User talk:Jackftwist

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Just read through your replies on my talk page, nice and entertaining.

If I'm being honest, you can tell how bad kept the economic articles are by the fact that I am allowed free reign to edit them as I please, with absolutely no formal economics qualification (yet). So if you see something wrong, for god's sake just change it - I'm constantly in fear of a band of economics PhDs turning up and tearing my work to shreds :).

Png actually calls it "demand" not "quantity demanded", incidentally, there is meaning in my madness! - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 19:44, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Whew! I'm relieved to know my comments about the quality of most of those articles didn't transgress egregiously some WP etiquette guideline.  (BTW, I've read those guidelines and heartily endorse them.  The political climate in the US Congress, and indeed the country as a whole, would be far less polarized if more people would abide by them.)  Obviously, an article's talk page probably isn't the place for such frank assessments, and I was even nervous about putting them on your user talk page, so they were still pretty heavily filtered.  (The WP etiquette guidelines suggest using email; is there a WP link or page I haven't discovered yet that allows us to do that?)


 * I'm also puzzled by what criteria (if any) the project editors use for assessing the priority of articles. E.g., of all the articles I read on a basic discussion of demand, or supply and demand, only 1 was rated even "low priority," and the rest were rated even lower.  Huh???  Demand?  Supply and demand (and by inclusion, market equilibrium)?  That's like chapter 2 or 3 of every credible introductory econ text in the US, and I suspect in the UK, as well.  Along with scarcity of resources (i.e., "the fundamental problem of economics") and the related production possibility curve model, what's more fundamental in econ than supply and demand?  Even a subject as critical as PED is secondary to them (albeit a very close second)!  Anyone with even 1 or 2 formal courses in econ would know that.  So by what rational set of criteria can such topics be rated "low priority"?  Unless I'm missing something, some adult leadership seems to be needed on ratings to Econ Project articles.  (Which contrasts starkly with the extremely high quality of the dozens of WP policy and guideline pages I've read, although IMHO some of the "how to" pages leave a lot to be desired.  Of course, if The Editors are reading this, I'm screwed....)


 * And fear not that a rampaging band of econ docs would plunder your work, at least not the PED article. (I'm not sure I've seen any of your others yet.)  If you'd submitted that paper in one of my classes in the form I first saw it, I would've awarded you at least a solid B, possibly even a B+ or an A-.  (And I'm known as a strict grader, or as a like-minded colleague describes it, "Harsh, but unfair.")  Having read the GA quality assessment guidelines, I believe your article actually already easily meets or exceeds those criteria and may even merit "A" class as it stands (or at least is very, very close to it; and what's "A-" class?).  With not too much more work, the article could easily qualify for FA and/or FL status (I'm not sure how those differ) with any credible group of reviewers and editors.


 * That raises the question of whether I could best contribute to the Econ Project by continuing to work on the PED article, or by serving as a reviewer for it. What are your thoughts on that?


 * Re Png and "demand" vs. "quantity demanded" -- his terminology is far out of the mainstream for US texts, but isn't his publisher, Blackwell, UK-based? If so, this might just be a result of British vs. American English.  I'm not familiar with either Png or his text.  But I also noted a few other things that you attributed to him that were a bit off kilter, as well.  And it is, after all, a "managerial econ" text (by its title), which is sort of the red-headed bastard stepchild where the econ profession is concerned.  (Harumph!)  BTW, your bibliography is extremely impressive -- although I don't recognize lots of the names, the ones I do recognize are truly first-rate.  I've actually chosen Case and Fair as well as Gwartney and Stroup over various years as the texts for my intro micro and macro classes.  Samuelson and Nordhaus is one of the top-selling introductory texts in a very crowded, highly competitive market.  I've taught out of older editions of it, before Nordhaus became a co-author.  (You may not be aware that Samuelson was the first-ever recipient of the Nobel Prize for econ, and he just died a few months ago.  His first edition -- and it's well into the double-digit number of revisions, now -- was the first "modern" econ text, i.e., it combined micro & macro into 1 text and was specifically designed for the introductory course.  It easily dominated the market for at least 25 years, possibly longer.)  Finally, Schumpeter and Marshall are 2 of the premier names in the field from the first half of the 20th century.  Had the Nobel for econ existed in their day, both would've been shoo-ins.  I had no idea Marshall was available on-line until I read your article, so I'm extremely grateful to you for this discovery.  (It's generally considered the first comprehensive micro textbook, at least in English.)  So, nice research on your part, to say the least.


