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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3→Archive 5

Low-value external lk

I've removed this

Anyone enthusiastic could trawl it for gleams to add to the article, but it doesn't offer much. JackyR 16:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

    • I think that is important. When you learn about Preistley in school, that is the only thing they teach you: his experiments and his discovery of oxygen. --Adam Wang 23:21, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

What the fuck does "silly billys" mean?

Definitely not a valuable link. I don't know where you learned about Priestley, but I always learned about him as a writer and a thinker. The oxygen bit was always tacked on ("oh, and he sort of discovered oxygen"). I think it depends on the context - I was always introduced to Priestley in English classes. Looking at the "selected writings" that I have just added, you will see that he wrote about quite a few different topics. He was one of those cool eighteenth-century people who did a lot of different things. Have you read Scholfield's two-volume biography? That is the way to go. Awadewit 06:41, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Expanding page

I am slowly expanding this page section by section. If you add information, please cite it using inline citations as that is now the style that dominates on the page. See WP:CITE. Also, there is no need to edit "later" sections to match the earlier, expanded sections as I will be doing this myself in the coming days when I expand those sections (I will end up substantially rewriting much of what is there, anyway, I think). Awadewit Talk 16:52, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Importance rating

Low importance? Are we sure about this? :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 22:24, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Well it's between "The article is not required knowledge for a broad understanding of the history of science" and "the article covers a topic that has a strong but not vital role in the history of science." I would tend to go with low myself. The biography and philosophy rankings are both mid. I tend to agree with that. Priestley was perhaps more important outside of science than within it although he is oddly remembered for his "discovery" of oxygen. His contributions to theology, education and politics were probably more significant. At the time Priestley was considered a great scientist, but he is obviously no longer considered an integral part of the story of science. If one tells the story of theories that lost out, then one talks about Priestley. It just all depends on your point of view - are you telling a "Whiggish" history of science or not? Does a "broad understanding of the history of science" include the theories that were not correct? I have not often seen this kind of history although that would be a fascinating story. Scientific history tends to be told "by the winners," as they say. Priestley was not a winner in that sense. Awadewit Talk 23:36, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
That's a very interesting assessment. I was probably thrown off by the fact that the History of Science WikiProject apparently uses an "internal" importance rating scale—I can't imagine a print encyclopedia not having at least a paragraph on Joseph Priestley, and I'm not that familiar with his story myself. You make a fair point, though; thank you. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:49, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Do the ratings matter that much? I was working on the article despite its "low" and "mid" rating because I happen to be interested in Priestley and reading a Priestley biography. Awadewit Talk 01:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
In all sincerity, not to me, not much at least. I mostly edit pharmacology articles, most of which won't ever make it past "specialist knowledge". I like to regard importance ratings as a priority "flag"—articles which, in theory, are of interest and importance to a broad set of readers and editors, and are likely to be used as reference, etc. In a project like WP, though, the personal interests of editors will invariably trump general encyclopedic priority most of the time, and I personally don't think that's such a bad thing; just because an article has been assigned a "Low" importance rating, arbitrarily or otherwise, doesn't mean it should not be accurate, reliable, comprehensive... :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:49, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Most of the articles I edit would probably be given a "low" or "mid" rating. Frankly, I don't want to get involved in editing highly-trafficked articles; I have a feeling that might result in extensive edit negotiations with uninformed editors. :) Awadewit Talk 04:13, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Leeds portrait

I think it would nice to have the "Leeds portrait" of Priestley in the "Leeds" section. I have not been able to find a copy online. If anyone finds one or is able to scan a good copy from a book, let me know. It is good portrait. Unfortunately, the artist and the specific date are unknown. Awadewit Talk 11:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Found it. Awadewit | talk 07:17, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

some issues

I have the first volume of the Schofield biography and will receive the second later this week. But as I go through, my first impression is that you've done a very good job with the natural philosophy sections.

