User talk:Jdkag/Archive 1

Welcome
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Falcon8765 (talk) 16:02, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Arbitration/Requests/Case/Shakespeare authorship question closed
An arbitration case regarding the Shakespeare authorship question has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:
 * 1) Standard discretionary sanctions are enacted for all articles related to the Shakespeare authorship question;
 * 2) is banned from Wikipedia for a period of one year;
 * 3) NinaGreen is topic-banned indefinitely from editing any article relating (broadly construed) to the Shakespeare authorship question, William Shakespeare, or Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford;
 * 4) The Arbitration Committee endorses the community sanction imposed on . Thus, Smatprt remains topic-banned from editing articles relating to William Shakespeare, broadly construed, for one year from November 3, 2010.

For the Arbitration Committee, AGK  [&bull; ] 20:55, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

A topic of interest to you is covered by Arbcom sanctions
The Arbitration Committee has permitted administrators to impose, at their own discretion, sanctions on any editor working on pages broadly related to Shakespeare authorship question if the editor repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behavior, or any normal editorial process. If you engage in inappropriate behavior in this area, you may be placed under sanctions including blocks, a revert limitation or an article ban. The committee's full decision can be read at Arbitration/Requests/Case/Shakespeare authorship question. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 17:37, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Defense against WP:Advocacy Accusation
Tom Reedy presents a table at Featured_article_candidates/Shakespeare_authorship_question in which he unjustly accuses me of WP:Advocacy. The table includes an inaccurate count as well as a misrepresentation of my edits and I must therefore respond to set the record straight. Since opening my Wiki account in Feb. 2010, I made 70 edits through Jan 2011; of those, 40 were unrelated to Shakespeare. Of the 30 that were related to Shakespeare, half were Talk page comments, and the article edits were generally minor, such as changing the name Clemens to Twain in one article and removing the comment in that article that Twain's view of Shakespeare was "hypocritical." Only since February 1 of this year have I been more involved in SAQ, and over that period the only article edit I have made was the addition of one footnote to the article List of Shakespeare authorship candidates. After my footnote was reverted twice with no clear explanation, I opened a discussion Talk:List_of_Shakespeare_authorship_candidates to explain why I thought the footnote was appropriate. I then responded to the comments made by Nishidani, Paul B and Tom over the course of two weeks, and I have subsequently made 15 Talk page edits related to the FA issue. In short, my Wiki edit record does not point to advocacy or soapboxing, as Tom claims, but has merely been a natural progression stemming from SAQ being one of my many Wiki areas of interest, though it is one area that I believe lacks responsible Wiki authorship and therefore warrants more attention. Given that Tom has consistently misrepresented my participation, I should also mention that most of my comments related to the footnote were responses to arguments made by Nishidani and Paul B, but Tom also interspersed his own comments into our discussion, accusing me of wp:bookspam, of WP:POV, and of wasting his time, as well as raising fallacious arguments about the footnote itself, such as claiming that the book I thought to reference was self-published. He also berated me for continuing to edit the article, when in fact I did not touch the article after starting the discussion on February 24. I suggest that before taking any protection/locking/sanctioning decisions, administrators review the discussion themselves. Jdkag (talk) 14:52, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Your edit count.
 * A list of all your edits.
 * You are correct in that my count was wrong. All but 43 concern the SAQ (and not just SAQ edits are counted; your edits to Mary Sidney and to talk pages are all "concerning the SAQ", as I stated). I don't know how I got 17; maybe I didn't have the complete edit page up when I counted. I apologise for that and I'll adjust the table. Tom Reedy (talk) 15:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Tom, honored to have you here on my page. In order to accurately represent my Wiki contributions, you should note in your table that over the course of the past year I made 61 article edits, 39 unrelated to SAQ or to Shakespeare's era, and 22 related, the related edits being spread over 8 articles and generally minor (such as adding to the 3rd Earl of Pembroke article the fact that he was also Lord Chamberlain, or adding the footnote mentioned above that met with your strenuous objection). I also made several edits to the SAQ Talk sandbox draft before it was cancelled.  Jdkag (talk) 19:53, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Malthusian Catastrophe
So, Jdkag, what have you done to the article on Malthusian catastrophe? It seems to me that you deleted a figure that was based exactly on the words of Thomas Malthus, stripped out his essential argument, and rendered Malthus' ideas into meaningless mush. In his work, "An Essay on the Principal of Population", Chapter 1, paragraph 18, Malthus writes this: "Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second." That statement, translated into graphical form, is precisely what the figure you deleted illustrates. Your note on your first edit says, erroneously, that the graph contradicts Malthus. In addition, you ascribe a non-catastrophic interpretation to his theory, without any supporting citation or reference. Before I take the drastic step of reverting all that you have changed, I would like to give you a chance to explain your reasoning. —Aetheling (talk) 03:59, 18 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Aetheling, Some claim that modern civilization is in overshoot, meaning that we are depleting resources at a non-renewable rate, which will lead to mass famine when our ability to produce those resources begins to fall. In response to such arguments, optimists argue that the fear of a "Malthusian Catastrophe" has always proven to be exaggerated. The Wiki entry on Malthusian Catastrophe should therefore explain what optimists mean when they use this term. However, Malthus himself did not conceive of overshoot that would lead to "catastrophe" other than the catastrophe of severe poverty that he saw in his time, and which exists to this day. His explanation of the arithmetic vs. geometric growth of resources vs. population was not meant to indicate that population would grow beyond the resource base, but merely to emphasize that population would always push up against the resource base. A graph of Malthus' view of population vs. resource growth looks basically as follows, with population pushing against, but not exceeding the resource base:

Malthus did recognize that there were economic cycles of greater and lesser poverty, which he also attributed to the force of population growth. I've copied a relevant passage below. But the main point is that he did not foresee population growing into the state of overshoot cited by Catton and other doomsayers; that is, he himself did not foresee what is generally termed today a "Malthusian Catastrophe." Perhaps the concept can be attributed instead to Neo-Malthusians, though I think that historically the term was actually created by Malthus naysayers as a way to discredit his work. "We will suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population, which is found to act even in the most vicious societies, increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food therefore which before supported seven millions must now be divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend toward a decrease, while the price of provisions would at the same time tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same as he did before. During this season of distress, the discouragements to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great that population is at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labour, the plenty of labourers, and the necessity of an increased industry amongst them, encourage cultivators to employ more labour upon their land, to turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is already in tillage, till ultimately the means of subsistence become in the same proportion to the population as at the period from which we set out. The situation of the labourer being then again tolerably comfortable, the restraints to population are in some degree loosened, and the same retrograde and progressive movements with respect to happiness are repeated." Principle of Population (1798).Jdkag (talk) 06:49, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Shale Oil
Seems like there is a tremendous gap between the industry hype and the recent statement by the BLM.Jdkag (talk) 22:39, 9 October 2011 (UTC)