Talk:Perfection

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Old talk

Aren't numbers with greater divisor sums than themselves called abundant rather than redundant? I'd replace it myself, but I don't have access to the citation, so I can't be sure there wasn't a different archaic term in use. Metasquares (talk) 04:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia article on "perfect number," insofar as it is correct, appears to support your terminology. The Polish-language original of Władysław Tatarkiewicz's book On Perfection, on which this Wikipedia "Perfection" article is based, quotes (p. 25) the Latin term "redundantio" (and renders it in Polish as "nadmierne"—"excessive," "superfluous," "redundant"). The translator has rendered "redundantio" into English with the calque, "redundant."

I wonder whether the Latin "redundantio," as printed, might not be in error, and perhaps should have been cited instead as "abundantio"?

Or maybe the Latin "redundantio" is correct but should nevertheless be rendered into English as "abundant"?

I would tend to defer to your doubtless greater knowledge of mathematics. In any case, your caution, expressed above, is commendable. Nihil novi (talk) 05:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I like your music, poems and art work. Nihil novi (talk) 05:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Picture

Please change the picture of Descartes to this one: Image:Frans Hals - Portret van René Descartes.jpg so the lower resolution picture can delete in Commons 213.186.252.252 (talk) 12:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Nihil novi (talk) 16:13, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Amount of Pictures

Is it really necessary to have all those pictures on here? I don't see how they're at all relevant, "Oh and this is how the philosophers who thought about this subject looked - ALL OF THEM" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.92.177.163 (talk) 21:08, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not only do I completely agree but this comment made me lol Dakoman (talk) 14:10, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Perfect Number Section of the Perfection Wikipedia entry

I have no expertise here. I came to this from the entry on Perfect numbers. This section seems to be messy and lacks citations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.150.62.85 (talk) 05:47, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In this section it says that 10 was considered perfect for mathematical reasons as well as its relation to nature. However, there is no mention of the mathematical qualities that make 10 perfect. The only thing mentioned is the number of fingers. --24.57.19.247 (talk) 16:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Images

This article had far too many images that didn't add anything to the article, to the point that it was hard to read (the images were a continuous border along the sides. I considered tagging with {{too many photos}} and asking an editor familiar with this topic to choose which images to remove, but decided that wouldn't be enough; it would be better to start over from scratch. So I have removed all of them; whoever knows about this topic can choose which images to put back (I'd suggest no more than 2 images per every 3 sections, so about 5 images maximum for the article); make sure they are only images of people who are important and discussed a lot in the article (many of the people pictured previously were only mentioned in a single sentence, so why bother taking up so much space to illustrate them?). If someone does feel I was wrong and reverts me, at least add a {{too many photos}} tag to the top of the article, because this is seriously a problem. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:25, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There was no call to delete the article's illustrations. Wikipedia encourages the use of appropriate illustrations, which prevent articles from being indigestibly dry and give some sense of realia and of the historic periods involved.

Regarding additional sources, if you have some, no one is preventing you from adding substantive information. As to the article's "balance," do you have any concrete concerns? Nihil novi (talk) 04:59, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's about time you post here.

First of all, read WP:Images. WP encourages images, that doesn't mean you should add hundreds of them; particularly, see "Images must be relevant to the article that they appear in and be significantly related to the article's topic". I am not the first editor to have complained about the number of images here; see higher up on this talk page. Most of the images here are irrelevant or only barely, tangentially relevant, and none of them increase understanding of the article subject. Like I said above, five or six images would be ok, but flooding the article with images is useless and makes it hard to read.