  • That's very kind, but I feel that the sections are completely inadequate. Can you tell what Priestley's most important contributions were from that book? I found Schofield's writing a little laborious at times and he does not always distinguish between "amazing discovery," "intriguing find," and "boring experiment" (or some such scale). I am definitely missing some material on Priestley's work with plants and light, though; I should have mentioned that more. Awadewit | talk 03:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • A good job in terms of clarity, I meant. I agree about the balance issue, but I'll have to spend some more time with sources before I can contribute much to improving that, without just shooting from the hip.--ragesoss 03:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah, I see. It is precisely "balance" that near impossible to achieve with this article, I fear. Awadewit | talk 05:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

One thing I notice throughout is the use of piped links to avoid redirects; for the most part, this is neither necessary nor desirable when a simple link would result in a redirect to the proper article. It doesn't make big difference one way or the other, but it makes the markup a little easier to read and it can actually be helpful to see the "redirected from" at the top when readers follow a link from the text. (It's also part of the guidelines, though not universally followed.)

  • Do you mean that I shouldn't refer to pages by names other than what they have, such as [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] or [[Philosophy of mind|theory of mind]]? I am actually usually very careful about my links, so I can start justifying their names to you, if you want. Or do you mean I shouldn't do the apostrophe thing? I find adding the apostrophe to the link more aesthetically pleasing. It bugs me to see the "word" blue but not its possessive - it seems typographically wrong, to me anyway. Awadewit | talk 03:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I meant things like (in the first sentence) [[theology|theologian]] and [[education|educator]]; theologian and educator already redirect to those articles. I didn't actually check much beyond that... now that I do, I see uniformly good linking practices.--ragesoss 03:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The explanatory footnotes are great, but unfortunately they will mostly be overlooked because of the sheer density of footnotes, most of which are simply citations. The more the citations can be merged, the better. --ragesoss 02:19, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

  • I usually try to have no explanatory footnotes whatsoever (for that very reason), but I have been moving some information from the article to the notes as I try to cut down this ridiculously long article (I am not quite sure that forking is a possibility here). I have to cut at least 4,000 words. By the way, if you see any material that you think could be deleted, please either delete it yourself or alert me and I will attend to it. I have been trying to pare down the article, but I need to slash and burn. Awadewit | talk 03:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I plan to merge the notes when I am "done." I find that doing it early on causes problems because sometimes templates are erased and sometimes the "ideal" combination is only clear later. Awadewit | talk 03:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I was worried that the pages would be put up for deletion. People can make arguments for Newton, but it is harder for Priestley - no one has heard of him. On the works, there is so little written on each work itself that I am even skeptical of the redlinks I did create. I am not sure that creating a tiny stub page that cannot currently be expanded (meaning, there is either little or no published scholarship on that work) is a responsible thing to do. Someone did suggest an "Experiments of Joseph Priestley" page as a possible fork. What do you think of that idea? I think the major problem is that I am incapable of writing in summary style and I cannot decide what is most important to include in the article. I wrote Mary Wollstonecraft with no problem (and there is a lot more scholarship there), but I knew what was important because I think about Wollstonecraft all of the time (she is in my dissertation). I am going through the Priestley scholarship as I write. Awadewit | talk 05:22, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Probably best not to bother with it. I don't think you would run into deletion problems (certainly not for short articles about any of his individual works), but it if it can't be done cleanly without a ton of extra work, it's not worth. Just seems like a shame to cut 4000 words that at least some portion of readers probably would have found useful.--ragesoss 07:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Edits

