User talk:Edfranks

Welcome!
Welcome to Wikipedia, Edfranks! I have been editing Wikipedia for quite some time. I just wanted to say hi and welcome you to Wikipedia! If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page or by typing helpme at the bottom of this page. I love to help new users, so don't be afraid to leave a message! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name on talk pages using four tildes ( ~ ); that should automatically produce your username and the date after your post. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place helpme on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome! Sh i r ik ( Questions or Comments? ) 20:15, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
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Korean War
Hey Ed, I too have always found the Korean War article to be underwhelming, let me know if you have any questions or would like any help in cleaning it up. - Schrandit (talk) 16:42, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

edit undo frustration
from time to time i stumble onto articles that contain blatant bias or suspicious assertions and sometimes i end of spending much time making a one or two sentence "careful" edit, and duly note it, only to discover weeks later that it was undone almost immediately (usually not for a good reason) and sometimes it seems the undo is by people determined to maintain the article's current defects at all costs. is there any way to get a better idea of who and what the problem is with my humble edits? i rarely have an overt agenda in any of my edits, other than to promote careful assertions and ensure balance and accuracy. i.e., i am not otherwise on a "mission," per se. (i suppose they all say that?). frustrated edit ed. (i dont even know if anyone will see this?!)

Bragg's alleged right flank offensive
Hi. Thank you for the updated citation. I will need to do some more surgery on this--probably tomorrow unless you would like to do so first--because the appropriate place to raise this issue, IMHO, is in the section earlier in the article entitled Longstreet departs. Steven Woodworth bears the distinction of being the only professional Civil War historian who has ever asked me to make a change to an article. (It was an odd situation because I was quoting one of his works, but he decided that he had changed his mind since he wrote the source in question.) I appreciate the input from folks like you, although I have found that historians generally treat Wikipedia the way vampires treat crosses. :-) Hal Jespersen (talk) 00:54, 28 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with u completely. It should be mentioned earlier, I have just been too busy to address it. I would love it if u could tackle it. Interesting that u heard from Woodworth about a change. Do u remember which issue it concerned? I know that after we worked together back in mid-90s on a couple of projects, his views on this campaign did evolve a bit, especially in relation to point of view in his "Jefferson Davis and his Generals" book (I think that was the title?).

No, I have been trying to think what it was, but cannot remember the specifics. It would take me too long to be a detective and find the edit, particularly since I don't remember exactly which article it was in. I think it was a quote about Bragg, which I quoted accurately, but told me he changed his mind in the time since he wrote it originally.


 * One area that I worked on in detail years ago was the detachment of Longstreet. I was surprised to discover that there was a lot more going on than just Bragg being happy to get rid of Longstreet, per the conventional wisdom. Hallock's book first alerted me to some of these issues, and Woodworth seemed to embrace her concerns as well. Longstreet, it seems, mucked up everything from extending Bragg's left flank along the river, to Brown's Ferry, to Wauhatchie, to the fiasco at Knoxville. And there is no shortage of contemporaneous sources to support these observations, even in the OR.


 * BTW, I consider myself (humbly?) an historian (PhD Economist by training - financial history), but I think wiki articles are excellent 90% of the time. Even when it comes to the always controversial civil war, most of the articles are surprisingly balance, IMHO.

My theory is that since Civil War history is actually a lucrative profession for some popular writers, they don't like the competition giving away the goods for free. :-) I have friendly relations with a number of big Civil War historians and when I mentioned Wikipedia their eyes cloud over and they simply, although politely, refuse to have anything to do with it. Hal Jespersen (talk) 20:17, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

My changes to your changes?
I cleaned up a little bit, although I don't think I changed anything substantive. One of my styles is to place all footnotes at the bottom of the paragraph, wherever possible; otherwise, it can become confusing about which footnotes cover portions of paragraphs. The only remaining open question is why you changed the name of the railroad. Woodworth called it the East Tennessee and Georgia, which I believe is the correct name for the railroad going from Chattanooga to Knoxville (although the portion from Chattanooga to Cleveland was originally a separate company, the Chattanooga and Cleveland Railroad). Hal Jespersen (talk) 20:49, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