 * One of the things I noticed in yesterday's quick survey of a dozen or so articles related to PED, demand, etc. was a staggering amount of overlap and repetition. That's very inefficient from the standpoint of WP and the contributors to those articles, not to mention inefficient, frustrating, and potentially confusing for WP users.  More on this later.  But for now, my wine glass is empty and my faithful dog awaits his evening walk, so I must go (without proofreading this post). - --Jackftwist (talk) 23:34, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Your posts are pretty brief, huh? We'll do this one first, and your other one second I think.


 * Emailing users is pretty easy, just go to their user page (or user talkpage) and use the "E-mail this user" link to the left hand side of the interface, under the Toolbox heading. If that user has email enabled, you'll get the option (it simply won't appear if they don't). I must say though, in quite a few months of editing here, it's never been of much use to me.


 * Vis-a-vis criticism and complaints, it has always been my opinion - no, mantra - to just change things I disagree with. Then, if people complain, we can have a full and frank discussion about why I'm right and they're wrong. But if no-one disagrees then we get to save all that jazz. Other people have other strategies, but it's not failed me yet.


 * Ignore priority/importance. It's arbitrarily set, and only one broad area WikiProject is well-supported enough to make it work (the one for Military History). 99.999% of readers won't even see it.


 * FA class is the top ranking for non-list articles, FL class is the top ranking for lists (most editors agree it's easier to achieve by quite a margin). I say, go find yourself a low grade economics article and bring it up to standard yourself. Make it your own (but not in that way) for a while, learn the editing ropes.


 * I completely defer to your taste in economics textbooks. I would not know a top-quality one if it landed in my lap; all I care is that they are reliable (if not perfect), understandable to me (with, as I say, no formal qualifications) and I can get to read them for free without too much effort. You know, Wikipedia has taken up hundreds of hours of my time, but am I going to pay good money for a textbook? Never.


 * Yeah, lots of repetition. But better that than nothing. Elasticity (economics), for example, is a particularly shocking article in this respect, even worse before I had a play around with it. Onwards and upwards.


 * (Switches to replying to other message:) I don't know if I can be bothered to go for A-class given the state of WPECON (again, the only large scale project I seen really make it work is MILHIST). I may, however, go for FA, where your advice and corrections would be invaluable.


 * You can moan about Wikipedia formatting all you like, but they're not going to change it now, far too late now. I've updated the image - I actually created it (them, actually), so it was pretty easy though the software failed me several times (but that label was copied from another diagram that was used previously, I hasten to add!). They floated a draft option a while back, but other stuff got in the way (too little time to explain now, my favourite TV programme is starting).


 * Regards, - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 20:03, 2 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Could you briefly assist with the Interpretations section of Production possibility frontier? It doesn't need more, I don't think (since we're writing a general purpose encyclopaedia) but it does desperately need some references. My problem is that I can't equate those sentences with higher-level literature I've seen, but I thought you might be able to. Ta, and Happy Easter if you are so persuaded. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 11:20, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Copied from the help desk

 * No he or she will not receive a notification, but generally speaking if someone leaves you a message on your talk page they will check back or add your talk page to their watchlist, so there is no need for you to worry about them not seeing it. it is generally better to respond on your talk page rather than theirs as it keeps the conversation in one place. Theresa Knott &#124; token threats 22:03, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Replies
Apologies for the somewhat lateish response, I've been a little under the weather; haven't quite felt up to tackling the wall of text on my talk page! (I'm sure it only seems that way on this netbook with its narrow screen...) I'm sure I will have missed some bits from my response.

Yes, the synthesis guidelines are strict (it's a baby out with the bathwater moment), but honestly, the number of economics papers and books that have been written, the stuff ought to be somewhere. Or maybe that's just me being naive.