  • The reason I had the picture of the "electrical machine" later in the article (next to the information about Priestley and his brother trying to sell it) was because the picture doesn't appear in the first edition of the text, that is, it does not appear in the version I am talking about in that paragraph. I thought it was disingenuous to place the illustration there, then. What do you think? Awadewit | talk 05:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    • According to Schofield's caption, the image is from 1767 (i.e., the first edition of History of Electricity, but in the text he refers to it as the advertisement for the 1768 (i.e., first) edition of Familiar Introduction. The latter is what I put in the caption, but in either case I don't see how it would be disingenuous. Perhaps the image was in the 1st edition but appeared again as the advertisement in Familiar Introduction, or perhaps Schofield has mixed some things up.--ragesoss 07:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
      • Here's the thing, though. I grabbed the image from the 1769 edition (2nd corrected and enlarged edition) of History of Electricity, so it is actually from that text. I thought it didn't appear in the first edition but maybe it does (I have read so many biographies now that I can't quite remember who says what). But, as a literary critic, I cannot bear to put incorrect information in the caption. Do you mind if we at least tag it with the title and date of the book I copied it from? Awadewit | talk 07:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
        • It looks to be the same plate as the one Schofield lists as 1767. But if it bothers you, go ahead, of course. An alternative would be to scan Schofield's image. Or maybe I have electronic access to a first edition scan. I'll try to take a look at the first editions of each on Thursday and get quality photos of relevant plates, when I go up to school to pick up the 2nd Schofield volume.--ragesoss 08:03, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I noticed you cut the "Catalogue of Books" - I thought that was cute and entertaining. Oh well. I do want to retain some entertaining anecdotes and quotations from Priestley, though; it helps him "come alive" for the reader. I have more that should really go in. I'm waiting to see whether I can fit them in. Awadewit | talk 05:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    • I was only mildly entertained. You can't have it both ways... slash-and-burn, or filled with entertaining anecdotes.--ragesoss 07:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
      • I know. I waffled on deleting that one myself which means that it should go. Priestley is only entertaining in a dorky, eighteenth-century Enlightenment way, anyway. Awadewit | talk 07:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Priestley continued his electrical and chemical experiments (the latter aided by a steady supply of carbon dioxide from a next-door brewery) - I wanted to leave out all mention of the brewery, since it is a myth according to Schofield (see footnotes). What do you think? Awadewit | talk 05:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    • According to your footnote, it was a myth that he was doing the experiments "only because his house in Leeds was next to a brewery" [emphasis added]. Schofield seems to endorse the fact of the brewery, and that Priestley used carbon dioxide obtained from it; that seems to me a more interesting bit than the catalogue of books.--ragesoss 07:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes, that is correct. I just didn't want to add to the confusion by mentioning breweries at all in the main body of the article unless I was going to explain the whole thing. If we mention breweries in that sentence, can we move the big explanatory footnote up to that sentence? (Really? I thought the catalogue was funny, but maybe I only think that it is funny because I do things like that and people always laugh at me. I know nothing about breweries, so perhaps I don't find them suitably amusing.) Awadewit | talk 07:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
        • Brewing plays a surprisingly large role in the history of science, from the Enlightenment all the way to the mid-20th century. Thermodynamics, pneumatics and gas chemistry, the debate over spontaneious generation, the birth of biochemistry, industrial biotechnology (of the pre-genetic engineering sort), drug manufacturing... brewing comes up over and over. The footnote seems like it's addressing a pretty minor myth, but I suppose it could be moved up into the text; the use of the brewery seems to me much more significant than whether it was the sole reason for certain experiments. I suspect that the number of readers who have heard that myth in the first place will be very, very small; it hardly seems worth mentioning even in a footnote, in my view. Schofield takes issue with it, because it's something that he can point out and say "Priestley is wrong here about his own history" (as biographers are wont to do), but for our purposes it seems like an issue that can be left out altogether, both Priestley's claim and Schofield's rejoinder.--ragesoss 08:03, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
    • PS: Please take all my edits as mere suggestions; you're the mastermind behind this article, and if you summarily revert any of my changes, my feelings won't be hurt.--ragesoss 07:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
      • I'm hurt - you think I'm a "mastermind"? I know that I rank as Emperor Palpatine on some personality tests, but I believe that to be a deeply flawed assessment. I tend to be more interested in the logic behind edits than in reverting them (unless they are blatantly incorrect or written horribly). Hence the questions.

Too long!!

