The Austrian Economics Wiki - User contributions [en]

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-29T17:58:46Z

Diax: /* The Regression Theorem and Bitcoin */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

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[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
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*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
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For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

Just let whoever has the time and the inclination edit the wiki if they're from Europe great if not that's great too at least they're working on the project. If you allow people to put stuff up in their native tounges that might help as well. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:59, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Side note: we have a little page/project for [[MisesWiki:International|non-English]] posts. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:24, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

I see an issure with the money section of your ABCT page. What you're calling money i.e. the USD(FRN) and other fiat notes are not money it is a common mistake to call them that. What the FRN is, is a promissory note, or a money susbstitute. I don't know how you want to go about fixing it. Your call. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:39, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

So I made some changes to that section mentioned above feel free to change it back if you don't like them. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:52, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Hallo Diax! I have reverted the change after some consideration. The reason is that fiat notes ''are'' money (even if it's paper money). Check the definition of [[money]] for more details, but in short it is a commonly used [[medium of exchange]] - i.e. whatever is widely used for that purpose at the moment. But of course, the real question is whether fiat notes are a '''''good''''' form of money - and that's where we can put in some good arguments. :) Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:18, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

Yes money is a medium of exchange but I'm also fairly sure that Mises talks about the promissary note being different from "pure" money in ''Human Action''. Of course it isn't a big deal. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:23, 22 May 2013 (MSD)
: I think he refers to a situation when there exists the 'pure' money (gold, silver, etc.) and there are also promissory notes. While only the first is 'actual' money, both can circulate side-by-side. Confusing the two can have dangerous consequences, as Mises shows.
: These days, the dominant form of money are fiat notes that are not backed by anything. No confusion there. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:44, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)Diax[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)

I expanded the Negative Rights and the Positive Rights articles. However I do not know how to add references. If someone could let me know I would appreciate it. Sorry for the inconvience. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:48, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

: No problem! In short, check out other pages - see e.g. this [[Jay Cooke|recent one]]. Click on Edit and see what's in there - note the 'Reflist' section close to the end of the page, that's what will produce the whole references block. Then note the 'ref' sections that look like this:
::<nowiki><ref name="Britannica_Cooke">Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/136088/Jay-Cooke "Jay Cooke"], referenced 2013-05-21.</ref></nowiki>
: ([https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Footnotes Here's] the official documentation.)
: The 'name' part is only necessary if you reuse a reference. Often, you can get away with something like this:
::<nowiki><ref>Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/136088/Jay-Cooke "Jay Cooke"].</ref></nowiki>
: So it involves a little typing, but after you do it once or twice, references are easy. I've added them to the [[Negative right]] page. Check the changes I've made and try it for yourself - and let me know how it works out for you! (See also [[Essay:How to make good wiki pages|here]] for some more tips on how to make good pages.) Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:32, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

So I saw that you said that the part about the founders pulling alot from John Locke needed to be cited (this is in the [[negative rights]] article). I'll agree that it would be nice if such a citiation existed but I'm not sure that it does. I put that in there because it's fairly obvious. "Life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness" is essentially a direct quote from Locke; "life, liberty, and property". You know that's so obvious that someone has to have expressed it somewhere before... Just got to find it.[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:49, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

I had the misfortune to walk into the living room whilst the roomies were watching the news the other day and CBS was refering to the '08 bubble as the "Great Recession". I found that highly entertaining. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 20:11, 22 May 2013 (MSD)[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:51, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

Do people seriously bother to create bots to put up nonsense pages? Seems a little ridiculous that someone would waste their time like that... Perhaps I'm just not cynical enough...[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:56, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

: They do, but mostly it's just spam, where the motivation is cold hard cash. I assume most of the edits that are complete nonsense are simply the generation of 'plausible' traffic to cover up other spam. For some people this is clearly worth the effort. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 01:59, 24 May 2013 (MSD)

:: Then again, someone (or rather some''thing'') just posted a remarkably coherent and quite polished page about Essays. I have deleted the page, but actually hope that it ''was'' a spambot and not a misguided human (and that I just didn't fail the {{w|Turing test}}...).
:: So this may be the future of spamming - lots of crap with some well-written borderline cases that creep up on websites and sometimes slip through. Guess it's only gonna get worse. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 00:11, 29 May 2013 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

You could always ask simple math problems but declare said equations as a string so that the bot won't be able to interpret the numbers.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 19:59, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

I'd love to help ya mate just not sure how. I don't have any expierence working on wiki's etc... [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 23:35, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

: The cleanup is basically finished. If you wanna help out with the messy bits, there is a whole [[MisesWiki:WikiProject Cleanup|Cleanup project]]. But if you want something more topical, check out the current project [[Robber baron]]s, there's quite a few of those guys left.
: Learning how to use a wiki isn't hard - it's only matter of dilligence and finding the topics that really interest you and you want to learn about more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 02:09, 24 May 2013 (MSD)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)

== The Regression Theorem and Bitcoin ==

So I'm dong research for a paper and I can't seem to find a place which makes the arguments for why Bitcoin violates the regression therom etc... Was wondering if ya'll could direct me to where that argument is made? Also someone with more knowledge than I should probably add a "Critism" section to the Bitcoin page and talk about the regression therom there. Thanks for your time. Peace be with you all! - Diax

So what exactly is the argument about that Bitcoin violates the regression therom or some such? It would be nice to

: Don't know where that particular claim comes from, here's [http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/7761841-patrik-korda/1616371-bitcoin-bubble-2-0 one] article that comes close, and [https://smilingdavesblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/bitcoin-all-in-one-place/ this] list seems to be a good one to go by, but that's just two bloggers. [http://themonetaryfuture.blogspot.de/2011/06/why-are-libertarians-against-bitcoin.html This] one links to many other articles where other critiques may be found.
: Otherwise, it seems like most articles speak about some anonymous 'Austrian economists' that keep doing that somewhere and fail to provide a link.
: If you find good articles about [[Bitcoin]], critiques or not, please add them to the page! (If they are not as good, but still contain valid points, throw them on the Talk page.) Someone may sort them out one day. Any Bitcoin experts out there? (Follow through with your research and may become one as well. :) ). Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 01:32, 29 May 2013 (MSD)

It's Mises that created the Regression Therom in [i] The Theory of Money and Credit[/i] (1912) It's him expanding on Menger's theory on the origin of moeny. The basic argument as far as I can tell is that in order to transition from a barter economy to a money economy it would be necessary for a commodity to have utility in trade beyond it's barter value and thus it becomes a medium of exchange.

I think the claim is that because bitcoin does not have a commodity backing it cannot be money (in the long run) and just like fiat is doomed to fail...[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 01:43, 29 May 2013 (MSD)

: The [[Regression theorem|concept]] is well-known (hmm, that page could also use some improvement...), the question is where the claim about Bitcoin violating it comes from. Need to do some more googling! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:20, 29 May 2013 (MSD)
As far as I can tell the claim that Bitcoin violates it comes from the idea that because the regression theorem says that money must be commodity backed and bitcoin violates this principle therefore Bitcoin is not money.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 21:58, 29 May 2013 (MSD)

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-28T21:43:46Z

Diax: /* The Regression Therom and Bitcoin */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

<p>To add a new item, add a <code><nowiki>==Level two header==</nowiki></code> to introduce it.</p>

<p>For discussion related to long-term planning and development, also see the [https://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/topics Mises Wiki Google Group].</p></div>
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
{{archive box collapsible|
*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
}}

{{TOC right}}

For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

Just let whoever has the time and the inclination edit the wiki if they're from Europe great if not that's great too at least they're working on the project. If you allow people to put stuff up in their native tounges that might help as well. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:59, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Side note: we have a little page/project for [[MisesWiki:International|non-English]] posts. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:24, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

I see an issure with the money section of your ABCT page. What you're calling money i.e. the USD(FRN) and other fiat notes are not money it is a common mistake to call them that. What the FRN is, is a promissory note, or a money susbstitute. I don't know how you want to go about fixing it. Your call. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:39, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

So I made some changes to that section mentioned above feel free to change it back if you don't like them. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:52, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Hallo Diax! I have reverted the change after some consideration. The reason is that fiat notes ''are'' money (even if it's paper money). Check the definition of [[money]] for more details, but in short it is a commonly used [[medium of exchange]] - i.e. whatever is widely used for that purpose at the moment. But of course, the real question is whether fiat notes are a '''''good''''' form of money - and that's where we can put in some good arguments. :) Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:18, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

Yes money is a medium of exchange but I'm also fairly sure that Mises talks about the promissary note being different from "pure" money in ''Human Action''. Of course it isn't a big deal. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:23, 22 May 2013 (MSD)
: I think he refers to a situation when there exists the 'pure' money (gold, silver, etc.) and there are also promissory notes. While only the first is 'actual' money, both can circulate side-by-side. Confusing the two can have dangerous consequences, as Mises shows.
: These days, the dominant form of money are fiat notes that are not backed by anything. No confusion there. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:44, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)Diax[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)