Re. the PPF article, no, I didn't write it but I did edit it a lot, and I made (nearly?) all the images. I was rather hoping to get it passed as a good article by the end of the month, and the reviewer would like citations for the section I referenced. Of course, I wouldn't want it passed if it knowingly didn't touch on all the major points, so anything you can do to help, well, just do it.

Re. elasticity. Quite. Such is the nature of a document coauthored by potentially hundreds of people. And yes, you can copy within Wikipedia, you just need to attribute any authors. WP:CWW gives the full list.

Re. Images. I use Inkscape to make the vector images. It can be hard to work with at times, but it does have the crucial advantage that you can download someone else's SVG, and move things about, change a label or two, all in matter of seconds. Which means from one economics diagram, many more can easily be derived. (Equally, it would be nice to have some consistency across articles since it is so easy to achieve.)

Re. PPF (2). I do get to see your edits, y'know! I'll query you on anything I disagree with, nothing so far :) . But thanks for the economics lesson, my course has covered basic PPFs but never Edgeworth boxes. So some pretty cool stuff there (let's not go too far...)

- Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 17:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The orange message box is just too damn hard to ignore!


 * If and when you do get around to uploading new images (to Commons, preferably) that are modified versions of other images, try Lupo's derivativefx (google it). It has an unnecessarily verbose output in some case, but all the neccessary legal stuff is there and you can always come back and prune back later.


 * I swear that's what I was told! Damn that human fallibility. And no, I don't understand quite how that's supposed to work (not mine).


 * But what about only quite perfect allocative efficiency? Just kidding. I shall remember that, and point it out to people with awkward regularity forthwith.


 * Knock yourself out with the section and their headings, I never liked them, and they've been through a number of revisions since.


 * April 15 should be fine, I'll go have a word with the reviewer. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 10:21, 10 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Interesting.I'm sure you would have got an orange box at some point; it's quite easy to get it to accidentally got away without realising.
 * We create redirects, and add to disambiguation pages where necessary.
 * Regards shapes, most of that was already there. You can access the half-finished review at Talk:Production-possibility frontier/GA1. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 16:57, 13 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.] 17:52, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

More stuff
Ahem, I have a long and distinguished writing history on Wikipedia: two articles does not constitute a roll! I must say I did laugh though when the reviewer (in their closing comments) point me to PED for inspiration.

Add away. I'm naturally not going to like your invasion of my perfectly good article (!) but there's very little I can do to stop you (well, without resorting to my extra buttons).

My own thoughts on what depth is needed in articles (not just economics ones, but everything that takes my fancy; oh, and yes, I know this is kind of what you said): include basic information that the general reader will want to know in a way they can understand, and then embellish that with a sentence or two introducing a more advanced niche, and then linking to that (however weak or non-existent at this time that article may be). The beauty of this being, that the "general reader" for article 1 is not that same as article 2. To take an example from mathematics, the article on addition has a different readership to that for Cauchy's integral theorem; for each one, you can provide what the reader wants to know, then link them to the more advanced topic which they can then read about if they want, or leave in blissful ignorance.

I was; it was all under control though. As I always say, people disagree with me, we have a chat, they realise I'm right and we both go away happy (and very rarely enemies).

That is odd. Ciao, - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 10:30, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Should be unrelated to whether I create a new section or not. Should be.


 * Yeah, go fill up the talkpage and stop cluttering my personal archives :) My personal favourite is WP:LASTWORD; it makes a lot more sense when you've been around the block a few times here. Not that I dislike tea. In fact, I like both the physical tea and the metaphor.


 * Actually, speaking of getting the last word, I've decided to let you do whatever you like to the articles, outlive you and then go through changing everything back. Less work on my part, you see.


 * I agree with your concerns about GA reviews and technical analysis of articles. It's another reason I want to see a strong WikiProject. But in the meantime, it's fortunately not an urgent issue since no-one tries to get content-poor articles through GA anyway (WP:AINTBROKE / WP:BEANS). Oh, and on a coincidnetal note, I got another one of mine through, on the UK's Monetary Policy Committee (hopefully something you won't have your own thoughts on!). That should secure my place in the next round of the WikiCup, so everyone's happy.