Come on, folks. To be blunt, there is obviously some solid and very informative material in this article. I would like to read it. I do an extraordinary amount of reading. I love reading; it is my absolute favorite activity of them all. However, I will not read through this entire article. It seems that you can two things to convince someone like me to read it: expand and publish it as a book-length biography or cut back to the more typical length of an on-line encylcopedia entry. The basic point is this: if you can't get me to read it, you're in big trouble with the vast majority of human beings who might come across this article. Cut down on the bio/history please, and let's have more of the science, philosophy and other matters. --Francesco Franco 10:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a work in progress like much of wikipedia. If you had read the talk page or looked at the history, you would notice that indeed we are working on cutting the page down. I am aiming to cut at least one-third of the article. If you have some specific suggestions of what to cut, I would be grateful for them. I cannot cut the "biography" material as you suggest since this is a biography page and occasionally I have to explain some history to contextualize Priestley's actions. Ideally, the page will mix biography and a discussion of Priestley's written works and scientific experiments, which are, of course, part of his biography anyway. The page cannot have a detailed analysis of all of his works (there are over 150) or his experiments (they are too numerous). Awadewit | talk 15:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps the answer is to split off sub-pages, rather than loosing content? Andy Mabbett 15:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I have thought of that, but I'm not sure I can justify them (see above on the talk page where this discussion arose). What subpages were you thinking of? I would appreciate any help on this. Awadewit | talk 16:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
The most straightforward would seem to be "JP in- " for each of -Leeds, -Calne, -Birmingham, -Hackney, & -Pennsylvania; with dates per the current section heads. That's a chronological divide, with clear cut-off points. That would also allow tighter categorisation, such as "History of Birmingham", on each. Tehre is a template for linking such articles. I don't think you need to worry about notability concerns! Andy Mabbett 17:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
That would be easier than the more logical "JP and science" or "JP and theology," but I am not sure what such a page would look like or what the summary would look like here. The entire problem is that the material here is already a summary and a drastic reduction of everything that could be included in each section. If you could suggest specific elements of the sections that you feel are too detailed, I would appreciate it. Then maybe I would have a better idea how to proceed with such a project. Thanks for the help. Awadewit | talk 17:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think they're "too detailed"; just too long. Chronological sub-division is used, rightly, elsewhere (I'll try to dig out an example, later). Andy Mabbett 17:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Ah. Well, what material do you think is unnecessary? Awadewit | talk 18:02, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
None of it. Andy Mabbett 08:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I might just also mention, on a side note, that my research on JP is ongoing. I am hoping that by reading more articles, what is most important to include in the article will become clearer. Unfortunately, the major biography on JP does not make these choices clear. It was very difficult to turn that two-volume biography into this page, anyway. I have been using the one-volume biographies to help make decisions about emphasis. I am hoping that even more research will aid in this process. Awadewit | talk 17:35, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Length update: I have cut 2,000 words. I need to cut around 2,000 more. Awadewit | talk 06:32, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
You're done great work on this article, but please re-read the above comments about breaking the article into several pages; and note that it is not you alone who has responsibility for maintaining the article. Andy Mabbett 08:11, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
I may have to succumb to breaking the article up, but I don't want to do that yet. I want to try and cut it. As I mentioned above, I'm not really sure how I would summarize the forked pages. I already feel that the material here is a summary. I cannot summarize a page that does not yet exist and I am not excited about writing three to four more pages on Priestley. The problem with generalized criticisms such as "it is too long" is that, even if they are valid like this one is, it is often difficult to know how best to resolve the problem if you are unfamiliar with the subject matter. Also, please note that I mentioned my research is ongoing. I am hoping that more research will help me pare down the article because what is truly important to include will become clearer to me. (I am pretty sure that this is the problem because I have written pages on other figures who have much more extensive scholarship to read and I wrote those pages with ease, but that is because I was very familiar with the scholarship and have been for several years. That is not the case here. I am learning as I go.) I realize that I do not own the article. Unfortunately, I have written almost every word on the page. I have had to recruit other editors to help me out with sections that I feel I might have done an injustice to. I would love it if other editors who have researched Priestley could help me out, but they don't seem to wander over here on their own. Finally, this page is very much in flux. The fact that I am still researching, that ragesoss is going to help me clarify the science sections and that I haven't spent a lot of time perfecting the language means that its final form is far from clear. I have been cutting at this juncture because I have finished reading the Priestley biographies. I plan to read the more specialized literature now. I am sure that the article will expand again a bit after I do that and then I will endure the painful final revision stages. Please be patient. I do not anticipate this page being ready to submit to anything like GA or FA for months or maybe a year, unless some significant help is offered me. If you would like to read up on Priestley or already know about Priestley, I would welcome the help. Perhaps you could write one of the forked pages you are suggesting? My wikipedia editing experiences tend to me very isolated - I edit pages no one else edits and then obtain a peer review, a GA review and an FA review during which some copy editing might be done by others (oh, the excitement of someone fixing a dash). I would love, for once, not to have to cover everything myself. To have at least two editors, what luxury! Awadewit | talk 09:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Pictures

