Talk:Voltaire

new voltaire page

I created a new Volatire page based on an essay I wrote. Please check it out and improve it...maybe sometime when it gets good it can replace the old one... Thanks! User:Setjw/Francois-Marie_Arouet

btw, thanks Prosfilaes...i'm new to wiki, so i didn't know the rule...--Setjw 01:01, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I moved it to User:Setjw/Francois-Marie Arouet, since it's not appropriate to have multiple articles on the exact same subject. If it is to be made as a replacement, it should be worked in user space until it's suitable.--Prosfilaes 00:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

People generally take a dim view of a complete replacement of an existing article if it's a longstanding fairly complete and mature article with years of contributions by other editors. In general, contributions should be made by modifying the existing article. -- Curps 08:56, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Look at all the requests for rewrites on this talk page, though. I think the Francois-Marie Arouet article is vastly better than the current state of the Voltaire article. We should replace everything between the intro paragraphs and the "works" section with it, then make Francois-Marie Arouet a redirect to this page. -- Megamix^? 21:44, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The only problem is that the Arouet article does not have nearly as much information as the Voltaire. I think that the Arouet should first be edited before such a big change and deletion is made to an existing article. Curps does have a point...even with all these comments, people have worked on this. So whatever happens, it can't take place overnight or without a general consensus. But thanks for your support, Megamix =).--Setjw 01:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Article with less (but legible) information > big messy lump of text that nobody can make sense of. This guy is supposedly famous, so he deserves a better article. In the spirit of being bold, I wikified your article and replaced the current Voltaire page with it. -- Megamix^? 13:17, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure it will work? I never intended to replace the original so soon...--Setjw 01:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

various

I perceive that this article is quite full of what are at least stylistic eccentricities, perhaps due to OCR problems, but I won't presume to change them, not knowing what the original article has to say. Could someone undertake this who has a closer familiarity with the subject? - user:Montrealais

This is an insufficiently reformed cut-and-paste from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. There is a checklist on how to improve such material in Wikipedia:1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. This article could benefit from a second paragraph summarizing Voltaire, severe copy-editing, and some visual relief through shorter paragraphs and crossheads where the subject changes. Ortolan88

It certainly needs a lot of cutting. I'm sure it's charming and titillating for in-the-know members of the Voltaire Fan Club, but it's chock full of gossip and trivia at the moment.

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I also noticed copy/paste from http://www.malaspina.org/home.asp?topic=./search/details&lastpage=./search/results&ID=127

I noticed this on the part titled Cirey...

The original site is badly written so it's hard to find what's correct or not, and what it is trying to say...

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Too much blah, blah, blah. When you are looking to research someone you don't want to know every little, miniscule detail in his life that had no effect whatsoever on his contributions to the development of the enlightenment.The person who wrote it obviously does not understand at all the great things that Voltaire did, however the person does know that he went to the Duke of Sully's house.WoW!

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User "4.65.94.2" thought it would be funny to change Voltaire's place of birth from Paris to San Francisco. I have edited it back. (But see this link: http://www.sacklunch.net/biography/V/Voltaire.html which says that he was actually born on the 20th of February 1694, at Chatenay - can somebody confirm or deny that?)

Mike Rosoft

San Francisco? I'm changing it back. :> Trekphiler 03:30, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

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I did what I could to make this article shorter, but it's still waaaay too long and, frankly, doesn't tell much about Voltaire's _importance_. I hope anyone's interested in improving it.

(Maybe it would be better to start it over, but that's a task for better writers than me).

Goliard 15:58, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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There is also a current singer who goes by Voltaire. [1] It would be nice if someone who knows more about him than I do would create a Voltaire (singer) article and add a disambiguation header to this article. --LostLeviathan 01:37, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Canards about Voltaire's death

We have two current texts:

"Stories about his death in a state of terror and despair are false."

