Interwiki synchronization/Epistemology

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Epistemology[edit]

Done

In English and many other languages, "epistemology" (or the corresponding etymologically related word) means "theory of knowledge". In French, Spanish and Italian however, it has a different meaning, and is considered a branch of the philosophy of science (see w:fr:Épistémologie as opposed to w:fr:Théorie de la connaissance). This has caused problems about the interwiki links. I have tried to fix them manually on single Wikipedias, but bots keep updating the wrong links...

Looking at all the links, I could identify three main kinds of articles: Those about theory of knowledge, those about "Épistémologie" in the French sense, and disambiguating pages between the two meanings:

"Theory of knowledge"[edit]

"Épistémologie"[edit]

Disambiguation[edit]

  • just as help: in bosnian (the same in croatian) episteology has two differen meanings. For first as gnoseology (= theory of knowlege) and second as epistemology (= theory of science). The base for this two meanings is the different in sight of other languages. In our article (bosnian) we don´t explain the theory but the meanings of those two words. In few weeks i gonna translate the german article and to classify it. If there is need for translation of some croatian sentences (talk) let me know and i gonna translate it. Please use my bs.talk page. Best regards --Seha 20:19, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Problematic case[edit]

Croation has the following two articles:

Both seem to be on theory of knowledge. On the two corresponding talk pages this has been identified as a problem (on the talk page of the first there is a very recent discussion about that). Unfortunately, I can't understand enough Croatian to see where the discussion is going.

Discussion[edit]

I propose to relink all the articles as in the list above. Your comments are welcome. Marcos 14:31, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i agree. Ca$e 15:06, 17 October 2008 (UTC) however, at least, in german there is in at least 99 of 100 cases not ambiguity of the phrasing "epistemologie". it almost always means epistemology. it is very very uncommon to mean épistémologie. in fact, it would in almost all contexts count as an error if a student wrote epistemologie and meant épistémologie. furthermore, both words are pronounced differently. i therefore see no need for the proposed disambiguation under epistemologie. the german word epistemologie simply means epistemology. hence, it was unaninmously agreed to redirect from epistemologie to epistemology when this was discussed. Ca$e 20:12, 20 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed the problem with the Hebrew article some time ago and couldn't solve it myself, because i don't understand the subject. I cannot be sure about all the languages, but from what i can understand:

  • these are certainly or almost certainly correct: an, ar, bg, ca, cs, de, en, eo, es, fr, he, it, la, lt, pl, pt, ru, simple, sk, sl, sq, uk
  • i am not sure about tr - it mentions "bilim", which is "science", so maybe it is related to the French epistemology. But i might be wrong.
  • gl and oc should probably go to the Theory of knowledge part. I studied both languages a little and it seems that the description fits Theory of knowledge better.
  • bs:Epistemologija and sl:Epistemologija are not technically disambigs - they don't have the disambig template, which may cause minor problems to the interwiki bots. I left messages about it at the talk pages.

I also left messages in the talk pages of the Croatian articles. I can read Croatian a little, and they are indeed considering a merge or creating a disambig (razdvojba); maybe this will help them decide. --Amir E. Aharoni 22:21, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I originally listed the Turkish article under "Theory of knowledge", since it mentions "Edmund Gettier", who is important for the theory of knowledge, but has no relation (as far as I know) to Épistémologie.
After reading Amir E. Aharoni's doubt about the Turkish article, I contacted my brother, who knows Turkish farely well. As he doesn't know much about philosophy, he couldn't say precisely which of the two issues the Turkish article is about. But he said that according to the article, "epistemoloji" studies the origin, nature and roots of knowledge. This sounds to me more like "theory of knowledge". However, the article also says: "Foucault uses this term to study the forms of knowledge and power structure". I don't know much about Foucault, but if he used a term etymologically related to "Epistemoloji", then probably it was "Épistémologie" and had the meaning it normally has in French. Additionally, the Turkish article says: "The term is also used in the sense of 'theory of knowledge' (bilgikuramı)." The use of "also" in that sentence (if my brother correctly translated it) indicates that the intended meaning in the rest of that article is not "theory of knowledge"...
In order to find out more about the issue, I left a message on the talk page of the Turkish article.
At any rate, it might be the case that the Turkish article (or other articles in other languages) treat both "Épistémologie" and "theory of knowledge" in one article (there is enough of a philosophical link between the two to make this sensible). In that case, I would favour linking the article with those articles with those articles, which disambiguate between the two concepts.
(Amir E. Aharoni says that the absence of disambiguation templates might confuse bots. Is that really the case? Don't the interwiki bots just look at interwikis? It would surprise me if they looked at templates too.) Marcos 17:02, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
They do look at templates and yield a warning to the bot operator. I am not a bot operator myself, but it may confuse someone who is. It is not a very big issue, but i do like cleanliness. --Amir E. Aharoni 13:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please check the automated analysis of this component. --Bolo1729 09:07, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The automated analysis is no help, as it uses as its bases the wrongly interwiki links that have been reproduced in large quantity throughout different Wikipedias.
I have now changed all interwiki links according to my above proposals, with gl and oc changed according to Amirs proposal. I have linked from both Croatian articles to the theory of knowledge articles, but did not link back to either of the Croatian articles. Marcos 19:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update 2023[edit]

Note that the previous discussion is obsolete. Interwiki links are now centralized at Wikidata. On 3 May 2023, a decision was made at d:Talk:Q9471 to separate the related terms into three lexical cognates at d:Q9471 + d:Q2560959 + d:Q116930361, and all three are connected by d:Property:P460 ("this item is said to be the same as that item, but it's uncertain or disputed"). There is also a related term at d:Q30748859. The hope is that dividing the terms lexically instead of semantically, we can resolve recent conflicts related to the unstable or disputed semantics. Biogeographist (talk) 17:23, 5 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]