
After 20 years, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy thrives on the web - zt
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/july/online-encyclopedia-philosophy-073115.html?a=1
======
hackuser
It's sad how rare authoritative, free resources are on the web. It's cliche to
say how incredible an opportunity the Internet presents to share the world's
knowledge, but the most valuable knowledge, the serious scholarship, is
effectively withheld from the public. Imagine how some debates would change if
more authoritative resources were easily accessible (I don't want to
exaggerate the value of 'authority', but it's a much better starting point
than Wikipedia) and cited with a link, such as in HN discussions. Partly as a
result the Internet is mostly rumor and popular notions, not knowledge.

I've even turned to SEP for mathematical concepts (to the extent it covers
math), for example, because there is no free authoritative resource in that
field.

~~~
furyofantares
> I've even turned to SEP for mathematical concepts (to the extent it covers
> math), for example, because there is no free authoritative resource in that
> field.

Does [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/) not do the
trick for what you were looking into?

~~~
hackuser
I use MathWorld too but it's limited for my purposes, which includes
conceptual understanding: Its articles tend toward strict definitions and not
concepts, some terms I lookup are omitted, and unless you already are familiar
with the term defined then it can be hard to comprehend.

Compare, for example:

* [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ModelTheory.html](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ModelTheory.html)

* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/model-theory/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/model-theory/)

EDIT: Replaced the examples with better ones

~~~
brobdingnagian
Scholarpedia is another good and authoritative source. The articles are
typically written by the person who created the concept, or an active
authority: [http://www.scholarpedia.org](http://www.scholarpedia.org)

~~~
kensai
Indeed, one of the most authoritative sources. They should expand the fields
treated, imo.

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dvt
I love the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; even though I don't use it as
much as I did while I was in school, it's still something I read on a semi-
regular basis (especially when I need to look something up).

I'm personally a much bigger fan of curated/academic encyclopedias like SEP as
opposed to open encyclopedias (Wikipedia, etc.) so it's good to see it thrive.

~~~
andreasvc
I agree but are there any other sites such as SEP which are clearly better
than Wikipedia in their subject area? I think the level of curation and peer
review of SEP is unique. Scholarpedia has the right idea but is not
comprehensive.

~~~
snori74
I hadn't heard of this, so on a whim looked at one article at random -
"Nordtvedt effect", then compared to the same on Wikipedia. Here's the first
three lines of each:

Scholarpedia

 _In the years just prior to Einstein 's publication of his Special Relativity
theory Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz showed using Maxwell's equations for
the electric fields within an object of distributed charge density that the
fields would produce inertia in proportion to the object's electric potential
energy content..._

Wikipedia

 _In theoretical astrophysics, the Nordtvedt effect refers to the relative
motion between the Earth and the Moon which would be observed if the
gravitational self-energy of a body contributed differently to its
gravitational mass and inertial mass. If observed, the Nordtvedt effect would
violate the strong equivalence..._

The complete Wikipedia article is much smaller than many, but while the
Scholarpedia version is _much_ more complete, it takes a long while to get
anywhere.

Edit: expanded, changed format.

~~~
duncanawoods
Looking at just those two fragments, I prefer the wikipedia style by a country
mile. To me, the scholarpedia style is excessively wordy e.g. "in the years
just prior to" and has a tortured sentence construction. Its the type of
pretension that stings as you read it whereas I find the wiki style is
straight-forward and easy to absorb.

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avivo
This is a fascinating example of the academic status quo being incentivized
into creating valuable freely accessible knowledge.

I'm curious how being invited or accepted to write an article on topic affects
academic prestige and tenure decisions. Is Brian Orend who wrote
[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/war/)
considered the canonical living expert on the philosophy of war?

I'd love to know more about the incentives and culture around this. I'm sure
there are many insights one can draw about building valuable evolving
repositories of knowledge from recognized exports.

~~~
avivo
I'd guess there have been attempts to do something like this in most fields,
and this is one of the few that worked. Why?

One hint may be in
[http://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#policies](http://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#policies)

"Contributions to the Encyclopedia are normally solicited by invitation from a
member of the Editorial Board. However, qualified potential contributors may
send to the Principal Editor or an appropriate member of the Editorial Board a
proposal to write on an Encyclopedia topic, along with a curriculum vitae."
"By qualified, we mean those persons with accredited Ph.D.s in Philosophy (or
a related discipline) who have published refereed works on the topic of the
proposed entry..."

Also perhaps
[http://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#copyright](http://plato.stanford.edu/info.html#copyright)
. I don't know how much non-cs academics think about copyright and licensing,
but as most accomplished academics are authors, I am guessing it may matter to
them that they keep ownership.

"Copyright Notice. Authors contributing an entry or entries to the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, except as provided herein, retain the copyright to
their entry or entries. By contributing an entry or entries, authors grant to
the Metaphysics Research Lab at Stanford University an exclusive license to
publish their entry or entries..."

This is just one facet of course. I'm sure there are many other factors such
as possibly the stature of the Stanford lab, and particular personal
relationships and technical skill of those involved, good timing, etc. I'd be
very curious to hear from those with personal knowledge of the details.

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drallison
Kudos where kudos are due. I find the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
clear, concise, and readable even when dealing with the most complex and
controversial of ideas.

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quinndupont
What I find so amazing is that the SEP isn't for the faint of heart---it is
rigorous and challenging to a fault, and rarely ever holds the reader's hand.
Amazing it has had so much success, really.

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ececconi
I read a random introduction to an article every single day. I was a philo
undergrad and use it to keep up to date with high-level philosophical
concepts. It's great.

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ruffrey
Wow! During my philosophy undergrad this was pretty much the only internet
site from which we had readings.

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tomlock
Flat-out the most useful resource in my Philosophy undergraduate work. Any new
concept I encountered would be investigated on this website.

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jchomali
Maybe now I will get a decent mark in Philosophy :P

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shahryc
this was the best resource for Philosophy 101!

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muricula
A wonderful resource, but unfortunately it lacks an entry on feminism. I find
this rather telling about the authors.

~~~
tlb
There are many, including:

[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-
topics/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-topics/)

[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-
liberal/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-liberal/)

[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/femapproach-
pragmatism/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/femapproach-pragmatism/)

