Talk:Scottish Enlightenment

Article Checklist for "Scottish Enlightenment"

Workgroup category or categories	History Workgroup [Categories OK]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	No
Checklist last edited by	Kjetil Ree 05:49, 6 August 2007 (CDT)

To learn how to fill out this checklist, please see CZ:The Article Checklist.

---

Importation from WP

I really wish this article had not been imported from Wikipedia. The WP version is mediocre at best with a wholly inadequate intro section, poor section headers, and some of the content of the "major figures" section is strange. The paragraph on Hutcheson does not even remotely do justice to his influence, making no mention of his effect on the clergy and Church of his day. Hume sounds like a natural scientist. There is no discussion of the "dark side of the Scottish Enlightenment". Likewise no discussion of its impact.

When an article is imported from WP, it can discourage work thereon, not to mention folks can get locked into the organization and structure all too easily. From my experience with the Joan of Arc article, I can say that it is much easier to write from a blank slate than to revise a mediocre article. An import from WP should only be done when the WP article is of reasonably good quality to begin with.

Also, the checklist, at the time it was added, incorrectly labeled the article as status 3. It should have been called status 4 (external article).

My apologies if this comment sounds a bit petulant, but this is a high importance article and should be held to a high standard.

James F. Perry 08:37, 7 August 2007 (CDT)

Removal of "Important Scottish Enlightenment figures" list

Please don't misunderstand this removal. I like lists. They're lots of fun. But a Book of Lists is not an Encyclopedia. Further, after reading the article on clusters it appears that this listing of important Scottish Enlightenment figures better belongs as a table subpage:

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Subpage_Pilot

However, I'm not thoroughly familiar with these new features. Could someone knowledgable about such matters please respond to let me know whether my intention to remove the list to a subpage (specifically a table subpage) is the right thing to do? And point me to an example so that I can figure out how to construct it?

James F. Perry 16:31, 7 August 2007 (CDT)