As for single sources.... you have provided no rationale for removing the {{single source}} tag. It is perfectly legitimate: all the information in the article comes from the same author. the balance issue is the same: you are only presenting one author's version of this issue. When you reverted my image changes, you reverted this tagging along with it and never gave any rationale. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:03, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Take, for example, the images of Calvin and Jansen. Each of these people is mentioned only once, in a single sentence, and not discussed at all anywhere else in the article. Do such minor asides need images? Absolutely not; it's just clutter. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:31, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you had been less preoccupied with wikilawyering, you might have noticed that after restoring most of the illustrations (this was by no means a mechanical revert to an identical previous edition of the article), I did restore your "single-source" and "balance?" templates. Addition of substantive information is welcome. I do not, however, understand your reasoning that, if information comes largely from a single source—in this case, a highly respected historian of ideas who literally "wrote the book" on the subject of perfection—then "it's sure to be unbalanced".

I also fail to see the logic of your assertion that the portraits of the thinkers whose ideas the author is discussing, are "irrelevant". If they were, then all the portraits of persons discussed on Wikipedia should be deleted.

All these individuals appear briefly. This is an encyclopedia article that discusses over two millenia of thought on the subject. But each of these individuals has something substantive to say and is therefore included. Nihil novi (talk) 05:42, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see now that you fixed the templates in your second revert, although you had removed them during your first revert (which you tried to disguise as a "copyedit"). There is nothing to argue about, then, because the templates belong there. No matter who the author is and how important he is, you are still presenting only his viewpoint, fair and square.

As for the images...it is clear that no Wikipedia article needs an image to illustrate every single sentence. I am glad that you are not edit warring anymore (although I wish you had come to this discussion page several hours ago, to preclude all the arguing that's happened), but if you continue insisting on keeping these useless images in I'll have to request a third opinion here, and I have worked with images in other articles enough to know what those opinions are going to sound like. To be honest, I still think your misleading revert here is pretty disgusting and demonstrates your unwillingness to work with others here, so I would rather just not listen to you anymore and seek out a third opinion instead. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:47, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I might have come to the discussion earlier, but I work during the day. As for my terse edit summary—I try to use standardized brief summaries in order not to overload my computer's edit-summary prompts with distracting lengthy, one-time-application summaries. Nihil novi (talk) 06:00, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, you were lying. Your revert was nothing like a "copyedit". You might as well just drop it now because it's in the past and it's not going to change. As for whether you were too busy to come to the discussion...huh, that's funny, you weren't too busy to play with images and to comment on another article. Only after you were reported for edit warring did you suddenly become not busy; how convenient.

I've listed this at WP:3O to get outside input. I don't see any good coming from us continuing to talk to one another, as all it will bring is drama, so I'm probably not going to comment here again for now, I'll just wait for outside input to come. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 06:04, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we should indeed discontinue this conversation. But just for the record, what I meant was that, while you were busy hacking away at the article's illustrations, I was precluded from being aware of your intent and of its execution by the necessity of earning a living. My failure to appear on this page immediately I did become aware was prompted by my habit of reflecting before writing. Nihil novi (talk) 06:17, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

