Talk:Thomas Taylor (neoplatonist)

Full text of his entry in A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature (1910) by John W. Cousin

TAYLOR, THOMAS (1758-1835).--Translator, _b._ in London and _ed._ at St. Paul's School, devoted himself to the study of the classics and of mathematics. After being a bank clerk he was appointed Assistant Secretary to the Society for the encouragement of Arts, etc., in which capacity he made many influential friends, who furnished the means for publishing his various translations, which include works of Plato, Aristotle, Proclus, Porphyry, Apuleius, etc. His aim indeed was the translation of all the untranslated writings of the ancient Greek philosophers.

BrainyBabe (talk) 07:34, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Deletion of lots of online links to Taylor's works.

This list was carefully compiled by one editor only to be deleted by another without any opportunity for prior discussion. Seems a useful resource. It would be unfair to comment that Taylor should not have written so much? Is this list available elsewhere? - if so maybe a few links could replace. Fair's fair, let's have some discussion and agreement before deciding whether to keep or undo someone's good faith work.P0mbal (talk) 21:34, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

See discussion at Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard. -- GreenC 21:45, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Hey, P0mbal. I've reverted your edit back to Green Cardamom's edit. While discussion should absolutely continue here, the External Links section was way out of control with a stunning 75+ links. While undoubtedly adding those links were in good faith and took a good deal of work, 75+ external links meets neither the spirit nor the letter of WP:EL. I'm not sure even if these current links Green Cardamom left there should be there, and perhaps the discussion should be a justification for the existing links and any additional. Per WP:EL: "Some external links are welcome..., but it is not Wikipedia's purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link."

Perhaps the links can be added to an external site (like DMOZ) and then that site can be linked to from here. Thanks, Stesmo (talk) 22:41, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

The compilation of links was done by myself, as was the list of works that still remains. Shame the links were removed without discussion and without notice so others could copy them for themselves (as such a list exists nowhere else online). The list contained links to online PDF scans of originals, links to wiki texts where available and other html texts where available. What's the point of having a list of works (like the one that was kept here) if the reader is then required to go through the labour of searching online for the text itself, which takes ages in a case like this? Why not just link them to it direct? It took months to round up all those links. But oh well, for anyone interested, the external link to The Writings of Thomas Taylor (universaltheosophy.com) at least brings readers to all the original scans of his writings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.85.208.12 (talk) 21:22, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a directory of links. Please read WP:ELINK. What your looking to accomplish would be better suited at another website and perhaps link to that website from here. -- GreenC 21:58, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks all. The full list (as complete as is possible today) of Taylor works is on universaltheosophy.com ("UT") and is linked to once in the external links. I've also just edited the external link to the Ruth Balch list, which claimed it to be "complete", when it is, in fact, incomplete. The page on the "UT" site includes links to five such lists from the past 2 centuries, each of which is incomplete in itself, and at least one of the later lists contain a significant error: i.e. the claim that Taylor authored a small booklet called "A New System of Religion", which is false; see here for a post by Tim Addey of Prometheus Trust on the topic). The "list of works" here on wiki matches the list on the "UT" site, which followed extensive research to compile an accurate "complete" list. It seems rather silly, then, to also include links to incomplete lists in the external links. It would seem appropriate to me to keep the "list of works" here (without links) and supply the link to the "UT" site where links to original scanned PDFs do exist. Whether or not the list here should include links to external sources is something for wiki to determine, I suppose. If it is decided to include links, it would be nice if some of the old links (to wiki sources, etc.) could be returned, as there are some ongoing wiki projects to compile text versions of these old translations. Not sure how that is best dealt with on wiki. In any case, the "UT" page has been reviewed by those most knowledgeable on Thomas Taylor's writings (the folks at Prometheus Trust) and it seems to be the most complete collection available on the web. Anyway, thanks for dealing with all this and sharing the link to wiki's policy on links.24.85.208.12 (talk) 06:32, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia is not printed on paper and considering his authority the list should stay. The EL to universaltheosophy looks good, might as well be used as a reference. prokaryotes (talk) 06:54, 18 August 2015 (UTC)