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Talk:Production-possibility frontier/GA1

Hi, this article was reviewed and placed on hold on 22 March, but I can see no response from you to the review. Perhaps the reviewer forgot to notify you? –– Jezhotwells (talk) 12:15, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

"Oxford Dictionary of Economics"

While looking for something else, I ran across a link to the "ODE" (not to be confused with the "OED"!). Out of curiousity, I checked its entries for both the PPF and PED, and I was unpleasantly surprised to find that both consist of earlier versions of the WP articles! See, e.g., http://www.enotes.com/topic/Price_elasticity_of_demand

We are not amused. We expected a bit more from an "Oxford Dictionary of ..." anything!

However, the "Research" tab at the same site (enotes.com) has a "Business" tab that links to a separate "encyclopedia" section: http://www.enotes.com/econ-encyclopedia

This section does contain separate articles (not from WP) on a very wide variety of the topics you'd expect it to, but access to more than the 1st paragraph or so of a longer article requires membership (US $14.95/month, or about ₤10 at current exchange rates). The "Business Group" tab provides "expert" answers to questions submitted by others. My quick, unscientific sampling of the answers found that they spanned the spectrum from extremely weak to quite good. (This part apparently doesn't require membership.)

I noticed the query above re the status of the PPC article. I'm almost through with my taxes, so I hope I'll be able to turn my attention back to the article within a few days. During breaks from my tax return, I've done some research into the necessary and sufficient conditions for the linear and convex PPC cases. I'm pretty sure there's more to it than just constant and increasing returns to scale (respectively). I vaguely recall that there are 3 conditions that are necessary and sufficient, at least for the linear PPC, and constant returns to scale is one of them. (I haven't taught this topic in a very long time, so those synapses have atrophied, and this is a fairly complex topic.) I've found quite a few sources that cover 1 or 2 of the necessary conditions, but not always the same ones, which is what's making the search so time-consuming and frustrating! I've yet to find an authoritative discussion of the sufficient conditions, though. This may end up as another "synthesis" problem!

BTW, the last time you left me a message, I didn't get an Orange Box notification. I discovered your message completely by accident. --Jackftwist (talk) 17:21, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I looked at the "Oxford Dictionary of Economics" for the "Price Elasticity" (of demand) to compare what it said to what is said in the link you referenced in your discussion above (http://www.enotes.com/topic/Price_elasticity_of_demand). The wording in the explanation used in the link you indicated above and the "Oxford Dictionary of Economics" is completely different! Of course the explanations/"Definitions" must be similar, as this is a very basic concept in Economics that is taught in every "Micro Economics 101" course; and the Economics Community accept only 1 definition (and its implications) for the PED. The wording and methodology used to teach this concept differs from professor to professor, and from book to book. However, the basic jist must always be the same. To say that it is taken from an earlier WP article is disingenuous; since the original definition has been well established for more than 3 quarters of a century. Was the Definition/explanation taken from an earlier WP article, or did both the WP article and the "Oxford Dictionary of Economics” use the same original explanation (and "Source") as the basis for this explanation. I believe the latter is true! Please do not disparage a book/source that accurately reproduce valid explanations (even if a bit sparse) of Economic Principles, Economic Principles for Analysis, and Economic Events without (true and) proper justification in doing so. You have no proof that this book simply used the prior WP article! You can only prove that (at least) both used the same original source (all economists use the definition propagated by the original source). Have you not taken the same definition? Did you get it from the WP article; or did the WP article writer (Attend your class and) take it from you? Consider the "Necessary Condition" versus the "Sufficient Condition". The "Necessary Conditions" for saying that the "Oxford Dictionary of Economics” took its definition from the WP article are that the WP Article was written first and the 2 definitions are at least similar. However, this is not a "Sufficient Condition" for asserting the validity of this statement; in much the same way a "Correlation" is not "Sufficient" to show one Event that is Correlated with another is in fact the cause for the other. Case in point; 2 students might always be in the Social Science Building together and speak to one another before class, but it doesn't mean that the reason for them to meet in the Social Science building is to talk!! They could just (by chance) have a class at the same time, and have (by chance) struck up a conversation that led them to later become friends (and to want to talk again). Do you get what I'm saying? Please do not be disparage others/sources without proper justification.

PPF Terminology

I just noticed I accidentally used the abbreviation PPC (i.e., production possibilities curve) instead of PPF in the "Oxford Dict. of Econ." post above. The terms PPF and PPC are used interchangeably and with roughly equal frequency in texts. [Product] transformation curve is used, too, but much less frequently. When I wrote the previous post, I'd probably just finished reviewing a text that happened to use PPC, so it was freshest in my mind. Sometimes I have to look at the article again to remind myself which term it uses!

Adding the PPC terminology to the first sentence is one of the revisions I intend to make (soon!). Because that term is used so frequently in texts, it definitely should be one of the alternatives that appears in the drop-down list under the Search box as one types in a search term. In order to make that happen, do we need to create a separate article with that title (but no other content) and have it redirect to the current article? Or is there an easier way to do it?

In checking the PPF article to see if there were any new comments, I realized I'd forgotten about the post titled "Section 1," which mentions diminishing marginal returns in the production of each good as the source of the PPF's concavity. That's another 1 of the 3 factors that I alluded to above as 1 of the necessary and sufficient conditions that determine the shape of the PPF. Besides returns to scale (mentioned above), I think the 3rd condition concerns the relative factor intensities of the 2 products (i.e., the capital-to-labor ratios, or whichever combination of resources one is using as an example). If I remember correctly, a linear PPF requires that the contract curve in the Edgeworth production box also be linear, which I think requires that both products exhibit both constant returns to scale and identical factor intensities. But as I said before, I haven't yet found a reference that brings all 3 conditions together -- they typically cover only 1 or 2 of them in various combinations. It's quite maddening.

To expedite review of the PPF article, it may well be necessary to gloss over that point for now (just as most of the textbooks do!) unless I unearth the Rosetta stone very quickly.

BTW, the post above regarding GA1 status mentions a previous review, but I can't find the reviewers comments anywhere. If there are any, I'd like to take a look at them before I do my revisions. --Jackftwist (talk) 16:24, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Sławomir Skrzypek

On April 15, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Sławomir Skrzypek, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 18:03, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Kudos re GA status for PPF article

Congratulations, again! You're on a roll. :)

Evidently, the reviewer wasn't too concerned about references for that final section, after all. (Or did you smooth-talk your way around that one?)

Even though the former "urgency" to provide those citations is now overcome by events, I've found good references for all of them and I'd planned to add them tomorrow (along with a few substantive revisions). I'm in the process of checking one more source, which I think will apply to several of the points and, if so, would be very authoritative (the Bator article). (My tax return is completed, except for a few finishing touches that didn't have to be done by the deadline.)

The reviewer's comments were pretty good overall, except for 2 that seem to contradict one another -- i.e., whether the article is detailed enough to meet professional standards, vs. simple yet accurate and complete enough to be useful to the average user. I've been wondering about that myself. My impression is that WP's policy favors the latter standard, so please correct me if I'm wrong. In thinking about and drafting revisions and additions to the PPF and PED articles, I'm uncertain whether to just cover the very basics (especially where there are related WP articles on the point in question, however weak they may be) or to explain in detail (and possibly risk over-explaining it). I'll try to post a reply to the reviewer about that over the next few days.

I hope you were at least mildly amused by my rejoinder on The Great Bot-Abuse Controversy.

BTW, I'm still not getting any orange-box new-message notifications -- this is the 3rd time in a row it's happened. Most strange. I may have to appeal to the Help Desk for assistance eventually.

Kudos, again. --Jackftwist (talk) 20:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Jacinto Jijón y Caamaño

On April 17, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Jacinto Jijón y Caamaño, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 12:03, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

DYK for Manteño civilization

On April 17, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Manteño civilization, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.

