User talk:Protonk

This is a talk page. Please note that it will help if you refrain from making personal attacks. Aside from that I only have one rule:

TREAT ME LIKE A DAMN DARN HUMAN

I am not a bot. I am not a civility detector. If you think I messed up, say so. If you think I am awesome (less common), say so. Don't assume I'm a cipher because I might not share your views. This rule is non-negotiable. If you don't think you can treat me like a living, breathing person, don't bother posting here. As a note, this refers to actual communication. This is not "ZOMG, WP:DTTR". Templates make simple communication faster. I don't care if you template me. I care a lot if you refuse to answer questions or give me the runaround. Don't do that, please.

Invitation

You are invited to look at my user page, where I am making an attempt to start a new article on Money and the Money Supply. Your advice and suggestions are invited Martycarbone (talk) 17:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you!

Finally, someone else who gets it. Otto4711 (talk) 18:38, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

yes. and I'm watching the discussion you're having in that afd. Amazing. I wouldn't have the patience (as you can see above). Protonk (talk) 18:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

TPH

It appears that TPH is headed for adminship -- just let him sail across the finish line. You don't need to plead his case, because his contributions appear to be a strong selling point. Be well and don't take this (or any Wiki stuff) too seriously. Ecoleetage (talk) 00:25, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Clearly, the route to the finish line took a very different turn (one that I genuinely didn't expect to see). Somehow I suspect there will be a seventh go-round in the not-too--distant future. Be well. Ecoleetage (talk) 18:41, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Help! with Charles R. Black, Jr.

Could you give me some advice? I'm pretty new at the whole BLP policy thing, and I just came across an article which seems like a walking violation of BLP policies. Charles R. Black, Jr. is a disaster -- I removed straight out several pejorative statements, but I don't know what to do about the lobbying section, which gives undue weight to his uglier clients, without mentioning any noncontroversial clients at all. I don't know how to proceed. Should I just go ahead and cut all the unsourced material, or try to find sourcing, or how? I'm asking you because you're a major presence on several of the boards ... and I don't know how to begin except excising the entire section, which seems to me would be removing good information along with bad. Best, RayAYang (talk) 03:34, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

GAN

Hey, could you please take another look at Talk:4chan#GA_Review? —Giggy 14:47, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to chat with you

Hey there, Protonk. I'm going offline in about ten minutes or so, so don't feel "rushed" to respond to this. I've noticed your name in several discussions regarding talkpage tagging, specifically the LGBT tag (Crist and Craig articles, mostly). There are several editors that have been upset by these discussions. I don't think they are upset specifically at you, but I'm trying to help the project formulate "inclusion criteria" for their tag, and I'd like your input. Anyway, I'd like to get a summary of sorts from you, here on your talkpage, as to what the root of the problem is, in your opinion, with articles being tagged by a WikiProject. I've witnessed you being very spot-on in many unrelated discussions (hell, I think I even gave you a barnstar), and in general, I've found you to possess an excellent combination of civil, intelligent, and reasoned behavior, including in the most recent discussions. (hard to come by on-wiki these days, it seems). Can you formulate for me what exactly you find to be the problem with a Wikiproject (any wikiproject) tagging an article they feel falls under their scope? I don't mean that as a trap question, I only got involved in this following the talkpage discussions on the Crist article when I was asked for to act as an "outside opinion" by Moni3. (diffs on request, but my talkpage archives are where the bulk of our conversation happened over the last 1-2 weeks). I firmly believe there is more common ground here amongst a group of dedicated editors than there is division. But at the same time, there are some very exhausted Wikipedians, in the LGBT project, that feel that they've been bombarded (not by you, just by you as an example) regarding their tagging. The project, as far as I can tell, is weary of explaining over and over again, and defending, over and over again, the same issues. They (myself, Moni3, and Benjiboi, mostly) are trying to find a solution. You are of course welcome to decline my request here, but I hope you don't. Quite simply, I'm asking for your side of this, in your words, in summary? Keeper ǀ 76 22:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