I expanded the Negative Rights and the Positive Rights articles. However I do not know how to add references. If someone could let me know I would appreciate it. Sorry for the inconvience. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:48, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

: No problem! In short, check out other pages - see e.g. this [[Jay Cooke|recent one]]. Click on Edit and see what's in there - note the 'Reflist' section close to the end of the page, that's what will produce the whole references block. Then note the 'ref' sections that look like this:
::<nowiki><ref name="Britannica_Cooke">Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/136088/Jay-Cooke "Jay Cooke"], referenced 2013-05-21.</ref></nowiki>
: ([https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Footnotes Here's] the official documentation.)
: The 'name' part is only necessary if you reuse a reference. Often, you can get away with something like this:
::<nowiki><ref>Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/136088/Jay-Cooke "Jay Cooke"].</ref></nowiki>
: So it involves a little typing, but after you do it once or twice, references are easy. I've added them to the [[Negative right]] page. Check the changes I've made and try it for yourself - and let me know how it works out for you! (See also [[Essay:How to make good wiki pages|here]] for some more tips on how to make good pages.) Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:32, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

So I saw that you said that the part about the founders pulling alot from John Locke needed to be cited (this is in the [[negative rights]] article). I'll agree that it would be nice if such a citiation existed but I'm not sure that it does. I put that in there because it's fairly obvious. "Life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness" is essentially a direct quote from Locke; "life, liberty, and property". You know that's so obvious that someone has to have expressed it somewhere before... Just got to find it.[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:49, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

I had the misfortune to walk into the living room whilst the roomies were watching the news the other day and CBS was refering to the '08 bubble as the "Great Recession". I found that highly entertaining. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 20:11, 22 May 2013 (MSD)[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:51, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

Do people seriously bother to create bots to put up nonsense pages? Seems a little ridiculous that someone would waste their time like that... Perhaps I'm just not cynical enough...[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:56, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

: They do, but mostly it's just spam, where the motivation is cold hard cash. I assume most of the edits that are complete nonsense are simply the generation of 'plausible' traffic to cover up other spam. For some people this is clearly worth the effort. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 01:59, 24 May 2013 (MSD)

:: Then again, someone (or rather some''thing'') just posted a remarkably coherent and quite polished page about Essays. I have deleted the page, but actually hope that it ''was'' a spambot and not a misguided human (and that I just didn't fail the {{w|Turing test}}...).
:: So this may be the future of spamming - lots of crap with some well-written borderline cases that creep up on websites and sometimes slip through. Guess it's only gonna get worse. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 00:11, 29 May 2013 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

You could always ask simple math problems but declare said equations as a string so that the bot won't be able to interpret the numbers.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 19:59, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

I'd love to help ya mate just not sure how. I don't have any expierence working on wiki's etc... [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 23:35, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

: The cleanup is basically finished. If you wanna help out with the messy bits, there is a whole [[MisesWiki:WikiProject Cleanup|Cleanup project]]. But if you want something more topical, check out the current project [[Robber baron]]s, there's quite a few of those guys left.
: Learning how to use a wiki isn't hard - it's only matter of dilligence and finding the topics that really interest you and you want to learn about more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 02:09, 24 May 2013 (MSD)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)

== The Regression Therom and Bitcoin ==

So I'm dong research for a paper and I can't seem to find a place which makes the arguments for why Bitcoin violates the regression therom etc... Was wondering if ya'll could direct me to where that argument is made? Also someone with more knowledge than I should probably add a "Critism" section to the Bitcoin page and talk about the regression therom there. Thanks for your time. Peace be with you all! - Diax

So what exactly is the argument about that Bitcoin violates the regression therom or some such? It would be nice to

: Don't know where that particular claim comes from, here's [http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/7761841-patrik-korda/1616371-bitcoin-bubble-2-0 one] article that comes close, and [https://smilingdavesblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/bitcoin-all-in-one-place/ this] list seems to be a good one to go by, but that's just two bloggers. [http://themonetaryfuture.blogspot.de/2011/06/why-are-libertarians-against-bitcoin.html This] one links to many other articles where other critiques may be found.
: Otherwise, it seems like most articles speak about some anonymous 'Austrian economists' that keep doing that somewhere and fail to provide a link.
: If you find good articles about [[Bitcoin]], critiques or not, please add them to the page! (If they are not as good, but still contain valid points, throw them on the Talk page.) Someone may sort them out one day. Any Bitcoin experts out there? (Follow through with your research and may become one as well. :) ). Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 01:32, 29 May 2013 (MSD)

It's Mises that created the Regression Therom in [i] The Theory of Money and Credit[/i] (1912) It's him expanding on Menger's theory on the origin of moeny. The basic argument as far as I can tell is that in order to transition from a barter economy to a money economy it would be necessary for a commodity to have utility in trade beyond it's barter value and thus it becomes a medium of exchange.

I think the claim is that because bitcoin does not have a commodity backing it cannot be money (in the long run) and just like fiat is doomed to fail...[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 01:43, 29 May 2013 (MSD)

Daily Anarchist

2013-05-23T03:56:09Z

Diax: Created page with "The Dialy Anarchist is a blog and forum owned and operated by Seth King and edited by Davi Barker. The forum is open to all Anarcho Capitalists including [[mutuali..."

The Dialy Anarchist is a blog and forum owned and operated by [[Seth King]] and edited by [[Davi Barker]]. The forum is open to all [[Anarcho Capitalists]] including [[mutualists]], however it is predominately occupied Austrian anarchists. The blog pays it's contributors in bitcoin.

Notable contributors include [[Wendy McElroy]] and [[Davi Barker]].

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-22T19:35:10Z

Diax: /* Early spring cleaning */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

<p>To add a new item, add a <code><nowiki>==Level two header==</nowiki></code> to introduce it.</p>

<p>For discussion related to long-term planning and development, also see the [https://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/topics Mises Wiki Google Group].</p></div>
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
{{archive box collapsible|
*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
}}

{{TOC right}}

For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

Just let whoever has the time and the inclination edit the wiki if they're from Europe great if not that's great too at least they're working on the project. If you allow people to put stuff up in their native tounges that might help as well. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:59, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Side note: we have a little page/project for [[MisesWiki:International|non-English]] posts. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:24, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

I see an issure with the money section of your ABCT page. What you're calling money i.e. the USD(FRN) and other fiat notes are not money it is a common mistake to call them that. What the FRN is, is a promissory note, or a money susbstitute. I don't know how you want to go about fixing it. Your call. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:39, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

So I made some changes to that section mentioned above feel free to change it back if you don't like them. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:52, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Hallo Diax! I have reverted the change after some consideration. The reason is that fiat notes ''are'' money (even if it's paper money). Check the definition of [[money]] for more details, but in short it is a commonly used [[medium of exchange]] - i.e. whatever is widely used for that purpose at the moment. But of course, the real question is whether fiat notes are a '''''good''''' form of money - and that's where we can put in some good arguments. :) Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:18, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

Yes money is a medium of exchange but I'm also fairly sure that Mises talks about the promissary note being different from "pure" money in ''Human Action''. Of course it isn't a big deal. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:23, 22 May 2013 (MSD)
: I think he refers to a situation when there exists the 'pure' money (gold, silver, etc.) and there are also promissory notes. While only the first is 'actual' money, both can circulate side-by-side. Confusing the two can have dangerous consequences, as Mises shows.
: These days, the dominant form of money are fiat notes that are not backed by anything. No confusion there. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:44, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)Diax[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)

I expanded the Negative Rights and the Positive Rights articles. However I do not know how to add references. If someone could let me know I would appreciate it. Sorry for the inconvience. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:48, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

: No problem! In short, check out other pages - see e.g. this [[Jay Cooke|recent one]]. Click on Edit and see what's in there - note the 'Reflist' section close to the end of the page, that's what will produce the whole references block. Then note the 'ref' sections that look like this:
::<nowiki><ref name="Britannica_Cooke">Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/136088/Jay-Cooke "Jay Cooke"], referenced 2013-05-21.</ref></nowiki>
: ([https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Footnotes Here's] the official documentation.)
: The 'name' part is only necessary if you reuse a reference. Often, you can get away with something like this:
::<nowiki><ref>Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/136088/Jay-Cooke "Jay Cooke"].</ref></nowiki>
: So it involves a little typing, but after you do it once or twice, references are easy. I've added them to the [[Negative right]] page. Check the changes I've made and try it for yourself - and let me know how it works out for you! (See also [[Essay:How to make good wiki pages|here]] for some more tips on how to make good pages.) Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:32, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

So I saw that you said that the part about the founders pulling alot from John Locke needed to be cited (this is in the [[negative rights]] article). I'll agree that it would be nice if such a citiation existed but I'm not sure that it does. I put that in there because it's fairly obvious. "Life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness" is essentially a direct quote from Locke; "life, liberty, and property". You know that's so obvious that someone has to have expressed it somewhere before... Just got to find it.[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:49, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

I had the misfortune to walk into the living room whilst the roomies were watching the news the other day and CBS was refering to the '08 bubble as the "Great Recession". I found that highly entertaining. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 20:11, 22 May 2013 (MSD)[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:51, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

Do people seriously bother to create bots to put up nonsense pages? Seems a little ridiculous that someone would waste their time like that... Perhaps I'm just not cynical enough...[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:56, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

You could always ask simple math problems but declare said equations as a string so that the bot won't be able to interpret the numbers.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 19:59, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

I'd love to help ya mate just not sure how. I don't have any expierence working on wiki's etc... [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 23:35, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)

Negative right

2013-05-22T18:31:12Z

Diax: /* Ayn Rand */

A negative right is a right to be free of something. The opposite concept is [[positive right]]s.

