Talk:Either/Or

Philosophy: Literature / Aesthetics / Ethics / Continental / Modern High‑importance

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Denmark Mid‑importance

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Either/Or was one of the Language and literature 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
March 13, 2007	Good article nominee	Listed
April 13, 2007	Peer review	Reviewed
June 21, 2009	Good article reassessment	Kept
June 18, 2021	Good article reassessment	Delisted
Current status: Delisted good article

"The size of the spheres is for illustrative purposes only"

that's very silly and should be removed. quantitative measurements have so little to do with anything in these regards that their very denial oversuggests them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.141.71.70 (talk) 03:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Style

This looks odd, unwieldy, and unencyclopedic, but can someone who has read Kierkegaard take a look?Vicki Rosenzweig 18:27 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Frogus - Indeed unwieldy style, but the content is sound. There is always a good reason why Kierkegaard's books are the lengths they are, and they are very difficult to summarise without using terms that are incomprehensible to a lay reader. Anyway I'll try to re-order it.

Diapsalmata

If my memory serves, 'diapsalmata' is not the whole of the 'Either', yet ambiguous phrasing in this article makes it seem like it is. If someone could verify that my memory is right, then this should be changed. Prometheus912 07:50, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article Nomination

Revised 04:45, Friday October 25 2024 (UTC);the original review has been commented out like  so, but can be viewed by editing this page.

The author has dealt with the recommendations in an appropiate manner, and the article is looking great. References where available have been added, as per recommendations, and the images have been tidied up. My one piece of advice is to align the image at Either/Or#Or to the right - all the others are at the right hand side, and it simply looks out of place to the left.

Well Done!
anthonycfc ^[talk] 20:46, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Opera by Goethe?!?

"During Kierkegaard's stay, as well as working on the manuscript for Either/Or, he took daily lessons to perfect his German and attended operas, particularly by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Wolfgang Goethe." Goethe wrote opera?!? -- Alcmaeonid (talk) 18:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That probably should read "attended operas and plays"; Mozart for the former and Goethe for the latter. Poor Yorick (talk) 04:28, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

General copyedit

I am proceeding with a general copyedit of the article which I believe is sorely needed. This consists of grammatical structure edits and reformatting for readability. Any assistance would be welcome. I am also open to critique which could be offered here. -- Alcmaeonid (talk) 16:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"upbuilding"

In the Or section (and following) there is a peculiar use of the word "upbuilding." As in: "Ultimatium: The volume ends in a discourse on the Upbuilding in the Thought that: against God we are always in the wrong." Is this a translation oddity? Or is it a special-use term? I'd like to replace it but want to make sure I'm not missing something. -- Alcmaeonid (talk) 17:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)-[reply]

I doubt that such a clearcut thought requires any upbuilding. 86.41.86.175 (talk) 16:06, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Either/Or/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

Starting GA reassessment. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:28, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quick fail criteria assessment

The article completely lacks reliable sources – see Wikipedia:Verifiability.
The topic is treated in an obviously non-neutral way – see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.
There are cleanup banners that are obviously still valid, including cleanup, wikify, NPOV, unreferenced or large numbers of fact, clarifyme, or similar tags.
The article is or has been the subject of ongoing or recent, unresolved edit wars.
The article specifically concerns a rapidly unfolding current event with a definite endpoint.

No problems when checking against quick fail criteria, proceeding to substantive review. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:33, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Checking against GA criteria

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose):
This reasonably well written, but consider copy-editing to improve clarity and make it more accessible for a wider audience. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:47, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
b (MoS):
I'm not keen on the use of colour highlighting for quotes, but I would suggest toning down the red/pink colour. Article accords with MoS. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:47, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references):
References #24 and #32 are broken links. A large number of links to published books lack page numbers. This is fine when the reference is to the entire work but not when individual statements are cited. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:02, 20 June 2009 (UTC) Done Jezhotwells (talk) 17:34, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
b (citations to reliable sources):
Citations appear to be to reliable sources, good faith is assumed for print sources. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:02, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
c (OR):
I suspect some OR. Many statements, e.g. Ultimately however, Either/Or stands philosophically independent of its relation to Kierkegaard's life., Either/Or was translated into English in 1944; however, several of Kierkegaard's later works had already been translated, making Kierkegaard's first great book one of the last to be translated for an English reading audience. Please cite or clarify. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:02, 20 June 2009 (UTC) Done Jezhotwells (talk) 17:34, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is broad in its scope.
a (major aspects):
OK
b (focused):
OK
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
NPOV
It is stable.
No edit wars etc.:
OK
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales):
OK
b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
OK
Overall:
Pass/Fail:
I am placing the reassessment on hold whilst the point above are addressed. Jezhotwells (talk) 15:05, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, looks like the points above are fixed. If you wished to take this to featured article status I think re-writing in clearer English would help. GA status confirmed Jezhotwells (talk) 17:34, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

lead-in?

