User talk:Cretog8/Archive1

Archived on September 9, 2008

Welcome!

Hello, Cretog8! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Gimme danger (talk) 01:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC) Getting started A tutorial • Our five pillars • Getting mentored How to: edit a page • upload and use images Getting help Frequently asked questions • Tips Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • No original research Verifiability • Reliable sources • Citing sources What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Manual of Style • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The community Build consensus • Resolve disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community Portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Writing articles Be bold in editing • Develop an article The perfect article • Manual of style Stubs • Categories • Disambiguation Pages needing attention • Peer review Miscellaneous User name • User pages • Talk pages Clean up: General - Spam - Vandalism Join a WikiProject • Translation Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Hi there, I know you've been here for a bit, but I thought you might like to be formally welcomed. Plus, I really like having all these links at the ready. Kind of wish someone would welcome me again. Cheers, Gimme danger (talk) 01:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

minimax theorem

Hi Cretog. My main interest is games on the unit square, and it seems that many very reasonable games have no game value. There does not seem to be an article on games with no value. Actually, I created game value the other day, but this is just a redirect to minimax. We could either create a page games with no value perhaps, or even games on the unit square, neither of which exist. What do you think? Best wishes, Robinh (talk) 12:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello again. Just a clarification: Silverman's game has a value (of zero). Did the Silverman's game article lead you to believe that it didn't? If so, it's not very clear and I'll need to rewrite. Best, Robinh (talk) 08:49, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Robinh (just Robin?). I think I was getting various ideas crossed in my head; Silverman's game does not imply it has no value. The stub there definitely wants some work, though. It doesn't describe any solutions to the game. Also, it might be that it's possible to model it as being on the unit square, but it looks like the current definition is on $\Re _{+}^{2}$. Cretog8 (talk) 16:55, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi again (yes I am plain Robin but the username was taken)-: Silverman's game seems to refer to more than one game...there seems to be an integer version too... but you're right that the article needs more work. One day I'll actually get round to writing games on the unit square but in the meantime I reckon the minimax article could use a "main article: Von Neumann's minimax theorem" bit. Perhaps such a page would be the place to discuss "counterexamples" (ie games in which the minimax theorem does not apply). Or maybe example of a game with no value would be better. We could use Parthasarathy's example. What do you think? Very best wishes, Robinh (talk) 21:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: (vandal tools)

yeah, my bad on that. I'm using an automated anti-vandalism tool and I hit the wrong button. My apologies. Thingg^⊕⊗ 15:18, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The one I'm using now is called Huggle. It's a very fast and powerful native application tool. (By that I mean it runs on your computer instead of in your browser.) You can click on the link to find out more about it, but I have to tell you, if you do end up getting it, it takes a little bit to get used to. By this I mean, being able to revert and warn with one press of a button can be, well, rather disconcerting at first and you will probably make mistakes. My advice to you is when you first use it, if you have any question as to whether the editor's intentions were bad, don't warn him. (you will probably want to use the "custom edit summary" feature in cases like this too. Huggle can "remember" your edit summaries for each session, so you don't have to type "needs to be cited" or "unsourced change" like 70 times.) Another tool that is very popular is Twinkle, a javascript-based tool that adds a few tabs to the top of the page that make tasks such as speedy-deletion tagging and warnings a lot easier. It also adds some additional functions when you are viewing a page's history. (eg. clicking on "rollback vandal" will rollback the edit and warn the user who made it in one smooth and fast action.) Twinkle isn't quite as fast as Huggle, but it does have the very real advantage of running in your browser, allowing you to do other tasks such as wikifying new articles you may come across, without having to go to a different program. (as is the case with huggle) Another tool I use often is a script written by User:TheJosh and located here. This script adds an extra box in the "toolbar" on the left of the page that provides the functionality of Special:Newpages without having to keep going back to that page. Combined with Twinkle, this script makes new page patrolling almost ridiculously easy because you can leave the box activated, do whatever else you want, (like work on a DYK contribution or something) and be able to take out (maybe that's not a good way to put it, but hey...) bad new pages easily. Also, if you do decide to get the scripts, you may want to copy the code from my javascript page instead of doing the standard install as both scripts have a rather annoying default feature. By default, Twinkle adds all speedied pages to your watchlist. While this can be nice, if you don;t want to see those pages again, it can be really annoying to remove hundreds of deleted pages from your watchlist. Also, the "new pages" script was originally positioned above the search box in the left-toolbar, which can be annoying because you have to scroll waaaay down the page to reach the search box. I tweaked the code to make it show up below the search box, where it's far less of a hassle.