In order for someone to fulfil your negative right to life they simply must not murder you. Failing to help someone is not a violation of the negative right to life.{{Fact}}

== John Locke ==
[[John Locke]], considered the father of [[libertarianism]], was an adovcate of negative rights. He supported the negative rights to life liberty and property. The founding fathers of the United States drew upon Locke while writing the [[Declaration of Independence]] and the [[United States Constitution|Constitution]].{{Fact}}

== Ayn Rand ==
[[Ayn Rand]] was a staunch advocate of negative rights. According to Rand "A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life." <ref>[http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individual_rights.html "Individual Rights"] from the ''Ayn Rand Lexicon''. Referenced 2013-05-22.</ref>

". . .—the source of man's rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival"<ref>Ayn Rand. [http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_cui_rights "Man's Rights"]. Referenced 2013-05-22.</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Links==
* {{w|Negative and positive rights}} at Wikipedia

[[Category:Concepts]]
{{Stub}}

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-22T16:11:16Z

Diax: /* The Big One */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

<p>To add a new item, add a <code><nowiki>==Level two header==</nowiki></code> to introduce it.</p>

<p>For discussion related to long-term planning and development, also see the [https://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/topics Mises Wiki Google Group].</p></div>
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
{{archive box collapsible|
*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
}}

{{TOC right}}

For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

Just let whoever has the time and the inclination edit the wiki if they're from Europe great if not that's great too at least they're working on the project. If you allow people to put stuff up in their native tounges that might help as well. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:59, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Side note: we have a little page/project for [[MisesWiki:International|non-English]] posts. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:24, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

I see an issure with the money section of your ABCT page. What you're calling money i.e. the USD(FRN) and other fiat notes are not money it is a common mistake to call them that. What the FRN is, is a promissory note, or a money susbstitute. I don't know how you want to go about fixing it. Your call. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:39, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

So I made some changes to that section mentioned above feel free to change it back if you don't like them. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:52, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Hallo Diax! I have reverted the change after some consideration. The reason is that fiat notes ''are'' money (even if it's paper money). Check the definition of [[money]] for more details, but in short it is a commonly used [[medium of exchange]] - i.e. whatever is widely used for that purpose at the moment. But of course, the real question is whether fiat notes are a '''''good''''' form of money - and that's where we can put in some good arguments. :) Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:18, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

Yes money is a medium of exchange but I'm also fairly sure that Mises talks about the promissary note being different from "pure" money in ''Human Action''. Of course it isn't a big deal. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:23, 22 May 2013 (MSD)
: I think he refers to a situation when there exists the 'pure' money (gold, silver, etc.) and there are also promissory notes. While only the first is 'actual' money, both can circulate side-by-side. Confusing the two can have dangerous consequences, as Mises shows.
: These days, the dominant form of money are fiat notes that are not backed by anything. No confusion there. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:44, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)Diax[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)

I expanded the Negative Rights and the Positive Rights articles. However I do not know how to add references. If someone could let me know I would appreciate it. Sorry for the inconvience. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:48, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

: No problem! In short, check out other pages - see e.g. this [[Jay Cooke|recent one]]. Click on Edit and see what's in there - note the 'Reflist' section close to the end of the page, that's what will produce the whole references block. Then note the 'ref' sections that look like this:
::<nowiki><ref name="Britannica_Cooke">Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/136088/Jay-Cooke "Jay Cooke"], referenced 2013-05-21.</ref></nowiki>
: ([https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Footnotes Here's] the official documentation.)
: The 'name' part is only necessary if you reuse a reference. Often, you can get away with something like this:
::<nowiki><ref>Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/136088/Jay-Cooke "Jay Cooke"].</ref></nowiki>
: So it involves a little typing, but after you do it once or twice, references are easy. I've added them to the [[Negative right]] page. Check the changes I've made and try it for yourself - and let me know how it works out for you! (See also [[Essay:How to make good wiki pages|here]] for some more tips on how to make good pages.) Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:32, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

So I saw that you said that the part about the founders pulling alot from John Locke needed to be cited (this is in the [[negative rights]] article). I'll agree that it would be nice if such a citiation existed but I'm not sure that it does. I put that in there because it's fairly obvious. "Life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness" is essentially a direct quote from Locke; "life, liberty, and property". You know that's so obvious that someone has to have expressed it somewhere before... Just got to find it.[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:49, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

I had the misfortune to walk into the living room whilst the roomies were watching the news the other day and CBS was refering to the '08 bubble as the "Great Recession". I found that highly entertaining. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 20:11, 22 May 2013 (MSD)[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:51, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

Do people seriously bother to create bots to put up nonsense pages? Seems a little ridiculous that someone would waste their time like that... Perhaps I'm just not cynical enough...[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:56, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

You could always ask simple math problems but declare said equations as a string so that the bot won't be able to interpret the numbers.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 19:59, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)

Intellectual property

2013-05-22T16:09:57Z

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{{See also|Intellectual property learning materials}}

'''Intellectual property''' ('''IP''') is a broad concept that covers several types of legally recognized [[right]]s arising from some type of intellectual creativity, or that are otherwise related to [[idea]]s. IP rights are rights to intangible things—to ideas, as expressed (copyrights), or as embodied in a practical
implementation (patents).<ref name="Kinsella_IP">Stephan Kinsella. [[Against Intellectual Property]], page 9. Referenced 2011-09-07.</ref>

Intellectual property laws grant [[monopoly|monopolies]] to originators of ideas, giving them a legal [[right]] to [[initiate]] [[force]] (through the [[state]]) against anyone making use of the idea without the permission of the originator of that idea.

Modern [[libertarian]]s, such as [[Stephan Kinsella]] and [[Jeffrey Tucker]], consider the term to be self-contradictory, because ideas and patterns are not [[scarcity|scarce]] or [[rivalry|rivalrous]], so logically cannot be [[ownership|owned]].

==Types of intellectual property==

In today’s legal systems, IP typically includes at least '''[[copyright]]s''', '''[[trademark]]s''', '''[[patent]]s''', and '''[[trade secret]]s'''.<ref name="Kinsella_IP" />

Copyright consists of legal rights over literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic works, such as novels, music, and so on. A concept central to modern IP law is that of the "idea-expression dichotomy"; that a copyright holder has rights not over the ideas per se, but rather in his expression of those ideas. For example, a historian may write a book about the history of the Austrian school, based on a number of historical facts. Another author may use the same facts, but write his own book in his own, different words. There would be no copyright violation. The concept of the idea-expression dichotomy has been criticised by some anti-IP writers.
Although it depends on the medium, such copyright typically lasts for the life of the author plus a number of years- often as much as 70.

Patents are monopoly rights over the use and distribution of inventions. Unlike copyright, which is automatically granted (although some jurisdictions give additional legal rights to registered works), patents must be applied for and approved of.

In a similar vein of thought, a commonly held belief is in a right to one's [[reputation]], and that speech can be restricted if it is [[libel]] or [[slander]].{{Fact}}

==History==
Patents emerged as a form of protection for [[mercantile]]s. Copyrights are rooted in control and [[censorship]] of ideas.{{Fact}}

Historically, very few ideas and innovations have been rewarded with government protected monopolies. Although the Venetians introduced limited patent protection in 1474, this was an exceptional provision aimed at attracting particularly skilful artisans and merchants from other states. Such it remained for about a century and a half, with kings, princes and dogi giving or taking away exclusive privileges as they saw fit either to promote the economic vigor of the state or, more often, to promote the financial well being of their purse.