hey all, shouldn't there be a lead in/introduction before the table of contents on this page? LazyMapleSunday (talk) 17:50, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, now there's a lead-in, but it says that the book "outlines a theory of human development in which consciousness progresses." This is only one possible way of reading of the text, and in my view it's a bad one. It's also in direct conflict with the "existential" interpretation later on in the article. I think the introduction needs to be fixed, to remove this line, so it doesn't take sides between the differing interpretations.- Ian

Quotes and copyright

This article contains some lengthy quotes, well beyond the length required for copyright protection, and there doesn't appear to be any sort of claim that the translations are old enough to be in the public domain. How is this not a blatant violation of copyright? 188.178.233.110 (talk) 12:44, 2 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This IP contributor asks a good question. Extensive quotations are forbidden by policy. These quotes should be truncated unless the copyright status can be clarified. I've extended the IP's listing at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2011 June 25 to permit interested contributors an opportunity to address this before somebody on copyright cleanup takes a stab at it. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:45, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No one has addressed the IP's question, which is quite a good one, as the oldest translation listed is from the late 1980s. I have accordingly blanked the article, as it far surpasses the brief quotations permitted on Wikipedia. If a usable rewrite is not proposed, I believe it may be necessary to restore the article to the state it was in prior to the beginning of the introduction of these lengthy quotations. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:02, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have permission from Princeton University Press to use the long quotes in Either/Or. I put all the quotes in there so I'll try to rewrite it in an acceptable manner. It may take awhile. I tried to set up a page where you directed me and messed it up so I will use one of my old user pages for Either/Or--11614soup^(talk) 11614soup 00:10, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Since it has been blanked for a while now, an earlier version of the article has been restored from which you might build. Please be careful with the length of quotations. Unfortunately, we are not permitted to use extensive quotations of non-free content on Wikipedia. (See Wikipedia:Copy-paste.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 23:07, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed one quote that was recently put back into the article as it was over 400 words and did not indicate the date of publication. Unless Kierkegaard wrote in English, he was not the proximate author of that content. We need the edition and the translator to assess copyright status. Quotes in the Reception section are lengthy and need to be truncated, using a combination of rewording and briefer quotation to get the main points across. I've tagged them in the hopes that interested contributors will consider how best to minimize the non-free content. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:15, 14 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Other Kierkegaard-related articles seem to be in the same situation, such as Philosophical Fragments and Fear and Trembling. Can I suggest considering user-contributed translations? They would need to be done carefully, but it would solve any copyright problem completely. 95.166.78.149 (talk) 09:06, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I find it unusually quote-heavy and it's tedious to read... Am I alone in this? 86.166.167.144 (talk) 22:20, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cover

The image seems like a stock image of Google Books, not an actual cover of a 19th century edition, in contrast to what is stated in the entry on Either/Or. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.47.233.109 (talk) 23:34, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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External links modified

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External links modified

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GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Either/Or/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

The original article was promoted to GA in 2007 and reassessed and reconfirmed in 2009. Since then it has been extensively changed and expanded and imo no longer meets the GA standard.

Well written

Written in essay, not encyclopaedic, style, with frequent WP:OR comments and asides. Fail

Verifiable with no original research

Extensive copyright violations, in the form of very long blockquotes from in-copyright books, have been deleted. The article still contains a large number of WP:OR asides and digressions. Many statements lack any citation. I have marked some (but by no means all) of these with "citation needed".Fail

Broad in its coverage

Even after deletion of extensive WP:UNDUE sections, article remains diffuse and frequently goes into excessive detail. Fail.

Neutral

Contains extensive editorial WP:OR comments and opinions. Fail

Stable

Has been stable for some years (but that is part of its problem -nominated in 2007 and 'reassessed' in 2009 -substantially bloated in the period up to 2015 by a single editor without any review). Adequate so far as that has any meaning in this context.

Illustrated

Contains relevant illustrations. Adequate but not particuarly enlightening.

Conclusion

This was made GA many years ago. It was subsequently vastly expanded in an eccentric fashion and no longer meets WP standards. Delist--Smerus (talk) 15:42, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Title of Either/Or

The title paragraph is a bit unclear and marked as needing a citation. In searching for that, I have found a different description of the meaning of the title, specifically that it is a response to Hegel... HarryDaley (talk) 17:49, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]