Talk:Throffer/Archives/2013

Origen
When? -Freekee (talk) 01:03, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

"Political philosophy"?
Is "political philosophy" really the right field? This seems more like tactics than philosophy. In political philosophy, one asks what are the criteria for determining whether authority is morally legitimate, whether citizens have rights that the government is bound to respect, whether there ought to be such a thing as government, etc. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:19, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Political philosophy is a broad field. The questions you list are certainly legitimate subjects in political philosophy, but they aren't the whole of it. You might say "ethics" more broadly, but the concept was created by, and is primarily used by, political philosophers. When academics from other disciplines use the term, they will often say something like "borrowing a term from political philosophy...". J Milburn (talk) 16:15, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

silver or lead
I think the concept of silver or lead offers should make an appearance here. Plenty of nice sources: de Bivort 01:28, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-7223343.html
 * http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/31/100531fa_fact_finnegan
 * http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2010/sep/22/cover/
 * I haven't the time to look into this right now, sorry, but thanks for the suggestion. Without sources linking the two concepts, though (if the sources you're citing do, then sorry!) I think it'd constitute original research. J Milburn (talk) 16:19, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Dashes and semi-colons

 * Kill this man and receive £100-fail to kill him and I'll kill you.[2]
 * Kill this man and receive £100; fail to kill him and I'll kill you.[2]

A dash is put into a sentence to set something apart, or explain something, in a sentence where brackets would be not be appropriate. Visually, it emphasise the bit set between dashes. The semi-colon has been the most misused punctuation on Wkipedia, but the dash is fast taking over.

A semi colon joins balanced or contradictory statements e.g. "I like coffee; he likes tea." The current sentence is an absolutely classic example of the right way to use a semi-colon. I will paste this sentence into the article Semi-colon.

Amandajm (talk) 02:33, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * It was a direct quote- I originally just copied the punctuation used in the original article. I've no strong feelings either way, to be honest. J Milburn (talk) 16:17, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

A new record
Is it just me, or did two people in the world decide to use a made-up word, and did an entire page of description about this word then become a "Good Article" and become featured on the front page just a few months after the article was created? Is that a record?68.144.172.8 (talk) 04:01, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Is it just me, or did one person in the world decide to use a recycled word, that of relativity? Get over it. Finally, someone found a term to describe that which as coexisted with human culture since humans diverged from Chimpanzees. So, no, it is far from being a record. Every word was first coined by one human, then gradually accepted. You just have problems with the concept.Wzrd1 (talk) 04:06, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I have to agree with the anonymous poster. The idea that this is a novel idea or worthy of a new word is a bit silly. A threat is a threat even when you attach sugar to it. The so-called "norm" that is referenced in the article doesn't exist once a threat is made. Conditions change as soon as the offer or threat is introduced and no amount of academic/mental gymnastics make it less so. So "norm" is not a static condition, but one that simply changes based on whatever is or has happened. Using the article's example of "your money or your life", someone is performing a 'taking' without your consent. Suppose instead the robber said, "Give me all your money and I'll see that you are added to Bill Gate's Last Will and Testament as the sole heir, or I will kill you if you don't agree." If we can believe the robber, most everyone might take advantage of this strange occurrence and hand over all their money. Suppose among my money is my lucky two-dollar bill, and I decide that I cannot part with it, so I am summarily killed. Our friend Hillel Steiner would say his silly word, "throffer", but if you are being forced to part with something you hold dear, even by his standard, this is still and always just a "threat". The only time his "throffer" word might apply is if you don't attach much importance to the item being threatened, and if that is the case, then you really don't have a threat, do you? The idea that flights-of-fancy become Good Articles and that Wikipedia should promote it in such a light is detrimental to the distinguished nature of the encyclopedia. Better to have an "odd news" or "interesting trivia" classification for stuff like this. -- Avanu (talk) 07:20, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Ever hear of conscripts? A throffer is made, serve and get paid *and* "glory of serving one's country" or being imprisoned or executed. That is as old as humanity, but we've never had a term to describe it.Wzrd1 (talk) 15:13, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, that's the strength of wikipedia in that it often has professional standard articles on often obscure or offbeat topics and to have such a great article on this demonstrates our strengths.♦ Dr. Blofeld  15:52, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Not the first time the day's FA's right to exist has been questioned ...
I always love it when the Main Page FA gets attacked vocally on its talk page by people offended by the very existence of the article's subject (often one whose existence they would not have been aware of were it not for the article), regardless of the article's actual merits. Perhaps we need to write some sort of cute mainspace essay with a catchy shortcut for this phenomenon because it's happened before at least twice that I can think of, most notably with KaDee Strickland (just read the first half of the talk page) and one I was personally involved with, New York State Route 32. So, page creators and FA nominators, take heart. You're not alone. Daniel Case (talk) 23:22, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The article is being attacked because it isn't much good. I would not have been surprised to see the article at AFD where it might equally have been put per WP:NOT.  See Articles for deletion/Spotting (weight training) for a fresh example of what I mean.  That article still needs work but it's a better topic than we have here. Warden (talk) 00:13, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
 * You are equating "can't be much good" with "isn't much good." I don't think you can call it "an extended dictionary definition" when it has one section discussing the usage, including some of the very same critiques you and your—I suppose colleagues is what you could call them, yes that's it—and cites a number of scholarly papers discussing the concept. The spotting AFD nomination comes perilously close to WP:POINT. Perhaps if you don't want to see such unworthy subjects dignified with the same kind of attention that someone should probably give to, say, academic achievement, which we'd all be proud to see become featured, then you should go hang around FAC, where it seems this article was extensively critiqued in order to get the gold star. I'm sure we'd all be better served. If it can be found notable, it can potentially be the subject of a featured article. Daniel Case (talk) 02:52, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't forget Fanny Imlay, which was nominated for deletion the day it went on the main page last year. Bob Amnertiopsis ∴ChatMe! 01:04, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