It was the English Parliament that, in 1623, pioneered patent law in its modern version with the aptly named ''Statute of Monopolies''. The act of Parliament introducing the Statute did not create a new monopoly. It took the power of granting monopoly away from the monarchy (represented at the time by King James I) and lodged it instead with the Parliament. Before the Statute was enacted, the royal power to sell monopolies (on either new or old products, it did not matter: think of the salt monopoly) went completely unchecked and its use aimed at maximizing royal revenues. The economic incentives of innovators or, more generally, of entrepreneurs was nobody’s concern in issuing letters of patent.

The Statute did not replace intellectual competition with intellectual monopoly, but an indefinite and broad government monopoly with a definite and restricted private monopoly. This, no doubt, represented progress in terms of private property rights and incentives to private economic initiative. Further, the range of products to which patent protection could and would be given was greatly reduced, as it was restricted to actual inventions.<ref name="Boldrin_History_IP">Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. [[Against Intellectual Monopoly]], Chapter 3, p. 48-49.</ref>

==Effects and costs of IP==
{{See also|Costs of Intellectual property|Argumentation:Software patents}}

Three things stand out in the case of arguments in favor of intellectual monopoly. First, all other things are never equal. A system of intellectual monopoly may well increase the amount of money that an innovator can make by selling his idea – but it also raises the cost of producing that idea. The innovator must pay all the other monopolists more to use their ideas in creating his own. The system also creates a variety of other costs – innovators must engage in costly patent searches to make sure they are not infringing existing patents – and the substantial legal and court fees earned by lawyers are all part of the cost of operating a system of intellectual monopoly. Because of all these costs, a system of intellectual monopoly may well lead to less innovation than a competitive system. Second, [[monopoly]] is not widely viewed as the friend of innovation – the Eastern European state monopolies being only the most extreme of many examples. So we may well wonder if creating monopolies is really a good way to increase innovation. Finally – if intellectual monopoly is a good idea then it ''must be'' because it increases innovation – and given all its costs, it must increase innovation substantially over the competitive system. There seems to be no evidence it does so.<ref name="Boldrin_First_Mover">Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. [[Against Intellectual Monopoly]], Chapter 7, p. 168-169.</ref>

IP rights, at least for patents and copyrights, may be considered rights in ideal objects. The ownership of an idea, or ideal object, effectively gives the IP owners a property right in every physical embodiment of that work or invention. Consider a copyrighted book. If A writes a novel, he has a copyright in this "work." If he sells a physical copy of the novel to B, in book form, then B owns only that one physical copy of the novel; B does not own the "novel" itself, and is not entitled to make a copy of the novel, even using his own paper and ink. Thus, even if B owns the material property of paper and printing press, he cannot use his own property to create another copy of A’s book. Only A has the right to copy the book (hence, "copyright").

Likewise, A’s ownership of a patent gives him the right to prevent a third party from using or practicing the patented invention, even if the third party only uses his own property. In this way, A’s ownership of ideal rights gives him some degree of control—ownership—over the tangible property of innumerable others. Patent and copyright invariably transfer partial ownership of tangible property from its natural owner to innovators, inventors, and artists.

Patents can be obtained only for "practical" applications of ideas, but not for more abstract or theoretical
ideas. This skews resources away from theoretical R&D. It is not clear that society is better off with relatively more practical invention and relatively less theoretical research and development. Additionally, many inventions are patented for defensive reasons, resulting in patent lawyers’ salaries and patent office fees. This large overhead would be unnecessary if there were no patents. In the absence of patent laws, for example, companies would not spend money obtaining or defending against ridiculous patents.<ref name="Kinsella_Effects">Stephan Kinsella. [[Against Intellectual Property]], page 14-15, 22. Referenced 2011-09-10.</ref>

In the US, authors have a copyright in their original works of authorship as soon as they write them, automatically, courtesy of federal law. No copyright notice is required. No copyright registration is required. The right is there, independently of the wishes of the author. There is also no clear and good way to dedicate a work to the [[public domain]].<ref name="Kinsella_sticky">Stephan Kinsella. [http://blog.mises.org/9240/copyright-is-very-sticky/ "Copyright is very sticky!"], ''Mises Institute'', January 14, 2009. Referenced 2011-09-17.</ref> In an attempt to address this problem, the [[Creative Commons]] created a CC0, or "No Rights Reserved" designation.<ref>{{cite web|title=
About CC0 — “No Rights Reserved”|url=http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0|author=Creative Commons}}</ref>

==Views==
Intellectual property is a regularly debated subject among libertarians. Most of the debate about IP concerns
patent and copyright.

*[[Stephan Kinsella]] and [[Jeffrey Tucker]] are two of the most prominent strong opponents of all forms of intellectual property.
*[[Murray Rothbard]] was opposed to patents, but he believed that a weak form of copyrights could be enforced through [[contracts]].
*[[Ludwig von Mises]] and [[F. A. Hayek]] were largely opposed to intellectual property.
*[[Ayn Rand]] was an enthusiastic supporter of intellectual property, although she admitted that it would, if held in perpetuity, lead to the "unearned support of parasitism."<ref>{{cite book|title=Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal|author=Rand, Ayn|chapter=Patents and Copyrights}}</ref>
* Morris and Linda Tannehill supported intellectual property.<ref>{{cite book|quote=A man's life is made up of time, so when he invests his time in material or intellectual property (ideas) he is investing parts of his life, thereby making that property an extension of his life. The right to property is part of the right to life.|author=Morris and Linda Tannehill|title=The Market for Liberty|chapter=Man and Society}}</ref>
[[Wendy McElroy]] is opposed to IP and has written several articles countering the Rothbardian view of copyright by contract and the natural rights view of IP. These articles can be found at the [[Daily Anarchist]]

[[Benjamin Tucker]] also opposed IP.

==Arguments in favor of intellectual property==

===Ethical and natural rights arguments===
Some libertarians advocated IP on moral or natural-rights grounds. According to this view, creations of the mind are entitled to protection just as tangible property is. Both are the product of one’s labor and one’s mind. Just as one has a right to the crops one plants, so one has a right to the ideas one generates and the art one
produces.

This theory depends on the notion that one owns one’s body and labor, and therefore, its fruits, including intellectual "creations." An individual creates a sonnet, a song, a sculpture, by employing his own labor and body. He is thus entitled to "own" these creations, because they result from other things he "owns."<ref name="Kinsella_Arguments_For">Stephan Kinsella. [[Against Intellectual Property]], page 16-18. Referenced 2011-09-10.</ref>

[[Ayn Rand]] argued that, since ideas must originate from the mental effort of an individual (or group of individuals), that originator holds the exclusive property rights to the product(s) of his labor. While one cannot copyright ''theoretical'' knowledge - discoveries of facts or truths of reality not previously known - he can claim the right to an ''invention'', the ''practical application'' of that knowledge. Since the object that is patented might not have existed without the inventor, and the object copyrighted would not have existed without the creator, the ideas behind such created objects are the property of their originators.<ref>“Patents and Copyrights,” ''Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal'', 130 - [http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/patents_and_copyrights.html]</ref>

===Utilitarian arguments===
The utilitarian argument presupposes that we should choose laws and policies that maximize "[[wealth]]" or "[[utility]]." With respect to copyright and patent, the idea is that more artistic and inventive "[[innovation]]" corresponds with, or leads to, more wealth. [[Public good]]s and [[free-rider]] effects reduce the amount of such wealth below its optimal level, i.e., lower than the level we would achieve if there were adequate IP laws on the books. Thus, wealth is optimized, or at least increased, by granting copyright and patent monopolies that encourage authors and inventors to innovate and create.<ref name="Kinsella_Arguments_For" />

===Copyright by contract===
According to [[Murray Rothbard]], only activities which are not consonant with the free market would be outlawed by the market. In terms of copyright, when a person writes a work and imprints "copyright" on it, he sells it ''on condition'' that the buyer not reproduce the work for sale. By buying the copyrighted work, the buyer implicitly agrees to this condition and is contractually obligated to uphold it. Patents that go beyond this restriction of the copyright contract to prevent people who ''independently'' arrive at the same invention from using and selling that invention are punishing an act that is not implicit theft, and hence would not be outlawed by the free market; thus, patents become a state grant of exclusive monopoly privilege, incompatible with the free market. <ref>"Patents and Copyrights," ''Man, Economy, and State (with Power and Market)'', 745-754 - [http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap10e.asp#7._Patents_Copyrights]</ref>

==Arguments against intellectual property==

===Ethical and natural rights arguments===
Stephan Kinsella's seminal article, ''[[Against Intellectual Property]]'' outlines the modern libertarian case against all forms of intellectual property.<ref>[[Against Intellectual Property]], [[Stephan Kinsella]]</ref> Kinsella's paper focuses on the [[ethics|unethical]] nature of intellectual property rights. They are always in opposition to real material [[property rights]]. They are a straightforward government grant of [[monopoly]] to a favored producer.

