User talk:Kiefer.Wolfowitz/Archive 7

Finnish parliamentary election, 2011
yall set to work on this article? were heading for something notable and similar to the sweden page..Lihaas (talk) 19:52, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Dear Lihaas!
 * Caveat: I am sorry but I am terribly swamped in the real world.
 * However: If you have an emergency or something I may help you with, I will drop what I am doing and help you, as a small token of my appreciation for your work on the most difficult and important pages of Wikipedia, the current-events pages. Your integrity and calmness on the Swedish election page were great. Maybe I could help with the Swedish sources?
 * More importantly, I would bet that at least one dictator's minutes were (or shall be) shortened by your extraordinary editing the last months, which is even more remarkable given the unjust attacks and abuse you've suffered.
 * My very best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 20:02, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * thanks for your support. he should be punished per WP:BOOMERANG.
 * anyhoo, im starting to abandon the mad mob arab pages right now. Will be working on Finland and West Bengal's elections now. but if you have any more "campaign" documenrs for the Finland election in any language we can use that to be less-pov. (esp. non-TF)Lihaas (talk) 02:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

How to use your style of signature code, Kiefer.Wolfowitz
Hi Kiefer, saw the way you posted your signature on [User:Elen of the Roads]' Discussion page. Like the way it stands out so the rest of text on a Wikipedia page is easier to follow among authors. Particularly liked your use of the term 'Discussion' since that's how our pages are tabbed, even though 'Talk' is used in official Wikiedia literature as well. I may put my Discussion link into a box too as I saw [User:Pedro]] does.

Question for you, please:


 * Using your style of signature code, do we paste in the code after every post we make and no longer use 4 tildes?
 * Or is there a way to use a keyboard shortcut like the 4 tildes, for example has Wikipedia already arranged for more graphic signatures like yours to be quickly used without pasting of longer code, say by putting the code in a special place and calling on it with a simple typed insert after any writing, such as something in square or curly brackets?

also liked the way you post contents only of The Signpost on the top of your Discussion page
and will have to return later to see how you do that.

Looking forward to your directions. Warmest regards, Pandelver  (Discussion)


 * Hi! I am glad that you like it! I copied the format from Volunteer Marek's signature, changing the colors to match Sweden, Ukraine, University of Michigan, Euclid High, Kent State U., etc!


 * You just copy your Wikiformatted code in the box under "preferences" (the first page). Let me write more tomorrow. Tonight, I have to ensure peace and domestic tranquility with the better half, who indulges my WP editing too much already!


 * I like the "discussion" heading, but "talk" is shorter and standard: I hope that it takes most people only a microsecond extra to click on the "discussion" part, and further that stimulating new connections in their neural networks staves off Alzheimer's disease, which already plagues me!


 * Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 22:56, 15 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks so far, Kiefer. Look forward to your follow up tomorrow, have peeked at Preferenes and imagine the new signature code goes into the Signature box, but will wait until I hear the rest from you, with an additional query noted below. Please enjoy, and may your better half enjoy, great peace and domestic tranquility and a good night's rest when your affection is ready to go off waking consciousness for a refuel.


 * Yes, 'Discussion' is going to be less quickly familiar to many, yet it's also unequivocal; I notice that some are using 'Chat' besides 'Talk.'


 * I am choosing colors to go with the laurel leaf's green (not exact match by ffffff specs) in the WikiProject Wikipedia userbox, and I'm inheriting Volunteer Marek and your yellow, a proud national, university, and high school color, to portray the use of yellow highlighter magic markers on printed paper.


 * New wrinkle is, how do I make sure a time stamp is included when I either manually post or use the Preferences (however you tell me later) to sign off on writings?


 * Take your time, Kiefer, and if it's not too much trouble, please


 * But woops, that doesn't work, it's hardcoded to link back to YOUR Discussion Page, not mine. So it can't be used that way.


 * Pandelver : Discussion


 * Appending, until I know how to do it as part of signature code, Pandelver (talk) 23:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Go to this page
 * wiki/Special:Preferences
 * and insert the desired wikitext into the box. It will automatically time-stamp your signature thereafter. Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 09:28, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks like you have succeeded! Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 09:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * However, consider the WikiSpeak entry for signature:
 * "signature n.
 * The primary means of identifying the perpetrator editor. Ideally, a "sig" should contain links to at least five other pages, bear no relation to the Username originally registered, and occupy no less than 40% of the edit window as viewed on a widescreen VDU. Bonus points if one of the links is to a guestbook, and the sig changes more than twice a week. See also highly active user."

