Talk:Bertrand Russell

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Bertrand Russell was one of the Philosophy and religion good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
July 2, 2005	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
December 19, 2005	Good article nominee	Listed
May 25, 2007	Good article reassessment	Delisted
October 28, 2007	Good article nominee	Not listed
April 8, 2008	Good article nominee	Not listed
Current status: Delisted good article

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Section sizes

Section size for Bertrand Russell (35 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	12,150	12,150
Biography	14	90,960
Early life and background	5,575	5,575
Childhood and adolescence	7,455	7,455
Education	1,434	1,434
Early career	5,805	5,805
First World War	7,132	7,132
G. H. Hardy on the Trinity controversy	2,633	2,633
Between the wars	12,778	12,778
Second World War	5,794	5,794
Later life	14,117	14,117
Political causes	12,891	12,891
Final years, death and legacy	9,861	15,332
Marriages and issue	5,471	5,471
Titles, awards and honours	540	3,036
Honours and Awards	552	552
Scholastic	1,944	1,944
Views	40	21,036
Philosophy	3,264	3,264
Religion	2,311	2,311
Society	10,956	10,956
Freedom of opinion and expression	819	819
Education	3,646	3,646
Selected works	16,812	16,812
See also	489	489
Notes	26	26
References	185	1,117
Citations	29	29
General and cited sources	34	903
Primary sources	486	486
Secondary sources	383	383
Further reading	302	3,557
Books about Russell's philosophy	1,307	1,307
Biographical books	1,948	1,948
External links	6,432	6,432
Total	155,615	155,615

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1, 2, 3, 4

This page has archives. Sections older than 183 days may be automatically archived by when more than 4 sections are present.

Russell and appeasement

In the article if says "and initially supported appeasement against Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, before changing his view in 1943" but elsewhere it says "In 1940, he changed his appeasement view that avoiding a full-scale world war was more important than defeating Hitler. He concluded that Adolf Hitler taking over all of Europe would be a permanent threat to democracy. In 1943, he adopted a stance toward large-scale warfare called "relative political pacifism": "War was always a great evil, but in some particularly extreme circumstances, it may be the lesser of two evils."[84][85]" and on the article 'Russell's political views' it says "he supported the policy of appeasement; but by 1940 he acknowledged that to preserve democracy, Hitler had to be defeated. This same reluctant value compromise was shared by his acquaintance A.A. Milne.[4]". It seems to be the consensus on the literature published about Russell by routledge that such changes happened in 1940, yet it is not described as such in the initial quote. 129.234.0.182 (talk) 10:20, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest changing to: ".. initially supported appeasement against Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, before changing his view in 1940, and refining it again in 1943." Martinevans123 (talk) 10:25, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Languages

Russell spoke German (he expected his conversation with Vladimir Lenin to be in German rather than English). I don't know where to add this information to the page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TK9c-caEcw — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E0A:867:5F90:6BE8:18EA:D818:5BC3 (talk) 09:01, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps in "Education"? Do you have any better source(s)? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:03, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Short description

AradhanaChatterjee, I wonder could you offer a response about your recent edits to the short description? I had assumed that, in general, the short description should reflect the opening sentence of the article. Is there any reason why this should not apply here? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:27, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, regrading your recent edit here. I assume that terms are supposed to be linked at their first appearance in an article? Is this not the case? Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:24, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Might I suggest spending some time here and perhaps this page as well, and I recommend reading the article about the logician Bertrand Russell, his analytical reasoning ideas should definitely help. AradhanaChatterjee (talk) 16:03, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How about just answering the questions in my two edit summaries, before slapping an "edit warring" warning at my Talk page? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:06, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Only if you tell me how any of the above improves this article about Bertrand Russell on Wikipedia.org for anyone on the World Wide Web who seeks information about the philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell? AradhanaChatterjee (talk) 16:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't reasonable to expect editors to search through the edit history of an article in order to start or contribute to a discussion. I have searched edit histories myself, but it is thankless work with paltry rewards. Thanks, therefore, for bringing this argument to the talk page, and please write appropriate descriptions of your reasoning, rather than just waving your hands at the edit summary.