A better understanding of this concept
Or, to me, how it differs from the usual understanding of incentives and disincentives as understood by the term carrot and stick (and why this merits a separate article):

Usually when people talk about carrots and sticks, the implication is that there's a middle ground of at least minimally desired response that is neither rewarded nor punished. For example, in any endeavor where workers are given a quota to fulfill:


 * If you make the quota, that's what the employer wants.
 * If you overfulfill it by a certain margin, you get a bonus.
 * If you don't make the quota, you get put on probation.

This is most readily exemplified by the "rank and yank" employee-evaluation system as pioneered at GE.

A pure throffer, OTOH, would be Alec Baldwin's now-famous Glengarry Glen Ross speech: "First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired." It is either made when the recipient can only choose from two courses of action, or by eliminating the possibility of a middle ground.

I suppose if we wanted to talk about this in terms of carrots and sticks, we could, but that article would have to be expanded a lot more ... Daniel Case (talk) 04:13, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

What to do
There seems to be a lot of debate above me in regards to whether or not this is even a thing. It does smack of WP:NEO, and both Google Books and Google Scholar kick up a bunch of false positives that do not actually have "throffer" anywhere in the text. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 07:50, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
 * This is utterly ridiculous. Of course this is a "thing". Every source I cite uses the term throffer (excepting, of course, those I cite explicitly because they do not use the term), and some discuss it at length. Many of these pieces of work are by scholars at the top of their field. J Milburn (talk) 15:13, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Other encyclopedias
I thought it may be worth pointing out that at least two other encyclopedias cover throffers. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy mentions them in passing, but, like Wikipedia, it's something of a work-in-progress anyway. Despite that, it remains one of the most trusted and up-to-date general purpose philosophy references. The Encyclopedia of Power, edited by Keith Dowding (a well-known and respected political scientist) and published by Sage Publications (a highly respected academic press), has an entire article on throffers, though it doesn't do much beyond summarising Steiner's account (I'd be interested to see whether this work covers "carrot and stick" separately, but I do not have immediate access to it). No, Google Searches may not throw up, but one is hardly "researching" if their research starts and ends with a Google Search. J Milburn (talk) 15:46, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Silly picture
As I stated on the Main Page edit report, the main picture on this article is ridiculous and fails to illustrate this concept. I don't truly think that you can illustrate this concept, but this picture totally fails to do so. We need to remove this picture. --Khajidha (talk) 10:18, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I fully agree. Apart from being silly (people don't kill with swiss pocket knives), the picture is misleading because both knives point in the same direction, i.e. both are threatening the receiver. If at all, the knife in the hand with the money should be closed but that might make the picture even more confusing. The photo should indeed be removed. --Bernardoni (talk) 14:17, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * If anyone cares, I also think this image is silly 192.91.173.36 (talk) 18:45, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, but people like pictures. Here is a recent request for one at 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + … Thincat (talk) 20:15, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't deny that people like pictures. However, that's no reason to use stuff like this which is (to repeat myself) a) silly and b) misleading. An illustration should help the reader to understand the article. This one only serves to confuse him. --Bernardoni (talk) 23:36, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I've removed the picture, which was never anything to do with me. Ideally, I'd like a picture of Professor Steiner, but, frankly, it's not the kind of topic which urgently needs to be illustrated. J Milburn (talk) 15:32, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you. --Bernardoni (talk) 18:29, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Merge with Extortion
This so-called Good Article is really just a variant on extortion, and should be an item of minor note within that article, if it exists at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion

-- Avanu (talk) 10:37, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * This "so-called" article also had a great deal of work and reviewing going into it which has made it a featured article and throffer as a term has more than enough significant coverage to wager an article. There is little more irritating than wiki nobodies who contribute less than 500 edits a year turning up and moaning about FAs and GAs.♦ Dr. Blofeld  15:48, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you Dr.; Evanu, if you feel that throffers are no different from extortion, you may wish to follow up the references cited in this article, where the term is discussed at length by distinguished political philosophers, as well as academics from other disciplines. You don't have to like the term (I have noted some criticism of the term in the article itself), but you cannot in good faith deny that it exists. J Milburn (talk) 16:11, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * J Milburn, thanks for at least addressing my points. To Dr. Blofeld, perhaps you need to address the idea that not everyone in the world has scads of time to devote to this online encyclopedia, and while your work should be commended, your attitude toward personal attacks could certainly use some 'peer review'. By the way, simply committing a great deal of time to such an article doesn't mean it still doesn't need to be merged with 'extortion'. This word is not in common use, and this feature on the front page seems more like an effort to make Wikipedia seem edgy or give 'throffer' more mileage. While the first is certainly a worthwhile goal, I don't see the category of 'featured' being appropriate, like I said before, something more like 'unusual', 'oddball', or 'weird news' seems like a more appropriate category. -- Avanu (talk) 18:34, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * You're welcome to try adding the article to WP:ODD, but I don't think it would be kept there for long. There are far weirder FAs than this one; Gropecunt Lane and Exploding whale spring to mind. This is just a little curiosity from the academic literature in political philosophy; certainly the kind of thing that could be (and, no doubt, is) discussed in undergraduate philosophy/political theory seminars, or written about in university-level essays/papers. I remember it's something I discussed with one of my tutors while I was doing my MA. If that's not worthy of encyclopedic coverage, I don't know what is. J Milburn (talk) 10:21, 24 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The article tells us in the lead that the term throffer has not been well-accepted. Just one of the sources uses the word throffer in its title.  The word coercion appears far more frequently in the source titles and coercive offer seems more common.  Per WP:COMMONNAME, the title should be changed to reflect the more common usage. Warden (talk) 18:42, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Coercion, throffers and coercive offers are all completely separate concepts. The lecherous millionaire is perhaps an example of a coercive offer, but may well not be a throffer. "Coercion" is far broader, and includes plenty of things that are neither coercive offers nor throffers; for example, threats. I am aware of no more common name for the phenomenon documented in this article than throffer; Rhodes uses mixed proposal, but this could equally apply to other kinds of mixed proposal. J Milburn (talk) 10:10, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Carrot and Stick
Should throffer be merged into carrot and stick? Warden (talk) 08:52, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Assuming the article is not just a prank, the entire thing can be condensed down to "Throffer: see Carrot and Stick." -- [Macossay, 23 Sept 2013] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.137.134.50 (talk) 12:56, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * This is not a prank. You may want to take a look at some of the cited sources, where the term is discussed by reputed political philosophers as well as academics from other disciplines. J Milburn (talk) 16:12, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Just because noted individuals have used the word does not mean that the word is actually needed. Coercion, "carrot and stick" and other terms overlap with this. --Khajidha (talk) 17:21, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * You are certainly allowed to think that the term isn't needed, but that is no argument against the existence of the article. I think you are wrong, and the article already explains the relationship to the concept of coercion. It's not our job to judge. J Milburn (talk) 18:27, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The title throffer is a neologism — the word does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary. Per WP:NEO, "It can be tempting to employ a neologism in such a case. Instead, it is preferable to use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English if possible".  Carrot and stick does indeed seem better. Warden (talk) 18:33, 23 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The way this article presents it, throffer is clearly a more aggressive term than Carrot and Stick conveys. Coercion is a very good analogy for the concept being described in the article, actually better in some ways than my suggestion of extortion above. This invention of a word reminds me of something Douglas Adams wrote in 'So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish' where a scientist is discussing a man called the "Rain God":


 * "If we find something we can't understand we like to call it something you can't understand, or indeed pronounce. I mean if we just let you go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests that you know something we don't, and I'm afraid we couldn't have that. No, first we have to call it something which says it's ours, not yours, then we set about finding some way of proving it's not what you said it is, but something we say it is. And if it turns out that you're right, you'll still be wrong, because we will simply call him a... er, 'Supernormal' -- not paranormal or supernatural because you think you know what those mean no, no, a 'Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer'. We'll probably want to shove a 'Quasi' in there somewhere to protect ourselves. Rain God! Huh, never heard such nonsense in my life."