MHP: game theory approach
I saw your post at the game theory wikiproject. It looks like ArbCom is going to give a sabbatical to the most obnoxious editors of that article, so perhaps it can now be improved so that the FA star is actually deserved. Two essential game theory refs for MHP that I found:
 * Ken Binmore's ISBN 0199218463 -- proves of the uniform-Monty-choice problem by drawing the extensive form
 * Chun 1999 -- solves all games of this type by the usual matrix + cond.prob. + LP approach (with some additional assumptions about what happens in the normally unspecified cases, e.g. Monty opens the door with car)

Neither of these sources ave been used/mentioned in the wiki article. I don't have a lot of time on my hands this week. Perhaps you can help. Thanks, Tijfo098 (talk) 15:22, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I like LP, but unfortunately I lack the time. I was mostly concerned about a threat of a (mostly unjust and mostly self-inflicted) sanction against Gill. Most of my other edits have been very short improvements to articles. Thanks for asking, though. Cheers, Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 15:30, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Heterodox economics

 * Ok, thanks. Unrelated suggestion (given your interest in keeping heterodox economics in their place): perhaps you want to voice your opinion at the AfD for Newtonian time in economics. Tijfo098 (talk) 15:43, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I welcome weird economists and really weird economics, but I dislike cults.
 * A rant, which may be skipped. The description of "orthodox" economics is cultlike, here at WP and elsewhere. It does not seem to me that the economics profession has persecuted intelligent radicals like Richard Goodwin and John Roemer or Kelvin Lancaster, for example. On WP, I have cited a number of interesting neo-Marxist articles published by Chicago's JPE, (e.g. Lancaster on differential games and capitalism!). Everybody recognizes that Marx did pioneering work describing dynamical but unstable growth. Everybody recognizes that Friedman and Robert Lucas are serious, and Lucas was generous enough with his time to be on Michael Wallerstein's Ph.D. committee.
 * The problem is that these heterodox people seem to have had their personalities emerged from one cult (e.g., religous fundamentalism) and so jump for another (neo-Ricardian economics, or the New School, etc.). I have no idea what "Austrian school" stuff is, but I know the scent of a cult when I smell it. (What I have seen of feminist economics is similar: instant celebration of any publication as "showing" something.) My guess is that the self-described heterodox people are too intellectually weak to do economics (or any social science or philosophy) and too cowardly to engage in politics, which has greater risks than academic life.
 * Now my pronouncements bore even myself! Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 16:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

LaRouche
Re the RfC you commented at earlier today, I've trawled through Google Scholar and brought up some academic sources that call LaRouche an economist, in addition to the various media sources that were already listed. Have a look at them, and see if they change your mind, or not. I tried to avoid the ones that I know are LaRouche's own publications.

Let me add that I'm not a particular LaRouche fan. But if the man and his views have the ear of various foreign governments, notwithstanding his lousy standing in the US, then I believe we shouldn't minimise that, and give the reader the impression that he is nothing but an inconsequential local cult leader. Cheers, -- JN 466  19:00, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I trust that I have never suggested that LaRouche was either inconsequential or local. Indeed, I have met German students staffing a LaRouche literature table at Stockholm University, who assure me that they wanted to change the U.S. presidential election. LaRouche limited is a multinational concern. Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 19:29, 14 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I looked at the sources, which all look weak. The best ones were on geopolitics, not economics. The worst ones were at the level of the sources cited in the various side-show acts of "heterodox economics", which is to say "below WP standards". Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 19:49, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * They are weak-ish. His influence, such as it is, is more political; his influence in actual economic science discourse is nil, from what I've seen (except perhaps in Russia, where he has a couple of champions who might have cited him). If we adopt academic qualifications and/or significant influence in published academic discourse as our working definition of an "economist", then I agree he doesn't qualify. -- JN 466  20:26, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I owed you a more polite response. I'm sorry but I had to run to dinner, before. Sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 21:41, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, and no worries. -- JN 466  22:13, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

LaRouche 2
Sorry to bother you again. I had resigned myself to the likely outcome of the RfC, and removed the economist label, but now see that LaRouche, under the pen name Lyn Marcus, authored a book, Dialectical economics : an introduction to Marxist political economy (1975) (entry at archive.org), published by D. C. Heath and Company (Lexington, Massachusetts), which was reviewed in the American Economic Review, published by the American Economic Association.