I will try to contribute to this discussion myself, but I may be delayed by "real life". Bruce leverett (talk) 16:55, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is very reasonable to expect editors to search through the edit history of an article when they are making multiple reverts on well explained edits. This user felt the need to start this discussion only after I reverted their revert, and they had prior to that reverted multiple appropriately summarised edits. AradhanaChatterjee (talk) 17:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

AradhanaChatterjee, I today reverted just two of your edits, on different things, once each. And you immediately came to my Talk page and accused me of being in an "edit war"? My last previous edits here were on 13 February 2024‎. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:08, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am not making multiple reverts on well explained edits. I only want to get, and give, advice on the use of wikilinks and on the short description for this article. If you want my sympathy or assistance, you'll have to explain to me what you have in mind. Bruce leverett (talk) 19:00, 10 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to say something constructive to get a discussion started. I will be traveling for a while and unable to follow up on this.

WP:Short description does not say that the short description has to "reflect the opening sentence of the article", or even that it should do so. The main requirement is that it be short. A rough-and-ready test for adequate shortness, for the existing version of the article, is to get into the search box and type "Bertra". A list of articles whose names begin with that will appear, along with their short descriptions. If the short description of an article gets truncated on this list, it's too long. As I write this, the short description of Bertrand Russell is OK, but the short description of Bertrand Russell's philosophical views is getting truncated, so it's too long. Now you know.

Probably "British philosopher, mathematician and logician (1872-1970)" will make it under the wire, just barely, but I don't see anything wrong with "British philosopher and logician (1872-1970)", either. For readers who actually need a short description, e.g. to distinguish Russell from some other person with a similar name, it will be fine.

Regarding wikilinks, I have made many edits where I cited MOS:OVERLINK, but I realize it is a slippery thing, and so I have gotten lazy about that. My own feeling about mathematician, logician, and philosopher is that they fall under the category of "common occupations", mentioned in MOS:OVERLINK, and therefore they should not be linked. I note, by the way, that logician redirects to logic, so linking to both of them qualifies as MOS:REPEATLINK, I would think. MOS:OVERLINK doesn't have a category for fields of study, such as mathematics, logic, and set theory, but I think that the first two should not be linked, either, because really, doesn't everybody think that they know what mathematics and logic are?

The larger problem is that the whole first paragraph is a dud. A dry recitation of one-word descriptions of Russell's occupations and fields of study does not tell the reader why he was notable, and does not describe anything he did that was notable. The lead paragraphs generally, and the first paragraph in particular, and especially the first sentence, are supposed to (a) tell the reader what is notable about the subject, and (b) get the reader's interest. Instead the first paragraph is a cure for insomnia. It should specifically mention the things that are currently mentioned in the second paragraph.

By the way, I am surprised that the lead paragraphs do not mention A History of Western Philosophy. Bruce leverett (talk) 02:46, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for your explanation and suggestions. I agree we should centre any discussion on Template:Short description and Wikipedia:Short description. You are right, it doesn't say that it has to "reflect the opening sentence of the article", or even that it should do so. Perhaps it's just my experience that in most cases it usually does. Yes, the main requirement is for it to be short. But I don't think it's a case of "the shorter the better". The template says "This should be limited to about 40 characters". It seems the best course of action would be to first agree what's in the first paragraph. I also agree that the lead paragraphs should mention A History of Western Philosophy. Hope you enjoy your travels. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:22, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of a short description is to aid readers in navigation by disambiguating each article's subject as briefly and naturally as possible. This is naturally distinct from the purpose of an article's introductory sentence, which generally hews closer to beginning a definition of the article's subject. In this instance, both versions discussed seem perfectly suited for the task. Remsense ‥ 论 08:08, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, WP:SDESC says this: "The short description of a Wikipedia article or of another namespace page is a concise explanation of the scope of the page. These descriptions appear in Wikipedia mobile and some desktop searches, and help users identify the desired article. When viewing an article, some mobile Wikipedia apps also display the description below the page title." Martinevans123 (talk) 08:28, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So I really don't know what was so desperately wrong with the original. Or why my reverts were deemed "reckless". It seems we're not allowed to describe him as a "mathematician" in the short description, as that's covered by "logician". But we can still describe him as a "mathematician" in the opening sentence. I'm obviously having a problem with the logic here. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:22, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Needed new photo

Since we abruptly lost our infobox image, I picked a new one, but I pressed the wrong button and didn't leave so much as an edit summary. I picked this one because it looked OK, but if there is one that is better-known or just better, don't let me stop you from dropping it in there instead. Bruce leverett (talk) 19:27, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]