 * People have understood "throffer" just fine for thousands of years, using words and terms like coercion, extortion, compel, "carrot and stick", in short, "throffer" erects an artificial barrier between so-called experts and laypeople who already understand this concept without needing to "own" the tools of language. -- Avanu (talk) 18:52, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see how this is "more aggressive" than carrot and stick. Carrot and stick just states that there are a reward and a punishment being used together, the nature of those things is irrelevant. The "carrot" could be a candy bar, a billion dollars or a chance to see your mother before she dies. The "stick" could be confiscation of your MP3 player, a lashing or beheading. All that is required for "carrot and stick" is that you are offered one positive and one negative incentive. --Khajidha (talk) 19:43, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone here have a single academic source that links throffer to carrot and stick, or is this all just hot air? Sure, I get it, you don't like it that academics invent and use term you haven't heard of. That doesn't mean you get to ignore our policies against original research. That said, if you're so hostile to academia, I do have to wonder what you're doing pretending to edit an encyclopedia, but there you go... J Milburn (talk) 10:16, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I'm willing to believe that throffer is a word used by academicians. It's just that, beyond showing that throffer means carrot-and-stick, the article seems to be all padding and fluff. Indeed, it's so inane that I really did suspect someone was trying to sneak a Sokal type parody into Wikipedia. [Macossay, 24 Sept 2013 10:49am CST] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.137.134.50 (talk) 15:49, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

If you search google scholar, the scores are:
 * 16800 for "carrot and stick"
 * 428 for "coercive offer"
 * 102 for throffer

The papers for "carrot and stick" have titles like:
 * The carrot or the stick: Rewards, punishments, and cooperation
 * Pure coercion vs. carrot-and-stick offers in crisis bargaining
 * The carrot and the stick (in Public Choice)
 * Carrot And Stick: How Re‐Employment Bonuses And Benefit Sanctions Affect Exit Rates From Welfare
 * The effectiveness of the carrot and the stick in increasing dyadic outcomes during duopolistic bargaining

Per WP:JARGON, "Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader, when more common alternatives will do."  A merger with carrot and stick is indicated. Warden (talk) 16:52, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
 * As I said to you above, a coercive offer (which may or may not exist- I could cite plenty of papers arguing back and forth, some of which are cited in this article) is different from a throffer. Even those who conflate the two would describe a throffer as an example of a coercive offer; I mention this in the article. Nobody who has any idea what they are talking about would consider them the same thing. J Milburn (talk) 15:36, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

The picture of "if you kill this guy, I'll give you seven bucks" makes it very difficult to take this page at all seriously. --Khajidha (talk) 17:53, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Oppose any merger: these are separate terms and should have separate articles – unless anyone can come up with a reliable source that says they are one and the same. WP:JARGON is about technical language and technical articles, and is meaningless here (and anyway, it says to "Minimize jargon, or at least explain it": this article is the explanation of it). There are enough good, and very solid academic sources which discuss "throffer" in its own right, without making the connection to carrot and stick. (On the separate querstion raised here, the image doesn't help, being too "staged" for my liking, but that makes no odds to my opposition. - SchroCat (talk) 08:57, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose mereger, obviously. No one has provided a single source (decent or otherwise) saying that the terms are synonymous. J Milburn (talk) 15:19, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
 * For an example of a source showing that the terms are equivalent, see Cosmopolitan Mediation?, "the pressures of 'sticks' and 'carrots' ('throffers' as they have been called in political theory)". Now let's see if anyone can find a source which says that they are different. Warden (talk) 17:04, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Finally, something we can use. I can't access that on Google Books, but I can through my university library. What page have you taken that from? J Milburn (talk) 14:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Page 11. It is easy to find other examples such as "a classical "throffer": a combination of threat and offer, stick and carrot" . Warden (talk) 08:39, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, neither of those books are works of political philosophy; they're works of political science/political history. Merging based upon them would be a little like merging two articles on species of fish because some marine geographers and marine archeologists referred to them offhand as synonymous. That said, there's definitely reason to mention that some scholars consider the terms synonymous; a subsection of "Origin and usage" would perhaps be appropriate, citing those thinkers who consider them synonymous and providing a little background on the term "Carrot and stick". As for whether I have any sources saying they're separate; not offhand, no. I do, quite clearly, have a number of sources which argue about the definition of "throffer" as well as its usefulness, and multiple other encyclopedias which use the term. That alone, even if there is an open question as to whether throffer and carrot and stick are synonymous, justifies the existence of this article; we can legitimately have our own views on the usefulness of a concept while still providing a neutral and comprehensive article about it. J Milburn (talk) 13:55, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I have added some discussion of carrot and stick to the article, including a mention in the lead. J Milburn (talk) 15:53, 2 October 2013 (UTC)