Materialscientist (talk) 12:04, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

PPF article revisions & "More stuff" (your message)

I finally got an Orange Box notification from the last message you left on my talk page. This certainly may not be a ceteris paribus situation, but one variable in the mix that changed this time was that you created a new section vs. editing a previous one. But that shouldn't matter, should it?

Re "More stuff": "naturally not going to like [my] invasion of [your] perfectly good article," et al., more later. (Cheeky sod, aren't you? :b ) After I clicked on 1 of the links in your message, I got distracted following subsequent links and spent way too much time reading policy articles (lots more later on some of those!) and ROFL over wp:fun and especially wp:tea. (I indulged in more than 1 nice cuppa through the day.)

Come to think of it, you might want to get a nice cuppa before continuing with the following (ahem) cogent and scintillating analysis.

Although I know you get notified about (or at least watch changes to) the PPF article, I made several significant revisions late this afternoon, and I thought it might be advisable to explain the method behind my madness, beyond the limited space available in the revision summaries and what's self-evident from comparing versions. At the very least, I hope you'll be persuaded not to revert all my revisions and restore your "perfectly good article" to its former, pristine state. :b

1. I moved the following point from the section formerly known as "Interpretation" (now tentatively renamed "Other applications," which I think better describes its content) to the "Efficiency" section

(Such a two-good world is a theoretical simplification that is necessary for graphical analysis, but one good can be treated as a composite basket of all other goods. In addition, the model can be generalized to the n-good case using mathematics.)

for 2 reasons:

• I think it fits more logically there, and covering it right up front may answer one of the most common questions beginning students tend to have, and casual readers may have, hence dispelling any potential criticisms of or misgivings about the model before th0se have a chance to fester into more serious skepticism about it.
  • The parentheses are fairly optional. I intended them only to signal the reader that this is merely a BTW or FYI compared to the much more fundamental matters covered in the 1st and (now) 3rd paragraphs. (You've probably noticed already that I use a lot of parenthetical comments.) I considered an informational footnote instead of the parenthetical comment, but
    • (a) there aren't any other such notes in the article, nor indeed in any of the econ articles I've sampled; and
    • (b) that relegates the point back to the end of the article, not just to the bottom of the "page" (as it would appear in many texts), so we'd just be back where we started.
  • I already have the citation but ran out of time to enter it. I began the process, but I'm still not accustomed to the required syntax and made an error I didn't have time to correct.

2. Also in the "Efficiency" section: the previous final sentence (regarding allocative efficiency) directly contradicted the discussion of that point in the final section. The latter is more accurate, so the former simply had to go.

3. In the "Shape" section, I moved the point concerning the Edgeworth production box to the beginning of this section. It fits very logically there, rather than as rather an afterthought at the end of the article. (And I do hope eventually to add an explanatory footnote that the internal link to the Edgeworth box diagram is to a description of a consumption box, not a production box, both for accuracy and to avoid the obvious potential for confusion as much as possible until someone can get a production box article done -- or at least a production section to the current article.)

• I deleted the remainder of the Edgeworth box paragraph as it originally appeared in the final section, because that point is already covered thoroughly in the 1st paragraph of the "Shape" section.
  • On a more minor point, I also deleted the reference to "in neoclassical economics." I've noticed that phrase in a surprising number of other articles, too.
    • First of all, the PPF is innately a neoclassical model, so the reference is redundant.
    • Second, at least 99.9% of the WP econ articles are neoclassical orthodoxy, too. The very rare exceptions are passing references to the Austrian School (which I know little about and WP would benefit from having a lot more of) and the Marxist model (which I'd think are primarily of historical interest, but I know there are a few die-hard Marxists hanging on out there, hoping against hope ...).

4. The 2nd paragraph of this section still needs a lot of work, and that's high on my priority list.

• The current discussion combines the discussions of several different sources and, as a result, it reflects the lamentable state of affairs that most textbooks, especially introductory ones, treat the PPF's shape inconsistently and without much attention to rigor. As a result, the current paragraph mixes unspecialized (i.e., homogeneous) resources, constant returns to scale, and factor intensity ratios into, I regret to say, an inconsistent, repetitious, and unintelligible jumble. (Again, this is solely the result of textbooks' lack of attention to detail on this topic; it isn't intended at all as a reflection on the original author's research. Indeed, he did an admirable job of trying to integrate the abysmally inconsistent source material into a meaningful discussion; unfortunately, no one told him a number of key parts of the puzzle were missing!)
  • Note, e.g., that the last sentence of the current paragraph, concerning a linear PPF, merely repeats the 2nd sentence, with "resources are not specialized" substituted for "similar resources."
  • BTW, according to a few discussions I've found, it isn't sufficient that factor intensities in the 2 sectors merely be constant. According to these other (authoritative) sources, factor intensities must be identical between the 2 products, so that the contract curve is linear. (Or maybe that's what the present discussion means by "constant"; if so, that needs to be made explicit.)

5. In the 3rd paragraph, I think the discussion here will also benefit from having a consistent framework that integrates returns to scale, factor intensities, factor homogeneity, and possibly diminishing marginal returns to each factor into a consistent framework. (The basic requirements for a linear PPF pre-date the Manning-Markusen-Melvin model by 3 or 4 decades. I need to study the M³-model article in more detail, but my initial impression is that it's an extension or special case of more general criteria. I'm not sure yet, though.)

• This is why I've been so obsessed with finding the Unified Field Theory of PPF Shapes, which I alluded to in earlier messages as the necessary and sufficient conditions governing those shapes. The Bator article contains the most complete discussion I've found so far on this point, but there are still a few puzzle pieces missing.

A final, more general point: you may notice that I've inserted phrases like "at any given point in time" and "during a given period of time" at various points in the article. (I tried to demonstrate a modicum of restraint.) This is one omission I've noticed almost across the board in WP's econ-related articles. But obviously, "time is of the essence" -- in the PPF case, the longer the period of time we consider, the more opportunities there are for factor supplies to increase and technology to improve, hence for the PPF to shift outward. So the relevant point or period in time is an essential determinant of the PPF's position. Similarly, in supply-and-demand and cost-curve diagrams, etc., the quantity axis should be "quantity per unit of time," in rigorous terms. Some textbooks are more careful than others on this point. (Simply tossing "time" into the list of non-price determinants of demand is a pretty flimsy way of handling the issue.) But I'll endeavor not to be too pedantic about this.

I'm chagrined to have droned on at such length again, but I doubt if most (or any) of the above points would've been intuitively obvious just from comparing the pre- vs. post-change versions of the article! In any event, now you may have some idea of my reasons (or lack thereof) for the various revisions and will be less inclined to revert them until we've had a chance to discuss them further and reach consensus.

One of the (innumerable) policy guidelines I've read over the past few weeks suggested describing such extensive revisions on the article's talk page. I intend to do that, but it will likely be Monday evening (U.S. Eastern Daylight Saving Time) at the earliest before I manage it. (And it will almost certainly consist mainly of cut-and-paste sections from the above discussion.)

Now, go have (another) nice cuppa and a sit down.  ;) Regards, --Jackftwist (talk) 03:37, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Monetary Policy Committee

The article Monetary Policy Committee you nominated as a good article has been placed on hold . The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needed to be addressed. If these are fixed within seven days, the article will pass, otherwise it will fail. See Talk:Monetary Policy Committee for things which need to be addressed. S Masters (talk) 17:12, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Economics census message

You sent me a message through a bot, asking for support for Wikiproject Economics.

Well, a generic request for support for your Wikiproject is ambiguous. I don't read books or scholarly journals (and I don't use internet sources like the typical Wikipedian, i.e. this) and I don't do lengthy debates anymore. I also don't like messages from bots.

If you have a request or something simple and specific, let me know and I can maybe help out. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 17:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

BTW, could you take a look at Criticisms of Fractional-reserve Banking?

I don't even know where to begin. I did lots of clean-up, but pretty much expect everything I did to be reverted, lol. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 19:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Were the references in the economic profit section helpful? Could you respond? Thanks.