The book has citations in Google Scholar and in Google Books.

To my mind, this changes things, and I feel less happy to let the matter drop. Surely, having your work reviewed (positively, from the snippets I can see) in the American Economic Review, which according to our article on it is one of the most prestigious journals in the field, counts for something. Add to that the fact that he was considered quite an important economist by various Latin American governments, according to reliable sources, and I feel uncomfortable not calling him an economist. What's your view? -- JN 466  03:49, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi again.
 * I repeat that WP requires the most reliable sources. Your link led only to a page that lists AER, not a page giving any substantial review of LaRouche. Such pages have appeared often in attempts to establish Larouche's notability. How long have you been involved with Larouche (on WP)?
 * I looked in Google Scholar and found nothing in the economics literature citing LaRouche in the first two pages (when I searched for "Larouche, Economics". When I searched JSTOR, I found a listing to the JEL, but only to the section stating that "It is our policy to annotate all books". In a few days, I can access JSTOR and determine whether any annotation was more than a curiosum, the way Huber the Tuber might have been noted by the ABE Bookman or JAMA.
 * Huber the Tuber (no relation to Evelyn Huber Stephens) deserves a WP article. Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 14:11, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
 * RE: Larouche & Alan Garcia's Peruvian social-democratic government. It is not surprising that a populist government might have had phone calls with a critic of the IMF or (what they disliked as) Chicago school economics (especially Milton Friedman); at the same time, one should be sceptical of whether Garcia's government recognized Larouche in any way—cults are known to exaggerate their influence and contacts.
 * WP does not call advocates of eating garlic to cure HIV "doctors", despite such quacks having had advised a recent prime minister of South Africa. I see no reason to call LaRouche an "economist". You can say that he is claimed to be an economist by his followers, lazy reporters, etc., but no reputable economist takes him seriously enough to merit attention, at least to judge by JSTOR and Google Scholar. Google Scholar listed two economics books by LaRouche on the first pages I checked---none were reviewed or cited by any economist. Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 09:21, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

The claim that LaRouche was influential in Latin America actually comes from Dennis King, who's no friend of LaRouche's: - LaRouche urged the formation of a debtors' cartel and a don't-pay strategy. His followers toured Latin America, contacting hundreds of government officials, labor leaders, and military officers. They produced dozens of research studies and propaganda tracts, and LaRouche himself wrote Operation Juarez (1982), a brilliant call to arms against the International Monetary Fund austerity programs. The small LaRouchian parties in Mexico, Peru, and Colombia gained access to high government officials. LaRouche became known in Latin America as a serious economist and political strategist. He met with Presidents Jose Lopez Portillo of Mexico and Raul Alfonsin of Argentina. A delegation of his followers met with Peru’s president, Alan Garcia, in Lima. Fighting the IMF meanwhile became a continent-wide demagogic rallying cry. Tens of thousands of students marched against the IMF in Buenos Aires. Fidel Castro seized on the issue and developed his own version of Operation Juarez. But no Latin American leader was willing to take the final step—actual default as opposed to rhetorical threats— that might cut off the credit keeping their economies afloat. LaRouche wasn't discouraged, however. He still believed the catastrophe was only a few years away and that he alone would know how to save civilization. He called his long-range plan, to be implemented once he took power, the Grand Design for Humanity.