This may come out really rambly, I'm just having random thoughts, I should probably use my sandbox. My apologies in advance for what I'm pretty sure is going to be lengthy. I have a question, probably rhetorical, and I don't know how to word it, so I'll put it in the form of a scenario. Let's say there's this Republican, high profile guy. He does all the Republican-y things right. He votes how he's supposed to, opposes what he's supposed to, supports what he's supposed to. Then, some rumors pop up, in very scanty, yellow places, like Enquirer's and other catbox liners. Vehemently denied of course. And preposterous that we would even consider including those rumors in a BLP article. They are rumors. They are political leverages, mudslings, "confidential source" type shit. And, consensus forms quite quickly, that "that pesky IP" that keeps writing 'Senator X is gay! I read it!', really needs a good block. So we block. More IPs/spas/editors show up, readd it, in some form, in some other form. Now it's of the utmost seriousness. The page gets protected instead of handing out detention slips to too many "potentially good" editors (the bounds that we stretch good faith are aggravating sometimes, when intentions are so blatantly obvious). But all along, the rumors don't go away, and they don't go into our article. Nor should they. But then, the rumors get legs. Not because they are true, they are merely rumors. But they've got legs now, google searches are getting into the hundreds if not thousands, and New York Times picks them up. Now, the New York Times (or fill in the blank here - ABC news, FOXNews, whatev), certainly doesn't support the rumors. Heck no. In fact, they do a whole piece about how this poor senator is being incessantly dogged by rumors, so unfairly! The New York Times doesn't confirm the rumors, merely confirms that the rumors exist, in a a reliable source-y kind of way. Wikipedians, being as smart and all-knowing that they are, read the New York Times, see that Senator X is confirmed to have been dogged by rumors of homosexuality or homosexual behavior, and gasp, but they're Republican! What do we do? (that's the question part). I have an idea, I'd like yours as well. We definitely need someone to keep an eye on the article, because now we have a reliable source that confirms that Senator X has been dogged by rumors of homosexuality. Something might hafta be added to the "personal life" section, or the "controversy section", or the "criticisms" section that says that reliable sources have confirmed that Senator X is being dogged by rumors. The LGBT WikiProject, being smart Wikipedians, with interest not necessarily in Republicans, but in the homosexual community, its issues, and its causes, has decided to tag that Republicans article and others like it. Why? To perpetuate the rumor? No, absolutely not. That's a really bad faith thing to say, and it is certainly quite understandable why someone would be upset by that insinuation. So, if not that, then why? What's the good faith reason, is there one? I think so. It's done to protect Wikipedia, Wikipedia's integrity to the outside world, and to protect the BLP article. To keep Wikipedia out of the "rumor game". The article gets tagged, which means it gets bot-sorted for importance and tracked, watched by several new interested editors. Nothing else. It doesn't get categorized. Nothing (beyond perhaps, based on the proliferatioin of the rumors, what I stated above) gets added to the article. The LGBT project, in the same way that it protects every other article of interest to it, protects the Republican senator's article from all kinds of allcaps things: UNDUE/FRINGE/NPOV/BLP/V/N/RS/ETC/ETC/ETC. I am definitely a defender of BLP, I find it to be, in the big picture, our absolutely most vital protection for both ourselves as editors, and our budget at the WMF level. I agree with you and believe that article talkpages are under the BLP umbrella. We can talk about the Senator, but we can't write "Senator X is an asshole" and expect it (or our editing privileges) to stay very long. A talkpage template, for a WikiProject, that has a clear rationale for why it is there, does not perpetuate or confirm the rumors any more than an IP posting "Senator X is an asshole" confirms that Senator X is an asshole. But a talkpage template for an internal WikiProject does not get removed the same way that someone typing "Senator X is an asshole" gets removed. The template is not causing harm to be there, it is not attacking a living person (or any other subject matter) to be there, it is there to protect the integrity of the article (and perhaps, bonus, improve it! That project, I believe, has more GA/FAs than most others, some damn fine writers work there). I've posted to Moni3 directing her here, and to your reply on my talkpage as well. I firmly believe there is middle/common ground somewhere here, and enough of it for everyone to stand on it. And when the next Dateline NBC special pops up that confirms that rumors exist of some straight guy's orientation, that middle/common ground can be pointed to. If for no other end than to prevent the same debate happening over and over again, for your benefit, for mine, for Moni's, and for the WikiProject's. Keeper ǀ 76 19:21, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

That's hard to answer. I hope I was coming across as being open to discussion on the issue, from this hypothetical I get the feeling like I'm the Ogre (Not stirring drama, just mean that the 'opposition to maintaining project integrity' doesn't get to be the good guy and have the girl in this story about Senator X.  :) ). I also hope that I didn't come across as assuming that tagging an article was a bad faith action meant to spread rumors about the subject.

Placed in a hypothetical situation and worded like that I don't know where to come down on the issue. Even in the 'real world' (by that I mean wikipedia), I am much less concerned about an LGBT tag on Larry Graig's article or Mark Foley's article than Charlie Graig's. Perhaps this has little to do with the project and a lot to do with the relative ludicrousness of their denials. I'm not sure.

Now to the heart of the matter (I see that the discussion continues apace on your talk page). Project attention clearly improves an article. More strongly, every project deserves to be able to operate freely (in other words, I think we should strive to treat WP:LGBT just like WP:WINE). Well, since I've moved away from answering this to copyediting an article I can tell I don't really have fire in my belly for it. I don't know if I'm right about this in a broad sense. The more I think about this the more I see it as a narrow, case by case consideration which should have relative deference to the projects. I'll respond on your talk page in some meaningful fashion. Protonk (talk) 05:08, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou

Just a little note to say thankyou for participating in my successful RFA candidacy, which passed with 96 supports, 0 opposes, and 1 neutral. I am pleasantly taken aback by the amount of support for me to contribute in an administrative role and look forward to demonstrating that such faith is well placed. Regards, WilliamH (talk) 08:54, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

My RfA

Protonk, thank you for your contribution to the discussion at my recent RfA. If ever you have any concerns about my actions, adminly or otherwise, don't hesitate to let me know. Best wishes, Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 23:20, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Terror Titans

I'd hardly think WP:CRYSTAL applies as it isn't "unverifiable speculation" and is only months off and therefore is "certain to take place" (given the lead time on comics the art would have to be pretty much in the bag by now) and it is getting a lot of interest in the comics world.