Please do not tell me you don't read scholarly journals any more, nor debate scholarly topics anymore?? What scholar does not do this? This is what publishing in professional journals is predominantly about; and is the reason why Scholarship comes closer to a "true" conception of what the "Reality" actually is. It would not be a Badge of Honor to say you don't do this; but rather an (almost) apology that you have not kept up with the rigor that some others pursue.

More re: "More stuff" (your replies)

Ahem, I intended "on a roll" only in the context of achieving GA status for 2 econ project articles within as many weeks (or was it 3 weeks? whichever...). Just from looking at your user page, the extent of your prolific contributions to WP should be intuitively obvious to even the least astute student. While I'm often a slow learner, and occasionally hopelessly dense, I'm rarely one of the least astute students. Harrumph.

And yes, like you, I chuckled over the reviewer's reference to the PED article. I do like his suggestion to include a bit of historical background on the PPF, though, à la the Marshall reference in PED. But unlike the origins of, e.g., PED and the demand curve, I've never seen a reference anywhere to the first appearance of a PPF diagram per se, or even an obvious precursor. I looked around some yesterday afternoon, both on-line and in the reference sources I have on hand, without much success. A PPF-like concept is implicit in David Ricardo's discussion of comparative advantage (late 1800s) as the basis for international trade, and that seems to be the concept's earliest use, but Ricardo never actually drew any such diagram. Instead, he used simple tables, which BTW assumed constant opportunity costs, i.e., a linear PPF. But now that my curiousity is aroused, I'll try to do some more research on the PPF's origins, but it'll be a relatively low priority, and I doubt I'll find much. That sort of thing generally requires endless hours poring over original sources from the 18th and 19th centuries, many of them not even in English and most of them out of print and difficult to find. Not my cup of tea or my comparative-advantage skill, and I have neither the time nor the access to the necessary sources.

Re: "... people disagree with me, we have a chat, they realise I'm right and we both go away happy (and very rarely enemies)" -- I deal with disagreements the same way, so I'm afraid conflict is inevitable. At least we seem to be mostly d'accord on what WP articles should (and shouldn't) contain. Coincidentally, this was today's "Prickly_City" cartoon (Sunday, April 18): http://comics.com/prickly_city

In closing, a bit of apostasy, perhaps: the PPF reviewer's comments reinforced my reservations about the WP quality review process — i.e, just like the PED review, it consisted only a few (well-taken) comments about style and about points that needed clarification, but nothing substantive about the technical content that reflected any experience or insight into the subject. Certainly a far cry from the (mercilessly detailed and critical) peer reviews I'm accustomed to! The latter is probably expecting too much, of course, but I'm concerned by the lack of tighter quality controls. They wouldn't have been particularly relevant to the PED and PPF articles, which were already in good shape, but there are a lot of really weak econ articles out there that could fairly easily gain undeserved status ratings based on reviews that don't adequately address technical content issues. (Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Mea culpa, mea culpa ... etc.) --Jackftwist (talk) 18:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello, Jarry1250. You have new messages at SMasters's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Your GA nomination of Monetary Policy Committee

The article Monetary Policy Committee you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Monetary Policy Committee for eventual comments about the article. Well done! S Masters (talk) 06:30, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Economics census

Hello there. Sorry to bother you, but you are (titularly at least) a member of WP:WikiProject Economics, as defined by this category. If you don't know me, I'm a Wikipedia administrator, but an unqualified economist. I enjoy writing about economics, but I'm not very good at it, which is why I would like to support in any way I can the strong body of economists here on Wikipedia. I'm only bothering you because you are probably one of them. Together, I'd like us to establish the future direction of WikiProject Economics, but first, we need to know who we've got to help.

Whatever your area of expertise or level of qualification, if you're interested in helping with the WikiProject (even if only as part of a larger commitment to this wonderful online encyclopedia of ours), would you mind adding your signature to this page? It only takes a second. Thank you.

Message delivered on behalf of User:Jarry1250 by LivingBot.

Firstly, thank you for signing the census, and an apology if you are one of those editors who dislike posts such as this one for messaging you again in this way. I've now got myself organised and you can opt-out of any future communication at WP:WikiProject Economics/Newsletter. Just remove your name and you won't be bothered again.

Secondly, and most importantly, I would like to invite your comments on the census talk page about the project as a whole. I've given my own personal opinion on a range of topics, but my babbling is essentially worthless without your thoughts - I can't believe for one moment that everyone agrees with me in the slightest! :)

All your comments are welcomed. Thanks, - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 17:53, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

bot approval

Hi, can you tell me what approval your bot made this edit under? I guess I'll just tell you that I really don't think this is useful, and it is annoying. If I'm signed on for the project, then I'm saying I'm part of the project--what is the point of the bot to ask me if I'm part of the project? 0¹⁸ (talk) 13:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it is problematic that you used a bot for an unapproved purpose to, "save [yourself] pressing AWB's Save button 100 times in succession" I think if you want me to take 3 minutes to read something it should either take you at least 7 seconds to post it or you should have to say so from another person that it is a good idea. An easier way to do the census would have been to go to the talk page of the project and ask if people would like the list renewed, similar to the other projects you mentioned. Or even just posting the text you posted to the talk page (if you don't read it, you are probably not active). 0¹⁸ (talk) 14:56, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I realize that the bot made a tedious job you wanted to do easy. I'm saying that should have made you wonder about the way you were doing the job, not do it with a bot. I pointed out there were ways of doing it that would have been as effective but would not have involved editing tons of user's talk pages (just post a notice on the talk page of the project, no vote necessary). I'm writing to you hoping that you will realize that this was inappropriate and hopefully agree that if you come across a similar situation in the future, that you won't do it again. 0¹⁸ (talk) 16:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I can see your point that you are likely to drum up more interest with comments on people's talk pages. I did loose interest in this project after the focus turned to a person that I have almost zero knowledge of. 0¹⁸ (talk) 17:38, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jarry :). I'm coming here from Wikipedia_talk:Bot_policy#question. I can certainly sympathise with you in that you didn't want to have to do this edits manually (or even semi-automated). However, as a BAG member I'm sure you know that each separate task requires a request for approval, and that using a bot account to do tasks not approved is clearly, without question against bot policy. You cite IAR for your use of the bot for this, however, I don't think that is entirely appropriate. The whole idea of BRfA is, imo, to get more input, ideas, review etc. The bot operator always thinks that their proposed task is a good idea and beneficial to Wikipedia, that doesn't mean that they use IAR, because if they do so, they skip right past the chance for improvements and problems. If you didn't want to go through BRfA, then it would have taken a few seconds to get an approved bot to do this for you (Category:Newsletter delivery bots). Anyway, now that issues have been raised it's no longer appropriate to continue to IAR/BOLD, since another user clearly has a problem; so it's contested whether this is actually improving Wikiepdia. It's not fair for you to say that you know better, and since you have the bot no one can stop you (okay, you didn't say that, but it's implied). Also, BRfA doesn't prevent you from doing the bot task (improving or maintaining), it simply suggests you should have gone about it in a different way. I'd suggest you go through a BRfA for WikiProject messaging. Sorry for the rambling :) - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 16:49, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Ugh, I agree with you that when there's a task like this which is common, and doesn't really get much out of a BRfA except from added bureaucracy, it's a pain to have to waste time with one. However, it keeps the wikilawyers (myself included) content. Personally I don't know why it bothers O18; it takes 30 seconds to read the message and then deny the bot if you're not interested. However, I do think it would be worth having at least some approval before running any bot task. If you want, since this is clearly a common task unlikely to kick up much controversy (*cough cough* aside from its not being approved that is ;D), I can just approve it here or speedy approve at BRfA, which ever suits you? - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 17:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay dokey. In fact, if you do end up looking for a newletter bot, feel free to ask me and I'll fire up KingpinBot. Best, - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 17:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

A Contrary POV

Uh, personally, I greatly appreciated receiving this census notice on my talk page, because that's the most efficient way to assure I see something important. Yes, the Econ Project page is on my watchlist, but even though my list is very short (and selective), the daily logs (or whatever the appropriate WP term is) are so long and so-o-o hard to deciper that I find them pretty useless, especially if I haven't checked the log in a few days, meaning many dozens of log entries to look at. (There's got to be a more user-friendly format for those logs!)

