Talk:Werner Erhard/Archive 1

Aphorisms

• "Happiness is a function of accepting what is. Love is a function of communication. Health is a function of participation. Self Expression is a function of responsibility."
  • Can you please provided the full citation for this "Aphorisms" thing? And please do not remove quotes that have full citations to them. Thanks. Dark journey 07:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC).

Images added

I added an image of Erhard from the Commons and two images relating to some of the mystically oriented statements on the page with the comment:

Erhard has expressed some mystical truths & much nonsense—with an apparently great interest in making money at it—images relate to some of what he has said or done & some conflicts between them

I honestly have very little admiration of the man, and in the past have had MUCH disgust with him and his attitudes and behavior, but can concede he has done some good, and it is not for me to try to absolutely judge or measure the amount of good vs. bad he has done — but there should be some indications of both. ~ Herla 19:55, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I will also start to organize the page better, as it is a mess chronologically right now. ~ Herla 20:00, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Let's not use images to create our own viewpoints, and rather limit simply to descriptive images that relate directly to the individual. Cirt (talk) 20:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

To clarify: you said above and in the edit summary: "images relate to some of what he has said or done & some conflicts between them". I dispute this, rather, this is your interpretation of mixing these images with these quotes. Cirt (talk) 20:07, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I will defer at this point, because I actually, for the most part, have very little interest in the man or his opinions, having examined them sufficiently to have seen some profound but mostly very selfish, conceited and extremely avaricious interests at work. As I stated, I yet can recognize that he has done some good for others, but I remain very doubtful as to the sincerity of that as a primary aim in his life. I actually do object to some of your conceited presumptions also — but I will refrain from expressing them fully and presently constrain myself to your will. ~ Herla 20:23, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Let's stick to discussion of the topic at hand please, and not individual contributors, thanks. Cirt (talk) 20:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Removed quote from picture, violates WQ:NPOV

Removed quote from picture, violates WQ:NPOV. Please, do not restore it without discussion here first, thanks. -- Cirt (talk) 17:50, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Interesting that the above prior discussion about this issue, was (unknowingly at the time by myself) with one of the socks of Kalki (talk · contributions), sock puppet, Herla (talk · contributions). -- Cirt (talk) 17:54, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Quotations included in Wikiquote do not need to conform to NPOV, as they are reflections of the point-of-view of the quoted individual.--Collingwood (talk) 17:13, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but stylistic use of them in images do indeed need to conform to NPOV, and this violates it. -- Cirt (talk) 20:50, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Please explain where in WQ:NPOV it says this, and also what objectionable POV this quote contains. Until it can be demonstrated that WQ:NPOV has been violated, that caption should remain. Thank you.--Collingwood (talk) 19:48, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Fine. I've replaced it with a shorter and more succinct quote: "I didn't arrive at the opportunity to make the world work for everyone by figuring out how to do it." Hopefully that brings this to a satisfactory resolution. :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 14:32, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I still do not understand the NPOV objection to the previous choice. Is it because it makes him appear foolish, or trite, or grandiose?

The replacement quote is an odd choice for leading the article. Perhaps its purport would be more apparent with some context, or perhaps I am just dense, but it does not seem at all obvious what the point of this negative statement refers to. Is the editorial POV intended to obscure his idea, or to portray him as being obscuritanist? ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:19, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Both quotes seem to require a bit of context. -- Cirt (talk) 18:19, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

• Why did you say that this was "a shorter and more succinct quote"? As is obvious from the history, this replacement made the article two characters longer hence it is a slightly longer quote! Actually, I prefer the earlier one and am minded to revert if others do not object.--Collingwood (talk) 06:19, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Respectfully disagree, the earlier quote has 2 clauses, this one has just one. -- Cirt (talk) 17:27, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

This quote is not appropriate for the top picture box, it fails NPOV, it has not been reproduced in a secondary source, therefore it's not "eminently quotable". It was only reproduced in a book written by a sympathetic POV author, from a source that should really be regarded as yet another primary source. -- Cirt (talk) 23:46, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Yet the edit summary for this revert refers to a spurious rationale. The number of grammatical clauses has nothing to do with the suitability of a caption. ("Cogito ergo sum" also has two clauses, and is the epitome of succinctness.) The replacement text itself contains multiple clauses. (Hint: count the verbs.) Raising spurious issues does more to hurt ones' argument than to support it.