The Grand Design was based, like his plan for triggering the debt bomb, on an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. ...

http://www.larouchewatch.com/fascism7.htm (text is from a 1989 book published by Doubleday) --

King is very much an opponent of LaRouche's. I guess sometimes dedicated opponents overstate the importance of their adversaries, so I guess it's possible the same is true here. On the other hand, the whole thing reminds me a little of Chavez and the Bank of the South, so I don't find what King states implausible. Wall Street Journal noted a LaRouche influence in Malaysia about a decade ago: This is an edit by Will Beback, who's written the FA on the LaRouche criminal trials, and does not to me seem to be a fan of LaRouche's. Did I mention Stanislav Menshikov? He seems to be a mate of LaRouche's; LaRouche publishes the English version of Menshikov's book. Another Russian economist who is friendly with LaRouche is Tsagolov (see the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Russia. Cheers, -- JN  466  12:10, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

There is something from King about Mexican President Lopez Portillo and LaRouche here. King calls LaRouche Lopez Portillo's "economics tutor". Again, maybe he is so obsessed with LaRouche that he sees him as more dangerous and more influential than he really is, but it is true that Lopez Portillo kept in touch with LaRouche over the years, turned up at Schiller Institute bashes priaising LaRouche, and so forth. -- JN 466  12:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I followed Garcia's election and initial government closely, with somewhat niave enthusiam, I'll confess. In those years, there were plenty of people calling for a renouncing of debt, often arguing that the loans were incurred by undemocratic military regimes that spent the money on projects to benefit multinational corporations, etc. (Peru had experience with populism from above, before, in its Revolution---see Julio Cotler or Evelyne Huber Stephens, for example.)
 * Thus, I would urge skepticism of claims that Larouche was a catalyst.
 * State that Larouche is a prolific writer on many topics, including economics. (Such a description seems neutral while calling him an "economist" is a stretch.
 * I feel pity for the German kids trying to change US politics and stop another international Jewish conspiracy by passing out Larouche literature in Stockholm, when they need Lithium carbonate and a supportive environment. Let's avoid promoting Larouche, just as the early Enclopedia writers avoided promoting the celebration of the anniversary of the massacre of St. Bartholomew.)
 * After my recent trip to Eastern Europe (including a brewery/restaurant in a former bank, which contrasted its former pious priest investors with speculators named Abramovich, and observing the uglier sides of WP editing, I am not surprised that LaRouche has followers in Russia.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 12:26, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not interested in promoting LaRouche, but parts of his biography sucked. One part for example created the impression that LaRouche merely got to see Lopez Portillo and other leaders because he was presented to aides as the US Democratic candidate for the presidency, as though Lopez Portillo saw him "by mistake", as it were. At least that's the impression I came away with from this earlier version. Given the relationship between the two that ensued, it's not appropriate, and it's also not "neutral" history reporting. When LaRouche came up with his version of a 9/11 conspiracy theory, he was on Iranian radio four times in one week, and Rafsanjani quoted him. There was nothing about that in LaRouche's article, because the house style seems to be to pooh-pooh him, but these are the kinds of ideas that can take hold and shape global events. It's better if their roots are out in the open, rather than covered up IMO. YMMV. -- JN 466  12:46, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * By the way, I agree of course that LaRouche would not have created the dissatisfaction with the IMF in Latin America. It's the other way round: he noticed there were high feelings over this, and that is why he entered the situation and presented himself as someone holding the key to a solution. When Mahathir told the IMF to mind their own business and did his own thing in 1997 (successfully, as it happens), LaRouche was there in the local press too. -- JN 466  12:57, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * LaRouche is a cult-leader and a fringe commentator on public affairs. His followers remember his accurate predictions and explain away his many failures, as in any cult (c.f., When Prophecy Fails). It is not appropriate to call him an "economist".
 * We do not call Hillary Clinton a physicist (because of her public fascination with the power of prayer to effect cures) or religious leader (because of reminiscing of praying to Jesus before going hunting with grandpa, in PA during the last election) or Bill Clinton a criminologist (because he flew back to Arkansas to be closer to the electrocution of a black brain-damaged criminal) or a sociologist/social-worker (because he lectured down to the NAACP that blacks should behave themselves, particularly sexually).
 * Public notoriety and access to power (or exercise of power) do not confer professional disciplinary status on people (regardless of their seeking even more power). Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 12:53, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
 * An economist practices the scientific method to a serious extent. Does LaRouche? If not, he is not an economist. (C.f. Jerry Fallwell, who comments on economics, makes predictions that sometimes come true, and who has access to power. Is he an economist?) Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 13:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Note that User:Volunteer Marek says he has checked the AER issue in question. The Google Books snippets are in fact from an advertisement in the back matter, rather than a review of the book, so that is rather different. -- JN  466  22:18, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Klingon language
From the sublime (decision theory) to the sublunar/ridiculous ... Kiefer.Wolfowitz (Discussion) 16:51, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Klingon Hamlet


Lol. I can see why Bishonen likes you. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:38, 17 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The legendary editor Bishonen and I did not meet under the best circumstances, but I have come to appreciate and often to admire her prose, especially when I am not on the receiving end of her quips!