May 2013
Hello, I'm Widr. I wanted to let you know that I undid one or more of your recent contributions to Abu Zubaydah because it didn't appear constructive. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Widr (talk) 08:11, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Your signature
Would you please make your signature comply with WP:SIGLINK. You may have inadvertently ticked the "Treat the above as wiki markup" box at Special:Preferences. --David Biddulph (talk) 01:38, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I do not understand. I've made no changes to my signature for years. I'm happy to fix it but I don't understand what precisely I need to do. Are you saying I simply need to untick the box beside the words: "Treat the above as wiki markup"? I don't think I've touched that box ever, but I'm happy to untick if that's what's required. I notice your signature is embedded per the WP:SIGLINK discussion. I'm not sure how to do same for myself, though I think I see the advantage of the siglink methodology. Anyway, please give me just a bit more guidance. Thank you. Edward Carr Franks, PhD 04:00, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

I've unticked it, for better or for worse. I hope that helps. Edward Carr Franks, PhD (talk) 04:03, 10 October 2014 (UTC)


 * If I may interject, it does help, because your signature now provides links to your user page and your talk page. This is apparent upon visually comparing your before and after signatures above. It's quite possible that it has been incorrect for years and no one bothered to call it to your attention. &#8209;&#8209; Mandruss (talk) 07:44, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

I think I've got the gist of it now. Thanks. Edward Carr Franks, PhD (talk) 07:49, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Louisiana Purchase
Hi Edward,

I see you undid my edit here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Louisiana_Purchase&type=revision&diff=850420680&oldid=850417481

I understand your reasoning for using that metric, but there are two problems with your changes. First, it's too much detail for an opening paragraph. An opening paragraph should be concise, and you included a long description on the metric itself. Second, you are using a metric that is not universally understood. This makes it hard for people to interpret, and harder for them to make comparisons. While inflation adjusted USD is likely not the superior metric, I think we should stay consistent with all of other locations on Wikipedia, and use this inferior, but easier to interpret metric instead.

What do you think? Perhaps you could add a section in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase#Financing instead? Thanks for your level of commitment to this article!

Nick Garvey (talk) 20:30, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Nick:

I'm not sure if this is the correct way to respond, so please confirm receipt. I haven't made an edit in a long time, and have forgotten proper procedure. I understand your concern with the change to the relative value for the purchase, but you really need to understand that using price inflation based on CPI index for such a calculation is universally dismissed by economists for comparing relative value over such a long period of time. Robert Fogel got Nobel prize in 1992 in part for his work in this area. The website I referenced, Measuringworth.com, is run by 2 PhD Economists at the U of Ill, Chicago. Both are highly regarded. They have very high level of credibility in the industry. (Btw, I am a PhD Economist, with 20 yrs experience in the financial industry, just for the record.) I agree it is a bad location to insert all that information but i couldn't remember how to do footnotes (and I knew u would undo my undo anyway). What is certain is that using the CPI to adjust an 1803 value to 2017 is utterly misleading if not useless, its ubiquity notwithstanding. It bears no relation to the reality of the impact of that large purchase on our small country at the time. It is very misleading to use the CPI adjustment as it is far lower than the real "impact" of the purchase. It would be better to simply not include any adjusted value for 2017 than to include a CPI-adjusted value. The website, btw, that I referenced, includes in great detail 6 different ways of calculating changes in relative value (or real cost) and explains the reasons when one is better to use than the others.

Please understand that I have no dog in this fight. I just can't bear to see to poor economics dished out to people, when it can be so easily corrected by relying on the proper method for making value adjustments. I am also a member of the Cliometric Society, a group of economists that emphasize the use of econometric techniques to improve historical analysis. It is ironic that the public often relies on historians for the analysis of historical economic data, even if it is centuries old, even though we would never think twice about relying on historians to analyze recent or current economic data?! This is my only concern here. And I am not breaking new ground here, per Fogel (1992), I am simply trying to help people get a far better understanding of the true "impact" of historical prices. It would be less misleading to include NO adjusted current value than to include the CPI-adjusted value. (CPI comparisons lose their validity over many years b/c the "basket of goods" that is used to compare the cost of living from one month to the next becomes so radically different over time that long-term basket comparisons become meaningless.)

As a compromise that all can understand, why not simply state what the GDP of the country was in 1803 and what the GDP is today. Then people can judge for themselves how much bigger $15m was then than now?