→ The sequence of multiple reverts on this image caption is beginning to look like edit warring. I encourage folks to seek consensus rather than continuing to revert. ~ Ningauble (talk) 14:58, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree on the last part, and until there is any solid consensus, we should not use any quote at all on the image. -- Cirt (talk) 15:40, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the current caption (which, in case things change again, is "I didn't arrive at the opportunity to make the world work for everyone by figuring out how to do it"). It is a common practice to include images of the page subject captioned by a general and non-controversial quote by that subject. I don't think there is necessarily a "right" or "wrong" quote to use in any circumstance, so perhaps the editors working on this page can agree to, let's say, a monthly rotation? BD2412 T 19:21, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree with BD2412 (talk · contributions) that the current caption works great. It could also be a good idea to add more related images relevant to the individual and subject matter. -- Cirt (talk) 22:11, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I support the current caption, basically per BD2412. Cheers. --Tryst (talk) 00:29, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

• Note: It appears we've got at least three (3) Wikiquote editors that support the current caption quote, being, "I didn't arrive at the opportunity to make the world work for everyone by figuring out how to do it". Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 22:16, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I think that's rather twisting what BD2412 said. He's not saying that he prefers it to the other quote.--Collingwood (talk) 17:50, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
    • Between the two quotes at issue, "At all times and under all circumstances, we have the power to transform the quality of our lives" and "I didn't arrive at the opportunity to make the world work for everyone by figuring out how to do it", I really don't see a great deal of difference in terms of quality of the quote. However, the first one seems to be more of a general platitude while the second one seems more personal to the author. Which direction is better for a caption is probably a matter of personal preference, but with the lead image of the author I would probably go with the more personal quote. As I suggested above, these can be rotated from time to time (perhaps a bot script could even be written to change out captions on a regular schedule), so that no single subjective preference dominates. Cheers! BD2412 T 20:45, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

So here we have a number of editors who oppose the use only of the one quote cited to the sympathetic book about Erhard by the conflict-of-interest author. :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 17:44, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Removed quote, fails verification

• Love is granting another the space to be the way they are and the way they are not.
  • The Graduate Review, Sept. 1978

This quote fails verification. To what library can I go to verify this quote? Is this publication archived in an educational database somewhere? -- Cirt (talk) 14:33, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

"Fails verification" is generally used to mean that one has examined the cited source and determined that the content of the source is being misrepresented. That does not appear to be the case here. It does appear to be an unverifiable citation, as given, because I am not able to identify the publication to which it refers. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

The Graduate Review was a periodical published by Erhard Seminars Training. Most issues are available online. Here's a link to the issue in question. I can't find the quotation within it; seems to be a loose paraphrase of some of Erdhard's ideas on p. 4.--Tryst (talk) 17:37, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Ok, then it has indeed failed verification. (I was stuck because quite a few schools have in-house or alumni publications using the same name.) ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:56, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very to Ningauble (talk · contributions) for the above astute analysis, much appreciated. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 18:20, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

• Did anyone try using Google? I sourced the quote to Erhard's own official web site quite quickly.--Collingwood (talk) 06:17, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Best to stick to quotes that can be verified by secondary sources, to show quotability. -- Cirt (talk) 06:17, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I had tried to Google the citation, since that is what was disputed. I also tried Google Scholar on the theory that something called The Graduate Review might be an academic publication. To Cirt's point, I am not a big fan of quoting people's web pages unless there is evidence that the item is widely quoted, lest we become inundated with blogorrhea. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:58, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I'd rather not include the quote either. I find it very difficult to understand what it means. How can you "be the way you are not" ? To be what you are not is a contradiction. --Tryst (talk) 16:15, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
    • I agree with these last two points by both Ningauble (talk · contributions) and Tryst (talk · contributions). -- Cirt (talk) 17:28, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