 * I'm sorry for not covering everything you raised (I did read it all though, I assure you) or in the order you raised it this time, but I left it a bit late and I'm back in full time education now after the hols. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 21:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Two-factor model
The content was an image of the 1920s Willys, then the Nazi swastika, repeated +100 times.

There was no text whatsoever.

Do you still want to see this content? DS (talk) 22:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Feel free to create a genuine article with this name, though. DS (talk) 00:12, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Analyzed / modeling
Well yes. The OED, of course, does not document British English, but rather Oxford English, hence why it thought it was acceptable. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 19:45, 2 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Good work on the citations. You've listed two next to each other as p.524 (I think it is) - deliberate? I was thinking, we could definitely push it for FA. In case you're unfamiliar with that process, it basically involves a group of editors beating you to death with sticks. In fact, if you want to hear what that sounds like, you can - they broadcast one as a special podcast, featuring yours truly as the victim. Why I agreed to that... *shrug*. But hopefully I should be able to handle the WP-editorial-style issues, and you the economics points. WP:FACR, to see how far we've got to go before "qualifying" for that! - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 16:56, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The sound of someone's hopes and dreams of an FA being crushed are somewhere in the WP:WikiVoices archive. I don't know how helpful it ended up being for prospective FAers, though. Couldn't bear listening to much of it.
 * Vis-a-vis prose, yes, it is very difficult, but also the thing the people already at FAC are best trained at dealing with since it applies equally and uniformly to all the articles they see.
 * I agree with most if not all of your revisions and the thinking behind them, but do be very wary of doing much polishing before any major changes, because the effect of doing things in the "wrong" order can be magnified by the effect of a mass-contributor setup. I don't mind helping out with your diagram if you have problems.
 * You and me neither (it's not a British thing). Actually, it's an Indonesian thing by the looks of the contributor who added that sentence back in May 2008. I prefer your example, to be honest.
 * Oh, a quick note for the next couple six(ish) weeks - I'm going to be revising for exams, but I'll be on study leave (i.e. home revision) which means I should still have more than enough time for this sort of thing, but things may become a little erratic in places. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 20:42, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Re: Vandalism
You call twice in a week a lot? This is Wikipedia! Twice in the same minute, then I'll start worrying :) - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 16:44, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Meh *shrug* I guess you're right about the waves though; I've always put it down to school timetabling myself, but I don't know quite why May would be the hotspot then. First and foremost, in terms of "easy to spot" vandalism, I'm always tempted to think about schools and the sort of topics schoolchildren might want to read about. So this was probably some economics students. Maybe.


 * No rush on the PED to featured status. Doing it in userspace seems like an idea - copy and paste would be the way you'd do that (You could perform a "history merge", but it would be too much bother, I think). I'm sure Radek wouldn't mind only being attributed in the edit summary attached to your copy/paste, rather than in the usual method. I certainly wouldn't.


 * Hmm, well, I do understand what the essay is saying: do copy-editing, then structural, then some oppose the structural changes and can only revert those. Whereas if you did the first two the other way round, the copyediting would have to be done all over again. But of course, that's only the case if your structural changes are controversial, and you don't seek consensus before proceeding with the copyediting. The way I think about it, good copy-editing relies on context, and flow, and whatnot. So you could have a top-notch article, prose wise, rearrange the paragraphs, and then need to copyedit all over again. Whole sentences you slaved over wording just right have disappeared completely. And so on, and so forth. Of course, both approaches may be stuffed at FA, because reviewers could recommend more structural changes or more copyediting changes.


 * Lulling around in the sun with a textbook is working perfectly so far :) Thanks. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 10:39, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Price elasticity of demand
Not a problem! &mdash; e. ripley\talk 19:51, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Re: Bureocrats
Yeah, I noticed that too. Good news, last exam was today. Bad news, no summer holidays for several weeks. I'm working on some other stuff at the moment, so give me a shout when you want to proceed with PED and I'll put my economics hat on again. - Jarry1250 [Humorous? Discuss.] 15:59, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