Well, I guess I wrote a sizable novel there, but I hope it will help you out. If you have any questions about these or other tools you may find, please feel free to ask me. Thingg^⊕⊗ 15:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. (missed your comment) What I would recommend if you can't use huggle is to give twinkle a try. It's pretty powerful and it will work on any operating system because it runs in the browser. (Note that it may not work in browsers other than Opera, Safari or Firefox, but since you have a mac, I'm assuming you're using one of these already) All you have to do to install it is go to User:Thingg/monobook.js and copy the top section of code (labeled "SCRIPT: Twinkle") into User:Cretog8/monobook.js. Then, clear your browser's cache by holding down the "ctrl" key and refreshing the page. You will immediately see 7 new "tabs" at the top of all pages to the right of the regular "history", "watch", etc. They include "warn" (brings up a window that allows you to warn vandals), "arv" (report vandals), "csd" (nominate a page for speedy-deletion), "last" (opens the diff of the latest two revisions of the page), "rpp" (request page protection), "xfd" (creates an article for deletion nomination), and "unlink" (tbh, I'm not really sure what this does... *clicks button, wikipedia crashes, runs like heck....* ;) ). In addition, when you view diffs or old revisions of pages, you will see a few additional buttons next to the "undo" (or "rollback", if you have that) that are pretty self-explanatory in function. btw, sorry about the small novel I wrote above as I'm sure that was rather confusing/overwhelming. :o) If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. Regards. Thingg^⊕⊗ 01:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

My reply to a good question

…but is this section needed at all?

In a better world, certainly not. But those whose reaches exceeds their grasps will insist on presenting that LTV criticism (as illustrated by the history of the article), and in an environment that places a premium on consensus and compromise, the best way of handling that is to allow the presentation and include the response to it. Further, there will be readers who in any event will encounter that criticism, and they will be well served by reading the response. —SlamDiego_←T 23:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Unemployment

Unfortunitly not... An exam paper I did recently for Economics AS referenced it, that's how I know it's in there soemwhere. I looked breifly but got frustrated, sorry Larklight (talk) 20:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll leave the line in, and see if I can find the ref.. If not, I'll hunt out another. Larklight (talk) 19:27, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Snowdrift Game

The snowdrift game is just another name for the hawk-dove or chicken game that is used in scientific literature. If you read the news item I sourced then you can figure out the payoff matrix and see that it has the same structure as a hawk-dove game. If you want a more academic source (and have access to Nature publications, actually you only even need access to the abstract) search for "Spatial structure often inhibits the evolution of cooperation in the snowdrift game"(2004) by Christoph Hauert & Michael Doebeli and you will see the following quote:

Two simple games have attracted most attention in theoretical and experimental studies: the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the snowdrift game (also known as the hawk–dove or chicken game).

I can add a little blurb (when I have time) about the analogy used to describe the game (two people stuck in a snowdrift) to the article, but from game-theoretic terms it is just another name for the same game as Hawk-Dove and Chicken.

Cheers --DFRussia (talk) 21:02, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I know what you mean. The only reason I added that to the Hawk-dove article (or chicken article) was because it took me a little bit of time to find it myself, so I decided to save some time for future readers --DFRussia (talk) 04:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

emailing deleted article?

Hello--You recently deleted the article Swedish auction. I'm not asking for it to be re-instated. I recall seeing somewhere that you could request that the deleted article be emailed to you. I'd be very grateful if you could point me back to that information. Cretog8 (talk) 13:25, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

You can request it either at Wikipedia:Deletion review or by contacting anyone on this list, including me. But you have to set an email address at Special:Preferences first. Stifle (talk) 13:27, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Upshot

Hi Cretog,

Check the upshot page on Wiktionary here. The second and more common definition is "outcome". Roget's II: The New Thesaurus also gives "outcome" as a synonym for "upshot".

I hope this helps,

Neelix (talk) 19:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Auction

Great work on the Auction article! I've been meaning to get into it but haven't had a chance. Looking good so far, let me know if you need to split up the workload as I'd be happy to take on bits and pieces or a section. I should have more time in a day or two. Debate 木 05:40, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Don't know if I'm organized enough to split up the workload. I'm almost certainly going to slow down now, though, since I'm getting past the easy cleanup stuff and getting to the stuff which will require honest-to-goodness research. Eww. Anyway, maybe I'll hit you up for something specific later, otherwise, please jump in on whatever strikes your fancy. If I'm up to anything really serious, I'll work on it in my user space and post that I'm doing so in the talk page.Cretog8 (talk) 05:43, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. I'll see if I have time to take a bash at some bits and pieces tomorrow. :) Debate 木 08:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

hey-che

hello cretog8, i am not very handy with this and i am not sure this is the proper way to responds. i am owner of the heyche site you removed. i put the link there offcourse to "promote" my website, but i thought it was a great add to the subject cheersHeyche (talk) 17:06, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello--I figured it was an innocent mistake, no real harm done. My strong feeling is that it isn't proper in those articles. If you really think it is a valuable link for the article, then you can suggest it on the talk page, and see what response you get. I have a suggestion, though. If you put it on the talk page, put it on the main talk page--the one you get by clicking the "discussion" tab when viewing an article. Your addition to Talk:Che_Guevara/to_do probably won't work as well. If you want help with that, I'll switch it for you.Cretog8 (talk) 17:15, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Cretoq8, thank you for your kind response.Bottom line is that a lot of people come to this wikipedia page of Che.. And i am sure that the info of my site will be a good extra source for more info about Che. No harm intended. My site is a very small one that's why i thought the link would bring new visitors and offcourse add info to the wikipedia. I will link your wiki-page on my site. If you have suggestion of ideas to share valuable info from my site to the wiki, i am gladly hear from you heycheHeyche (talk) 13:56, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Barzilai

An article “Barzilai paradox” was deleted for lack of notability back in January. (I made the nomination.)