• In stark contrast, I could literally read Jarry1250's post on my talk page much faster than trying to find a notice of a change on the Econ Project page in my watchlist log (assuming I even saw it amid all the other clutter). As a career bureaucrat, I fully understand the need for standard operating procedures, especially for something as powerful as bot use, which could easily be abused and get out of hand. On the other hand, in the WP spirit of "Be Bold," this seems to be one of those classic bureaucratic situations when it's easier to get forgiveness than to get permission! But as a result of this tempest in a teapot, Kingpin13 seems to have proposed an extremely simple but powerful solution that wasn't widely known heretofore. (Thanks, Kingpin!) And in the spirit of Eastertide, Jarry1250 should go forth with a humble and contrite heart, resolved to sin no more. :) --Jackftwist (talk) 20:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

• Chiming in to agree. Obviously this is a task well-suited for a bot. People can post on other people's talk pages even with bots. II | (t - c) 05:57, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Changes to the PED article

Comrades:

1. I hope to make a moderate number of revisions and a slight reorganization of the PED article over the next week or so. I've been intending to do this for a few weeks but just haven't been able to find the time. All the changes are in the "Definition" section, i.e., up through "Arc elasticity."

My renewed impetus for making the changes now comes from the post from Puffcheese on the PED talk page about the apparent anomaly between PED and the TR rule that occurred in what probably was a problem he'd been assigned. I have a tentative fix already drafted to try to head-off that potential confusion in the future, but I haven't yet found a way to make it fit smoothly into the "Definition" section of the article's current structure, which is where I'd strongly prefer to put it.

The topic fits very smoothly into the "Arc elasticity" section, because that's what Puffcheese's problem seems to have really have been about. But I suspect he never got that far in the article; otherwise he wouldn't have had to go to those articles to find what was just 2 sections later in the WP article. Instead, I'm guessing he took the 1st formula he found (i.e., the definition), and looked no further, until he arrived at that strange result.

True enough, he paid the "dumb tax" of having to waste more time looking elsewhere to the solution to his problem, but I believe we should learn from his experience, because he probably won't be the last user/reader to make the same mistake. The best way for us to serve our users is to reduce the chance of that happening again as much as we reasonably can. It's also the soundest thing to do pedagogically in this case.

So I think a bit of reorganization of the article with both help accomplish that noble goal.

2. My plan is to create a subsection under "Definition" that covers some basic properties of the elasticity concept in general, and that particular problem (which stems from the asymmetry of % changes between 2 quantities) in particular. A few of the properties are already covered elsewhere and I'd just relocate them. A few other properties are ones that aren't currently in the article, at least not explicitly, that I've wanted to add.

3. While I'm at this, something else I've been wanting to do is move the partial differential formula for PED out of the "Definition" section into a subsection of its own, possibly in the point elasticity section. After all, that formula really is a point elasticity definition—i.e., it employs derivatives, just like the point-price definition, except they're partial instead of simple derivatives.

In addition, I've also been meaning to mention to you for several weeks: it appears that what Mas-Colell et al. (the source) were doing there was writing a general elasticity formulation that could be either the PED or any cross-elasticity (for related goods, wealth, etc.), depending on which parameter you choose for the subscripts to the E at the beginning of the formula. Currently it reads (sorry, but I couldn't get the LaTeX syntax to work)

E_xl,pk

which, based on the notation described in the preceding paragraph of the article, seems to mean, "the elasticity of demand for good X_L with respect to the price of good K (i.e., p_k), where subscript "small L" can take on any value from 1 to L. Otherwise, why switch subscripts from L to K?

Simlarly, the 1st term on the right-hand side of the = sign seems to say, "the partial derivative of the demand function for good X_L with respect to P_k . (Their notation is really confusing -- they seem to use "good X_L and "good L" interchangeably.)

Another possibility is that a typo has just slipped in somewhere.

In any event, I think we can get the point across just as well, or even better, with much simpler notation. My guess is that their notation was designed to handled a wide variety of applications, and their formula looks natural in the context of the rest of their model. But taken out of that more general context, it's needlessly complicated and cumbersome.

4. This p.m. I revised and expanded the "Arc elasticity" section slightly, partly in preparation for the changes described above. (Again, I've been wanting to make these changes for awhile, anyway.)

5. Finally, would you recommend that I discuss the changes I make on the PED talk page (possibly as a series of separate sections, to make it easier to follow any subsequent discussion)? Or maybe just a summary of the changes? Or maybe nothing at all? Cheers, --Jackftwist (talk) 23:25, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello, Jarry1250. You have new messages at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request.
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re: WikiProject tagging

Hey there Jarry. My bot is approved for WikiProject tagging, and I'd be happy to do some for you. I'm happy to do auto-stub, but I'm not really familiar with inheritance (I understand the concept, just not savvy with getting the bot to do it). If you want inheritance I'd suggest you ask User:Xeno, he has a nice system set up for making new requests. Feel free to ask elsewhere (Category:WikiProject_tagging_bots will be the list you were talking about), otherwise I'll fire my bot up. Sorry for the late reply - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 17:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Your edits to revisions of PED article

Thanks for your edits. You certainly didn't waste any time! What happened to your philosophy of letting me make any changes I wanted to, then outliving me and reverting them all? ;)

BTW, I'm still not finished with the revisions I'd like to make to that section. The changes I made yesterday were just the ones I had time to do, and I wanted give priority to putting in a temporary fix to the ambiguity Puffcheese's question raised a few days ago. As for the specific revisions:

1. Nice catch on the period I put on the caption to Marshall's graph. For some reason, when I looked at the caption, it initally sounded like a complete sentence.

2. Thanks for marking the s, too, although before I looked at the history, I thought they had been added by the bot that had "visited" because there were so many of them! I have the necessary sources, I just ran out of time to put them all in. A lot, maybe even most, of them can just be copied-and-pasted from the sentence(s) where the same point appeared before I moved it around. Yesterday, I was concentrating more on (1) making sure I didn't accidentally leave something out as I was cutting and pasting to move things about, and (2) getting the LaTeX equations to render correctly. I didn't want the additional distraction of reference syntax on top of all that. (Right now, I'm "learning by doing" LaTeX by simply cutting and pasting the syntax for existing equations, then modifying them. It's a bit tedious and requires some trial-and-error, but it takes a lot less time than looking up the required syntax in the user manual and building every equation from scratch!)

In a few cases, I'll probably just "Be bold!" and ignore the tag, e.g.,

• the first sentence (the "topic sentence") of some paragraphs, which simply provides an introduction of what's coming next, and the appropriate citations appear later in the paragraph; and
• transition sentences between paragraphs or sections, where the sentence just briefly explains the connection between the preceding para./section and the following one(s), and provides a smooth link to avoid what might otherwise seem like a jarring (and possibly confusing) shift in topics between 2 paragraphs/sections that, in the absence of any transition, might initially seem unrelated.

The transition sentence between the "Definition" section and the "Point-price" subsection provides an excellent example of both of those cases: "Two alternative elasticity measures avoid or minimise these shortcomings of the basic elasticity formula: point-price elasticity and arc elasticity." The "Point-price" and "Arc" discussions provide all the appropriate references. And stating that there are 2 alternatives doesn't seem to rise to the level of "synthesis" that WP restricts. The WP policy explicitly allows us to do simple arithmentic!  :)

3. I agree that the PED = 0 case was cluttering up that paragraph and risked obscuring the main point, but I added it because it's clearly another case where PED isn't negative. So if we're going to mention Veblen and Giffen goods as exceptions, then it's inconsistent to omit the PED = 0 case, especially since we encounter the latter far more often than either of the other 2. (Recall that there's considerable doubt in the literature that a real-life example of a Giffen good even exists, making that exception even more obscure.)