A little bit more
Hi,J. Elsewhere wasn't the place to digress, tempting though that might have been. On the question you raised (possibly rhetorical), I was merely referring to your mentor's place in the pantheon of ecological economics. If you're not quite familiar w it, you'll see that that subject is well categorized as heterodox in the JEL classification codes in for example this article. Beyond that, from my very limited WP perch, following up Google scholar cites on his entropy classics, there is some stuff by Herman Daly but also many lesser scholars or less scholarly works that take him as their fixed star wout necessarily having read his work (unkind insinuation there). Take care. P.S. That wonderful quotation belongs in your mentor's WP article. The measure of the man in this case is the measure of his peer. I liked your reference to his interests in development economics. Google scholar or Google may have at least the first page of some of his classic papers. Those are always fun to include in a citation link as well. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 20:08, 14 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Hello again, J. Would you consider further dialog from where your earlier Edit left off? --Thomasmeeks (talk) 12:03, 31 August 2010 (UTC)


 * And again, J. Or at User talk:Thomasmeeks instead if you'd prefer? My thanks. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 13:48, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

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Elasticity (economics)
Please read my comments on the article on elasticity in response to your claim that the logarithm function is just a convenient coincidence. While I agree not everyone (or even most people) needs to "understand" the intuitive motivation for the appearance of the logarithm, I hope I've shown that the logarithmic definition is completely natural and intuitive concept to consider. 198.189.14.2 (talk) 20:25, 5 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the thoughtful comments and the careful analysis you posted. If only such high-quality posts were the rule instead of the (rare) exception on WP!  I hope to respond to your post on the "Elasticity" talk page itself in the fullness of time, but I can make no promises.  About a year ago, I gave up on efforts to "contribute" to WP because it became, for me at least, a virtually hopeless, Sisyphean task—I had to spend more time swatting at flies (figuratively speaking) than evaluating well-informed, detailed contributions like yours.  It didn't take a formal cost-benefit analysis to persuade me that there were many other more constructive and fulfilling, as well as less frustrating, uses for the hours I was spending on WP.  Your comment came to my attention only because it hadn't occurred to me to disable WP's email notification when I get new WP messages.
 * A preliminary response to your post (subject to revision before posting on the "Elasticity" talk page, should I ever get around to it):


 * 1)  In retrospect, "coincidence" was not exactly the right word to convey the point I was trying to make, at least not without a bit of further explanation of what I meant by it in this context.  But I couldn't think of a more precise term at the time, and a quick, informal, mental cost-benefit exercise led me to conclude quickly that the opportunity cost of the time required to carefully consult Roget's for a better word exceeded any potential benefit.  (Consider that over a year elapsed between my post and yours!)  Still, mea culpa.
 * 2)  The very length and mathematical detail of your comments merely reinforce what I intended to be my main point (i.e., without the distraction caused by my ill-chosen use of "coincidence"): that the log form of the elasticity definition is far too mathematically advanced for the majority of WP users, at least for a general introductory encyclopedia article.  I'd venture to assert that very few WP readers, definitely including me, have your mathematical sophistication and intuitive understanding of logs, much less log-log diagrams.  E.g., I don't quite follow your point about relative vs. nonrelative changes.   As your post itself says, "This may be a bit math-heavy reasoning for some...."
 * But in a separate article on something along the lines of "mathematical properties of elasticity" [in economics, vs. physics/materials science], your discussion would fit perfectly and could be used almost verbatim.
 * Purely for the purpose of illustration, allow me to say (immodestly) that I was an undergrad math minor (econ major) and between undergrad and grad school, I had 4 semesters of calculus (including advanced calc), 2 of mathematical economics, 1 of elementary differential equations, 1 of numerical analysis, and mathematical statistics/econometrics out the ying-yang. I've also taught elasticity (in microecon courses) at the introductory and intermediate undergrad levels, as well as at the graduate level, literally dozens of times, and presented a paper at the Western Economics Assn. meetings on the topic.
 * Yet even when I was fully immersed in the topic, at no time did I ever consider the log definition of elasticity to be particularly intuitive, to me at least, in helping students understand the fundamental economic meaning of elasticity, vs. its mathematical properties. (I sincerely regret if I've been oafish and given even the appearance of flaunting my qualifications on this topic, but in this case I believe they constructively illustrate my main point.)
 * Finally, strictly at your convenience, could you clarify a minor point for me? Does your post start immediately under mine with the paragraph beginning "Re:"? Or is that short paragraph an unsigned post between mine and yours?  (Again, absolutely no rush.)
 * Thanks again for your post. --Jackftwist (talk) 22:02, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:MoS
Hi Jackftwist. I saw you deleted your comment on the "two spaces between sentences" section on the manual of style talk page. As a rule of thumb, it's better to strike through your text, making a note if needed. There are a variety of reasons for this. You can check out WP:Redact for the guidelines. Thanks! --Airborne84 (talk) 00:06, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I agree (at least as a matter of general practice).  And thanks, too, for the link to the policy.  At the time I deleted the comment, I was quite rushed and didn't have time to search for the policy—one of the weakest in the universe of possible excuses, I readily admit, but I don't know how I could blame my dog for eating an on-line post.  ;-)  Mea culpa.  --Jackftwist (talk) 16:34, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem! I responded to your note on my talk page. Best regards, --Airborne84 (talk) 22:10, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * By the way, I wasn't taking aim at you on the latest WP:MoS post, "English Wikpedia in common English language !". We both had the same thoughts, I think.
 * I've throttled way back on the length of my comments—especially on the WP:MoS talk page—in the last couple of years because (1) no matter how logical or supported comments are, some people will just ignore them, and (2) they typically get lost in the chaff anyway. It's certainly stimulating conversation sometimes though! Best, --Airborne84 (talk) 00:47, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