" Stories about his death in a state of terror and despair are shown as false by some, but there is enough evidence that they are true." (Anonymous User:192.85.47.1)

Is the new, second version a Catholicism? --Wetman 01:31, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Now, a new edit solemnly told us that Voltaire was struck down by lightning! Godless Voltaire, struck down by a bolt from the Hand of God! Divine Justice! etc... People are taught this tripe. And they believe it! Absolutely unimaginable! --Wetman 22:59, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Wetman, the lightning post might just have been a reaction to how vividly you responded to that first silly edit... --Scotto 00:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

External links

I have removed an external link to a Voltaire chat room apparently run by the user who added the link. Two reasons: A) external links should go to information about the subject and B) isnt this a form of advertising? Filiocht 09:38, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

Blueskyboris wrote: First off, it is not a chat room. I will ask you to refrain from using "chat room" as it is deragatory in this context. My debates are informal long-term, ongoing debates on specific points in Voltaires's philosophy. We are not "chatting".

Second, I looked over the Wikipedia guildlines and found no mention of debate sites being rejected as anti-Wikipedia, so it becomes your job to prove 1) that my debate site lacks content on Voltaire and his philosophy, 2) my site is commercial (which it is not), 3) my site is for self-promotion, not the promotion of Voltaire's philosophy 4) that I am the only participant in my debates.

As far as I am concerned, my site is NOT SPAM; it is content rich and on topic. Please make you counter-argument. Blueskyboris

I'll think you'll find that Wikipedia conventions to allow for the removal of self-advertising. Please do not add these links again. Filiocht 08:23, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

What gawdawful writing!

This is the worst-written article I've seen so far in this encyclopedia, full of pointless irrelevancies and lacking in coherence and readability. The author can't seem to tell trivia from substance, never mind being able to write a simple declarative sentence free of polysyllabic references to arcane details that not only contribute nothing to understanding the subject but actually detract from it.

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I agree, this is the worst article I have read on wikipedia. I searched for Voltaire in the hope of learning something about the man. Instead not only was I confused by the mishmash of detail but the writing was confusing to try and comprehend as well.

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If you think it's that bad, then fix it!! 00:08, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)

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The article is a list of events that are barely related to each other and convey next to nothing of the subject's importance. There are no synopses of even his most important plays, no attempt to elaborate on the political temper of the times, few examples of Voltaire's razor wit for which he was so famous, almost nothing on *why* he was such an enemy of the church, and so on.

Very bad, in fact. Please find someone to rewrite the whole thing from scratch, and lacking that, better no article at all than this one!

Are you volunteering to rewrite the whole thing from scratch, or are you just idly complaining? Remember, anybody — including you — can edit this article. — jredmond 18:47, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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Does anyone know the specific reason that Voltaire assumed his pseudonym, or was it just becuase of his controversial subject material? 00:09, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)

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Full of personal opinions

I must agree that the article is not only full of irrelevancies but it also contains an unbelievable amount of very personal opinions such as:

"That he never [...] gave utterance to one great thought is strictly true"

or

"his great fault was an inveterate superficiality"

and

"Not the most elaborate work of Voltaire is of much value"

This is strikingly against Wikipedia's NPOV policy. How this has gone unnoticed, I do not understand. It has become obvious by now that this poorly written article cannot remain like this. It is my opinion that the text, as it is, is hopeless. This clearly calls for a complete rewrite.

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50 Cups of Coffee?

I've read many times on the internet that Voltaire reportedly drank about 50 cups of coffee a day. I've also read something similar in a published work, The First American by H.W. Brands (a biography of Benjamin Franklin). However, I've never seen a source for this.

Can anyone provide a source for Voltaire's coffee drinking?