Basically, Ruud Binnekamp (contribs) and Uvenkata (contribs) are on Wikipedia to promote the work of Barzilai. Uvenkata created the aforementioned article, and the two of them had/have moved through Wikipedia inserting references to that work. The problems with that programme are

1. Barzilai is not notable — his work on decision theory hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal of economics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, psychology, mathematics, or philosophy. (He has persuaded engineering conferences to allow him to deliver papers.)
2. Barzilai's analysis is crack-pot. (For Krantz's appalled response, see “remarks on Jonathan Barzilai”.)

Anyway, both editors participated in the AfD, and the need for and nature of appropriate peer-reviewed publication were bluntly stated. —SlamDiego_←T 20:47, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if you would reconsider your judgment of Barzililai's analysis as the American Mathematical Society has accepted his letter, see “Jonathan Barzilai. Value of a Game. In Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 55 No. 4, p. 446, April 2008”. Ruud Binnekamp (talk) 20:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Hello. First, please post your responses in a "thread" kind of format, as above, so I can keep track of who said waht.

As to Barzilai's letter. Yes, I read it when I saw it in the Shapley value article. I have little expertise in such matters, and I have to say I didn't understand the point of the letter. So, I'm not arguing in any way that it's wrong. However, it is standard in such magazines for the letters section to not be peer-reviewed. Letters are naturally not held to the rigorous standard of articles. (In fact, for Notices, it appears that even for articles there's extensive editorial review but rarely proper peer-review [1].) So, the standard which I feel is applicable is notability, which should be evident when the letter is cited elsewhere (probably in a peer-reviewed article). As an extra, I feel that it should be fairly easy to understand, which it wasn't in its given form.Cretog8 (talk) 20:51, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Help

{{helpme}} I'm looking for advice on deletion. Particularly, I came across the article FLAB. Now, to me, it seems irredeemable, and I'm certainly not interested in trying to make it better. It's just silly. Should I try to encourage its improvement before proposing it for deletion? Is it an uncontroversial proposal? (I'm sure this will come up again, and I'm trying to get a feel for it.) Thanks! Cretog8 (talk) 18:41, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

• I would say using a prod on it first since it seems to be a permanent dictionary definition and no more. If someone removes the prod, take it to AfD. Also, when posting on a talk page, please put new stuff at the bottom. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 18:48, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks! Cretog8 (talk) 19:05, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

RPS

I changed my mind and decided that the subsequent explaination merited the 2 second contention that the RPS might be random, in and only as much as it's being mentioned there as used in the same purpose as coin flipping and other random deciders. In some ways, one shot could be seen as random, and the clarification subsequent is sufficient to keep it clear, I think. But yes, I'm not entirely sure anything that exists in this universe is truely random. Random number generators are effective randomizers, but derive their random number from a forumula using a seed that should rarely be the same (such as the millisecond the forumula is run). A coin flip may approximate randomness, but it's result is a function of the angle and power and speed of the flip and the weight and flaws and whatnot of the coin... etc. Random sucks :-p TheHYPO (talk) 07:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment threading and sequencing

FWIW, indentation is typically (albeït not universally) an indication that the comment is in reply to the comment most immediately above it which is less indented. That is to say that in a sequence

A

B

C

D

C is in reply to B and not immediately to A, and D is in reply to B and not to C.

Thus, unless you meant your comment at User talk:Ruud Binnekamp to be read as a reply to a prior comment on that page, it shouldn't have been indented. After some confusion in which I read that comment as a reply to me, I unindented it. —SlamDiego_←T 21:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Al Roth

Thanks! I watched a market design video of his and wandered over to wikipedia to learn more. Lo and behold, I was directed to a contract bridge player (even some reference links went to him). So I figured I'd bust one out.  :) Protonk (talk) 23:39, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Economic freedom

Just a thought. If you're worried about keeping it NPOV, a section on the deprivations unregulated corporations have had on the country (or the rich in general) might do. Nothing like a little Veblen or George to balance out an article on economic freedom. Protonk (talk) 23:44, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm really not sure where to go with that article. And I know diddly about George. My main concern with the article is the expression "economic freedom". Of course freedom is good; so are choice and life and therefore we should all be pro-choice and pro-life! I won't have time to deal with it for a little while, but if the partisans continue to not address my complaints, I'll eventually take that as license to be bold. Cretog8 (talk) 23:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

