Talk:Truth/GA1

GA review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator: Phlsph7 (talk · contribs) 18:21, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: ScrubbedFalcon (talk · contribs) 08:33, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

I will be reviewing this article over the coming days as part of the June backlog drive. Note that I'm a new reviewer so I'll be waiting on an experienced reviewer to check my work.

Hello ScrubbedFalcon, welcome to GA reviewing and thanks for tackling this article! Phlsph7 (talk) 09:00, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi ScrubbedFalcon and Phlsph7. I'll be the experienced reviewer to oversight the review process. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. :) Alexeyevitch^(talk) 10:41, 1 June 2026 (UTC)~

Hey ScrubbedFalcon, just checking whether you have the time for some initial comments. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:24, 8 June 2026 (UTC)

Hi! My apologies for being absent (offline life things happened). I have the first bit of the review, but its mostly about the paragraphing. I need to get to my university library to check some of the references still. I'll put my long comment about the paragraphing below for you to consider, I should have time to finish the review in the coning days. In solidarity, ScrubbedFalcon (talk) 15:31, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, my responses are below. Some of the sources are available online, but not all. Let me know if you have problems accessing a source. I can't quote lengthy passages spanning several pages of text here, but I should be able to provide shorter quotes to cover at least the main points.

Hey ScrubbedFalcon, just following up to see if you have more comments. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:49, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

Hey ScrubbedFalcon, it has been one month now since the review started. How should we proceed? Phlsph7 (talk) 07:25, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Since this review didn't get particularly far and ScrubbedFalcon has not edited in several weeks, I am going to go ahead and fail this review (while resetting the clock on the talk page so that it doesn't get sent to the bottom of the queue). -- Reconrabbit (talk) 15:02, 15 July 2026 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear, concise and understandable to an appropriately broad audience, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   • There are places where I think the paragraphing makes the content less comprehensible for non experts. Some examples:

   1. The first paragraph of § Definitions covers both a high level definition of truth as used in philosophy and provides (a slightly buried) definition of it as an adjective. In reading the whole section, I would suggest that reorganizing the same information (along with some of what is written in para. 2 on falsity) would make the entire section more readable

      I moved the part on falsity to first paragraph. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:56, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

   2. The second paragraph of § Deflationary does an admirable job of summarizing 5 major areas in one or two sentences each; however, for a non expert it would be difficult to extract useful information from the paragraph and its examples since they have less prior knowledge to hold onto. A fix for this could be as simple as adding guiding words to a few sentences to denote different theories. For example:

      Different deflationary theories propose distinct accounts of the linguistic function of truth-related terms. For example, the redundancy theory asserts that the predicate "is true" is superfluous and does not contribute to meaning. According to this view, the sentences 'Snow is white.' and '"Snow is white" is true.' have the same meaning. Another view, Disquotationalism, holds that the predicate "is true" acts as a linguistic device to remove quotation marks and make generalizations. Meanwhile, the performative theory (...)

      
      Or another solution could be adding a sort of comparison table for the different views. I wouldn't suggest breaking up the paragraph since its a BCA article and one or two sentence paragraphs are generally inadvisable, but I would suggest helping the reader along a bit more.

      I tried a different approach by adding a short list to the beginning of the paragraph to familiarize the reader with terms. Have a look if this addresses your concern. If not, we can try your suggestion. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:56, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

   3. The first paragraph of § Types covers, by my count, two and a half large topics in one block (the a priori/a posteriori distinction, the analytic/synthetic distinction, and the large sub-area of tautology). This followed by the short paragraph on necessity (which lacks context) which would throw me off as a naïve reader. I like the paragraph on mathematics and historicism more, but here too I would have trouble with the transition between them if I didn't make the connection myself that both are related to connection between truth and the philosophy of (social) science. In some ways the section reads as a bulleted list that happens to be presented in paragraph form, I would suggest that some editing and transitional prose might aid readers with less background or prior knowledge (or break it up into a bulleted list? it might not be stylistically ideal, but it might be clearer?). On a personal note, I appreciate the you've kept the old example of "all bachelors are unmarried" and I wonder if there's space for Cohen's example that "all bachelors are tetchy and demanding" (on page 17 of If you're an egalitarian, how come you're so rich?) which is, of course, funnier in context and probably not a fit for this article.

      I split the first paragraph in two and added some transitions. I also found a way to include the example you mentioned. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:56, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

   4. The section § Modern and contemporary could benefit from some more prose on how the various thinkers are related to one another and major areas of thought. (I realize that the MOS says to link things in the article once, but I wonder if this isn't a place to relink to other articles for the sake of the reader)

      I added a few relations between thinkers. Some were already contained in the text through introductory phrases like "Inspired by Hegel, F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) agreed that truth" and "Responding to Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) defined truth". Generally speaking, the difficulty is that the relations are not always straightforward and giving a more detailed explanation would significantly increase the length of the section, which is already relatively long. I think those details are better left to child articles. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:56, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

   C. It contains no original research:

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.