3O

The amount of images displayed on this page before the edits Rjanag made was pretty excessive. A close reading of WP:IMAGES, Nihil novi, makes it pretty clear that "Images must be relevant to the article that they appear in and be significantly related to the article's topic." [Italics mine] Most people would indeed likely be interested in seeing a picture of Euclid, but not because of his contributions to Perfection, which is the source of the issue here. Thus, it's inappropriate to display his picture and many/all of the others, such as the portrait of Gay-Lussac, which don't elucidate the subject of perfection. The idea is to use any images in an article to enhance readers' understanding of the topic in a visual manner, not to stop them from getting bored or to entice them into reading elsewhere. Anyway, hope that helps clarify things a bit; hopefully we can proceed congenially from here on out. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 06:57, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it looks to me now like there is consensus for cutting down the number of pictures and only including a couple that are particularly relevant (such as Tatarkiewicz—even though he is only mentioned once in the article, the fact that he is cited so heavily suggests that he is important enough in this field to be worth picturing). Like I said above, the only reasonable way I see to do this is to remove all the images and let some editor who is familiar with this topic come in and re-add 4-6 that they feel are most relevant. So I propose that that be done again (we can leave Tatarkiewicz in to start, there's one down), unless there is suddenly dissent that I didn't know about. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 14:00, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My two cents: neither version was good. Old version was too image heavy; new version had none. Select about half of them that are most relevant. Perhaps a Commons gallery could be created for the excess? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:10, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then someone list here which 5-6 images should be kept, and I can leave them in while I remove the rest. The end result is the same--identifying a reasonable number of pictures that belong in the article. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:13, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the number of pictures must be reduced. How to decide? Perhaps by chosing only some people from each epoch (antiquity, middle ages, modern era) - or choosing only the philosophers (Teresa of Ávila, say, does not need to be pictured). Hekerui (talk) 15:38, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Selecting a limited number of portraits, in an article of this nature, will necessarily be arbitrary, even if one starts by selecting conventionally "rock-star" individuals. However, a gallery at the end of the article, for overflow, does seem reasonable. Nihil novi (talk) 18:23, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why would such a gallery be necessary? There is a gallery like that at Mononymous person because the article is about those people (although, as I said at the talk page there, I don't even see the need for a gallery at that article either). This article is not about the people, it's about the ideas, and there's no need for a picture of most of these people; if a reader really wants to know what, say, Calvin looked like, he can follow the link and go to the article about Calvin. If it's hard to select portraits, then that just means select fewer...I have already done some of the work by saying that Tatarkiewicz is one of the portraits that can stay. What other people are especially important to this article? If someone's not especially important to the article (ie, if they are only mentioned in a sentence or two), they probably don't need to be pictured. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:33, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This review of the historic evolution of the concept of "perfection" comprises individual sentences, even parts of sentences, devoted to various thinkers on the subject.

"Mononymous person" discusses the concept of mononymity, illustrated with examples of mononymous persons. "Perfection" discusses the concept of perfection, illustrated with key proponents of distinct interpretations of that concept. Nihil novi (talk) 19:23, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are three sections that contain larger numbers of portraits: "Ethics," "Aesthetics," and "Ontology and theology." Why not just create a gallery for each of these three sections, placing all the portraits that are in those sections into the respective galleries? Nihil novi (talk) 19:37, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but there is no consensus to do that. Other than you, everyone who has commented here thinks the pictures are not desirable. We are giving you a chance to identify which pictures you think should stay; please cooperate. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:49, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) Can you say specifically what edification keeping portraits such as these in an article provides, whether in a gallery or not? If someone is interested in the concept of Perfection, what good does an image of Teresa of Ávila provide? There is nothing to be gained by using the image that a reader couldn't get by following the link in the text. I agree that a large number of these should be cut out, and based on the content I'd weigh in on the less rather than more side. Aristotle is a good one to keep, as is Plato. If the section on Physics, etc. spoke more about Charles or Boyle, as, perhaps, it should, then one of them would be a good candidate. St. Paul would be a good bet for the Ethics/Religion section, especially if accompanied by a quote from scripture. I think also that a picture of Raphael would be a welcome addition - he is one of the few actual examples given of something that is called "perfect," and of which there can be illustrations - especially if there is also a caption. ~ Amory (user • talk • contribs) 23:21, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments. I support concentrating on images of perfection, not of people who wrote about it, with an exception of Tatarkiewicz, if he indeed is the most reknown expert on this. A gallery at the end of the article is not a common solution, but considering possible problems with such a category at Commons, and the importance of visual illustrations for this article, this may be a good solution here. Lastly: isn't Venus of Milo seen by some as one of the images of perfection? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 02:39, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I still see no need for moving all the current images into a gallery at the bottom since, as you said, they're mostly images of people who wrote about perfection, not images of perfect stuff. Such a gallery would be tantamount to me going to the reflist of an article (take, for example, Chinese classifier) and replacing it with headshots of every author cited. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:42, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree there is no need for a gallery of academics who wrote about perfection; I meant we could use a gallery of objects that according to them illustrate the concept of perfection. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:50, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, no such images exist in the article; all the images I've reviewed are images of people who wrote about stuff; that suggests to me that most of them are ok to remove. Since no one has commented yet on my suggestions below, I'm going to use them as a starting point for cleaning up the article. I'm about to go play badminton, but once I get back I'll BOLDly remove all the images other than the ones suggested below, and try to add captions explaining them; people involved in this article are free to make tweaks later, clean up captions, add an image here or remove an image there, etc., but there should not be any wholesale reverting--there is definitely consensus here that the vast majority of images on this page ought to be removed. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:27, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Everyone is free to tweak captions, etc., as well as copyedit and reorganize the article (which is sorely needed). But let's not add new images unless there's a good reason. Right now some sections are ridiculously long and hard to read (too many one- or two-sentence paragraphs), but someday if they are cleaned up then 1-2 images per section should be appropriate. If people feel there are not enough images in the current version, the correct response is to add a couple images at a time, where they are appropriate (as I suggested in my very first post on this topic) rather than to do a wholesale revert and restore the version of the article that no one likes. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:58, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tentative list of images to keep