His correspondence with Catherine the Great (another coffeeholic) or a good biography. The figure "50" is an exaggeration, but an 18th-century chocolate cup— used for coffee— is what you'd call demitasse. --Wetman 19:00, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

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Category:Philosophy of sexuality

Okay, I'm hoping this isn't going to be controversial, but just in case it is, I'm making a space for discussion on the talk page ahead of time. I added Category: Philosophy of sexuality to this page. Reason being, Voltaire did talk a lot about sexuality, and there are several noteworthy contributions in the Philosophical Dictionary. So, if anyone has issues, before removing the category, let's talk here! -Seth Mahoney 22:52, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

Jerome spent a great deal more time thinking about human sexuality than Voltaire, and wrote about virginity and fornication at much greater length. Needless to say, Saint Jerome is not to be found in the category Philosophy of sexuality. Seth Mahoney will have some justifications for this apparent omission, which should be entertained. First, however, I invite Seth Mahoney to add Jerome to the category Philosophy of sexuality, on the basis of his praise of virginity for a start, and to defend the addition at Talk:Jerome. --Wetman 00:41, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I neither have nor need any justifications for this omission. He hasn't been included because nobody's added him yet (it is a pretty new category), not because there is some systematic and intentional omission of a particular type of philosophy of sexuality (if this is what you're getting at). I was going to add Kant and Augustine also, whose views on sexuality differed immensely from those philosophers already in Category:Philosophy of sexuality, but wanted to test the waters with Voltaire first. By all means, if you can think of someone who should be added, add them! -Seth Mahoney 21:50, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

IQ

This article states that his IQ is believed to be above 190. By whom? Stuff like that is very hard to estimate correctly.--Prosfilaes 21:33, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I am removing that. If someone can provide a source for the unverifiable comment, we can put it back. --Lord Voldemort ^{(Dark Mark)} 15:24, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Misspellings

I corrected it, so no harm done, but I thought i'd bring it up anyway- the word civilization was misspelled on the last line of the 'Exile to England' section. It may not be a big deal, but if your going to edit someone elses writing, be sure you have the mechanics of it yourself.

Actually, that's the correct spelling — in the UK. Per our Manual of Style, in this situation, it's appropriate to use UK spellings because the original article was written with UK spellings. I've reverted it back. Thanks for your efforts, though. - jredmond 18:51, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Create history summary and move the current history to a seperate article

Currently, this article is far too long to be useful to readers, as has been pointed out. Much of this length comes from an extensive history of Voltaire's life, tracking him as he moves from city to city in Europe. This is interesting content, but would probably do better as its own article; I saw a similar technique used in an article on the City of Coventry. I would do this myself, but am very new to Wikipedia and am unsure how to do so. Also, I agree that this has far too much bias; I tried to edit one section but am not sure if my changes were helpful.

Your changes looked great (to me, at least!). Saikiri 07:32, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, you did a good job condensing the philosophy section. Thanks! On the other hand, I'm unsure of your suggestion to move the whole history section to another article. What would it be called, "History of Voltaire"? :) I think a better idea would be to pare it down to essentials (basically as you did with philosophy) and then restructure the article so that the good stuff came before the drier biographical details. Kiaparowits 16:33, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, the most important thing is to create a condensed history and replace the bear we have now. I was just trying to think of a way to save the information for those who are interested, but I don't know how many folks are. I created a History of Voltaire page, but I don't really understand the formatting tools yet, so it's a total mess.

Patronymic

The article says After his release from the Bastille in April 1718, he was known as Arouet de Voltaire, or simply Voltaire, though legally he never abandoned his patronymic but I can not see that his name, nor the name he was born under or his pen name, contains any patronymic at all. Possibly it refers to "his fathers name", i.e. the family name Arouet? / Habj 03:06, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

• I replaced the misused word. InvisibleSun 16:16, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Minor works

I think it should be added a section where to list minor Voltaire's works like Doctor Akakia

Go someplace else

For someone looking to research Voltaire, don't bother looking here.

This article is full of mistakes, misinformation, and is generally awful.