 * (Regardless of our past history, Bishonen's delayed deletion of the phrase on Rod's page was moderate and justified, and her prudent actions should have been directly defended by the community. Also, I am glad that Rod agreed to remove the phrase: Rod seems wiser than some of his "supporters".)


 * Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 13:45, 17 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I may share your experience, in that I have been cautious about Bishonen but my doubts seem to me now unfounded. However, to be more current, Kiefer, I would like to add that you have been and continue to be an excellent conduit for information between mathematicians and arbitrators, and I thank you for doing this. Geometry guy 00:08, 18 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much, Geometry guy. I won't embarrass you by repeating my praises for your editing here, but a pat on the back from you of course means more to me than a would a barnstar from JW.
 * Wikipedia is the 7th most popular site on the internet, and has very good mathematics content. ArbCom needed to come up with a better solution, allowing us to continue to explain mathematics and science, and I had faith that the mathematics project would respond.
 * Best regards, Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 12:22, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Category:Speakers of Klingon

 * This heading was previously longer, namely " Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Speakers of Klingon"

Category:Speakers of Klingon, which you created, has been nominated for discussion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. AussieLegend (talk) 13:27, 19 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Please avoid mislabeling of your actions. You have proposed deletion but only notified me of discussion. I'll accept your apology when you join me in proposing honest labelling on the notification template page.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 14:24, 19 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Please avoid making bad-faith allegations. I notified you in accordance with WP:CFD using Twinkle and selected "Deletion", but Template:Cfd-notify doesn't provide for customisation beyond adding the category name. If you have problems with the way you were notified, I suggest you discuss the matter in the appropriate forum. There is no reason for me to apologise. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:40, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I made no allegations of bad faith (apart from one that was removed before your posted here). I appreciate your acknowledgment that the template is defective, and so I wish that you should take the corrective action suggested above. Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 14:58, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You accused me of "mislabeling" my actions without first checking to see if there was any possibility of notifying you that it was a deletion discussion and even expected me to apologise. You were not acting in good faith. I don't actually have an issue with the template wording since it does direct to Categories for discussion and not Categories for deletion and the reasoning that was expressed in the edit summary for the wording change seems valid. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:07, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You did not accurately label your action, because (as I have acknowledged now 3 times) the template is defective. I mentioned the template's problem to clarify that the mislabeling was not intended as a lie. (However, you have not yet disavowed cognizance that the language was defective.)
 * It is a pleasure to repeat my thanks for your helpful note on the talk page of the template.
 * Regarding the template: I left a nice notice on Black Falcon's page, in the hope that BF can make a better template. Sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 15:20, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
 * P.S. I hope to avoid discussions about the Klingon language in the future!

The editor, Black Falcon, added a parameter to the template, allowing the notification of projects and persons, with alternative messages.

Optional parameters
The template supports two optional parameters:
 * wikiproject=yes : To notify the members of a WikiProject, rather than a category's creator; this parameter replaces the text "which you created" with "which is under the purview of this WikiProject".
 * action=value : Any text specified in place of value, such as "deletion", "merging" or "renaming", replaces "discussion" with the user-specified text; this parameter can, in the cases of nominations to merge or rename, be used to identify the title of the proposed target category—e.g.  replaces "nominated for discussion" with "nominated for merging to Category:Contents".

As I noted before and elsewhere, I misread Aussie Legend's action as a deliberate changing of another template's message (but was able to correct an irritated expression here within 2 minutes).

However, my initial judgment persisted unconsciously, leaving my messages short on my usual sugar and spice and everything nice and rather full of rats and snails and dingo-dog tails. Sorry for not censoring the irritated tone in my replies, Aussie Legend.

Sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz  (Discussion) 20:14, 20 March 2011 (UTC)