No problem at all, GI. I agree: We both had the same thoughts, or close to it, and it seemed clear to me that your post was in that spirit. I definitely need to control my obsession to comment on so many posts on that page, but some of the more ... uh .... "ill-advised" (to put it in terms consistent with WP guidelines) trigger a compulsion to shout "B.S."! (I seem to have replaced my previously mentioned grammar pedantry with still another form of pedantry. I'm beginning to lose track of which comments I've made where.)
 * I also concur with your (1) and (2) above. There's too much of that on most WP talk pages in general, but WP:MoS must be among the worst.  And as you've no doubt noticed, I lack the brevity gene.  Too many years in academia, maybe.  I do have 1 or 2 other strings going that I care a lot about, and the dialogue on those has been civil, constructive, and stimulating (to use your word).  Such a hat trick is often hard to come by on WP:MoS!  But I really do have other things I'd rather be doing.  V/r, Jack  --Jackftwist (talk) 17:58, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

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"Occasionally" I make mistakes
(Chuckle) Thanks for the fix! Best, --Airborne84 (talk) 23:04, 28 July 2011 (UTC)


 * (Chuckle) No problem. "Even good Homer slept," as they say.  Gotta look out for each other.  But I did have second—and third—thoughts about editing someone's own entry on his own user page!  I've posted a new comment on the MoS Talk page with the following link to an article in today's Washington Post about the AP Stylebook and its editor:
 * http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/david-minthorn-is-the-grammar-expert-for-the-associated-press/2011/07/25/gIQAGBLwfI_story.html


 * Be sure to take the quiz! Note that it tests knowledge of AP style, though, so there's no reason to expect to know the "correct" answer to every question.  I had to make educated guesses on about half of them.  (The link is at the 2nd photo, which shows Mr. Minthorn holding an open copy of the style book.)  Jack --Jackftwist (talk) 17:04, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Lare reply
Jack, please see my talkpage for a belated reply to your esteemed query. N oetica Tea? 05:59, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

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Your contribution to NGR's page
Dear Jackftwist, Thanks a lot for your contribs on NGR's page. I made the recent changes (included creating the box) and I am OK with yours. One comment though. Shouldn't we put Mathematician and Statistician before Economist, as we was primarily a mathematician and only after became an Economist (though his work with Schumpeter). It may not be so much important... Your help is appreciated and it's what NGR really deserves: more recognition. The only problem is that he was far ahead on his time... but things are (slowly) changing. BTW, I am currently working with Kozo Mayumi, one of his proteges of the time. I look forward reading your suggested changes on Samuelson's support to NGR. Regards. -- Ledjazz (talk) 10:26, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi, Ledjazz! Thanks for your reply and your efforts to bring NGR more recognition.  I agree completely: He doesn't receive nearly as much as he deserves, largely because he was far ahead of his time.  Regarding which order his fields should appear in (i.e., Econ, Math, & Stat):  He was probably the closest person I've ever known to being a true Renaissance man in academic interests!  After being around him for 3 years while I was a grad student, I suspect he'd prefer econ to be first, but that's only my impression.  I had 2 reasons that are more objective :