This quote addition is inappropriate, per above on this talk page, there is not consensus to add this type of primary source here. -- Cirt (talk) 17:50, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

• There is a proposed policy that says "If you are sufficiently confident in the reliability of the source (for example, if it is unambiguously the official site of the subject being quoted), you may use a Web site as a source." While obviously a proposed policy is not binding, I fail to see any objection to that point and would be grateful if someone could point it out. To me, the quote seems eminently quotable. If it is argued that we are only allowed to quote secondary sources, then there are many quotes from even very notable authors that might fail.--Collingwood (talk) 20:35, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
  • If a quotation has never been reproduced elsewhere, it is unlikely to be "eminently quotable", although of course exceptions will exist. I think the issue here is not that quotation is unverifiable - Erhard's website is a reliable source on what he has said, but what Ningauble has brought up - the fact that if we liberally quote from the websites of notable individuals, it will increase the amount of self-publicists quoting themselves from their own websites. I personally think there should be an exceptional reason to quote from a primary source which hasn't been print-published, and this quote seems rather too vacuous. --Tryst (talk) 10:06, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Open declaration of bias: I have long had a great deal of contempt for the apparent casualness, egocentricity and sometimes nihilistic attitudes of Erhard, despite some admiration and agreement with some of what he has said or attempted to point out to people — and I find the quote "Love is granting another the space to be the way they are and the way they are not" significant enough a statement of a significant individual to include — and not half so vacuous and promotional of vacuities as the attempts of some to exclude it or devise rules and formulas to exclude or deprecate material when presented without clear inclination, capacity or will to cite secondary sources. There has NEVER been a consensus to IMPOSE such exclusions absolutely — and I would OPPOSE them as vigorously as possible. This has just been a brief comment on this issue in passing — because I have many other issues to attend to today, and this week — and might not have time to comment much upon it for at least a few days. ~ ♞☮♌Kalki·†·⚓⊙☳☶⚡ 12:22, 4 June 2012 (UTC) + tweaks

"There has NEVER been a consensus to IMPOSE such exclusions absolutely". Indeed. and I hope there never will be. I think the only thing we disagree on is the value of this particular quotation. We shouldn't arbitrarily remove quotations simply because they can't be backed up by a secondary source, but often the fact that a quote hasn't been reprinted elsewhere says a lot about it's worth. --Tryst (talk) 18:31, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with Tryst (talk · contributions) here, the quote is not "eminently quotable", it has not been reproduced in a secondary source. -- Cirt (talk) 23:44, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

• I think the important thing to remember here is that we are not evaluating the quality of the quote. We are trying to verify that Werner Erhard is its author. I conducted probably the same search as everyone else here and found nothing of use linking the person to the words. The fact that it appears on his webpage now does not prove that he authored it; he could have heard it elsewhere and decided to adopt it for his use. However, I can't even find a usable source that attributes this quote to this person. BD2412 T 14:36, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I'd have to agree with this assessment by BD2412 (talk · contributions), thank you, -- Cirt (talk) 16:06, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I would assume that Erhard wouldn't plagiarize so blatantly, but I guess you can never be sure. --Tryst (talk) 18:49, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
    • I find this logic curious. If I source a quote to a book by an author, how do I prove that he didn't plagiarise it? For example, I recently added many quotes to Henry Savile Clarke taken from his play Hugger-Mugger. Is there any source that attributes any of these quotes to him? Conversely, is there any evidence that anyone else is the author of the quote?--Collingwood (talk) 20:30, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
      • It's always best practice to establish quotability through use of secondary sources. -- Cirt (talk) 22:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
      • @Collingwood - that's a different case. The problem here is that we can't verify that the quote came from a published work by Erhard, whereas that's easy to verify in the case of Hugger-Mugger. --Tryst (talk) 00:26, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────────┘
How so? Erhard has published the quote on his web page, and nobody here has denied that it is his web page. Hugger-Mugger, like virtually all Victorian play scripts, was published by what we would now call the "vanity press" system whereby the play's producer or author paid for it to be published. There would have been no check that any of the lines I have quoted were original to Clarke or werwe copied from other works. I agree that it is wise to use secondary sources, but there is no policy here requiring it. If there were such a policy, a huge proportion of quotes from novelists, poets and others would be deleted.--Collingwood (talk) 11:47, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Those quotes by novelists, poets and others were all first published by a publishing company, this quote was not. -- Cirt (talk) 14:47, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Exactly, it's sensible to exclude quotations from self-published works. --Tryst (talk) 15:08, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. -- Cirt (talk) 16:19, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Unless, of course, these quotes are later republished in third party sources. Indeed, once that happens, we know that the republished phrase is "quotable" because someone has quoted it. BD2412 T 18:36, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, but so far that has been failed to have been demonstrated. -- Cirt (talk) 21:07, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