There is also some very real (but dense and arcane) sociological commentary about the implicit and explicit linking of "freedom of ideas" with "freedom of trade". over the past 400 years, the idea with more cache has been used to buttress the idea that was under assault. Ideas-->trade in the very early and late 20th century. Trade-->ideas in the mide 20th century. Sometimes the two are unfairly conflated by proponents of either side in order to take advantage of an aura about an idea without addressing the reality behind it. E.g. Indexing Economic freedom includes measuring red tape and strength of rule of law. While it may be easy to compare freedom of expression with freedom of exchange, the "red tap" and "rule of law" examples show that analogy is constrained somewhat. Often this conflation leads later to confusion (argh!) as people who don't know what they are talking about (politicians) run their mouths about "capitalism in china leading to personal freedom" without justifying it in the slightest. the poltician (sometimes) isn't being deliberately misleading. He jut only remembers so many things from that econ class he took in college and that happens to be one.  :) As for sources on that stuff....let me get back to you. It might take a while. Protonk (talk) 00:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Help

I'm having my first serious POV conflict over at Economic freedom, and I'm looking for advice on how to proceed.

If you truely feel like you cannot work it out through discussion alone, you can go down the path of mediation, starting with the Mediation Cabal. If you'd like just a third party's opinion, go ahead and ask for it. I'll help if you'd like. JW _|^|_| Talk 21:21, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm going to try another approach for a while, and see how it goes. If it fails, then I may ask for your third opinion. Cretog8 (talk) 17:06, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:3RR

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Economy. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. Just a heads up, and I know the above seems harsh, but I don't want to see you get in trouble. -FrankTobia (talk) 03:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Gotcha, and thanks for the heads-up. I was starting to think about timing my reversions to the 24-hour limit, but that's still a violation in spirit. Ugh. O well. Cretog8 (talk) 03:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) And to clarify, consider this an attempt at helpful policy advice. The three revert rule isn't a quota for reverts: it's possible to violate the spirit of WP:3RR without violating the letter. I see that you're a valuable editor and you've been doing having a productive discussion on Talk:Economy. Always remember that it's better to have the article in a state you disagree with and start a discussion right away, rather than get involved in a revert war, no matter how brief. I'll see you on Talk:Economy :) -FrankTobia (talk) 03:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

“indices”

Haha! This business is never-ending. There are some folk who will just never accept “indices”. —SlamDiego_←T 04:15, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I have to admit, if English made any sense, they'd be right. (Should be equilibriums, too. And I refuse to accept "fora", myself.) Cretog8 (talk) 04:36, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

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Inflation

Thank you for looking after this page. SturmTiger has added his edits, for a fourth time (third logged in as his name). I can revert them, but I believe there is a rule about him not making three reversions in a row.Mark Borgschulte (talk) 19:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I've got only a fuzzy feeling for the WP:3RR rule. It's "no more than 3 reversions per user per day", which SturmTiger hasn't done on Inflation yet (I count 2 reversions so far). It's also a guideline, not a hard-and-fast rule, so for instance, I was warned about it when I was getting into an revert war short of 3 reverts.

Anyway, I'd say don't worry about it. The edits are far-out enough that I don't think they'll stand even if any few of us let them slip. If you are worried, bone up on WP:3RR and you can put a warning on SturmTiger's talk page, but that might be unnecessarily unfriendly. Cretog8 (talk) 19:42, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

See revision at 13:25 under an anonymous IP address for his first edit, then three reversions to this previous edit, under his name. I agree that this is 2 reversions in a strict reading. Somehow I feel that it will happen again, though. (On a side note, you should be commended for you patience and friendly attitude with someone who seems to be defacing an entry. Hopefully he will come around.)Mark Borgschulte (talk) 19:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

exchange in Economics

OK, thx. Never in doubt. I have appreciated your Edits elsewhere for their freshness and insight. A goldem age for improving econ articles, I'd say, & you're sure doing your share. --Thomasmeeks (talk)

July 2008

Welcome to Wikipedia. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, your addition of one or more external links to the page Competition law has been reverted. Your edit here was reverted by an automated bot that attempts to remove unwanted links and spam from Wikipedia. The external link you added or changed is on my list of links to remove and probably shouldn't be included in Wikipedia. The external links I reverted were matching the following regex rule(s): rule: '\bexample\.com' .

If you were trying to insert an external link that does comply with our policies and guidelines, then please accept my creator's apologies and feel free to undo the bot's revert. Please read Wikipedia's external links guideline for more information, and consult my list of frequently-reverted sites. For more information about me, see my FAQ page. Thanks! XLinkBot (talk) 00:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

yes

I in fact wrote that, why? mickman1234 (talk) Mickman1234 (talk) 17:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Because a new pope comes if a pope dies or if the cathloic church wants to have a new preist.

there i deleted it are you happy :( —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mickman1234 (talk • contribs) 22:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Nope, kinda sad. But thanks. Cretog8 (talk) 22:09, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Why are you sad i deleted it, see Mickman1234 (talk) 23:11, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Barter

Barter's Reference list, Categories, and Other language links have been blanked and I don't know how to fix it! Pawyilee (talk) 11:05, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