Some libertarian proponents of IP argue that certain ideas deserve protection as property rights because they are created. [[Ayn Rand|Rand]] supported patents and copyrights as "the legal implementation of the base of all property rights: a man’s right to the product of his mind." For Rand, IP rights are, in a sense, the reward for productive work. It is only fair that a creator reap the benefits of others using his creation. For this reason, in part, she opposes perpetual patent and copyright—because future, unborn heirs of the original creator are not themselves responsible for the creation of their ancestors’ work.

One problem with the creation-based approach is that it almost invariably protects only certain types of creations. But the distinction between the protectable and the unprotectable is necessarily [[arbitrary]]. For example, philosophical or mathematical or scientific truths cannot be protected under current law on the grounds that commerce and social intercourse would grind to a halt were every new phrase, philosophical truth, and the like considered the exclusive property of its creator. For this reason, patents can be obtained only for so-called "practical applications" of ideas, but not for more abstract or theoretical ideas.

But the distinction between creation and discovery is not clearcut or rigorous. Nor is it clear why such a distinction, even if clear, is ethically relevant in defining property rights. No one creates ''matter''; they just manipulate and grapple with it according to physical laws. In this sense, no one really creates ''anything''. They merely rearrange matter into new arrangements and patterns.

It is arbitrary and unfair to reward more practical inventors and entertainment providers, such as the engineer and songwriter, and to leave more theoretical science and math researchers and philosophers unrewarded. The distinction is inherently vague, arbitrary, and unjust.

Moreover, adopting a limited term for IP rights, as opposed to a perpetual right, also requires arbitrary rules. For example, patents last for twenty years from the filing date, while copyrights last, in the case of individual authors, for seventy years past the author’s death. No one can seriously maintain that nineteen years for a patent is too short, and twenty-one years too long, any more than the current price for a gallon of milk can be objectively classified as too low or too high.<ref name="Kinsella_Arguments_Against">Stephan Kinsella. [[Against Intellectual Property]], page 23-25. Referenced 2011-09-10.</ref>

===Utilitarian===
[[Utilitarianism|Utilitarians]] hold that the "end" of encouraging more innovation and creativity justifies the seemingly immoral "means" of restricting the freedom of individuals to use their physical property as they see fit.

Kinsella points out three fundamental problems with justifying any right or law on strictly utilitarian grounds:

# First, let us suppose that [[wealth]] or [[utility]] could be maximized by adopting certain legal rules; the "size of the pie" is increased. Even then, this does not show that these rules are justified. For example, one could argue that net utility is enhanced by redistributing half of the wealth of society’s richest one percent to its poorest ten percent. But even if stealing some of A’s property and giving it to B increases B’s welfare "more" than it diminishes A’s (if such a comparison could, somehow, be made), this does not establish that the theft of A’s property is justified. Wealth maximization is not the goal of law; rather, the goal is [[justice]]—giving each man his due. Even if overall wealth is increased due to IP laws, it does not follow that this allegedly desirable result justifies the unethical violation of some individuals’ rights to use their own property as they see fit.
# In addition to ethical problems, utilitarianism is not coherent. It necessarily involves making illegitimate interpersonal utility comparisons, as when the "costs" of IP laws are subtracted from the "benefits" to determine whether such laws are a net benefit. But not all values have a market [[price]]; in fact, none of them do. [[Mises]] showed that even for goods that have a market price, the price does not serve as a ''measure'' of the good’s value.
# Finally, even if the other problems are set aside, it is not at all clear that IP laws lead to any change—either an increase or a decrease—in overall wealth. It is debatable whether copyrights and patents really are necessary to encourage the production of creative works and inventions, or that the incremental gains in innovation outweigh the immense costs of an IP system. Econometric studies do not conclusively show net gains in wealth. Perhaps there would even be more innovation if there were no patent laws; maybe more money for research and development (R&D) would be available if it were not being spent on patents and lawsuits. It is possible that companies would have an even greater incentive to innovate if they could not rely on a near twenty-year monopoly.<ref name="Kinsella_Arguments_For">Stephan Kinsella. [[Against Intellectual Property]], page 16-18. Referenced 2011-09-10.</ref>

Since advocates of intellectual property generally appeal to [[utilitarianism]] (that 'nothing will be created' if creators are not granted a monopoly over their creation), [[Michele Boldrin]] and [[David Levine]] have examined, in their book ''[[Against Intellectual Monopoly]]'',<ref>[[Against Intellectual Monopoly]], Michele Boldrin and David Levine</ref> the [[empirical]] evidence for this claim. They find that, rather than stimulating creativity and innovation, intellectual property laws - especially patent laws - usually inhibit creativity and innovation.

===Copyright by contract===
Many opponents of IP rights support only [[contract]]ual arrangements to protect ideas and innovations — private contracts between property owners. But private contract cannot be used to recreate the same type of protection afforded by modern IP rights.

A contract binds ''only'' parties to the contract. Patent and copyright, by contrast, bind all third parties, regardless of their consent to a contract. Thus, if the book purchaser B relates to third parties T the plot of a purchased novel, these third parties T are not bound, in general, by the original contractual obligation between A and B.

Thus, the use of contract only goes so far. A book publisher may be able to contractually obligate his purchasers to not copy his book, but he cannot prevent third parties from publishing and selling it, unless some contract prohibits this action.<ref name="Kinsella_Copyright_Contract">Stephan Kinsella. [[Against Intellectual Property]], page 45-55. Referenced 2011-09-12.</ref>

===Argument from scarcity===
Libertarians believe in property rights in tangible goods. But why? As Kinsella notes, it is these goods’ ''[[scarcity]]'' — the fact that there can be ''conflict'' over these goods by multiple human actors. The very possibility of conflict over a resource renders it scarce, giving rise to the need for [[Ethics|ethical]] rules to govern its use. Thus, the fundamental social and ethical function of property rights is to prevent interpersonal conflict over scarce resources. To perform this function, property rights must be both visible and just.

As libertarians recognize, following [[John Locke|Locke]], it is only the first occupier or user of such property that can be its natural owner. Only the ''first-occupier'' [[homesteading]] rule provides an objective, ethical, and nonarbitrary allocation of ownership in scarce resources.

The problem with IP rights is that the ideal objects protected by IP rights are not scarce; and, further, that such property rights are not, and cannot be, allocated in accordance with the firstoccupier homesteading rule.

Ideas are not scarce. If I invent a technique for harvesting cotton, your harvesting cotton in this way would not take away the technique from me. Your use does not exclude my use; we could both use my technique to harvest cotton. There is no economic scarcity, and no possibility of conflict over the use of a scarce resource. Thus, there is no need for exclusivity. Similarly, if you copy a book I have written, I still have the original (tangible) book, and I also still "have" the pattern of words that constitute the book. Thus, authored works are not scarce in the same sense that a piece of land or a car are scarce. Even Rand acknowledged that "intellectual property cannot be consumed."

By recognizing a right in an ideal object, one ''creates'' scarcity where none existed before. Only tangible, scarce resources are the possible object of interpersonal conflict, so it is only for them that property rules are applicable. Thus, patents and copyrights are unjustifiable monopolies granted by government legislation. It is not surprising that, as [[Tom G. Palmer|Palmer]] notes, "[m]onopoly privilege and censorship lie at the historical root of patent and copyright."

IP rights change the ''status quo'' by redistributing property from individuals of one class (tangible-property owners) to individuals of another (authors and inventors). The IP law therefore [[trespass]]es against or "takes" the property of tangible property owners, by transferring partial ownership to authors and inventors. It is this invasion and redistribution of property that must be justified in order for IP rights to be valid.

The IP rule that innovators homestead partial control of all others’ tangible resources, is arbitrary and unjustifiable. It conflicts with the only justifiable homesteading rule, ''first occupation''. It doesn't establish fair, objective rules that avoid interpersonal conflict over scarce resources.<ref name="Kinsella_Scarcity">Stephan Kinsella. [[Against Intellectual Property]], page 28-36, 43-45. Referenced 2011-09-11.</ref>

===Enforceability and Innovation===
Technological innovation is often stimulated precisely when patents are not effective. This was the case with [[Eastman Kodak]], which adopted its well-known policy of permanent research and "continuous innovation" as a way to maintain its competitive leadership in view of the practical impossibility of enforcing all of its patents. Presumably, had they been able to enforce their patents, they might well have devoted fewer resources for research and development of new products, and technological development in this industry would have been less rapid.<ref name="Cole_Benefits">Julio H. Cole. [http://mises.org/journals/jls/15_4/15_4_3.pdf "Patents and Copyrights: Do the Benefits Exceed the Costs?"] (pdf) ''Journal of Libertarian Studies'', Volume 15, no. 4 (Fall 2001), pp. 79–105. Referenced 2011-09-17.</ref>

==Without Intellectual Property==
{{Main|Without Intellectual Property}}

How would the world look like without Intellectual Property? What are the current success stories and possible alternatives if some or all forms of IP were repealed (or became unenforceable)?