• IMO it's mentioning the Veblen and Giffen cases that clutters up that paragraph and obscures the main point! As I mentioned in an entry on the PED talk page, various WP articles give far too much prominence to the Veblen and Giffen cases (IMO), at the expense of "typical" goods, i.e., the vast majority of cases for which the Law of Demand holds. (Obviously, though, separate articles treating those types of goods in detail are perfectly legitimate.)
• When I added the PED = 0 case, I actually intended that only as an interim step. What I really think we should do is to take all the exceptions (including PED = 0) out of that 1st paragraph completely, and put them either (a) in a separate paragraph, probably immediately following the discussion of the "typical" case, or (2) in a footnote.
• Bottom line: yes, we definitely want to avoid distractions from the main point. But if we're going to mention any specific exceptions, we should be consistent and include the PED = 0 case.

4. I like the revisions you made to the new paragraph on "own-price" vs. "cross-price" elasticities. I wasn't satisfied with my original sentence, either -- the word "good" gets repeated so many times it sounds ... well, repetitive. I've tweaked your revision a bit more by breaking the last part into a separate, short sentence and altering how the complementary good link renders so that part displays as "a complementary or substitute good." That reduces the appearance of "good" by 1, but the sentence might still need some more work.

BTW, one of the edit summaries said you'd fixed a link, but I couldn't tell which one it was. Was that the one?

5. There's an issue with the position of the "point-price" section that I want to discuss, but it's quite lengthy and I don't have time to do it right now, so I'll cover it separately.

6. A minor point: in the 1st sentence below the definitional equations, '... the relationship between price and quantity demanded, as described by the "law of demand",' I had omitted the , as because it's superfluous -- the sentence reads fine without it; i.e., it's equivalent to saying, "the relationship [that is] described...." But the ", as" isn't a major grammatical faux pas, so I'll let it slide ... for now. But there's a method to my madness, too!  ;)

I probably won't get around to making any further significant edits or explaining these changes on the talk page for a few days because of other commitments. Cheers, --Jackftwist (talk) 17:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Heraldry infobox

What am I trying to achieve? I find your question and insinuations rather odd.

Anywyas, the other infobox is oddly built, and is inadequate to be used on national emblems which are often not a coat of arms nor herldic in nature. The other infobox is employed for these non-heraldic emblems and described under escutcheon, despite no shield being present in them. The whole section of an armiger and torse is unnecesary. One would know the armiger either to be the article's subject or the armiger is listed in the infobox header. There is no reason to have a torse section sicne not every coat of arms has a torse, but often have a crest cornet; it would be better written as mantling, as even arms with a crest coronet have mantling. I have no idea then where one would expect to write the mantling out in the other infobox. [tk] XANDERLIPTAK 17:09, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

The odd build is more to how a coat of arms is broken up by the infobox. The shield is the most important portion, evident by the use of the shield by itself in so many official aspects, so it should really be described first. There is room for a torse, but no room for mantling. Presumably then the mantling would be described in the torse section. Yet, when arms have no torse but a crest coronet, the coronet is always described with the crest, so does the mantling go in the crest section with the coronet or in the torse? If in the torse, then one must mention that the torse is non-existent. Sure, I can pick and choose where what goes, but, as has happened in the past, it gets edited by other editors who insist on using all the sections of the infobox. So, what happens is a mess of close-enoughs and not-quites with the other infobox. Then other editors insist on using that infobox for emblems that are non-heraldic simply because it is there. I wanted to provide an option for state and national emblems, and since I was doing that, also provide a cleaner heraldic option all in one. [tk] XANDERLIPTAK 19:36, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

The problem with the current infobox is too many entries, not that there is not enough. Many editors who are only vaguely familiar with heraldry seem to believe every coat of arms must have every entry filled, thus resulting in mistakes like labeling a crown a crest, a motto scroll as supporter or compartment, purely decorative items as supporters or a compartment and so on. Limiting it to the basics like I had done simplifies it and streamlines it. That, and I also created a generic emblem section to describe national emblems that are not heraldic in nature, which is not permissible with the other infobox. Emblems should not be described as if it were an escutcheon, it falsely describes the device as being heraldic, and heraldry is an Indo-European tradition that should not be pressed upon other nations as if it were the standard. Perhaps I should have merely named it info box emblem so you would feel less encroached upon? [tk] XANDERLIPTAK 19:01, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

WikiCup 2010 April newsletter

Round two is over, and we are down to our final 32. For anyone interested in the final standings (though not arranged by group) this page has been compiled. Congratulations to Hunter Kahn (submissions), our clear overall round winner, and to ThinkBlue (submissions) and Arsenikk (submissions), who were solidly second and third respectively. There were a good number of high scorers this round- competition was certainly tough! Round three begins tomorrow, but anything promoted after the end of round two is eligible for points. 16 contestants (eight pool leaders and eight wildcards) will progress to round four in two months- things are really starting to get competitive. Anything you worry may not receive the necessary attention before the end of the round (such as outstanding GA or FA nominations) is welcome at Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews, and please remember to continue offering reviews yourself where possible. As always, the judges are available to contact via email, IRC or their talk pages, and general discussion about the Cup is welcome on the WikiCup talk page.

Judge iMatthew has retired from Wikipedia, and we wish him the best. The competition has been ticking over well with minimal need for judge intervention, so thank you to everyone making that possible. A special thank you goes to participants Stone (submissions) and White Shadows (submissions) for their help in preparing for round three. Good luck everyone! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn, Fox and The ed17 17:35, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

The "other" elasticity article ...

Just for your possible amusement this weekend -- I ran across the following gem in the "other" elasticity article, "Elasticity (economics)," this p.m.

There are two linear demand curves for which the slope and elasticity are identical.[19] The slope and coefficient of elasticity of a perfectly inelastic demand curve is zero. The slope and coefficient of elasticity for a perfectly inelastic demand curve equal negative infinity. The elasticity is constant along each curve.[19]

I nearly choked on my tea! It's utterly and completely wrong, of course. The slope and elasticity are both constant for those 2 classes of curves, but not identical! The footnotes are to Binger & Hoffman, which I recall as being a pretty good text. I can't imagine they would've made such a sophomoric error (or that no one in the army of grad students they had proofreading the manuscript, and maybe even teaching out of it, didn't catch it). Whoever wrote that section/paragraph in the article must've misread or misinterpreted something.

My first reaction was that slope and elasticity could never be equal, because a component of elasticity is the inverse of the slope. But after a little back-of-the-envelope algebra (literally!), I found that they could be equal under 1 condition, after all: if P = Q×(∆P/∆Q)², or the inverse function for Q. (I think my algebra is correct. I just set the (P/Q)×(∆Q/∆P) form of the PED equation equal to the slope (∆P/∆Q) and solved for P or Q.)

That article has a lot of material in it (maybe too much), but it badly needs some major editing. I wasted way too much time this p.m. editing various parts it, and I didn't even begin to scratch the surface. (You once mentioned that article as an egregious example of how much redundancy there is among many of the articles on demand, supply, and related topics.)

