Peter Millican

Speedy deletion of Peter Millican

A tag has been placed on Peter Millican, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia per CSD a7.

Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not meet basic Wikipedia criteria may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as an appropriate article, and if you can indicate why the subject of this article is appropriate, you may contest the tagging. To do this, add {{hangon}} on the top of the article and leave a note on the article's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would confirm its subject's notability under the guidelines.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion. To do this, add {{hangon}} on the top of the page (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag) and leave a note on the page's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself. Realkyhick 23:03, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that you do not yet count as 'notable' for Wikipedia's purposes. However, from the information about you on the web, you probably will at some point. If you let the article on you be deleted now, someone will almost certainly start one on you in a few years time. (Infinitely more 'cool', and people can currently get the information they want about you from your existing web pages.)

If you were willing to join WikiProject Philosophy, that would be great. Although, you can do exactly the same things without listing yourself as a contributor. Anarchia 01:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear Anarchia, Thanks for this note, and I don't mind being "deleted", though I doubt there's anything like a consistent measure of "notability" at work here. No matter. I added the short page on myself only because I'd noticed that a lot of other Oxford fellows (many - I suspect - with no better claim) had got pages, and I hadn't read the stuff about not adding oneself. (Moreover I didn't want to go in for self-puffery such as "First person in the 30 years of Hume Studies to be selected as editor from outside North America", which is why the page was objected to on grounds of not making the case for "notability".)

Regarding WikiProject Philosophy, I'm in two minds. It does seem to me that the David Hume page, for example, is pretty poor, and I certainly wouldn't want to recommend it as a source to any student. But having looked at some of the discussion pages in Wikipedia, I wonder how far this is remediable. The page by Mel Etitis includes the passage: "I'm a philosopher; why don't I edit the article on my subject? Because it's hopeless. I've tried at various times, and each time have given up in depressed disgust. Philosophy seems to attract aggressive zealots who know a little (often a very little), who lack understanding of key concepts, terms, etc., and who attempt to take over the article (and its Talk page) with rambling, ground-shifting, often barely comprehensible rants against those who disagree with them. Life's too short. I just tell my students and anyone else I know not to read the Wikipedia article except for a laugh. It's one of those areas where the ochlocratic nature of Wikipedia really comes a cropper." In the light of this, I don't really think I'd want to take on trying to remedy the Hume page, for example, because of the number of toes that would have to be trodden on in removing or correcting stuff that is either false or of little account. But that's the page, more than any other, where I'd work if I did any (to see why, look at my Hume bibliography which is linked from the page already).

By the way, I see you use a "Puzzle Pirates" name. Puzzle Pirates was devised by a student of mine, Daniel James, who studied at Leeds in 1990-93. I'm not a "beginning academic" as the notice on my page currently suggests, but an increasingly aged one!

I am sure that you are right about the inconsistent use of WP:NOTE, and WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY is also used a little inconsistently. There are definitely articles for philosophers who are less notable than you on wikipedia. I rarely suggest deletion for such articles, but if someone else does, I try to follow the guidelines. It is a pity that you don't want to join us in WikiProject:Philosophy, but I do understand your reasons. I occassionally feel revolted by some of the things that I come across in Category:Philosophy, and have had the odd time when I have felt as though I have been banging my head against a wall. I sometimes get fed up with deleting or undo-ing vandalism and unreferenced, unsupportable poor research. I also end up writing endless comments about appropriate and inappropriate sources for philosophy essays on student work. Over against this, individual efforts on wikipedia, really do make (and have made) a difference to the quality of philosophy articles. Referenced changes to articles realted to analytic philosophy and history of philosophy tend to stay on the articles (apart from the odd 'Joe eats poop' style comments - sigh). I offered some Honours students the option of contributing to wikipedia philosophy articles as a minor part of their assessment, and that worked very well indeed, for the students, for me, and for the articles. The philosophy regulars on wikipedia are also about as well reasoned and supportive of efforts as anyone could desire. You taught a Puzzle Pirates developer? Now that makes you notable! I wish that I was not addicted to a game that is dominated by teenagers and those in their early twenties...very embarassing...but there it is. If you ever come to New Zealand, I hope you will let me know. It would be great if you could give a talk at our university, and there is a chance that you could be offered accommodation for a night in exchange. I should add that I am at Canterbury university, the home of the Turing Project, or whatever it is called, and Jack Copeland. Anarchia 21:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

It's an interesting idea to suggest to students that they update Wikipedia - maybe I should do this at Oxford, where some of the students are excellent (here it wouldn't be part of their assessment, but I could set it as tutorial work perhaps!).

If my memory is correct, Daniel James came up to Leeds to study single honours Philosophy, and changed to Philosophy and Computing thanks to the course that I put on (I'm a bit of a zealot for links between the two, as www.philocomp.net will make clear). So maybe I can claim rather a lot of credit for enabling Puzzle Pirates to exist! :-) Actually, Dan was very familiar with computers before he came up to Leeds, so he might well have proceeded on the same track without the formal training.

Thanks for the NZ offer, and I have a high opinion of Jack Copeland's work. Please could you email me: peter.millican@hertford.ox.ac.uk to tell me who you are? All the best, P.