==Counterfeiting and piracy==
{{Main|Copyright infringment}}

"Pirated copyright goods" refer to any goods that are copies made without the consent of the right holder or person duly authorized by the right holder. "Counterfeit goods" refer to any goods, including packaging or bearing without authorization, a trademark that is identical to a trademark validly registered for those goods, or that cannot be distinguished in its essential aspects from such a trademark, and that, thereby, infringes the rights of the owner of the trademark in question.

A 2010 study by United States Government Accountability Office summed up the opinions of experts that it is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the net effect of counterfeiting and piracy on the U.S. economy as a whole. Few studies have been conducted on positive effects, and little is known about their impact on the economy. Although some literature and experts suggested that negative effects may be overstated, in general, literature and experts indicated the negative effects of counterfeiting and piracy on the U.S. economy outweigh the positive effects. Since there was an absence of data concerning these potential effects, the net effect could not be determined with any certainty.<ref name="GAO_Effects">[http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10423.pdf "Observations on Efforts to Quantify the Economic Effects of Counterfeit and Pirated Goods"] (pdf), ''United States Government Accountability Office'', April 12, 2010. Referenced 2011-10-23.</ref>

==References==
<references/>

==Links==
{{store|http://mises.org/store/Against-Intellectual-Monopoly-P552.aspx|Against Intellectual Monopoly}}
{{Store|http://mises.org/store/Against-Intellectual-Property-P523.aspx|Against Intellectual Property}}
{{Academy|http://academy.mises.org/courses/ip-reconsidered-intellectual-property-austrian-economics-and-libertarian-theory|Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics|http://academy.mises.org/courses/obama-patent-reform/|Obama's Patent Reform: Improvement or Continuing Calamity?}}

* [http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/intellectual.htm Intellectual Property Page] resources compiled by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine
* [http://questioncopyright.org/ QuestionCopyright.org], a nonprofit organization

* Writings
** {{md|3631|The Fallacy of Intellectual Property|Daniel Krawisz|August 2009}}
** {{md|5025|The Fight against Intellectual Property|[[Jacob H. Huebert]]|2010}}
** {{md|2632|Is Intellectual Property the Key to Success?|[[Jeffrey A. Tucker]]|July 2007}}
** [http://blog.mises.org/14752/the-mountain-of-ip-legislation/ The Mountain of IP Legislation] by Stephan Kinsella, November 2010, a summary of US and international legislation
** [http://freenation.org/a/f31l1.html The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property Rights] by Roderick T. Long, 1995

* Other media
** [http://www.stephankinsella.com/2010/06/pfs-speech-ideas-are-free/ "Ideas Are Free: The Case Against Intellectual Property"] lecture by [[Stephan Kinsella]], June 2010 <small>(transcribed as Mises Daily [http://www.mises.org/daily/4848 here])</small>
** [http://boingboing.net/2006/02/14/why-publishing-shoul.html Why Publishing Should Send Fruit-Baskets to Google] by Cory Doctorow, February 2006

* {{wplink}}

* Related courses
** [http://academy.mises.org/courses/ip-reconsidered-intellectual-property-austrian-economics-and-libertarian-theory/ Rethinking Intellectual Property: History, Theory, and Economics] [[Mises Academy]] course by [[Stephan Kinsella]]
** [http://academy.mises.org/courses/obama-patent-reform/ Obama's Patent Reform: Improvement or Continuing Calamity?] [[Mises Academy]] course by Stephan Kinsella

[[Category:Intellectual property|*]]

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-22T15:59:23Z

Diax: /* Asirra cracked */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

<p>To add a new item, add a <code><nowiki>==Level two header==</nowiki></code> to introduce it.</p>

<p>For discussion related to long-term planning and development, also see the [https://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/topics Mises Wiki Google Group].</p></div>
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
{{archive box collapsible|
*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
}}

{{TOC right}}

For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

Just let whoever has the time and the inclination edit the wiki if they're from Europe great if not that's great too at least they're working on the project. If you allow people to put stuff up in their native tounges that might help as well. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:59, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Side note: we have a little page/project for [[MisesWiki:International|non-English]] posts. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:24, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

I see an issure with the money section of your ABCT page. What you're calling money i.e. the USD(FRN) and other fiat notes are not money it is a common mistake to call them that. What the FRN is, is a promissory note, or a money susbstitute. I don't know how you want to go about fixing it. Your call. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:39, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

So I made some changes to that section mentioned above feel free to change it back if you don't like them. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:52, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Hallo Diax! I have reverted the change after some consideration. The reason is that fiat notes ''are'' money (even if it's paper money). Check the definition of [[money]] for more details, but in short it is a commonly used [[medium of exchange]] - i.e. whatever is widely used for that purpose at the moment. But of course, the real question is whether fiat notes are a '''''good''''' form of money - and that's where we can put in some good arguments. :) Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:18, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

Yes money is a medium of exchange but I'm also fairly sure that Mises talks about the promissary note being different from "pure" money in ''Human Action''. Of course it isn't a big deal. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:23, 22 May 2013 (MSD)
: I think he refers to a situation when there exists the 'pure' money (gold, silver, etc.) and there are also promissory notes. While only the first is 'actual' money, both can circulate side-by-side. Confusing the two can have dangerous consequences, as Mises shows.
: These days, the dominant form of money are fiat notes that are not backed by anything. No confusion there. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:44, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)Diax[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)

I expanded the Negative Rights and the Positive Rights articles. However I do not know how to add references. If someone could let me know I would appreciate it. Sorry for the inconvience. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:48, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

: No problem! In short, check out other pages - see e.g. this [[Jay Cooke|recent one]]. Click on Edit and see what's in there - note the 'Reflist' section close to the end of the page, that's what will produce the whole references block. Then note the 'ref' sections that look like this:
::<nowiki><ref name="Britannica_Cooke">Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/136088/Jay-Cooke "Jay Cooke"], referenced 2013-05-21.</ref></nowiki>
: ([https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Footnotes Here's] the official documentation.)
: The 'name' part is only necessary if you reuse a reference. Often, you can get away with something like this:
::<nowiki><ref>Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/136088/Jay-Cooke "Jay Cooke"].</ref></nowiki>
: So it involves a little typing, but after you do it once or twice, references are easy. I've added them to the [[Negative right]] page. Check the changes I've made and try it for yourself - and let me know how it works out for you! (See also [[Essay:How to make good wiki pages|here]] for some more tips on how to make good pages.) Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:32, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

So I saw that you said that the part about the founders pulling alot from John Locke needed to be cited (this is in the [[negative rights]] article). I'll agree that it would be nice if such a citiation existed but I'm not sure that it does. I put that in there because it's fairly obvious. "Life, Liberty, and pursuit of happiness" is essentially a direct quote from Locke; "life, liberty, and property". You know that's so obvious that someone has to have expressed it somewhere before... Just got to find it.[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:49, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

I had the misfortune to walk into the living room whilst the roomies were watching the news the other day and CBS was refering to the '08 bubble as the "Great Recession". I found that highly entertaining. [[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:51, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

Do people seriously bother to create bots to put up nonsense pages? Seems a little ridiculous that someone would waste their time like that... Perhaps I'm just not cynical enough...[[Special:Contributions/70.59.102.81|70.59.102.81]] 19:56, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

You could always ask simple math problems but declare said equations as a string so that the bot won't be able to interpret the numbers.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 19:59, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-22T00:48:55Z

Diax: /* Red links */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

<p>To add a new item, add a <code><nowiki>==Level two header==</nowiki></code> to introduce it.</p>

<p>For discussion related to long-term planning and development, also see the [https://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/topics Mises Wiki Google Group].</p></div>
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
{{archive box collapsible|
*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
}}

{{TOC right}}

For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

Just let whoever has the time and the inclination edit the wiki if they're from Europe great if not that's great too at least they're working on the project. If you allow people to put stuff up in their native tounges that might help as well. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:59, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Side note: we have a little page/project for [[MisesWiki:International|non-English]] posts. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:24, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

I see an issure with the money section of your ABCT page. What you're calling money i.e. the USD(FRN) and other fiat notes are not money it is a common mistake to call them that. What the FRN is, is a promissory note, or a money susbstitute. I don't know how you want to go about fixing it. Your call. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:39, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

So I made some changes to that section mentioned above feel free to change it back if you don't like them. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:52, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Hallo Diax! I have reverted the change after some consideration. The reason is that fiat notes ''are'' money (even if it's paper money). Check the definition of [[money]] for more details, but in short it is a commonly used [[medium of exchange]] - i.e. whatever is widely used for that purpose at the moment. But of course, the real question is whether fiat notes are a '''''good''''' form of money - and that's where we can put in some good arguments. :) Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:18, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

Yes money is a medium of exchange but I'm also fairly sure that Mises talks about the promissary note being different from "pure" money in ''Human Action''. Of course it isn't a big deal. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:23, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)Diax[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)

I expanded the Negative Rights and the Positive Rights articles. However I do not know how to add references. If someone could let me know I would appreciate it. Sorry for the inconvience. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:48, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)

Negative right

2013-05-22T00:47:24Z

Diax:

A negative right is a right to be free of something. The opposite concept is [[positive right]]s.