 * 1) In his foreword to NGR's 1966 book Analytical Economics, Samuelson says in the opening sentence, "Professor Georgescu-Roegen has been a pioneer in mathematical economics".  Then, the last sentence of the first paragraph says, "For in Georgescu-Roegen we have a scholar's scholar, an economist's economist".  He makes a few more remarks in the rest of the foreword about NGR as an economist who is trained in mathematics.
 * 2) Although the historical order was as you said, econ is the field in which he spent most of his academic career.  Until publication of The Entropy Law ... (1971), all the other publications listed in his biography at The History of Economic Thought website were primarily in economic theory and/or mathematical economics.  So his research was almost exclusively in econ from 1935 to the early or mid-1960s (i.e., at least 25 years), when he began turning his primary focus to entropy, the evolutionary process, etc.  But even then, he was still interested in their relationship to economics.  Also, from 1950 until his retirement from Vanderbilt, he taught graduate courses in economic theory and statistics in the Dept. of Economics and Business Administration, and even his 2-semester sequence of stat courses was directed almost exclusively at students in the econ PhD program, for whom they were required – not to mention infamously demanding.
 * I then put math and stat in their historical order. But I don't have any strong feelings about this, and I certainly wouldn't start an edit war if anyone changed the order and provided a reasonable explanation.
 * BTW #1: I added "utility theory" and "theory of production" to this list of fields under "Known for". I listed them first in that section because he made much of his early reputation with his articles on these topics.  And even though he clearly had begun to branch out into other fields with the publication of Analytical Economics ..., he continued teaching courses in (advanced) utility theory at least through 1974, the last year I was at Vanderbilt.  Utility theory is also probably what the vast majority of his pre-Entropy Law ... students and colleagues would remember him for.  The other fields he covered in his other pre-1966 articles also deserve mention, but they're so diverse that I don't know how to characterize them.  Also, some are in areas where I'm probably not competent to do so!  But again, I don't have any strong feelings about the order of these fields, as long as they're included.
 * BTW # 2: His degree is shown in both the text and the box as "Ph.D.", but I remember his degree being shown as "D. Stat." (in the Continental style) in every reference I saw to it at Vanderbilt.  That seems reasonable, because his doctorate from the Univ. of Paris was in statistics.  After I return from a long-delayed break, I'll try to check with Dr. Maneschi (author of the biographical sketch cited in footnote 6) to see if he has any information about which degree is correct.
 * BTW # 3: I just noticed that the History of Econ Thought Web site bibliography omits his survey article on utility theory in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968 edition; I don't know if the article is still in the current edition).  Although the article wasn't on any formal required reading list, we graduate students considered it mandatory reading in preparing for our PhD written exam in micro theory!  [Did you notice the typo in the 1st article listed on his page at that site? :) ]
 * BTW #4: About a year ago I happened by pure coincidence to notice that one of the editors of the WP "List of Mathematical Economists" was trying to clean out the names that didn't belong there, and he initially listed NGR as one of the candidates for deletion -- along with Hicks and a few other classic names in economic theory!  I wrote an appeal explaining why NGR should remain on the list, and I believe it was successful.
 * Again, thanks to you and all the others who have contributed to this article and to giving NGR the recognition he deserves! Regards, Jack --Jackftwist (talk) 21:18, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your very interesting insights. I did not find the page you mentioned but I added NGR to the "Famous economists" section of the article "Economist" as well as in the "List_of_people_considered_father_or_mother_of_a_scientific_field". BTW, I am far more novice on NGR's thought evolution as I just started my PhD. So I have yet a very long trip (and passioning) reading trip ahead before "digesting" his master piece he left us with... Talk to you soon. --Ledjazz (talk) 18:32, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

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