Why don't you make changes, rather than just complain? -Seth Mahoney 21:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting the pop myth "defend to death". I added Hall didn't actually attribute. See Shenkman. Trekphiler 03:33, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing that up. This has got to be the most misquoted quote in all history. -- Saikiri~ 04:20, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I deleted it, because devoting an entire section of the article to "shit misattributed to Voltaire" is stupid and reeks of axe-grinding. And for the love of god will someone clean up this stinking pile of narrative dogshit trying to pass for a formal encyclopedia entry? 68.88.76.100 20:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

for the love of gawd, quitcher bitchin, wikipedia is not a formal encyclopedia, even though many contributors would like to pretend it is, and thats what makes it interesting, imho

Cleanup

I did a round of cleanup. Feel free to revert, throw bricks, question my sanity, etc etc.

• The original article used his real name (François-Marie Arouet) until the exile to England, where it switches to Voltaire. I decided it should be consistent and changed all Arouet to Voltaire.

• I rewrote the Correspondence, Prose & romances, Miscellanous and Poetry sections under "works". Someone should check that I didn't break anything and NPOV it.

• About the misattribution thing, I think the information should stay (at least as an explanation to puzzled readers wondering why the quote isn't listed) but I removed the section header and rewrote the note so that it reads less like it's trying to make a point. Is this better?

• Lots of minor fixes.

• I removed the inappropriate tone tag at the top - I think it's mostly ok now.

Oh, and I forgot this yesterday: thanks to User:Setjw for the new bio! Megamix^? 06:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your work! --Setjw 01:37, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Investigator of the Gospels?

This section is inconsistent with itself and biased.

• First I suggest changing the section header to "Christian Gospels", as simply "Gospels" is ambiguous.

• Second, his views were not consistent? Says who? To believe the gospels were fabrications and that they were faithfully transcribed, one copy to the next, is not an inconsistent viewpoint. Not if the gospels were a fabrication from the start.

• Defense of Christian apologetics. This is redundant, as apologetics are a defense. And it wasn't convincing at the time? Says who? Is this also to say that they are convincing today?

I would change this section myself if it wasn't in need of a complete rewrite. It may be best just to drop it altogether.

In Britain, you'd never need to specify "Christian Gospels" - it would be like saying "the Islamic Koran". Strong hostility to existing Chrstianity is also part of what the man believed, whether or not you agree with it. (Whether or not he believed that Jesus had had a different message, I do not know, though some Deists did believe this. --GwydionM 18:24, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

An Investigator of the Gospels

Does anyone have a reference to the claim that Voltaire did not believe Jesus existed? I've run across a reference (F. M. Voltaire, "De Jesus," from Dieu et les hommes, in Oeuvres complétes de Voltaire (Paris: Société Littéaire-Typographique, 1785) 33:273) that I'm trying to track down that suggests the opposite. Thanks!--CTSWyneken 11:46, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Voltaire's view is summarised as follows: Moses was a shrewd politician; the prophets were enthusiasts like the dervishes, or else epileptics; Jesus was a visionary like the founder of the Quakers, and his religion received life only through its union with Platonism. Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.

200 rats

The remark 'Voltaire is quoted as saying that he "would rather obey one lion, than 200 rats of (his own) species"'is quite a good remark. It sounds consistent with his beliefs, but has anyone got the source?

It is not in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. It's the sort of thing you'd get challenged on if you used it.

--GwydionM 18:21, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

See below under the heading "Quotations" InvisibleSun 16:35, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Not Possible

The following sentence:

"He also met several influential people, including writers such as Shakespeare, which he saw as an example French writers should look to."

is, in the first place, ungrammatical. In the second place, it is rendered dubious by the irrevocable fact that Shakespeare died 78 years before Voltaire was born. Kylegann 01:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

this site cites: [2]He made acquaintance with, and at least tried to appreciate, Shakespeare.

That doesn't fix the fact that it's impossible that he did so. --Prosfilaes 02:03, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

still unclear, though...could someone else please look into this? thanks...

Sorry...I meant my writing...I didn't see that Prosfilaes had already commented...