It looks like Debate fixed it? Cretog8 (talk) 16:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure does! I'll scoot over to his page & thank him! Pawyilee (talk) 05:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Security Analysis Link

Hi there, I notice you removed a link to chapter summaries of Security Analysis on the Security Analysis page. My apologies if it came off as spam; I thought it would serve as an appropriate resource. I'm new so I'm not sure if there is the proper place to discuss your thoughts of why this is inappropriate? Thanks, all the best. --Skarsa72 (talk) 18:55, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Skarsa72--It's possible I was over-zealous, but links to blogs are usually discouraged. An exception might be made for someone who's really prominent and also has a blog, and there's always new exceptions. If it's your own blog, then it's almost certainly a no-no by way of WP:COI. If it's not, you could argue it's worthwhile, and the place to do that would be the talk ("discussion" tab) page of the article in question. Another possibility is to find book reviews in a more authoritative source like a newspaper or academic or professional journal. Cretog8 (talk) 20:55, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Okay thanks for the info! I will bring it up on the talk page then. By the way, are you only supposed to bring it up in "talk" to add something, but you're supposed to delete without bringing up in "talk"? Otherwise I'm not sure then why you wouldn't have brought it up on the talk page first before deleting...Thx --Skarsa72 (talk) 03:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Etiquette is tricky, and always a judgment call. The less controversial an edit, the less important it is to bring it to the talk page. I didn't think my removing your links would be controversial--obviously I'm wrong, since it's at least a controversy to you! It makes sense that you didn't go to the talk pages before since you didn't think your additions were controversial--but now you know they are. Very often any edit will simply be done to the page, and then reverted, and that makes it clear there's something that needs to be talked about. Cretog8 (talk) 06:23, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

A bit more--one of the reasons I was speedy to delete the links was that it did have the appearance of linkspam. It looked like all of your edits were links to the blog, several of which had been reverted before. I also notice now that you have warnings about it on your talk page. Since you're actively discussing this now instead of just linking it looks like you're more than a spammer, but that wasn't evident before. Best wishes on future edits. Cretog8 (talk) 06:29, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Great, thanks for the info. I have put this as a suggestion on the talk page. If no one responds (as in the case of the suggestion before mine on the Security Analysis talk page), do I assume consensus or is there some other means by which we should be resolving this question? --Skarsa72 (talk) 16:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Economics

Hello Cretog, I've noticed what's going on on the economics page. It's not whether it's good or bad, (or well intentioned). It is, I'm afraid just pointless and not really doing much of what I intend at all. For Deidre McCloskey, I hope you'll excuse my ignorance in that I haven't read anything she's done, but the main point is that there is/was a sentence there saying "McCloskey has said xyz, and nobody has listened" - which is (I hope you'll agree) patently a ridiculous thing to be including on the main economics page. If I put a sentence in there for every person who criticised economics...

I'm not doing anything now though, because I'm busy outside with other stuff, sadly. But here's an outline for what I'd do with the page, a rough plan I drew up after I wrote that restructure thing. Read it in the code form:

Introduction: give various definitions of economics and anecdotes. What about inequality? What are the aims of economics? Outline page.

1. Microeconomics a. Markets : Prices and efficiency (Homo economicus, supply and demand, elasticity, production possibility, competition, welfare economics ; marginal theory of value, law of diminishing returns, division of labour - what about govt. controls and taxes on prices: queues) b. Market failure: information asymmetry, failure of competition, public goods, environmental economics) c. Labour: (division of labour?) wages, minimum wage, unions, discrimination d. Firms: mergers, oligopoly, monopoly , monopolistic competition (advertising?) Cambridge capital controversy e. Public sector (and public finance and choice? Efficient taxes. Impossible to have none: markets need law: Nozick)

2. Macroeconomics a. Growth b. Depression (Circular flow of income ; aggregate supply and demand , general equilibrium? What about financial regulation generally to stop speculation? Financial economics) c. Unemployment (what causes it?) d. Inflation and monetary policy e. Fiscal policy and regulation

3. International economics a. Comparative advantage (Smith, Ricardo) b. International trade (EU, WTO, NAFTA, ASEAN, free trade) c. Poverty and development d. International finance

4. History of economic thought a. Classical political economy b. Marxism and neo-classicism c. Keynsianism and liberals d. Economics in global times

5. Economics in practice a. Economists (What can you do with economics? Business, Civil service, NGOs, Teaching, Study something else! Law, politics, management…) b. Relations to other fields (politics, philosophy, history, law) c. Economists’ tools (Mathematics, Statistics, Game theory) d. A dismal science? (Science and jokes)

Don't tell anyone, because it'd be too much of a shock improvement. I think that I can get everything currently on the page into that framework. I would write it a million times better, make it all accessible. I've already got a list of all the relevant links, and made a note of which are the best pages economics has. You might notice that more than half of it does not exist. This is why I view the current page as so pathetic. I think that once I get started, I might need to be a little dictatorial, but people will be happy to see it simply improve. Wikidea 11:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, well dictatorial is likely to be a problem.