Pigsonthewing, can you explain why you are replacing the image sizes with "upright"? I have never seen that before. I have always used image sizes before and I haven't run into any problems. What am I missing? Awadewit | talk 21:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The manual of style says that thumbnail images should not be sized, allowing users to apply their own preferred size, "upright" is used to indicate portrait (as opposed to landscape) format images. Andy Mabbett 21:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
But now some of them look ridiculously dumb in relation to the text and some are unreadable. Also note that the MOS says "However, the image subject or image properties may call for a specific image width to enhance the readability or layout of an article." - Perhaps we can find a compromise on some of them, for example the images with text? Awadewit | talk 21:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
"some of them look ridiculously dumb" - you don't know how they look on my, or other people's systems. Andy Mabbett 21:38, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I tend to look at the images on a lot of different set-ups so that I can judge how they are doing - what happened on yours? I would really like users to be able to read the title pages, though - there is no reason to have them there otherwise. Could we at least increase the size of those so that they are not so tiny? (I will take out the italics. I was just following a style I have seen elsewhere and responding to complaints at other articles that I edit that the block quotes are indistinguishable from the regular text.) Awadewit | talk 21:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
If someone wants to read the text in the image, they can click on it and find a large version. Note the disclaimer at the head of the section of the MoS you quoted, above. Andy Mabbett 22:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

But I don't want to make the reader work that hard (or their computer - one of mine takes a long time to load images - it's best if they are all loaded on the page in a readable fashion together). I can provide the reader with a larger, readable image, so why shouldn't I? The entire MOS disclaimer also states that the rules are not to be followed "robotically." I am arguing that in the case of pictures with text that I inserted so that the reader could read them, we should enlarge the picture to help them out. I feel that that is a "compelling reason" to add a size. Awadewit | talk 22:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