Given the fact I was going to start an article anyway before I saw it had been AfDed I did make sure I had got more information than the previous version contained (previously the source was a link to a discussion forum, which I agree wasn't adequate).

Anyway, it isn't a big deal, I can just restart it again when it can't be be deemed crystal ball gazing - I just hope it being deleted twice now won't make it more problematic. (Emperor (talk) 22:02, 17 August 2008 (UTC))

I removed the original "source" (not even sure if it was working any more) and added in things like this recent interview [1] at Comic Book Resources which also finalised the date. Issue one is solicited and up on the DC site [2] (I prefer not to link to those pages as they have proven to only last 5 or 6 months - which ends up with a mess of dead links down the line. However, I can do if that helps). (Emperor (talk) 22:11, 17 August 2008 (UTC))

Pinoy

Hi, I've rewritten Pinoy and would appreciate you revisiting Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pinoy to see if your concerns have been addressed. Banjeboi 02:38, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Advice on ANI?

Hello--I'm hoping you can give me advice on whether to participate in the ANI discussion regarding User:Skipsievert and Adam Smith. My instinct is to stay away and hope it works itself out. Skip and I probably have the greatest antagonism of the involved editors. But I do feel like Skip's being disruptive and wouldn't like to let it slip based on my lack of participation. Anyway, I have no experience in this from before, so I'd be grateful if you have advice. (And don't worry about it if you don't have advice.) CRETOG8(t/c) 23:40, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, I went ahead and threw in a comment. CRETOG8(t/c) 04:01, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

mathematical economics

Hi Protonk, geez, what a tough subject. Inchoate is right. It occurs to me that I learned economics as an almost exclusively mathematical subject. From calculating the elasticity of supply and demand curves to linear regressions to Pareto optimal solutions to... it was all math (which led to the rather ridiculous situation where many of my fellow graduates could do all sorts of fiendish calculus and stats, but I suspect to this day don't really know what The Fed does). So the question of what belongs in the overview is really tricky. How much of the math from micro theory, macro theory, and econometrics? And how much of the history? I mean, obviously not all of it, so where to draw the line? Yikes, I've got no clue. I will have to ponder this one! --JayHenry (talk) 02:46, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I've got a couple of books on the way, namely Economic Methodology:an inquiry. I've also started to dig through journals like The History of Political Economy and the Journal of the History of Economic Thought. Some promising, some not so. The history should be the easier part. The harder part will be what to include in the explanation (as the "application" section is woefully lacking at present). you are right when you say that so much of economics is math that it becomes hard to define what is "more" mathematical than other parts. do we take the academic view and treat everything within the scope of The Handbook of Mathematical Economics as mathematical? Do we take the outsider view and treat everything more difficult than systems of two linear equations as mathematical? I don't know that there is a consensus in the literature. Protonk (talk) 03:04, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps one idea (and sorry that I'm not yet of any more use than this) might be to look at the Table of Contents of the text book and imagine the key points of each chapter summarized in just a few paragraphs, and perhaps use that as the general structure for the article. I'm not sure how applicable it would be, but it seems like the best way to approach an overview topic like this. I'd think that picking a few big examples for an application section (while linking to pages on some more) would be sufficient. So maybe a few big ones. I remember spending weeks on IS/LM, Heckscher-Ohlin, and painful semesters on linear regression. Econometrics is such a big part of it that I'd think that could perhaps be its own subsection. --JayHenry (talk) 05:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll look into that. as for econometrics, it deserves to be a part of the article in some sense but there actually is dispute among historians of economics as to whether or not econometrics is "mathematical economics". Puzzling. Protonk (talk) 05:44, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, interesting. Because econometrics is about interpreting statistics, not about mathematically modeling economic theories. So you'd use econometrics to get something you could then plug into a model, but it's not part of the model itself. Okay, I'll need to read up on this before I'll be of any help. --JayHenry (talk) 06:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

If you want a doozy of a discussion about ISLM, see History of Political Economy 39:1 DOI 10.1215/00182702-2006-024, Keynes, IS-LM, and the Marshallian Tradition. Protonk (talk) 15:53, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

:-)

thanks! By the way, why aren't you an admin yet? You'd be better than most of the current crop; you're here to build an encyclopedia, after all. —Giggy 07:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I probably wouldn't accept a nomination until I have been here 9-12 months. Besides, RfA is a nest of vipers, IMO. Protonk (talk) 17:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)