User talk:Walden

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[edit] Critical Theory

Hi Walden,

So *exactly* what you're saying is that there is no "critical theory" outside "social philosophy" (you don't seem like, say, an engineer to me)?

You did not answer to the remark about "science studies" being a subcategory to "critical theory"...

Neither *exactly* postmodern theory (or Marxist theory, or psychoanalitic theory,...) fits well under the hood of "critical theory" when it is limited to "social philosophy" in my eyes.

If you could give some verifiability at least that "critical theory" is a generally accepted name to cover the topics in connection to which this expression is used here (e.g. in comparison: like for the "Enlightenment" it is generally accepted this is not about Edison inventing the light bulb).

So, my general behaviour towards "critical theory" as a category name: please explain why "critical theory" should be used in this meaning, and how this category is to be applied correctly...

Thanks!

--Francis Schonken 06:46, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'll ignore your critical (read: ignorant) "engineer" remark and respond. First of all this category does not belong directly under the culture cat. I think you can agree with that. I moved it to the closest category that existed, but agree that it does not fit completely, since you can be critical towards other things in life than our society. So, my suggestion to you is to move it to a sub-category under Philosophy if you (and other people) think that makes more sense for this category. regards, Walden 10:05, 2004 Oct 18 (UTC)
Hi Walden,
"Engineer" remark: I was thinking about relativity theory, which was, when Einstein wrote it, a very Critical theory towards the Newton laws of mechanics, with which engineers had been working for centuries.
So, in my view, it is better not to use something that has a general meaning like critical theory - in many fields of human knowledge - as a category name, when in the category definition it is said that this category will be from now on in Wikipedia only applicable to social topics.
But I see you take this the wrong way. I invite you (and as well all the people of the critical theory wikiproject) to come up with a workable category definition. I'm not going to let myself be seduced in discussion about side-aspects. If there is no workable definition for a category with the name "critical theory" than the category has to go (note you that I already gave alternative propositions for a name of this category, but even then it would help me greatly if I would understand myself what the initiators of this category intended to be grouped in it). Also, if it would be so that in the English speaking world, "critical theory" is generally associated with what the initiators of this category intended, it can not be all that difficult to give some form of verifiability to the widespread use of the expression "critical theory" in that definite sense.
No, with the present category definition (which is a reference to the "Critical theory" article), and with the present subcategories to this category, the category can, in my eyes, not be a subcategory to "social philosophy". Hey, I changed the categorisation, what led you to think I would disagree with my own recategorisation (especially as I see little content-wise answer to my questions)?
On the other hand I've been looking around on the "Critical Theory" wikiproject page (and the discussion page). To the note I added there I would like to add:
1. I think, as a second thought probably many would agree to, it was not such ideal decision to abandon the "series box" approach for grouping the "critical theory" related articles in favour of categorisation, without re-thinking the organisation & naming of categories (e.g. I found Queer theory as a subcategory to feminism - which I suppose to have been a remnant of a series approach, but not defendable as categorisation structure. I changed that).
2. Anyway I see less or even not at all a problem to use "Critical theory" as name for a series grouping the topics proposed in that wikiproject.
--Francis Schonken 20:44, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] category fix?

How'd you fix the "category:1854 books" in Walden? Was it just the horizontal line before it that somehow messed things up? - DavidWBrooks 14:58, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It was an unclosed link in the reference section before the category text. I just added a "]" there. regards, Walden 15:10, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

[edit] Hi Walden,

I enjoyed our talk about "Critical theory" and "categorisation of art(s)/culture" yesterday at the Rotterdam Symposium quite a lot! Sorry that I wasn't able to give any clear-cut answers to the art(s)/culture categorisation topic you asked me about. Today, at noon, the thing became even more complicated, since there was a radio-program about one of the liberal arts on my favourite radio station. Well in fact it was about rhetoric, which according to Medieval concepts was one of the "artes liberales". Here is the link to trigger the "streaming" audio-file of that radio-program of about 50 min.: http://www.vrt.be/wm/klara/KL041128GRON_HI.asx - If you don't have broadband or Media player, go to http://www.klara.be/ - select "Audio" from the left menu, and go to Rondas - Zo 28-11-2004 to trigger one of the other choices of audio file; or select "programma's" and navigate with the arrows on top of the page to 28/11/2004. Clicking "12:05 Rondas" will show a text of introduction to the program.

After listening to that program I browsed English wikipedia for a while and saw that at the level of encyclopedia articles there was even more confusion I ever thought possible (even if leaving out the fun like marital arts - just click the link and you'll see what I mean with "fun"): There's no beginning of agreement of how arts would need to be classified for a usable scheme in wikipedia, e.g. see differences between articles like muse, art, arts, liberal arts, fine arts, visual arts, etc..., etc... At one page visual arts are not a part of fine arts, on another page they are, etc..., etc...

So I think we just hit the top of the iceberg yesterday. Well this looks like a fine challenge to me. I don't have the time at the moment to pursue this to the end however, I'm afraid. But don't let that stop you from jiggling the nuts and bolts of English Wikipedia to improve the categorisation scheme relating to art/arts/culture. I'll try to be there whenever there's a question, or you have a feeling of getting stuck. Note that there are several active WikiProjects on Art(s) too. Didn't look into that in detail yet, but I suppose there are to be found some people for help there too.

See ya again!

--Francis Schonken 14:26, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi Francis! I had a fun time too for sure. About the categorization of art/arts; I agree that there isn't a clear-cut strategy, since nearly anything can be considered an art form if it becomes 'special' and 'entertaining' enough to the performer and the audience. However, I'm not too concerned about the current Arts structure, since I believe that the natural evolution of this major category (which still needs lots of articles) will have people restructuring it all the time. Walden 10:28, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

[edit] Firefox

Hi Walden, just wanted to let you know that I use Firefox now and I'm very satisfied about it. Good luck here on en.wiki. Hope to see you on nl.wiki!! CE 22:48, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1
I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:
{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2
I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:
{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

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