Have a nice weekend. The spring weather here is absolutely splendid. --Jackftwist (talk) 22:28, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Economics Newsletter (Issue I)

Positively Economics The Economics WikiProject Newsletter Issue I (May 2010)
Use the show/hide button to display or hide this newsletter. From the (self-appointed) editor Hello to all the economists who signed up on the census (covered in more detail below) and whom I have boldly signed up for this, the first in hopefully a long line of WikiProject Economics newsletters. The aim is simple: to distribute the project's news and developments in order that every member gets the opportunity to contribute to their fullest. It mirrors the ideals of any WikiProject: to support and assist. In creating this, on a whim, I have picked a name and stolen the layout of the Military History WikiProject's newsletter. If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to leave them on the main newsletter talk page. The non-talk version of that page is also the place to unsubscribe yourself from the newsletter, which, for the moment, I anticipate will be monthly. Enjoy! - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 11:59, 25 April 2010 (UTC) Articles of note New featured articles: Economy of the Han Dynasty New featured lists: None New featured topics: None New good articles: Price elasticity of demand Production-possibility frontier Monetary Policy Committee Confederate war finance Redlinks to be squashed Skysmith has posted an updated list of missing economics topics. Most will need redirecting or new articles written to blueify them, so, if you can lend a hand with the effort, please do. There are some from virtually all areas of economics and hence to suit all tastes. Project news Census completed A big thank you to everyone who signed the census, an attempt to renew the project's membership list. Jarry1250 explained its purpose: "once we know how many active participants we have... we can make sure no interested parties get left out of discussions; ...to get everyone included. Not just to make them feel involved, but also to actively try to make them more involved [in the supportive atmosphere of the WikiProject]". Around forty editors, with a good range of specialisms and interests, have currently signed to show their activity, and it is still open for more. Project-wide discussions commence: A series of discussions have been commenced on the census talkpage about what, if anything, should be done to strengthen the Project. All comments are welcomed on a range of topics: the economic style guide, weight guidelines, notability and the creation of this newsletter. Other discussions, on categorisation, tagging and compiling an accurate list of unreferenced BLPs, are currently active. Your comments are invited in the following other ongoing project discussions: The normative economics of central banking. What article might this fall under? Does one exist already? Does it need a separate article? Inflation. Thoughts invited on the inflation article and how best to word the lead. 2010 European sovereign debt crisis - comments requested.
To start/stop receiving this newsletter, please add/remove your name from the list here. Thank you. This newletter was delivered to you by Jarry1250 at around 10:35, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

"Modelling analysed"

ROFL. I was tempted to undo that edit the day it was made, but when I checked my OED, it said "analyzed" was perfectly acceptable, so I wasn't sure. No doubt about "modelling," though. I'd been intending to drop you a note about it, but something else always seemed to take priority. And I reckoned that you'd get around to it sooner or later if it needed undoing. --Jackftwist (talk) 19:40, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

New messages at User talk:Kingpin13

Hello, Jarry1250. You have new messages at Kingpin13's talk page.
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- Kingpin¹³ (talk) 19:16, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

PED article & possible FA quest

Thanks for catching that typo in the citations. I must've been more focused on the syntax than on the citation itself. (More on that topic in another post, maybe.)

Your proposal re seeking FA status sounds like a Pareto-optimal move, or at least one that employs our Comparative_advantages in this case. (Hmmm ... I had to add "Pareto-optimal move" as an alternative terminology to "Pareto improvement" in that article. At least in the U.S., we use the 2 terms interchangeably, although the former is probably more common.)

And yes, I'd definitely like to hear the podcast you mentioned to see what I'm signing up for. Where can I find it?

I agree, we do have quite a bit of work ahead of us ("a long row to hoe," as we say). The requirement for "a professional standard of writing that is engaging, even brilliant" is a tall order, as it should be. "Professional" I can manage quite easily — I've had lots of practice (although using different style guides from the WP MOS). But "engaging, even brilliant"? Definitely not traits one normally associates with writing in the "dismal science"! (The best-sellers like Freakonomics achieve that by employing an economic or business journalist as a co-author.)

Just for a start, the article needs at least 2 things, IMO:

• Reorganization of a few parts along the lines I described in an earlier post. To prepare for tackling that, I've been surveying a large sample of texts (both my own and some of those available on-line) to see what the "best practices" are. I'm about halfway through that task.
• A thorough copyediting from start to finish. The c/e I've been doing (polishing wording, etc., vs. technical revisions) has been just nibbling around the edges. The changes have usually been "targets of opportunity" I've run across while making a more substantive revision. But the reorganization will affect some of the required c/e, so I don't see much to be gained by doing too much of the latter before finishing the former.

I'd also like to add a short section on the geometric properties of PED. The material is really quite simple and easy to do, but I need to learn how to make a new diagram that's necessary for the explanation. One of the requirements for FA status is that a ' featured article must be comprehensive; a good article must be broad. The "comprehensive" standard requires that no major fact or detail is omitted; the "broad" standard merely requires coverage of the main points' (Wikipedia:Compare_Criteria_Good_v._Featured; emphasis in the original). I'd put the section I propose in the "major ... detail" category.

BTW, re my editing "fried dumplings" in the "Determinants" section: As I hope the edit summary conveyed, the vast majority of American readers wouldn't have any idea what that meant. (If it refers to Chinese food, then I happen to know—I love them.) "Fish and chips" better serves the purpose (and maintains the original British spirit), but I'm not committed to it. If you have a more suitable example, so much the better.

Have a nice weekend. --Jackftwist (talk) 23:14, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Talkback: Nils von Barth WProj Econ

Hello, Jarry1250. You have new messages at Nbarth's talk page.
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FYI: User:Xenobot/R#WP:ECON. As an added bonus, I am timestamping this thread so MiszaBot will eventaully take it away =) –xeno^talk 20:15, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Doug Naysmith

Hi, I reverted your addition of Doug Naysmith to the category Category:UK MPs 2010- as in fact Naysmith stood down at the 2010 election as even a cusrory glance at the article shows. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 15:30, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Zafferano

The article Zafferano has been proposed for deletion. The proposed-deletion notice added to the article should explain why.

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{dated prod}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Chocolate4921 18:13, 9 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chocolate4921 (talk • contribs)

Articles for deletion nomination of Zafferano

I have nominated Zafferano, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zafferano. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Aiken ♫ 18:23, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Greetings from a new WPEc member

Thank you Jarry for your efforts! To be honest I have just read the message you prepared for me about this. I have signed up today, if only a bit late! Cheers, Pallida  Mors 04:54, 11 May 2010 (UTC).

Reversion of 10 May change to PPF article

I agree that change needed to be reverted, but for different reasons from the one given in the edit summary. Among other things (and aside from the revision's obvious need for some c/e itself), the revision should have followed the 1st sentence in that section, not preceded it. But the revision did raise a couple of points that the section doesn't currently emphasize or cover adequately.

What that section really needs is some reorganization and a bit of additional discussion of the technical assumptions underlying the PPF. Before discussing a movement from one point to another on the curve, all the assumptions behind any given point should be explained thoroughly. Only after that's done can the full meaning of a movement from one point to another be adequately understood. Currently, some of those key assumptions are spread over the rest of the section. (Viz., the 1st sentences of each of the last two paragraphs in the section need to immediately follow the section's lead sentence, with appropriate revision to make them flow smoothly.) The Productive_efficiency article that the final paragraph and the lead link to isn't very good, but its 2nd paragraph starts to get at one of the key points this section needs to cover.

I had been working on revisions to a few sections of the PPF article, including that one, but my attention got diverted to the PED article's nomination for GA status ... and now the quest for FA. Maybe in a few months, I'll have some time to get back to the PPF revisions. As someone once told me, "We have all day, after all." -) BTW, I'll be disappearing shortly for a lengthy absence, while I'm working on another project (not WP-related) and then on extended holiday. --Jackftwist (talk) 20:56, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

DYK for D'Arcy Power

The DYK project (nominate) 12:02, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Vandalism to PPF article

The PPF article seems to be becoming a popular target for vandalism -- twice in the last week? How odd. --Jackftwist (talk) 16:36, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

From vandalism to extensive revisions

Well, I didn't exactly say "a lot," now did I? But I can see how my figurative hyperbole could lend itself to that more literal interpretation. Yes, it is WP, so vandalism goes with the territory, unfortunately. I was just surprised by 2 aspects: 1st, in the previous 6-7 weeks I've been watching articles, I hadn't seen any instances of vandalism; now, suddenly, 2 episodes within a week on the same article. 2nd, the PPF article seems like such an obscure topic that I thought it an odd target, although I suppose much of the vandalism is random. (Even so, how does one randomly stumble upon that particular article?) At least the last vandal immediately deleted his own work; perhaps he'd intended to hit another article instead.)