Here's what I think we should do--make a behind-the-scenes development page, not hidden, but a page which is just for working rather than for reading. The working page should at first be devoted to the outline. Maybe content in the sections just in terms of "when we write it for real, this section should include X". There will be some haggling over even the outline, but I think less than over a disorganized page, and once the outline is (more or less) settled, filling in the sections will be easier.

Regarding McCloskey--lots of folks don't know about her, so of course I'll excuse your ignorance. I agree that the way she's mentioned was silly and not useful. However, her critiques are prominent enough that they probably merit a place in the "economics in practice" section. Cretog8 (talk) 03:20, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I have a suggestion. Wikidea (hereafter FEor, "first Editor," to get away from personas) might seek assistance of one or more economists or at least social scientists, if he has not already done so.* And of course, the hard part might be the page-specific footnotng.** FEor is of course free to roll it out on his own, but premature encouragement might be counterproductive. And claiming such encouragement prove to bre a mistake. FEor already seems to have one other vote. I believe that neutrality is the prudent course for future purposes. The project could turn out to be a pig in a poke, even if an inadvertant one. All those who encouraged it would bear some responsibility for the outcome. As I gather, what is proposed is pretty much a replacement of the article, not fixing alleged problems of the current arttcle. I am sure that the above reflects what FEor and/or associate(s) think as to how the subject in a survey article should be presented or at any rate what the subject should be about. Whether that accurately represents economics as a social and applied science in a analytical fashion is quite another matter.

* We all need all the help we can get. There would be a COI problem, however, if prospective other such writers appeared on the Talk page. If there should be other writers, I doubt that they would approve of FEor's tone & a lot of the Talk-section substance so far, so respectful would they be of at least earlier efforts (even while noting some obvious ways of improving the article). They might wish to dissociate themselves from FEor for that reason alone.

** On which see Talk:History of economic thought/GA1. The reviewer might have taken a look at Economics & muttered "If Econ can do it, why not HOET." A related suggestion: HOET should first be run by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Economics. If it gets an A-class ra6\ting, that makes it more credible. If not, it leads to further improvements until it gets there. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 18:22, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Thomas--I'm not sure I understand you, so lets go back-and-forth until we're sure we do understand one another. I read the above as being negative on Wikidea's proposal (I'll leave persona for now, since it helps me). Is that right? I'm softly in favor of it, and this is my reasoning:

The article has become a mess. I'm trying to engage in a way which allows me to stay engaged rather than over-stress and need to take a break. Part of that is to step away from blaming anyone for any problems. That's just me, I'm not saying you have to take that approach. Once I take that step, I'm trying to look at this as an opportunity to significantly improve the article. I think the best way to begin such an improvement is to establish a good outline. Wikidea may decide that the way to go is to write a whole new article themself, and that obviously could be a problem. But I think that the principle of collaborating now on a new outline for the article, and then moving material into that outline makes sense.

A serious problem recently is that, for whatever reason, the participation in the article has been very sparse, leaving it to just a few people to work things out. That hasn't worked, and hopefully we can re-engage more of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Economics community for whatever changes need to happen.

As I say, let's go back-and-forth until we understand each other. Cretog8 (talk) 03:27, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I only mean "dictatorial" as a joke. It's Wikipedia! I wouldn't be able to do anything over objections from everyone even if I wanted to. I'm a collaborative editor, but I'm also good at producing results.

Just keep in mind for now, that a lot of what is said on the page is actually better said on appropriate subpage. When I wrote the law page (which was, compared to this, a blank slate) it became clear that you couldn't explain everything, or even try. But it's like a blueprint, and I think people who read it certainly get to understand what law is about very quickly. They then pursue what they're interested in in greater depth at the specific articles. Although it's not nearly finished, I've taken the same approach to the History of economic thought page. Oh and by the way - it was two other readers that randomly nominated that for a good article: not me; I was waiting for time to finish it. It only failed (and I would've failed it too) because it is not complete. It is a zillion times better than our main page.

Just to give you, I think, the main example, take a look at Microeconomics. It's pretty small! In fact the main page for economics goes into far more detail in places. It's just the wrong way round. So we just need to be a bit relaxed about what is or is not on the economics page - and I will insist where I think it necessary, to remove material. But I never delete material (by that I mean references, not waffle; an the economics page has an excellent range of sources, I think mostly down to Thomas). It gets relocated. Please do reply to me on my userpage if you want. I wasn't watching here, and I've stopped watching Economics temporarily. Wikidea 13:28, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:ECON/A favor

If you find the time, could you take a minute to form an opinion about the importance of Hicksian demand function to WP:ECON, and weigh in on the discussion? So far this one article is in dispute, and I'd like to start building consensus around the importance criteria. Thanks, I appreciate it. -FrankTobia (talk) 20:47, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

ANI

I saw your comment on Frank's page. I do think it might be useful if you could jump in but I understand the reasons if you don't want to = WP:Wikistress. --Patrick (talk) 01:11, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Suggesting Changes to Milton Friedman Article