I hope this gets thru to u. Thank you for your patience, Dr Franks

PS People dont universally understand quantum mechanics either, but we still rely on it to explain reality & refer to it often in wiki articles. The same might apply to how the price adjustments are made? Just b/c it is hard to understand, doesn't mean we should rely on the CPI index, however wrong it may be, simply b/c it is easier to understand (though many have trouble even with this "easy" method)? Edward Carr Franks, PhD (talk) 18:00, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Nick:

Did you get my comments. I don't expect or need a point by point response, but I would appreciate your acknowledging receipt?

BTW, you frequently mention "inflation." I should point out that inflation is only one of a few different factors that impact relative value, and often not the most important one. More significant is population change, productivity change, technological change, etc. In 1800 the average annual income per capita was about $100, nominal (in 1800 dollars). Adjusting that by the CPI give us an average per capita income today of about $2000, but the actual average per capita is about $60,000 in today's dollars (i.e. CPI adjustment is incorrect by a factor of 30!). Do you see the problem? CPI adjusting is woefully misleading.

Regards, Dr Franks Edward Carr Franks, PhD (talk) 16:53, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi Dr. Franks,

Thanks for taking the time to give a detailed reply! And sorry for taking a week to get back. I took a look at the article, and it looks like the CPI metric has been removed and the Measuring Worth metric is included with a citation. From your comments, I agree that CPI underestimates the real impact and that number is more accurate. Thanks again for including this update!

Nick Garvey (talk) 20:22, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Aha; good! This works, I think. Thanks for getting back to me. I'm glad all parties seem to agree with the current revision of the article. Dr Franks Edward Carr Franks, PhD (talk) 21:43, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Nick Garvey (talk)

I dunno if this is gonna work, but here goes. I'm writing to u b/c u were so helpful with my attempt to change the CPI adjustment for the Louisiana purchase article. It was unmolested until today, it appears, when someone named sinsmi has expressed an objection, but I can't tell if the change was undone by someone. I tried to contact him, but I he has no email and the wiki link has me baffled: wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sinsmi. Any assist much appreciated. Thank you, Ed Franks Edward Carr Franks, PhD (talk) 00:36, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, haven't really used Wikipedia. I tried to create a post on it because the first source used for the 587 billion estimate is a calculator that didn't accurately represent the value, and the article later cited 300 million, which contradicts the original value. None of the research I could find pointed to 587 billion, and I think the article should cite where the value originated from, if possible.

Thanks, sinsmi — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sinsmi (talk • contribs) 01:15, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Dear Sinsmi: I see that my attempt to make contact DID work after all, which is good. I'm not a wiki wiz either, as u've no doubt ascertained. I see, now, the discrepancy you were concerned about. Yes, the $300M cited in the "Negotiation" part of the article is very different from the value in FN1 of $576B, which is based on relative share of nominal GDP rather than the GDP deflator from which the $300M number is derived. I try to explain in FN1 why the $576B is a better estimate than the GDP deflator, which is de facto the same as CPI adjusting, both of which result in wildly misleading estimates of current value. The "relative share of nominal GDP" is the # that I ran by Professor Williamson, one of the creators of the MeasuringWorth web site, just a few weeks ago. He & I are both financial economists. He agrees that it is a better estimate of such a transaction's relative impact and thus value. This kind of value adjusting can get very complex, but has become far more accepted in recent years since Robert Fogel won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1992 in part for his work on such issues. I have no dog in this hunt, as they say. My only concern is to try and shine a little light on an area of economic history that is the subject of much misinformation. All the data is at the web site named. It's just a question of which price adjustment technique makes the most sense, and that depends on various factors and the context of the value differential. Regards, Ed Franks Edward Carr Franks, PhD (talk) 05:37, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Cogaidh: I'm a bit distressed that you would simply undo what had been agreed upon after a number of exchanges between myself and prior editors over a period of weeks a few months ago. The result was a consensus achieved after much discussion, and after much work on my part (I am a PhD Economist). Cliometrics (not "Clionomics") is a thoroughly mainstream approach to the quantitative analysis of historical hypotheses, and it was made the conventional wisdom by the work of people like Robert Fogel of U of Chicago, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1993. Anyway, I think the burden of proof for making any changes should be on YOU, not on me, as this change, as I said above, had already been through a process of due diligence. Would you please not revert back to the use of the CPI or any similar such index without first discussing it on the talk page?