I'm still working on my detailed review of how various texts cover PED, but I didn't get much done this week because of other responsibilities. I've also been playing around a bit with Inkscape. (I've always had a comparative disadvantage with graphics software, e.g., PowerPoint, and Inkscape is no different!) In the course of time, I'll begin work on some revisions to the PED article, with the goal of seeking FA status.

• My current plan is to do the revisions on one of my user subpages and to let you, Radek, and perhaps a few others comment on it there, rather than potentially disrupting the existing version unnecessarily. Once we're satisfied with the revisions, I'll copy them into the "public" version by whatever method you think is best (i.e., simple, brute-force cut-and-paste vs. some more sophisticated WP software magic).
• I didn't understand your earlier warning about the problems caused by doing extensive copyediting or revisions before a major reorganization. Could you clarify that for me when you get a chance? (No rush -- I realize you're busy with other pursuits, as am I, and it'll be at least several weeks before I start pillaging and plundering.) One of the billion or so WP articles or essays I read on editing help, policy, guidance, etc., recommended doing it in the order you warn against, because it allegedly simplifies any necessary reversions. I think I partly understand that rationale, although not completely.

I hope your revising is going well. BTW, that's an interesting idiom; I'd never heard it before. We don't have even a remote counterpart, as far as I know -- just the mundane old "studying" (and "home study," I suppose). (If one has left preparation until the last minute, we do call it "cramming," though.) In any event, bon chance. --Jackftwist (talk) 17:56, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

AfD nomination of D. W. MacKenzie

An article that you have been involved in editing, D. W. MacKenzie, has been listed for deletion. If you are interested in the deletion discussion, please participate by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/D. W. MacKenzie. Thank you.

Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:25, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Image checker tool

I found your "Image Existance Checker" very useful for sorting out articles. Currently there is a clean up of pages that list image requests. Would it be too much trouble to ask if you could write a tool to check pages on a page similar to the tool that checks talk pages in a category? Would like to use on pages such as Wikipedia:Requested pictures/People and Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Articles without images/Birds. --Traveler100 (talk) 17:20, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Great. Thanks for the very fast response. --Traveler100 (talk) 12:21, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

WikiCup 2010 May newsletter

We are half way through round 3, with a little under a month to go. The current overall leader is Sasata (submissions), who has 570 points. He leads pool C. Pools A, B and D are led by Hunter Kahn (submissions), Sturmvogel_66 (submissions) and White Shadows (submissions) respectively. Anything you worry may not receive the necessary attention before the end of the round (such as outstanding GA or FA nominations) is welcome at Wikipedia:WikiCup/Reviews, and please remember to continue offering reviews yourself where possible. As always, the judges are available to contact via email, IRC or their talk pages, and general discussion about the Cup is welcome on the WikiCup talk page.

Two of last year's final 8, Theleftorium (submissions) and Scorpion0422 (submissions), have dropped out of the competition, saying they would rather their place went to someone who will have more time on their hands than them next round. On a related note, a special thank you goes to White Shadows (submissions) for his help behind the scenes once again. There is currently a problem with the poster, perhaps caused by the new skin- take a look at this discussion and see if you can help. The competition has continued to tick over well with minimal need for judge intervention, so thank you to everyone making that possible. Good luck to all! If you wish to start receiving or stop receiving this newsletter, please feel free to add or remove yourself from Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send. J Milburn, Fox and The ed17 20:50, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Economics Newsletter (Issue II)

Positively Economics The Economics WikiProject Newsletter Issue II (June 2010)
Use the show/hide button to display or hide this newsletter. From the editor Sticking to my promise of sending these out monthly, it's time for the June edition of Positively Economics, covering the events of May, which has passed relatively quietly for the project. Nevertheless, Wikipedia is a wiki, and things can change quickly and often without much notice. All contributions can be, and often are, important, regardless of how trivial they may seem. I, for example, have been working on our new list of unsourced BLPs, having added a significant number of economists to the project earlier in the month. But more on that in the newsletter itself. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 14:28, 27 May 2010 (UTC) Articles of note Note: this week's "new" FAs, and so forth, are ones that previously weren't included in the project but now are. New featured articles: Akhtar Hameed Khan New featured lists: None New featured topics: None New good articles: Abram Lincoln Harris George Lee (journalist) Stephen Harper Yulia Tymoshenko Redlinks to be squashed Skysmith has posted an updated list of missing economics topics. Most will need redirecting or new articles written to blueify them, so, if you can lend a hand with the effort, please do. There are some from virtually all areas of economics and hence to suit all tastes. Project news Unassessed articles: A whole swath of articles have been added to the WikiProject recently, mainly on notable economists. They are yet to be assessed on their talk pages; this also provides a good opportunity to check and improve some of our least monitored articles. Unsourced BLPs: Before the articles about economists were added, the project had very few unsourced biographies of living people; now there are a little over a hundred. If we can clear them, however, then there are likely to be any more. Again, they represent some of our least cared-for articles, and often prevent good targets for cleaning up. Your comments are invited in the following other ongoing project discussions and requests for help: Too big to fail Slowflation Jobless recovery Small Business Lending Index
To start/stop receiving this newsletter, please add/remove your name from the list here. Thank you.

This newletter was delivered to you by Jarry1250 at around 15:35, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Good article/doc

Template:Good article/doc has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Feinoha ^{Talk, My master} 14:40, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 31 May 2010

• Photography: Making money with free photos

• News and notes: Wikimedians at Maker Faire, brief news

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Zoo

• Features and admins: Approved this week

• Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 22:04, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Technology Report

It's great to see the Technology Report revived :) How much more do you plan to add? I had intended to publish in a few hours (after the remaining story at News and notes has been completed). Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:33, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, I will publish what we already have; I think that any missing items can also go into next week's edition (there are probably quite a few things from recent weeks to be caught up upon anyway).

Your remark about Brion is interesting (also in the light of this story). An interview with Danese Cooper has been on the Signpost's to-do list for a while.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:02, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I think your addition should be fine, the Technology Report can afford some amount of "soft news" (i.e. interesting discussions which have attracted considerable attention but haven't actually led to code or configuration changes yet).

And don't worry, I won't quote ;) The above was just meant as advertising for such an interview project. I agree with your last remarks about Danese. Regards, HaeB (talk) 11:43, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 7 June 2010

• From the team: Changes to the Signpost

• News and notes: "Pending changes" trial, Chief hires, British Museum prizes, Interwiki debate, and more

• In the news: Cancer coverage, cognitive surplus, Wikipedia monarchy, and more

• Free Travel-Shirts: "Free Travel-Shirts" signed by Jimmy Wales and others purchasable

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Comedy

• Features and admins: Approved this week

• Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation

• Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 11:45, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

User account expired

Cannot get your checker tools to work. Is there some temporary systems problem or as your account really expired on tool server?--Traveler100 (talk) 11:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

+1 –xeno^talk 13:51, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

...and there was much rejoicing. –xeno^talk 02:35, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Help page

Jarry, you just edited; but have you seen my possibly mangled proposal for simplifying those middle sections, here? Tony (talk) 16:50, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Ta. I'll wait. I'm the acid test, coz I'm thick about computers and such processes. I'm rather demanding about explanatory text—my insecurity ... Tony (talk) 17:06, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Grab some glory, and a barnstar

Hi, I'd like to invite you to participate in the Guild of Copy Editors July 2010 Backlog Elimination Drive. In May, about 30 editors helped remove the {{copyedit}} tag from 1175 articles. The backlog is still over 7500 articles, and extends back to the beginning of 2008! We really need your help to reduce it. Copyediting just a couple articles can qualify you for a barnstar. Serious copyeditors can win prestigious and exclusive rewards. See the event page for more information. And thanks for your consideration. mono^{pending changes begin june 15} 17:45, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Why am I getting this message? Mono's delivery method is random, so you probably showed up somewhere Mono went. :)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A Knight in the Congo (2nd nomination)