I've requested a reassessment of the good article status of the Milton Friedman article based on lack of neutrality, and have added a POV tag to the article. Please join the discussion, if you are interested. Thanks. Jdstany (talk) 03:41, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

biography importance

Sure, I'll go make a comment at WP Econ. I don't think your rescoring the importance was anything like wasted work, it's an appropriate thing to do, and I have no wish that you hadn't done it, etc. I just have this thing about the proliferation of biographies and this seemed an appropriate time to make my little comment. I have no idea how far I am from the mainstream on this, but I'm keen to find out. Best regards, Pete.Hurd (talk) 17:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Nobel cleanup

hello. i just thought the articles i edited fall more in the 'start' category. although they require expansion, the articles contain enough data and references to stand alone as fully constructed. the wpbiography banner on the discssion page all-to-often does not agree with article, largely because editors like me forget they are there. using Talk:Daniel Kahneman as an example. the article is far beyond 'start' quality. with regard to the {{reflist}} v. <references/> tags, reflist renders the text in a reduced font, and it looked at bit odd contrasted with what waa already there. also....lol, it was not my intention to appear as though i were literally 'cleaning up' after you...it's just a catch-all phrase i use when editing. cheers!--emerson7 17:41, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Seduction community tags

No problem. I just afterwards saw this: User_talk:88.105.22.28! lol That was a funny add of economics. Anyway, SecondSight has already correctly removed what was wrong. The ones on the talk page had been there already for ages. Anyway, keep up the good work! :D Mathmo ^Talk 01:46, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Huntington

Why is the page on Huntington, vandalized, with the comments "not about Huntington" for summary.

It is about the Criticism on a book by Huntington.

I might have missed something, but it looked like several paragraphs on Nazi doctrine without reference to Huntington. CRETOG8(t/c) 08:02, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Dialog among civilization

I see no dialog among us. You should not massively remove my edits. Let me know what is extra in your opinion, so that I enhance it. Or you can enhance it yourself. But this massive cutting is vandalism, I believe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.2.170.113 (talk) 08:36, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I described my reasons at the talk page. CRETOG8(t/c) 08:39, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Please give me time to fix some stuff. I have explained more at the talk page. Please add a criticism section to the theory instead of removing the page, as I have done for other pages and you have removed the criticism as well. Please observe that I have freedom of speech, just like you. We can disagree, but we should write about what we disagree on in the form of criticism, not remove each each other's work. Of course I never removed your writings! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.2.170.113 (talk) 16:29, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Expected utility hypothesis and money

Hello--I know it's not great to get super-technical right off the bat in an article, but I'm uncomfortable with your placing so much importance on money in Expected utility hypothesis, since the theory can apply to anything, not just money. I might go at it myself, but if you beat me to clearing it up that would be awesome. Otherwise, I think that merge was a good idea, thanks. CRETOG8(t/c) 20:49, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Though economists usually just rewrite everything in terms of the equivalent amount of money (so as to literally avoid comparing apples with oranges), you are of course right, and that's an important point to make in the introduction. I've tweaked the terminology in the intro to reflect this; feel free to make any further corrections if there's anything I've missed. -- Beland (talk) 20:58, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Nice! Done much more cleanly than I would have. Thanks. CRETOG8(t/c) 21:00, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Prisoners Dilemma

I see your point. I thought the same thing when I tagged the article. But then I thought, hey, this is not just a mathematical formula or a hypothetical situation. It's called a "Prisoner's" dilemma because its a dilemma prisoners actually face. I guess it could really go either way. I included it because I thought it would be an interesting addition to the project but maybe it's not really within the scope. Unfortunately, we're still working out the exact scope of the project on the talk page.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 03:10, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, obviously your call since you're working on the project. I just wanted to bring it to your attention in case. Good luck with the new project! CRETOG8(t/c) 03:58, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Update on leontief

In case you drop pages from your watchlist, I've got kind of an "egg on my face" update as regards Leontief and marx on my talk page. I looked it up in three books but didn't google him. :) Protonk (talk) 17:03, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Dialog discussion continued

Dialog Among Civilizations, discussion continued.. please see dialog talk page. thanks.Tolerance44 (talk) 01:51, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Help on stalking

{{helpme}} Another editor, skipsievert, is accusing me in several places of stalking. (For example Talk:Post_scarcity#misnomer-in that particular case I had no idea they were the editor involved in the line I was questioning.) I need a reality check, I suppose. It's true that I am in conflict with skipsievert on many articles. I don't generally look at their edit log, but come to those articles either by their recommendation on a talk page, or through links in economics articles I'm editing. (The first time I was accused of stalking was at Talk:Frederick_Soddy, the same day they recommended reading the article at a project talk page.)