Thank you, Ed Franks Edward Carr Franks, PhD (talk) 20:17, 13 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Edfranks and, this discussion should be happening on the talk page in question, and everyone should be indenting their replies; see Help:Threading. I've changed the text to use the  template, which should give a reasonable value.  Any change to a specialized value should get consensus first.  And as a side note, the WP:PEACOCKery in the footnote was inappropriate as well.  (If you have anything more to say, please continue the discussion on the article's talk page, so that all page contributors can see what's going on; I won't be watching here, and please don't ping me from here if it's about this).  –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 22:42, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

HELP?! LOUISIANA PURCHASE (All that work for one edit last summer just got undone for all the wrong reasons, imho. I've posted this on article talk page, but also adding here to be safe, my apologies to Deacon Vorbis. And, btw, this has little to do with "inflation" per se, Deacon, just for future reference.)

I'm not sure what is going on now, but I and editor Nick Garvey, along with another editor named Sinsimi, seemed to have worked out an acceptable change last July thru Oct, in which it was decided that using the CPI to adjust the impact of the cost of the Louisiana Purchase to current dollars gave an estimate that was at least 2 orders of magnitude too low - that 600 billion is a much better indicator of the relative impact of the purchase than 300 million. I am a PhD Financial Economist, and a student of the work of Robert Fogel, a U of Chicago economist who won the Nobel Prize in 1993, in part for his work on estimate such relative values over long periods of history. His specialty was Cliometrics (I've said all this before, btw), which is the application of econometric methods to testing historical hypotheses, which didn't really get going as a discipline until the advent of PCs in the early 1980s, tho there had of course been some work on mainframes, esp by Fogel and Engermann in the 70s. Anyway, the methodology I employed is described in exhaustive detail at the website I cited, which is run by two PhD Economists at the U of Illinois, Chicago: Measuringworth.com. In addition, I corresponded directly with Dr Williamson to seek his opinion of which of the 6 different conversion methods employed by their analysis made the most sense in this case, and he agreed with me that the adjustment based on the "relative share of GDP" made the most sense, hence the nearly 600 Billion. I have no dog in this fight. I only want to see good analysis and more important, good history. The knee-jerk reliance on CPI over periods of 100s of years make absolutely no sense under any circumstances, no matter what your agenda may be. The way the article currently reads is now even worse than before I got involved, b/c now there is not even a footnote to explain the number that's being used, tho I gather from this correspondence that its the CPI. I warned Dr Williamson that this might be a forlorn hope, to get this change made. Sadly, it appears I may have been correct. Now, I just hope that someone, esp those who I discussed this change with last Summer, will be able to participate in fixing this. I don't understand why the burden is on me to re-explain my edit, when I've already been thru this with other editors last summer. Seems to me that the fair thing would have been to leave my changes in place until THIS discussion had occurred first, and then make the change if you conclude against me. I hope you will reconsider your decision. Just b/c the CPI is generally accepted doesn't mean it just be improperly applied, esp over 100s of years. There is hardly an economist on the planet that would be comfortable with the use of the CPI for the purpose of estimating the its cost in current dollars. Regards, Dr Ed Franks (I hope I did this right; I am not, as u can see, a wiki editing expert, but I am, imho, an expert of modest repute in financial economics. My bio is complete for all to see.) Edward Carr Franks, PhD (talk) 00:23, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Dear Oser67: I can't seem to figure out how to make contact with you, and you don't seem to need to make contact with me to simply wipe out months of work I did on my little area of expertise on this particular article. Anyway, just a bit frustrated. I'm very part time so not up on all the tips and tricks. I will try to make contact his way, since you dont seem to have an email linked to Wikipedia and ur User name of Orser67 doesn't do me any good either. I've gone to great lengths to properly execute changes that seemed to pass muster to the extent that a consensus was achieved on adjusting the relative value of the purchase in 1803 to today's values. I relied on Measuringworth.com, a web site run by 2 financial economists at U of Ill, Chicago. All my work simply went into what WAS footnote 1, which has now been eliminated, and effectively replaced with a dubious reference relating to the 3 best (or worst) land sales of all time (words to that effect). In any event, the new FN gives the impression that the sale of 1803 was a real steal, which is actually debatable, although for many years it's been assumed that Nappy sold in a panic and that the price we paid was ridiculously low. That may be true, but not necessarily. Regards, Edward Carr Franks, PhD (talk) 03:47, 12 May 2019 (UTC)