well-organized projects.
 * 2) Gather all the names of all the philosophy-related topics in one place. As complete as the philosophy topics list is, it still doesn't list them all.  How can we fix this?
 * 3) Develop and man a system to find new philosophy articles as they are created. In order to hook them into our nav system, we need to know what they are.
 * 4) Implement a more explicit uplink strategy than "What links here" and categories. That is, a better way for users to get to parent topics, without having to wade through the article's text to do it.
 * 5) Build an integrated system of navigation templates and portals, in successive tiers, making use of existing templates and portals as appropriate so as not to duplicate efforts. I still don't know how this will all fit together.  It looks likely that the templates will be the glue for articles, and articles will be the glue for templates.
 * All of which is the task of the categories. Banno 20:29, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

This of course will take more than one person to implement, and depends upon you to adopt the project.

Your input on these goals and how best to clarify and implement them is heartily welcomed.

Go for it! 09:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject is a misnomer
We're actually a WikiTeam.

Go for it! 09:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * A Wikiproject is what we are. See WikiProject Banno 20:31, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Does a "WikiProject" page have any special properties?
Would renaming the page have any detrimental effects?

Go for it! 09:10, 23 November 2005 (UTC)


 * yes; we are a project, not a team. The notion of "team" implies a common purpose and method that simply aren't present - and I would argue aren't desirable. Editors looking for support in philosophy tasks will work through the Wipiprojects pages to find us. Also, the philosophy project already has a large presence across the Wiki, a change of name would be confusing. Banno 20:35, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I understand and agree. I'm still interested in the functionality of the program. Do WikiProject pages have any functionality that other pages on Wikipedia don't have? (For example, Category pages display a category list automatically. Do WikiPorject pages have any special programmed/scripted/built-in features, commands, controls, aspects, etc.?)  Go for it! 20:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Nope. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Where are the color code definitions?
There are color codes sprinkled throughout Wikipedia's source pages. How does one find out what colors belong to what numbers?

Is there a list or tool that you could direct me to?

Then we can make sure all our project members have easy access to it as well.

Go for it! 12:06, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Ionian school dilemna
Please see Ionian School and the related AfD page. Karol 14:21, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, bis
Since someone roughly doubled the length of the TOC after I asked my question last night, let me ask it again: Has anyone heard of Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo? Should his page be deleted? See discussion above at. --Trovatore 16:37, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I've put the article on AfD, at Articles for deletion/Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo. Please contribute if you have any information. (I nominated it with an abstention; I'm not convinced it needs to be deleted but think the case for his notability has not been made.) --Trovatore 20:25, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Peer review/Logic/archive1
Your participation is appreciated. --- Charles Stewart 20:09, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * There have been some tricky issues of formulating philosophical concepts raised...

Template:Philosophy Quick Topic Guide
I've rv'ed the application of the template to the logic article, on the grounds that it is a great unwieldly thing inappropriate to a topic with major interdisciplinary aspects. --- Charles Stewart 00:33, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Please change knowledge to epistemology
Hi there. The article on knowledge covers a broad range of fields and approaches to knowledge and is not really the right article for this project. Please change it on your lists to epistemology which IS the best article for the philosophical study of knowledge. Sbwoodside 01:44, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
 * where? Which list?Banno 20:37, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Template:Philosophy_%28navigation%29 ... it's been changed already though Sbwoodside 01:04, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Urgent deletion issue
Hi, I created the Philosophy (navigation) template, and I voted for saving it too (as an IP). However, when I duplicated the template to adopt a new tag name, Infinity0 had a cow. We've been in an edit war since I started the template, and we escalated our battle to TfD, which was a big mistake, for now the whole project (both templates) is at risk because some people are voting to delete both. Meanwhile Infinity0 and I are voting to delete each other's TfD candidates, ironically pushing the delete votes for both templates into the majority. We need your help. Neither of us want both templates to die.

Here are the reasons to choose the "Philosophy Quick Topic Guide" tag:
 * Both templates are identical, as changes are ported after each round of disputes, to keep them that way. We've nearly come to a compromise on the few edits that we are still at odds over, but Infinity0 is one stubborn kid. Our competition has improved the template continuously, which is a good thing.
 * The conversion of the old tag to the new tag is complete.
 * The new tag has placement in Wikipedia articles. It is hooked in to the top level of the Philosophy hierarchy, and then some.
 * The old tag has virtually no placement in any Wikipedia articles. It's discussion page link sits on a bunch of users' talk pages, and that's about it.  And since I placed most of the old tags, it didn't seem out of place for me to upgrade them.
 * Since the content of the templates are identical, and the fact that jousting will continue on whichever template wins, it makes sense to vote for the one that maintains the project's presence on Wikipedia.

Please vote to save the template: click here. For further discussions click here

Go for it! 03:57, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * What a funny situation :) Karol 10:49, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

The old tag has no placement in any Wikipedia articles because you've changed it all to your version. I don't know which articles you put Template:Philosophy topics in, so I can't edit them back. Duh. It's not as if people are overwhelmingly supporting your version. Infinity0 11:28, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I created both "versions", and worked on both versions after the split, so I guess that makes both versions "mine". The only significant difference was the tag names.