If someone has a computer (or connection) that slow, then serving them larger images by default would be harmful to them. If the text in the images is that important, transcribe it (not least as it doesn't currently appear in their alt attributes). Andy Mabbett 22:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I guess I just wait it out. What do you mean "alt attributes"? Awadewit | talk 22:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
See Alt attribute. Andy Mabbett 22:43, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of pictures, Awadewit, why do you upload the free images here rather than Commons? Anyhow, I took some pictures to start off a new Commons category: commons:Category:Joseph Priestley. One is the relevant plate from the 1st edition of Familiar Introduction, the other is the title page with facing advertisement. I'm not sure if you want to include either of them in the article, but at least they'll be there for the curious.--ragesoss 06:28, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I was not totally sure that images from ECCO were free, but they seem to be free under wikipedia's policy. Recently, I have started uploading my ECCO images to the Commons, but I am still concerned. I know that digitizing something is supposed to give a company rights over it. Are we sure they really are free? Awadewit | talk 06:42, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
If it's printed, as opposed to a digitization of a painting or other unpublished work, then public domain is public domain is public domain; any image you find online from a printed work whose copyright has expired (in the country of publication and in the U.S.) is fair game. If it's a painting, etc., it depends: in the U.S., Bridgeman v. Corel has established that faithful recreations of 2D artwork in the public domain are not copyrightable, but the U.K. has no equivalent law or precedent.--ragesoss 07:00, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
That just goes against everything I've read and heard, though (for example, I am being forced by my university to obtain permission to put the very same images in my dissertation that wikipedia says are fair use). It does not seem logical to me that companies would not collate databases of public domain works if they didn't think they had a copyright over them in some way because then anyone could copy the entire database and put it online, claiming that the works are in the public domain. I don't think, for example, that you can copy every image of every page of every book in ECCO and place them on a website, although all of the books are in the public domain. Which leads me to wonder what exactly you can copy and if it is fair use or free. That was why I was reticent to place the images in the Commons. One day I spent a long time reading wikipedia's policy and it seemed that I was ok to put them up on the Commons, but I still believe that I may be missing something. All I know is that I followed wikipedia's policy as carefully as I could. You are free to move all of my Priestley images over to the Commons, if you wish, if you know some fast and easy way to do that. Awadewit | talk 07:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Fair use is totally different than public domain and free images; fair use is what you can do with copyrighted works (use a little bit, in the right contexts). And universities (and academic publishers) have much stricter image permissions policies than they strictly have to, and often assert copyright control over public domain images (despite the illegitimacy of such claims). The Berne Convention makes the distinction between published and unpublished works, and for published works that fall into the public domain, new copies (digital or otherwise) do not create a new copyright. Many countries have weird and complex laws that modify that in various ways... I haven't heard anything suggesting that in the U.K. digitisation is somehow different than other sorts of copying of PD material, but I wouldn't put it past them. However, for ECCO, which is a U.S. company, hosted in the U.S. and claiming its work falls under U.S. copyright law, it's pretty unambiguous that they have no copyright authority when it comes to digital images of PD works. On the other hand, using material you get from them as the unrestricted PD material it is seems to violate their terms of use: not a crime, but maybe something you don't want to do nonetheless. (Google Books does the same sort of thing; despite not controlling the actual copyright, they have extremely restrictive terms of use that prevents some of the uses of the material that are legally fine. That's why much of the library community is starting to think they got the short end of the stick with the Google deals.)--ragesoss 08:00, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the banner indicating that the article is too long. The editors already know this, have discussed it and are working on the issue (the primary editor's plan to deal with this problem is already laid out above). Awadewit | talk 00:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

And I've restored it. Please do not remove it, until the issue is resolved. There is no primacy in editing Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett 07:52, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I won't remove it again, but I must say that I felt it was an extremely rude and unnecessary post. I got the feeling that since you couldn't convince me to fork the page and you were unwilling to write any such pages yourself, you plastered an unhelpful banner on the article. Also, the information on the banner is already contained in the article itself (when you click to edit the article, it gives you the article length and a link to the proper guidelines), so I felt it was redundant. I also feel that such banners (which, by the way, not everyone on wikipedia thinks are a good idea in the first place) only invite uninformed editing and single out pages arbitrarily (I know that not every "too long" page has a banner, for example). Awadewit | talk 09:01, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I have already explained that I would be happy to have other informed editors work with me on the page. I have purposely solicited help from others in editing this page. In my view, that does not qualify as "owning" the article. That I have opinions on how the article should be structured because I have read the scholarship is not surprising. That I have put those opinions into practice unilaterally is not my fault - when I first began editing this page, there were no other editors working on it. The "discussion" about the article had to be with myself; while there might not be any primacy on wikipedia in general, when an article only has one editor, there is a de facto primacy. At the moment there are only myself and ragesoss, who is working on the science sections in particular, editing this article; we decided to try and cut before forking. Awadewit | talk 09:01, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Instead of posting vague criticisms and unhelpful banners, I urge you to read up on Priestley and edit the article instead. That is what would make the article better, which is what we all want. If you really believe in the banner you posted, then I suggest you follow its advice: "help summarize or split the content into subarticles of an article series." Awadewit | talk 09:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I suggest you read WP:AGF, when you've finished reading WP:OWN. Andy Mabbett 09:23, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Because all of my questions asking you to articulate particular concerns with the article weren't in good faith? I only became frustrated when you articulated a contradiction: the article is too long, but neither too detailed nor full of extraneous information. You asked me to summarize each section and write a longer page on each one, but you yourself admitted no details and no information should be removed from those sections. Such advice is not very helpful. Awadewit | talk 09:43, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Such advice is also not what I gave you. Andy Mabbett 10:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Awadewit, the author who has made the hugely overwhelming majority of the constructive edits to this informative and fascinating article, is aware of the need for trimming. Other editors are too. If the article suffers from excessive length, this flaw (unlike that of, say, inadequate sourcing) is one that will be evident to the reader, who won't benefit from being reminded of the flaw.
Incidentally, this strikes me as an article that's justifiably long. Priestley was multifaceted and important. (A contrast with this recently ennobled article as just one example among very many.) -- Hoary 04:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Language