In order for someone to fulfil your negative right to life they simply must not murder you. Failing to help someone is not a violation of the negative right to life.{{Fact}}

== Ayn Rand ==
Ayn Rand was a staunch advocate of negative rights. According to Rand "A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life." <ref>1</ref>

". . .—the source of man's rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival"<ref>2</ref>

references/ http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individual_rights.html
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=media_cui_rights

== John Locke ==

[[John Locke]] is considered the father of [[libertarianism]] he like Rand was an adovcate of negative rights. He supported the negative rights to life liberty and property. The founding father of the United States drew upon Locke while writing the [[Declaration of Independence]] and the [[Constitution]].

==Links==
* {{w|Negative and positive rights}} at Wikipedia

[[Category:Concepts]]
{{Stub}}

Positive right

2013-05-22T00:47:17Z

Diax: Created page with "A positive right is the right to be provided something by the action of another. Positive rights are the antithesis of negative rights. The communists are propone..."

A positive right is the right to be provided something by the action of another.

Positive rights are the antithesis of [[negative rights]].

The [[communists]] are proponents of positive rights it is their stance on this that makes them label the market as [[coercive]]

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-22T00:23:35Z

Diax: /* Argumentation */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

<p>To add a new item, add a <code><nowiki>==Level two header==</nowiki></code> to introduce it.</p>

<p>For discussion related to long-term planning and development, also see the [https://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/topics Mises Wiki Google Group].</p></div>
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
{{archive box collapsible|
*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
}}

{{TOC right}}

For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

Just let whoever has the time and the inclination edit the wiki if they're from Europe great if not that's great too at least they're working on the project. If you allow people to put stuff up in their native tounges that might help as well. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:59, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Side note: we have a little page/project for [[MisesWiki:International|non-English]] posts. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:24, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

I see an issure with the money section of your ABCT page. What you're calling money i.e. the USD(FRN) and other fiat notes are not money it is a common mistake to call them that. What the FRN is, is a promissory note, or a money susbstitute. I don't know how you want to go about fixing it. Your call. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:39, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

So I made some changes to that section mentioned above feel free to change it back if you don't like them. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:52, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

: Hallo Diax! I have reverted the change after some consideration. The reason is that fiat notes ''are'' money (even if it's paper money). Check the definition of [[money]] for more details, but in short it is a commonly used [[medium of exchange]] - i.e. whatever is widely used for that purpose at the moment. But of course, the real question is whether fiat notes are a '''''good''''' form of money - and that's where we can put in some good arguments. :) Cheers, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:18, 19 May 2013 (MSD)

Yes money is a medium of exchange but I'm also fairly sure that Mises talks about the promissary note being different from "pure" money in ''Human Action''. Of course it isn't a big deal. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 04:23, 22 May 2013 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)Diax[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)

Negative right

2013-05-17T06:04:33Z

Diax:

A negaitve right is a to be free of something. It is apposed by [[positive rights]].

In order for someone to fulfil your negaitve right to life they simply must not murder you. Failing to help someone is not a violation of the negative right to life.

Negative right

2013-05-17T06:04:11Z

Diax:

A negaitve right is a to be free of something. It is opposed by [[positive rights]].

In order for someone to fulfil your negaitve right to life they simply must not murde you. Failing to help someone is not a violation of the negative right to life.

Negative right

2013-05-17T06:03:24Z

Diax: Created page with "A negaitve right is a to be free of something. It is apposed by positive rights. In order for someone to fulfil your negaitve right to life they simply must not murde yo..."

A negaitve right is a to be free of something. It is apposed by [[positive rights]].

In order for someone to fulfil your negaitve right to life they simply must not murde you. Failing to help someone is not a violation of the negative right to life.

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-17T05:59:23Z

Diax: /* USA-centrism */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

<p>To add a new item, add a <code><nowiki>==Level two header==</nowiki></code> to introduce it.</p>

<p>For discussion related to long-term planning and development, also see the [https://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/topics Mises Wiki Google Group].</p></div>
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
{{archive box collapsible|
*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
}}

{{TOC right}}

For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

Just let whoever has the time and the inclination edit the wiki if they're from Europe great if not that's great too at least they're working on the project. If you allow people to put stuff up in their native tounges that might help as well. [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:59, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

I see an issure with the money section of your ABCT page. What you're calling money i.e. the USD(FRN) and other fiat notes are not money it is a common mistake to call them that. What the FRN is, is a promissory note, or a money susbstitute. I don't know how you want to go about fixing it. Your call. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:39, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

So I made some changes to that section mentioned above feel free to change it back if you don't like them. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:52, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)Diax[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-17T05:52:20Z

Diax: /* Argumentation */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

<p>To add a new item, add a <code><nowiki>==Level two header==</nowiki></code> to introduce it.</p>

<p>For discussion related to long-term planning and development, also see the [https://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/topics Mises Wiki Google Group].</p></div>
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
{{archive box collapsible|
*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
}}

{{TOC right}}

For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

I see an issure with the money section of your ABCT page. What you're calling money i.e. the USD(FRN) and other fiat notes are not money it is a common mistake to call them that. What the FRN is, is a promissory note, or a money susbstitute. I don't know how you want to go about fixing it. Your call. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:39, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

So I made some changes to that section mentioned above feel free to change it back if you don't like them. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:52, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)Diax[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)

Argumentation:ABCT

2013-05-17T05:49:47Z

Diax: /* Money is not wealth */

This highly experimental page is devoted to the attempt to create an argumentation chain for the '''[[Austrian Business Cycle Theory]]''' (ABCT). It is not intended to cover every possible angle, merely to build up one (or more) ways to explain ABCT. People may pick up any part in their own argumentation.

{{See also|Austrian Business Cycle Theory learning materials}}

==General assumptions==
===Money is not wealth===
In everyday life money is a good indicator for wealth and is sometimes seen as the same thing. For an extreme example of why it isn't the case, check the [[hyperinflation]] in [[Zimbabwe]] or [[Inflation in the Weimar Republic|Weimar Germany]]. This is because what is commonly called money is in fact a promissory note. or a money substitute.

The value of money is [[subjective]], it is what people can expect to exchange it for. Having more money does not necessarily mean you will be able to buy more for it. This is do to the inflationary nature of the printing press run by a nations' central bank. In the United States that bank is the [[Federal Reserve]], in Europe the central bank is the [[European Central Bank]].

{{See also|Money}}

===Business cycle as a historical fact===
Entrepreneurs try to predict the future state of the market (consumer demand, prices of their inputs, etc.) and plan accordingly. Of course, sometimes they fail - that is only human and predicting the future is always hard.

What is known as the bust - a part of the business cycle - is not simply failure. It is a large number of failures, coming apart at the same time, coupled with a general downturn in economic activity. The bust is preceded by a boom - an increase in economic activity, often later perceived as unhealthy or speculative in nature. The regularly occurring booms and and busts were observed from approximately late eighteenth century.

{{See also|Business cycle}}
{{See also|Entrepreneurship}}

==Economic growth and the interest rate==
===Lowering of interest rate with increased savings===
Interest rates coordinate investment and consumption across time. When interest rates come down naturally it is because people are saving more. Banks become flush with cash which causes them to lower rates to stimulate loans.

Entrepreneurs are receiving two signals from the market when this happens:
# That new resources are available to make new investments.
# That demand exists that is not currently being satisfied (people are forgoing purchases for the future).

When investment is made in this environment, there is, as always, the possibility of failure, but the investment is backed by actual saved resources and there is pent up consumer demand that can make it profitable upon completion.

The lower interest rate is also signal for consumers that there are more funds they can borrow and enjoy (providing they repay them, of course).

{{See also|Interest rate}}
{{See also|Saving}}

==Monetary policy==
===Perfect creation of new money===
Many economists claim, that by creating new money out of nowhere can be created economic wealth.

