Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Process (philosophy)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Shii (tock) 05:51, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Process (philosophy) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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I propose that this article be deleted because it says nothing. It is a stub. No one seems to be trying to develop it. It refers to Process philosophy, an article that already exists. Chjoaygame (talk) 12:01, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2013 March 15. Snotbot  t • c »  12:20, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:52, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy delete. Article is almost completely redundant. 069952497a^{Comments and complaints}_{Stuff I've done} 20:27, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Buzzard Coulee meteorite via WP:SNOWBALL. --Lord Bromblemore 17:48, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Keep and expand - the concept of a philosophical process is obviously more general than, and a predecessor of, the specific derivative ideas of process philosophy and process theology (among others). – SJ + 02:59, 21 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Response to the above strong keep. I have no axe to grind here. I think I have a general basic understanding of areas related to this. I have to say that I have no idea what this article is trying to say. If it can be re-written so as to make it clearer what it is intending to say, and that turns out to be reasonable, I will not object. But as it stands, the article is so badly written that I think it fair to say it says nothing. That does not mean that I disagree with its content; it means that I do not know what it is trying to say, I find nothing to agree or disagree with. The new edit seems to me to be more or less nonsensical namedropping, concocted to provide some appearance of activity for this article; I would say specious appearance. I am a keen student of Alfred North Whitehead, but I don't see how the new edit is relevant to the article. The above strong keep comment speaks of something being "obvious". Not to me.Chjoaygame (talk) 05:54, 21 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Chjoaygame, I didn't suggest anyone has an axe to grind. I agree the article isn't well written; abstract topics can be hard to get right. This article needs more than one example, for instance. But the notion of a process in philosophy is quite general; whereas "process philosophy" is highly specific. One cannot redirect to the other. – SJ + 18:50, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. The article might perhaps be a sketch for a dictionary entry, but is not suitable as a Wikipedia article, which should be on a definitely circumscribed topic, not on all meanings of a word.Chjoaygame (talk) 07:45, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 19:48, 22 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - So far the text of the article doesn't explain what process (philosophy) means. How does this article differ from Process philosophy? I can't make any sense out of it. I searched the book given as a reference, including pages 84, 85: Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory, George Braziller, New York, 1968, pages 84,85 ISBN 0-8076-0453-4 and couldn't find and mention of process (philosophy).[1] All mentions in the book of "process" were general and applied to a variety of disciples, but not philosophy that I could see. Where else does this term occur? (The word "process" isn't mentioned in the article on von Bertalanffy. Star767 (talk) 18:18, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  The general notion of a process, in philosophy, is quite general. And it does refer to ideas that apply to a variety of disciplines. If you want to rename this to something like "Process (abstract)" instead of "Process (philosophy)" that might be clearer, if only because of the name-collision. But there is a long tradition of thinking about causality, systems, and interconnectedness that is more strongly a part of philosophy than of any other field. It is that tradition that thinks about abstract processes and similar terms. – SJ + 18:50, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment : This seems worth merging with process (science). I've combined the text of both articles, but left the latter for now until the AfD is resolved. Now it should be clearer and is better sourced. – SJ + 19:44, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Or redirecting to Systems theory. That article is more encompassing of the many disciplines that use "process". See: Process (disambiguation). Systems theory mentions Ludwig von Bertalanffy who was the original reference for this article, and Alfred North Whitehead who is mentioned in almost all the philosophy "process" articles. Or at least redirect to Process philosophy. Both Process (philosophy) and process (science) are rather a mess, and to upgrade them would be duplicate material already in several other articles.

I don't see what this article adds to the many existing articles, e.g. Process philosophy or other terms related to Alfred North Whitehead. There are bunches of tiny philosophy articles, e.g. Systematic philosophy, Datum (process philosophy), Nexus (process philosophy), Process and Reality, Concrescence (process philosophy), Creativity (process philosophy), Philosophy of Organism. Why do we need another article that just repeats info in articles we already have?

And the article in its current state is just a link farm, seems to me. Star767 (talk) 21:40, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The article has been extended by some new edits. The new edits convince me that the article aims just to stake a pseudo-conceptual territory, marked by a beloved label, but lacking genuine inhabitants. With the new edits, I still think the article should go.Chjoaygame (talk) 07:42, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Massively confused. There may be a philosophical concept of process but this article completely fails to say what it is. Furthermore, all of the cited references also fail to say what it is, or even confirm its existence. So as it stands there is a failure to meet both WP:V and WP:N. The sources all seem to be using the word process in a perfectly normal way without any special meaning, so this article is also a WP:DICDEF violation. I cannot live with the lede. The first sentence is all unhelpful waffle and the second sentence says process is "a property of a dynamic system". Velocity and rotation are dynamic properties, but are they processes? A process should have a product, but those properties do not. The second paragraph might be saying (it is hard to tell) that process (philosophy) is causal process. If that is really what it is trying to say, then the authors should start a causal process article and the first sentence should say what a causal process is. In the meantime we should delete this article as a hopeless case. SpinningSpark 23:12, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.