Should we say "phlogiston theory" or "the phlogiston theory"? I can't decide. Awadewit | talk 03:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

"Theory" is here countable, so if singular it needs a determiner, for example "the". -- Hoary 04:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC) ......... PS (ever happy to argue against myself): It can of course be uncountable: "Most undergraduates have little stomach for theory." In some circumstances, a determiner wouldn't be needed: "Although phlogiston theory now strikes us as absurd...." -- Hoary 04:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest "phlogiston theory", as "the phlogiston theory" implies that there was only one phlogiston theory, which is not the case.--ragesoss 05:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Providentialism, and what quotations are for

The introduction quotes Tapper saying that Priestley was "the most thorough British exponent of a Providentialist account of progress" during his day".

I rather tentatively linked Providentialist (a word unfamiliar to me) to Providentialism. I wasn't at all offended when Awadewit removed the link, but commented: "Perhaps there's a good reason not to link that to Providentialism, but many readers will wonder what the word means. I for one am unfamiliar with it."

Awadewit's response: "The reason is that it is dangerous to assume we know what the writer meant by Providentialist. Only proper nouns, for which there is no ambiguity, should really be linked inside a quotation."

As "Providentialist" is capitalized, I thought it was at least halfway to being a proper noun. But that's a minor point that I don't want to pursue. Do we know what Tapper meant by Providentialist; and if we don't, why on earth does the article quote this? (Why insert quotes that we don't understand?) -- Hoary 03:24, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The point is that "providentialist" can mean many different things to many different people (by the way, it is not usually capitalized). Since the sentence that comes before it lists some of the ideas relevant to Priestley, I do not feel that it is necessary to link the word. Notice that the article on providentialism does not even discuss 18th century meanings of the word. I might be more inclined to link to it if it did so. Also, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links): "Words in quotations should not be linked for context. The text should remain in the same form and with the same emphasis as it did in the source." Awadewit | talk 03:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
You make some good points. Well, I hope Tapper explains what he or she means by it. If so, why not add this, whether via "[sc. blah blah]" or in a footnote indexed at the end? -- Hoary 03:40, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Tapper doesn't explain because he assumes his readers already know what he is talking about (he is writing in a journal about the history of Unitarianism). I feel like the quote is sufficient since, as I said before, there are references to the ideas Priestley attached to providentialism already in the lead. Moreover, we cannot explain everything in the lead - that is what the article is for. Awadewit | talk 04:52, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
He argued for extensive civil rights, believing that individuals would bring about progress and eventually the Millennium; he was "the most thorough British exponent of a Providentialist account of progress" during his day. - "bring about progress and eventually the Millennium" is part of Priestley's idea of providentialism. Perhaps we should revise the sentence to make this clearer? Awadewit | talk 04:52, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I think so. -- Hoary 05:20, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

schminfobox

In this edit, Awadewit restored the "infobox" junk that I'd just deleted, with the comment that it would be needed for GA or FA.

GA is a bit farcical, in my experience. The last time I looked, a single person with the attention span of a typical fourteen-year-old could damn your careful article on the silliest grounds. Unless it has changed, forget GA.

This is supposed to be an encyclopedia. (I sometimes wonder, but anyway, it has encyclopedic aspirations.) It's not USA Today.

W. B. Yeats is an FA without an infobox. I deleted it (one of my good deeds for WP). When I did so, I was told that some fool other user would put it back in. That hasn't happened, as far as I know. Nobody has argued (let alone argued lucidly and persuasively) for its readdition.