Based on my suggestions and Amory's above; starting list now to get the ball rolling. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:56, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tatarkiewicz -- lots of work in this field, heavily cited
Raphael -- "celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings"
St Paul -- perfection in religion
Plato
Aristotle

Around we go again

Nihil novi has undone the edit again. As far as I can tell, there is still no consensus for all those images. This may not have exactly been a machine revert, but it was close enough (re-added forced image sizes, which we don't use; removed captions that explained the images' relevance; removed the Raphael picture that had been suggested, etc.). It is clear from the above that everyone other than Nn agrees most of the images are irrelevant, and there should be fewer images in general, so I have undone his edit again...since Nn has not commented here since in over a day I see no reason not to. Pretending to be unaware of the talk page is no excuse to edit war. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:08, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In making a different selection of illustrations than in your "tentative list of images to keep," and choosing 14 of the article's original 42 portraits, I was following your own recommendation to "let some editor who is familiar with this topic come in and re-add [fewer illustrations] that they feel are most relevant." Certainly I am more "familiar with this topic" than you, who betrayed that you had read very little of this article, when you wrote that "many of the people pictured previously were only mentioned in a single sentence, so why bother taking up so much space to illustrate them?"—nearly all the individuals are given only a sentence (or part of a sentence), which does not make any of them less important to the discussion of the topic. The five individuals selected by you do not do justice to the rich history of thought about the concept of perfection; the 14 that I selected, from the original 42, give at least some hint.

The Wikipedia:Manual of Style does permit size-forcing of images: "[S]ize-forcing may be appropriate..."

It would be well if you changed your tone of an avenging fury. Nihil novi (talk) 14:21, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If the 5 I suggested were so terrible, why didn't you weigh in during the 24+ hours there was discussion going on here? You were active at other articles, and ignored this discussion. Again, ignoring a discussion is no excuse to revert. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:40, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A bit more clarification about why your revert was inappropriate: even if you think adding more images was acceptable (and, as I said, it is acceptable if you provide a reason why--within the article), you need to give a reason when you change or remove another editor's work, especially when it's already in the middle of a heated discussion. This is what edit summaries and talk pages are for. You see that an editor has added captions to images—if you're going to remove them, you need to say why. You see that an editor has made formatting changes to the article—if you're going to undo them, you need to say why. You're not working in a bubble here. People watch these articles, people pay attention to what you do (people pay attention to what I do, too), and if you can't work with people you're going to have problems. Just undoing a bunch of edits without any edit summary or rationale is not ok; even if you have a clear reason inside your head, you need to articulate that reason to other people who are involved in the discussion. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:06, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You have little standing to preach the virtues of communication. On June 26, without having given the slightest prior notice, you single-handedly deleted all the illustrations in the "Perfection" article. After I reverted this, you hailed me before a 3R court, with the full knowledge that no 3R event had occurred. Only when this was challenged, did you withdraw your complaint. You then hastily called for a "third opinion," which on June 27 concluded with a recommendation to "split the baby", i.e., to restore some of the illustrations. Aware that you knew nothing of the article's subject, you repeated an earlier call for "some editor who is familiar with this topic [to] come in and re-add [illustrations] that they feel are most relevant." No one volunteered, so that same day you again made haste and, still no wiser about the article's subject matter, put together an arbitrary list of five portraits.