In that case, are people prepared to be consistent, or is this a special rule just for Werner Erhard? I invite people to remove quotes from the pages of all those authors who used the "vanity press" system, such as Henry Savile Clarke and Lewis Carroll, unless it can be proved that these quotes have appeared in third party sources. If people are not willing to do this for these other authors, how can they justify doing so here?--Collingwood (talk) 11:51, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

This is not a good analogy, because the originally self-published works of Henry Savile Clarke, Lewis Carroll, James Joyce etc. have been reprinted by third parties. --Tryst (talk) 13:19, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────────┘
Where exactly has Savile Clarke been reprinted? And how does reprinting a whole book show that a particular sentence from it is either original or quoteworthy? I am not suggesting for a moment that we should delete all these quotes, just pointing out the absurdity of the position that some people are taking.--Collingwood (talk) 20:28, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Discussions border on absurdity sometimes when we try to compare apples to oranges. Let's stick to a discussion of whether or not there's been secondary source coverage related to this particular individual. -- Cirt (talk) 22:14, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

That's putting the cart before the horse. Do we require a secondary source before we add a quote? If not, why is it an issue here? If we do, why restrict our discussion just to this one author in particular?--Collingwood (talk) 17:53, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

No, you don't always need a secondary source. But if it's impossible to verify that the quotation was originally by the individual, and it has never been published by a third party, then it should be excluded. --Tryst (talk) 21:59, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Fine. So do you intend to apply that rule to every author, or just this one?--Collingwood (talk) 07:45, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Every author. --Tryst (talk) 09:35, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I certainly agree that we should aim for this level of citation with every author, but I think that it is particularly important with respect to living authors, precisely because they may be engaged in self-promotion (we have seen a great deal of that in this project), or because their friends and peers may have an exaggerated sense of the importance of something the author is claimed to have said. I think that we can safely assume that a quote from an author who has been dead for over a hundred years is quotable if it finds its way into our compendium, because how else would anyone now living know of it to put it here? BD2412 T 21:56, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. We hardly have an issue of a multitude quotes from self-published works by 18th century authors which have never been reprinted though... ;). --Tryst (talk) 22:03, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Some people have actually argued in the past that "if nobody quotes it then we should not include it." That position has not prevailed. Personally, I support allowing editors to select less known high quality quotes from works that are themselves sufficiently notable.

I think that when (a) nobody else is known to quote it, and (b) the work itself is not notable (especially when it is not even reproduced by anyone but its author), then including it strays from Wikiquote's purpose, as I see it. I would even apply the same principle to primary source interviews. I find the language at WQ:WQ somewhat problematic where it says "A quotation can be notable ... because it was said by someone notable," because I do not support the proposition that everything said by a notable person is quoteworthy. There needs to be a stronger basis for quotability than contributor interest in the fame of the author. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:46, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that if you can find an interesting quote in an obscure work by a notable and long-dead author, you are doing a service by adding it here as it would otherwise remain unknown. Obviously, this must rely heavily on editors' judgment of what is interesting.--Collingwood (talk) 20:11, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Sure, if it's received coverage from secondary sources, which this has not. -- Cirt (talk) 17:45, 12 June 2012 (UTC)