Infoboxes be stuffed. -- Hoary 03:40, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I am no fan of infoboxes myself, but after doing a few FAs and having FAC reviewers demand them, I just started adding them in. It was not a debate I wanted to engage in. You can delete it again, but 10 to 1, I'll have to add it back in. (Yeats is currently at FARC - I would not be surprised if it ended up with an infobox at the end of that process.) Awadewit | talk 04:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm rather curious about the debate (perhaps only because I haven't been in it). "We're writing an encyclopedia for people who can't extract simple (if sometimes relatively unimportant) information from a small number of sentences appearing within sentences of this 'infobox'. Well, farc the infobox. If some dimwit, sorry, somebody who disagrees with you and me, wants one, he [I picture the person as male] can put it in. -- Hoary 05:25, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok - I just warn you that I am not going to fight it. I have other battles to win. Geogre seems to have been involved in a lot of these disputes. See his essay on boxes and tags. Awadewit | talk 06:09, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Priestley, Autobiography

A lot of notes reference "Priestley, Autobiography". I see no such book. I'm 80% sure of what this refers to, but amn't sure and therefore don't want to "fix" anything. -- Hoary 04:42, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Lindsay, Jack, ed. Autobiography of Joseph Priestly. Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970. ISBN 0838678310 Parameter error in {{ISBN}}: checksum. - This reference is under "Primary materials." Awadewit | talk 04:47, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Oddly, I missed that. (Small point: Should "Priestly" really lack the second "e"?) What's the relationship between JP's "memoir" (or "memoirs", I forget), as mentioned in that same sentence, and his "autobiography"? -- Hoary 05:28, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
That's a typo - sorry. I have not yet gone over the article and fixed the language problems and typos because the content is still in flux (note I just removed several paragraphs and transferred several others to a different section). The Memoirs is the Autobiography. Priestley calls it a memoir but the title of the book it is published in that is most accessible is Autobiography. Isn't that useful? Awadewit | talk 06:03, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The Institutes

Stylistically, I find these curiously disturbing:

  1. "The Institutes, published as part of his series on religious education, was..."
  2. "The Institutes shocked and appalled many readers primarily because it challenged basic Christian orthodoxies ..."

I imagine that, within the title of this singular book, Institutes is plural. If so, I'd prefer either

  1. "Institutes, published as part of his series on religious education, was..."
  2. "Institutes shocked and appalled many readers primarily because it challenged basic Christian orthodoxies ..."

or conceivably something like

  1. "The Institutes of the title, published as part of his series on religious education, were..."
  2. "The Institutes of the title shocked and appalled many readers primarily because their description challenged basic Christian orthodoxies ..."

but perhaps I misunderstand. -- Hoary 07:36, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Since it is one text, it is referred to in the singular, just like "the book." It is common in the scholarly literature to refer to it as "The Institutes," so I did that. The second set of options is unnecessarily wordy. I would be fine with the first set, but they sound funny to me. P.S. I hope that you are not poring over this article too much since whole sections of it are going to have to be deleted and rewritten to reduce the size. Awadewit | talk 08:31, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, OK, I'll pause in my poring then. I hope not too much of it is cut, though: after all, I do think that Priestley is more interesting and contributed more to civilization than, say, the recently FA-promoted Mrs Ed Windsor or the recently featured Redefinition of "final". -- Hoary 09:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I just want it to actually get to FA. Awadewit | talk 09:46, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Do you have any suggestions for paragraphs or sentences that can be deleted? That would be so helpful. Awadewit | talk 22:13, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll look. For that purpose, however, I'll probably have to print out the article and attack it with a red pen.

I wouldn't worry about FA. Just make an excellent article. An excellent article may or may not satisfy the people whose idea of intellectual rigor is Time or Newsweek; if it doesn't, tough luck for them. But if you've anticipated their complaints by dumbing down the article in advance, the FA award is unlikely to be satisfying. And neither is the article, of course. -- Hoary 23:43, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm smiling. Awadewit | talk 00:06, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Electrical machine

What happened to the picture of Priestley's electrical machine? Awadewit | talk 08:34, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Somebody was overzealous about spelling. -- Hoary 10:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
The image should be spelled correctly in its name - do you know how to change the name without reloading? Awadewit | talk 10:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
That doesn't seem to be possible, no. I suggest leaving it as it is. -- Hoary 10:29, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
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