Howdy, I have re-opened an AfD which you had commented on in 2009. I had closed it on the basis of what turned out to be an erroneous copyright violation. As a consequence, I have re-listed the AfD. My apologies. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. --TeaDrinker (talk) 03:16, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Help

Hi Jarry1250,

You were very helpful a year ago when I first started contributing to wikipedia and I can't think of who else to speak to about this. I've created a lot of coats of arms over the past year and have been generally very happy with the experience. However, lately I've run into more difficulties. Twice now files of mine have been put up for deletion. (I don't know how the first one has been resolved, if indeed it has yet.) The arguments put forward to remove the files are not at all consistent with the rules of heraldry or as far as I can see, with the rules of wikipedia. I'm quite sure I'm not breaking any rules, but I guess I should check before digging my heels in any further. I'd love to find a way to communicate with other wiki editors who have a particular interest in heraldry, perhaps they'd be able to help. It's very frustrating to work hard on something and then to have someone who doesn't understand the principles behind it merely dismiss it out of hand. Any thoughts or assistance would be much appreciated. The two instances that have prompted this posting can be found at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:James_Cook#New_full-width_infobox

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ann_Meekitjuk_Hanson_Arms.svg

Many thanks! A1 Aardvark (talk) 13:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for weighing into the matter. All your comments are quite reasonable. Is there a way on wikipedia to contact (or post messages for) people particularly interested in heraldry? It would be good to speak with someone who knows the ins and outs of how heraldry fits into wikipedia's rules. For example, I know that my rendering of Hanson's arms aren't really the highest quality, but they are accurate and the only image available at the moment. It would be nice to have some definitive statements which I could utilise to refute people who argue that any of my arms are not "official". (As though only the original artist's interpretation is acceptable.) That is, as far as I understand, a complete misunderstanding of the principles of heraldry.

How will I know when a decision has been reached on these deletion processes? (I do hate having these hanging over my head.) Do you feel I haven't said enough re: Hanson? Or Cook? I'm really not sure what more I could say. Sorry to badger you! Thanks. A1 Aardvark (talk) 14:32, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The Hanson Arms has had a deletion request up since April 5. How will I know when the request is closed and the tag can be removed? Thanks for the page of contacts. I've put a post up there. Your help is much appreciated. I've enjoyed my time on here a lot. I'm not interested in the politics of the place, or in credit or kudos, or in debating things with people. I am happy producing the arms and releasing them into the wild, so to speak. A1 Aardvark (talk) 15:17, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Signpost: 14 June 2010

• News and notes: Pending changes goes live, first state-funded Wikipedia project concludes, brief news

• In the news: Hoaxes in France and at university, Wikipedia used in Indian court, Is Wikipedia a cult?, and more

• WikiProject report: WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors

• Features and admins: Approved this week

• Arbitration report: The Report on Lengthy Litigation

• Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Read this Signpost in full · Single-page · Unsubscribe · EdwardsBot (talk) 20:38, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Peachy CodeReview

Hi there,

Thanks for all you've done for Peachy so far. For the most part, your commits are looking good. However, it would be great if you were to create an account on the info wiki. This way, you can link your email address to CodeReview, allowing you to see others' comments on your commits, fixmes, etc. and would increase collaboration in the project. Could you please do so? (X! · talk)  · @993  ·  22:49, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

DYK for 1971 Iraq poison grain disaster

— Rlevse • Talk • 00:02, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to the team!

Glad to see you at the Signpost! I wanted to welcome you aboard and thank you for contributing. Good luck! —mono 21:56, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

"bureocrats"?

Well, I guess he put me in my place (bureocrats)! Still, I'm surprised it took 2 months for someone to be incensed enough to respond to my provocative snarkiness. But "bureocrats"? It makes one want to weep.

Are you still revising? I've been tied up with other commitments lately, and will continue to be for at least the next several weeks, so my progress on the PED article has been slow. Cheers, --Jackftwist (talk) 21:46, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

subst

Re this edit, why not use the new safesubst magic word? Instead of {{{subst|}}} (and then having to pass |subst=subst: to the template), use either <includeonly>safesubst:</includeonly> or {{{|safesubst:}}} and it'll happen automatically when the template is substed and still work as normal when the template is not substed. Anomie⚔ 02:10, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of West Stoke House

A tag has been placed on West Stoke House, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia for multiple reasons. Please visit the article for details.

You may wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles. See the Article Wizard.

Thank you.

Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not meet basic Wikipedia criteria may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as an appropriate article, and if you can indicate why the subject of this article is appropriate, you may contest the tagging. To do this, add {{hangon}} on the top of the page and leave a note on the article's talk page explaining your position. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would confirm its subject's notability under the guidelines.

For guidelines on specific types of articles, you may want to check out our criteria for biographies, for web sites, for bands, or for companies. Feel free to leave a note on my talk page if you have any questions about this. Codf1977 (talk) 17:49, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Tech report

Thanks for picking this up! As a suggestion, do you intend to resume bot promotion summaries here? This is what I'm talking about. If you need help, maybe you could ask Josh Parris for some. Also, you may wish to resume the style used a while back (see here for an example), where you list the software version number the site is running at publication and a notation of what revision the changes you discuss are. That way, readers will know if a particular change is live. Note: not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing, and some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks, while useful to inform readers that a change might not be live, is nebulous and adding definite numbers might help. Just some thoughts. ÷seresin 02:25, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on the Technology Report for The Signpost! It is most appreciated. Kaldari (talk) 01:28, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jarry1250, thanks for the good work recently, and:

• As some of the other sections are still not ready for publication, there is time to update the tech report with some information about the recent outage, e.g. starting from [1]. Would you like to have a go at it? Maybe also mention press coverage a bit (4chan did it!, [2],..), or we put that into "In the news".
• I am going to add something about the USENIX award for MediaWiki to "News and notes" in a moment, but I don't have strong opinions on what the best section for that story is, feel free to move it to the Tech report.
• Any news from Danese?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:13, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject Economics Newsletter (Issue III)

Positively Economics The Economics WikiProject Newsletter Issue III (July 2010)
Use the show/hide button to display or hide this newsletter. From the editor Sticking to my promise of sending these out monthly, it's time for the July edition of Positively Economics, covering the events of June. It's been another constructive month for the project. Wikipedia remains, as ever, a very popular source of information about basic economic theory, as well as for biography and more specialised topics, and we shouldn't forget that contributions to these core articles remains our greatest strength. Onwards and upwards, as they say, for another month. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 14:28, 27 May 2010 (UTC) Articles of note New featured articles: None New featured lists: None New featured topics: None New good articles: Brander–Spencer model Redlinks to be squashed Skysmith has posted an updated list of missing economics topics. Most will need redirecting or new articles written to blueify them, so, if you can lend a hand with the effort, please do. There are some from virtually all areas of economics and hence to suit all tastes. Project news Unassessed articles: A whole swath of articles have been added to the WikiProject recently, mainly on notable economists. They are yet to be assessed on their talk pages; this also provides a good opportunity to check and improve some of our least monitored articles. Unsourced BLPs: Before the articles about economists were added, the project had very few unsourced biographies of living people; now there are a little over a hundred. If we can clear them, however, then it is unlikely that there will be many more. Again, they represent some of our least cared-for articles, and often present good targets for cleaning up. Your comments are invited in the following other ongoing project discussions and requests for help: Featherbedding Herbert Hoover Intelligence-related citations
To start/stop receiving this newsletter, please add/remove your name from the list here. Thank you. This newletter was delivered to you by User:Jarry1250 at around 19:44, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Request to amend prior case: Date delinking

I've posted a 'Request to amend prior case: Date delinking' at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment#Request_to_amend_prior_case:_Date_delinking. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 22:13, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jarry, just in case you weren't aware, the ArbCom would like a statement from you regarding the scope of Lightmouse's trial and how you will monitor it. Cheers, Dabomb87 (talk) 15:44, 12 July 2010 (UTC)