Quit your bullshit lies. I dropped the 3RR report when you finally started discussing things, not when I "realized no 3R had occurred". Everyone knows you don't need to break 3RR to be edit warring.

And, if you had even read my first post on the topic, you would have seen that I too recommended restoring some illustrations. You really would be better off if you read these discussions before hitting the undo button. If you had opened your eyes and done things right before reverting and lying about it, this crap would not be happening. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:06, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As no one heeded your call to assist your ill-conceived project, on June 29 you again deleted the illustrations that I had restored—all but the five that you had selected. At this point, I took you up on your call for expert assistance and, keeping three of your portraits, dropped two (Raphael, St. Paul) while adding 11 others that do mark milestones in thought on the subject. ("Perfection," 29 June, 05:42.) The same day, again without prior discussion, you again reverted my version.

I think that the 14 illustrations (of the article's original 42) that I selected on June 29 help bring attention to some key turning points in thinking about perfection and are not an excessive number. The baby, as butchered by you, could use a head and some limbs. Nihil novi (talk) 06:00, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then list your suggestions here, along with reasons why you're suggesting them, and wait a while for some input before taking any action on them. That's what I did, and you're not special. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:13, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They are all still there, at Perfection, 29 June, 05:42. The rationale for each will be evident from the adjacent texts referring to the respective thinkers. Nihil novi (talk) 17:06, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can post suggestions at this talk page so people can comment on them. Furthermore, when images are added, they should have a brief, descriptive caption explaining what is so important about this person that they are pictured—as you yourself said above, all of these people are somehow important to the concept, so the images chosen should be ones that are of particular importance compared to the rest. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:56, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No need for captions, since the images stand right next to the texts that they illustrate. A caption is therefore redundant. The selections are best seen by going to that edition of the article and seeing the illustrations in context. Nihil novi (talk) 01:07, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I propose to bring up on the "Perfection" page the version of 29 June 2009, 05:42. Readers will be able to see for themselves that it does not show an excessive number of illustrations, and that these relate to notable concepts of "perfection." Nihil novi (talk) 20:00, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perfect flower?

I'd like to add a note somewhere here about perfect flowers, which is a commonly used synonym for bisexual flowers, but I don't see an appropriate place. Could I get some help? Thanks. Dcoetzee 07:29, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For now, I've started a "See also" section with an entry for "Perfect flower (bisexual flower)." Such flowers, I gather, take their name from the criterion of completeness. Nihil novi (talk) 08:52, 3 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cultural Bias

It would be interesting to learn about this concept from the cultural perspectives of various groups, such as the Asian philosophers and mathematicians, the original Americans, island cultures, Central African groups, the Ancient Egyptians, and so on. I wonder if there is an absence of the concept or if it is viewed differently. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Global intellect (talk • contribs) 02:24, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Criticism

I find the concept ridiculous without a for what, like a concept that have run wild and far out of context, c.f. Free will (to what, in what situation?). Are there any authors/philosophers (except of course implicitly Ludwig Wittgenstein) that criticises the concept? Then it should be in the article. A similar question is: what's the difference between an elephant? Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 19:20, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Help

I can't do it because I don't have an account, but could someone please state, in the paradox section, after the words "("perfectio complementii").," that possibility for improvement can be considered to be an imperfection, and that unchangeability can thus be seen as a perfection?