This sounds better: [3]

Voltaire may well have become acquainted with Shakespeare's works. He did not *meet* Shakespeare. Kylegann 03:54, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for a section on how awesome his name is

I'm not writing it. - thedcm

• I'm pretty sure writing anything about how awesome anything is on Wikipedia will violate WP:NPOV Vegasrebel29 06:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Voltaire racist?

It's hard to believe a champion of the masses would be a racist. Verification is definetly needed. The version in question can be found here.[[4]]

Vegasrebel29 04:45, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Both quotes are well cited. Frankly, only someone unfamiliar with history would be surprised that Voltaire was a racist in the modern sense. I think adding a whole section about is unnecessary.--Prosfilaes 04:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Why do you think it's unnecessary? Obviously many people (like Vegasrebel29) are unaware of that. Raphael1 14:36, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

And adding a whole section made it seem like it was important to comment on. If he was racist, it was in the manner of his time. If we leave someone with the impression that he was exceptionally racist, we done more of a disservice then if we just leave the subject alone.--Prosfilaes 14:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Whence do you know, that being a racist was in the manner of his time? How comes, that quoting Voltaire would give the wrong(?) impression, he was exceptionally racist? Raphael1 16:11, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

When you make a section of the article equal in prominance to his works or biography, it gives the wrong impression. I know that racism was in the manner of his time because there was a thriving slave trade going on, for one thing.--Prosfilaes 19:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Where do you want me to add it to? Biography, Works, Legacy, Quotations or The pen name "Voltaire"? Raphael1 22:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't want you to add it anywhere. Extensive quotes are something we should use with care to avoid bulking up the article, and what we have now is plenty.--Prosfilaes 00:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you want me to add it? Many people don't know about Voltaires racism. Shouldn't they know after reading that article? How about adding just a sentence like "As in the manner of his time Voltaire was racist and anti-semitic."[5] Raphael1 11:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I did add a note to the Legacy when I removed your section.--Prosfilaes 21:44, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Quotations

The quotations section in this article has become a junkpile. The majority of these quotations are unsourced. We're supposed to have evidence for whatever we add to Wikipedia; and yet we seem to take the legitimacy of these quotations for granted.

I've been working for a while on the Voltaire page in Wikiquote, adding quotations which I have sourced and finding sources whenever I can for the ones that are "attributed." The Voltaire quotations here in Wikipedia are a mixed bag: some are genuine and have been sourced correctly; others are genuine but have been ascribed to the wrong sources; others, even allowing for differences in translation, have been misquoted; others are ones for which I've been unable to find sources and have no reason to think are genuine (or, at any rate, by Voltaire). I could go through them one by one, correcting some and deleting others, but before doing so I need to ask the following:

1) Could those who have added the unsourced quotes provide us with the sources? Voltaire was a prolific author— his letters alone fill up dozens of volumes— so it's not like I can say for certain "He never said this" about any particular quote. But isn't it up to those who have provided the quotations to give us proof for them? And if they can't or won't, why should we keep them? If we were to ask people where they got these quotes, I'm pretty sure what they would answer: "Oh, they're real: I've seen them on all these quotation lists." Unfortunately, this proves nothing. Most of those humungous quotation lists have no sources, no proof. They're full of quotes which turn out to have been said by other people. Some of those lists are so shoddily put together that the same quotations are repeated several times. One of the things we've been trying to do in Wikiquote is to create a standard of proof. Which leads to my second question:

2) Why have a quotations section in the Wikipedia article when there's already one in Wikiquote? Is there any point to all this duplication? The quotations section of this article has a Wikiquote link. If people want to find quotations (most of them sourced, in the case of Voltaire), they can follow the link to a page which specializes in quotes.

My proposal is for people to give proof for what they've added. After a month has passed, any unsourced quotations should go. InvisibleSun 01:13, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I very much agree with InvisibleSun...Check out his quotes page; it's much better developed than the straight list of quotes we have here, since he has added the original French as well as all the original sources. Setjw 14:10, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I would like to add an external link to the World of Biography entry

• Voltaire Biography probably the most famous portal of biography to this article. Does anybody have any objections?