So, I'm pretty comfortable that I'm not truly stalking. However, we are in conflict on a lot of edits. To some degree that's because their edits in many articles reflect the same (to my perception) problems. (I can go into details, but figure that's more detail than needed.) We also don't communicate very effectively on talk pages. etiquette suggests avoiding working on the same articles. I suppose I could do that, but I honestly don't want to unless doing so ups my wikistress (as has happened in the past). I honestly feel this editor makes a lot of counter-productive edits in economics articles (and occasionally I come across others like the Soddy article), and I don't think I should let them go by.

Also, I've noticed skipsievert reacting very strongly to some conflicts. I don't know if this is honest reaction or tactic, but I'm concerned that blowups and accusing me of stalking are in the pattern of trying to intimidate me into acquiescing.

Here's some of the relevant articles: Energy economics, Herman Daly, Economics, Natural resource economics, Template:Economics_sidebar.

So, reality check please? Skipsievert claims to feel I'm stalking--I have no good reason to doubt that's how they feel, but I definitely don't feel that way. I feel like they're harassing me by accusing me of stalking. What to do? Can I insist they stop accusing me as uncivil? Do we need mediation? Am I deluded and I really am stalking? CRETOG8(t/c) 06:39, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

A lot of these conflicts occur on wikipedia every day. Two editors don't see eye-to-eye and then accuse the other of harassment and/or stalking their activity on the project. You need to remind yourself why you're here. We are aiming to build an encyclopaedia not to engage in petty disputes. Try to avoid one another, don't let your differences stand in the way of your edits. If you simply cannot leave each other alone then you can try to seek help from wikipedia's dispute resolution but things could get nasty there. Just avoid one another! —— RyanLupin • (talk) 10:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• I'm going to agree with Ryan with the added suggestion that I know both you and Skip are here to build the encyclopedia and both are interested in the same issues. that makes for a particularly difficult situation because the first step in dispute resolution usually is: ignore the other person and work someplace else. That works very well for people whose conflicts occur in places unrelated to their normal sphere of editing.

• As for your suspicions of some sort of "tactic", I doubt it. I've seen skip in a few disputes and I don't think that he debates the way he does out of political calculation. It is my opinion that he has a good faith belief in the edits he makes and the disputes he engages in. Your actions are also motivated out of good faith (a far as I can tell).

• Stalking. This is a hard question. Special:Contributions exists for a reason. Your edits, my edits, skips edits are all public because that is what we agreed to when we first decided to edit. But "stalking" is very much dependent upon the frame of mind of the subject. If skip sees 1/2 of his edits on an article being "trailed" by you, it will seem to him like you are focusing on him unfairly.

• My recommendation: Make a list of articles that you feel you need to maintain: in other words, you don't think they are frequented by regulars who will continue to keep factual inaccuracies off the article. Make a list of economics articles neither you nor skip have edited yet. The rest--articles like Economics, where you and skip have been in conflict but there are probably other editors around to continue the content discussion--should be articles you avoid for a few weeks. Take them off your watchlist. Don't frequent them or their talk page. Take a break from just those articles, but continue to build up the rest of the economics articles (May I suggest biographies of important 19th century economists?).

• In general, I'm not going to comment on whether or not skip's edits in articles are factually accurate and supported by consensus or whether or not his attempts to build consensus are productive or counterproductive. Honestly, even if he were editing tendentiously, Wikipedia has very few tools to deal with that problem collectively. Editor disputes related to content disagreements are a hot potato. Even if a dispute is accepted for mediation, the outcome is unlikely to be "you were right, skip was wrong" or vice versa. But if, at the end of this attempted break from Skip, if you feel that his edits are still a net-negative to the economics project, I suggest you first pick an issue and file a Content RFC. Maybe there will be enough discussion from there to show community consensus is clear on a few issues. If, for the conduct issues, you feel that action still needs to be taken, I would file a user conduct RFC. Don't go to WQA, that's honestly a waste of your time and Skip's time. Hope this helps! Oh...and I would let skip know you are asking about him on this page. There is no requirement that you do so, but I think there would be hard feelings if he finds this later. Protonk (talk) 14:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Ryan & Protonk for your advice. I fear the result, but I'll step out of editing some articles for a couple weeks. Given the way I work, I'll probably step out of editing most non-game theory economics articles, since I probably need to go all-or-nothing and there's plenty of game theory which needs work. Protonk, thanks for your suggestion but biographies of 19th century economists sounds like way too much actual work! CRETOG8(t/c) 16:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Luckily the New School has most of the basic biographical details. Some of the bios are summarized from there but the source isn't noted. Some are (probably) copyvios. Some cite the new school but don't cite any other sources (something that can be quickly rectified by combing through the links on the new school bio. But....you are right about the "lot of work" comment. That's what is stopping me from doing it. At least, before I finish my magnum opus. :) Protonk (talk) 17:05, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• You may want to check this out. Wikipedia:ANI#Sockpuppetry_and_POV-pushing_on_Austrian_School_and_related_topics. Protonk (talk) 21:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, not sure what to do with that, but I am wondering if it's time to hash out how fringe or not Austrianism is in a discussion which can be referred to later. CRETOG8(t/c) 05:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)