 * The lesson here is to talk with each other and compromise. For my money, having a half-page template on the bottom of every philosophy article is a silly idea. It will be longer than some articles!If I'm looking for philosophy of literature, I don't need a direct link to integral theory. The categories are potentially all the navigation support we need. Furthermore, the list will grow rather than shrink as advocates place their favourite cogitation into the list. Delete them both and get the categories right. Banno 20:22, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * How about keeping the template, but only to insert into Portal:Philosophy? Having it in the Portal source-code makes it unwieldly to edit. Infinity0 22:09, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
 * But the portal also lists the categories - very confusing. Much better to work on the cats. Banno 20:47, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Philosophy images
While I was waking up today with my cup of coffee, before my brain started working well enough to really type sentences, I noticed that most of the philosophy articles have no images. I thought to myself in the old Cartesian way, "hey, self (if you exist - of course you exist, I'm thinking, and you're me)! Maybe it would help us all to have a central repository for philosophy-related images!" So I dutifully cut-and-pasted the brand new tag Category:Philosophy images to all three philosophy images I could find (hopefully there are more out there). I also added the new tag Category:Images of philosophers to all the images of philosophers I felt like looking at. There are, I'm sure, plenty still which are untagged.

So here's my first call to everyone: If you happen to notice an image in a philosophy article that's not of a philosopher, add the tag Category:Philosophy images to it! And likewise with images of philosophers and the Category:Images of philosophers tag!

Here's my second call: If you can think of a good graphical way to show what some bit of philosophy is all about (like the duckrabbit! Ooh!  I wonder if that's lying around the wiki!), draw it up, or leave me a message on my talk page explaining what its all about, and I'll try to draw it up! Then add the tag Category:Philosophy images to it!

And my final call: Check Category:Philosophy images from time to time - it may end up having that image which perfectly explains what, for whatever reason, a blurb of text just can't! And for all your images-of-philosophers needs, check out Category:Images of philosophers! Okay, I'm done. -Seth Mahoney 21:42, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Bloody brilliant! One reason that there are few philosophy feature articles is lack of images - sometimes I wonder if this is a sort of systemic bias against us - so anything that can help to avoid every philosophy page having a picture of Socrates or Plato is certainly welcome! Banno 21:57, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

(You found three images! well done!)Banno 22:00, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Added Image:Kmarx.jpg. Infinity0 22:04, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Sweet! Its moving right along! I also noticed somebody added an image to Category:Philosophy images! Thanks! In other news, I went ahead and created a third category: Category:Images of philosophy books, since there seem to be several of those. One thing, for now at least: Category:Images of philosophy books is a child of Category:Book covers, and since Category:Book covers gets added with a template which includes a nice legal notice, I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and ignore Wikipedia convention on this one, and use both the parent category (Category:Book covers) and the child category (Category:Images of philosophy books) on this one, so as to make sure the notice is up to date and whatnot. -Seth Mahoney 22:21, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Standards
So while I was working on setting up the two categories mentioned immediately above, I noticed that the philosophy articles have wildly varying formatting: Some will have fancy colored tables, others the old-school default beveled black-and-white ones; some articles have large quotes in the text separated by nice pale blue boxes, others indent, others italicize, and so on. And the same goes for templates! We can't even seem to decide on a default color scheme to keep people's eyes from going mad! I'm thinking that maybe there should be some discussion here about what standards to use when, at the very least for tables, inline quotes, templates, images (size and placement),and how to use things like boldface and italics. Of course, for you fans of natural language philosophy out there, these don't have to be strict rules, but rather guidelines to throw away when they would interfere with readability, but considering the Jacques Cousteau underseas adventure-like variety of formatting styles, having some fairly standard set might be a good idea. -Seth Mahoney 22:05, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * There's far too many articles to carry out a wide-scale format standardisation. Of course, someone could write a robot to do it. Infinity0 22:08, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I know there are a lot of articles to work on, and I dunno, maybe we could write a robot, but I'm thinking that a good start would be to have some idea as to what we want to be the standard. That way, new articles could be standardized, and when editors are working on articles they might be inclined to do a little standardization, and etc.  -Seth Mahoney 22:15, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Good point - so I added section on format - now, suggestions? Banno 23:03, 26 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I'd like to see, for starters, three colors maximum used for elements on a page (not including black text, hyperlinks, and images). These three colors (or fewer if we can get away with it) should be non-intrusive and the same for similar elements (a nice pale blue or green or yellow, maybe), so, for example, if we decide to adopt the practice of adding boxes around inline quotes (I wish I could find the article where I saw that!), the box should be the same color as any template boxes.
 * Next, just so it has been said, we should follow the by now standard practice of bolding only the article title, and only the first time it occurs. Italics, not bolding, should be used for emphasis.
 * Images that have charts should have some sort of standard appearance. We already have a couple of them in Category:Philosophy images, so maybe we should just start with them and try to make new images similar in appearance.
 * Tables should have a thin, non-beveled border, and should use the same colors as other elements in the page.
 * All of these styles, however we decide to work them, should be consistent across all philosophy pages (as an ideal! I know there are a lot of philosophy articles, and we're not likely to achieve it!).
 * Okay, that's all I can think of for now. -Seth Mahoney 23:18, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
 * This sounds excellent, Seth - please, write this up and put it into the project page. Goforit! is quite correct that we need to be bold in putting forward ideas. Banno 07:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Is there a way to directly edit the categories? Or a fast way to add the cat links to files?
It's rather cumbersome to place pointers at the bottom of articles, so that they are listed in categories. It would be faster if one could just edit a category's list. Is there any way to do this? Go for it! 00:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Or perhaps there is a bot that can take a list of topics and add category names to them automatically? Go for it! 00:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * There's no way to directly edit the list - adding category tags to articles is the only way to do it. But! There are bots that can convert lists (as in, the "List of..." articles on Wikipedia) to categories.  There's got to be some page or other that you can request that sort of thing, if you've got a list in mind.  Otherwise, AFAIK, doing it by hand is the only way.  -Seth Mahoney 17:43, 1 December 2005 (UTC)