Let's consider first an unrealistic scenario. An angel listens to the pleas of many people for more money and with magic doubles the amount of money everyone has (the Angel Gabriel model by [[David Hume]]). What would happen?

While everybody would be happy to have twice the money as before, nobody would be better off - there would be no increase in capital, productivity or goods. The only effect would be the (approximate) doubling of prices and the currency would lose half of its purchasing power.

{{See also|Money}}

===Creation of new money in reality===
What if interest rates are brought down artificially, but not so obviously, for example by a [[central bank]] like the [[Federal Reserve]]? Entrepreneurs still receive and act upon the same economic signals, but no new investable resources exist to complete the new projects, and no pent up demand exists to justify their undertaking.

But the situation is much worse than that. The lower rates encourage people to take out what savings they have and spend it now. (And more consumers are encouraged to borrow and enjoy consumption.) As a result, actual demand will be even lower when the completed projects are ready to enter the market.

This is what is meant by [[malinvestment]] and overconsumption from changing interest rates. It creates an artificial boom in economic activity followed by a bust when the economy realizes the errors it made.

There is no free lunch. All of those rate cuts have to eventually be increased, at which point all of the stimulative forces reverse and the bad investments reveal themselves. The alternative to rate increases is continued inflation, which can only end in a [[hyperinflation|collapse of the currency]].

{{See also|Inflation}}

===Consequences===
The creation of new money out of thin air really creates what appears to be growth. Signaling, that more resources are available, businessmen invest, start new projects, employment rises, consumers enjoy more consumption, analytics rejoice.

This fake prosperity - also known as a boom - ends in a very real crisis - the bust. The [[Malinvestment|wrong investments]] reveal, that many resources have been wasted on nonviable projects and produced goods the customers didn't want. Many projects cannot be completed at all. [[Unemployment]] will rise and the economy will suffer a crisis.

The repeating of the boom-and-bust is the familiar [[business cycle]].

{{See also|Malinvestment}}
{{See also|Business cycle}}
{{See also|Austrian Business Cycle Theory}}

==Counterarguments and Questions==
===But there were crises before the Fed!===
The type of a crisis ABCT explains does not depend on the presence of a [[central bank]]. Money can be created "out of thin air" by other institutions (see e.g. the role of the Treasury in the [[Panic of 1907]] or the Bank of the United States in the [[Panic of 1837]]).

However, there are also other phenomena that can expand the money supply - like [[Fractional reserve banking]]. Banks engaging in this practice keep only a fraction of their reserves on hand and lend the rest.

See the video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxcjT8T3EGU Economic Cycles Before the Fed] with Thomas E Woods, Jr.

{{See also|Argumentation:Fractional Reserve Banking}}

===Does ABCT really explain everything?===
The Austrian Business Cycle Theory does not claim to explain every single economic crisis. There are still wars and catastrophes, and there are particularly destructive government [[intervention]]s, all of which can create a crisis.

The ABCT explains and describes a particular type of crisis, which seems to be unfortunately rather prevalent.

{{See also|Financial crises}}

===Can ABCT predict a crisis?===
ABCT can help with the recognition of an unsustainable boom. It does not predict when ''exactly'' the bust will happen.

[[Austrian Economics|Austrian economists]] are in general very careful with the unpredictable nature of human [[action]]. However, they are on record with numerous successful predictions, not least for the [[Great Recession#Predicting the crisis|current crisis]].

===Are Austrians happy when a crisis breaks out?===
In a word: No.

The Austrian theory of the business cycle is more accurately a theory of an unsustainable boom than a theory of a depression. And an unsustainable boom must collapse. The recession or depression that follows an artificial boom is not something to avoid but is essential to the alignment of consumer time preferences and the structure of production. [[Unemployment]] and failures of companies tend to be a part of this.

To put it metaphorically, suffering withdrawal symptoms won't be enjoyable for a drug addict, but it is the only way to get off drugs. Credit - or debt - has been the drug that has allowed people to consume more now than they can consume in the future. When the future arrives, those who borrowed need to adjust their spending down. But for those addicted to spending, they cannot stop without unbearable pain being inflicted. So they look for any justification to borrow more. For government bureaucrats that justification comes in the form of Keynesianism.

In another example (courtesy of [http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/08/are-austrian-economists-into-pain.html Robert Wenzel]), one cannot say that a heart surgeon attempting to save a man's life by heart surgery is in favor of pain as the way to save the man, even though pain is most assuredly a byproduct of a major heart operation. The call of Austrian economists for immediate liquidation of malinvestmnets is not becasue they are into pain, but because they understand that if liquidations don't take place now pain will be much more severe down the road. In this sense, Austrians offer the most sound treatment to limit pain.

===Why don't the business people just ignore the boom?===
Business people might be misled in the first couple of runs of the business cycle and not anticipate that the low interest rate will later be raised. Why do they continue to be unable to figure this out?

There are multiple reasons for this (sources: [http://www.mises.ca/posts/blog/struggling-to-keep-the-housing-bubble-afloat/ *] and [http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/28366.aspx *]):
* Not all businessmen may be versed in Austrian Economics. :)
* Every few years there is a fresh crop of naïve employers willing to borrow money and start new projects.
* Businessmen ''and'' economists are more than happy to throw away old standards and wisdom and embrace the next boom (as shown in Reinhart and Rogoff's book [http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8973.html This Time is Different]).
* Central banks often deliberate and choose monetary policy in secret. Businessmen aren’t always aware of changing policy and whether interest rates changes reflect increased savings on the part of the public.
* Central banks can’t precisely control where newly created money flows into - neither can business people make the same calculations to know what sectors are being manipulated.
* Even if entrepreneurs understand the ABCT, they cannot predict the exact features of the next cyclical expansion and contraction. They lack the ability to make micro-predictions, even though they can predict the general sequence of events that will occur.
* The entrepreneur must not only understand the consequences of years of past interventions, he must also predict what the central bank will do in the future and when it will do it — all while the central bank tries to anticipate what the entrepreneurs will do. Such an entrepreneur will probably have little time for things such as serving his customers, improving his product and responding to his customers’ preferences.
* Some companies would knowingly borrow at the below-market rates and take the risks associated with the loans, typically those that were undercapitalized, perhaps startups or companies in trouble. In short, they would be the companies that had nothing to lose.
* Entrepreneurs who know a boom is underway are powerless to prevent their more reckless competitors from taking cheap (or free) government loans and bidding away scarce resources. Workers don't care whether their paychecks come from genuine saving or from the Fed's printing press. Companies can lose ground to competitors who take the easy money and use it while it is non-neutral. Some have described it as a prisoner's dilemma situation.
* Finally, there are '''[[profit]]s''' to be made from exploiting temporary situations. The entrepreneurs have no reason to ignore the temporary profits to be garnered in an inflationary episode. Time necessarily plays a role in the formation and eventual popping of market bubbles - it can take literally years. Even if the majority of the market agrees that, say, internet stocks are way overbought, there may still exist a chance to buy in and ride the wave before cashing out.

* Even if the [[Rational expectations theory]] was correct, market participants with correct expectations would [http://mises.org/daily/6068/When-Anticipation-Makes-Things-Worse make things even worse].

===Why is there even unemployment?===
Courtesy of [[Paul Krugman]] (from [http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1998/12/the_hangover_theory.html here], with the [http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2008/10/strange-mind-of-nobel-laureate-paul.html reply] and [http://mises.org/daily/4682 this]):

In the beginning, an investment boom gets out of hand. Whatever the reason, all that investment leads to the creation of too much capacity. Eventually, however, reality strikes—investors go bust and investment spending collapses. But, why should the ups and downs of investment demand lead to ups and downs in the economy as a whole? As a matter of simple arithmetic, total spending in the economy is necessarily equal to total income (every sale is also a purchase, and vice versa). So if people decide to spend less on investment goods, doesn't that mean that they must be deciding to spend more on consumption goods—implying that an investment slump should always be accompanied by a corresponding consumption boom? And if so why should there be a rise in unemployment? According to the Austrians, mass unemployment was part of the process of "adapting the structure of production." But in that case, why doesn't the investment boom—which presumably requires a transfer of workers in the opposite direction—also generate mass unemployment?

At the beginning of the boom, when a central bank pumps in new money, new demand is created for labor in the capital goods sector causing bidding for labor away from the consumer goods sector. People switch from their existing jobs for more lucrative ones: thus, there is no point where rising unemployment would be a factor in this part of the cycle.

However, during the downturn part of the cycle, it is not a case that the central bank is pumping money into the consumer sector. What is occurring, instead, is that a transfer of money is taking place from the capital goods sector to the consumer goods sector. It is this money ''drain'' from the capital goods sector that causes the unemployment. People are being fired and need time to find new jobs. Also, a lot of money was [[malinvestment|wasted]] during the boom and is simply lost.

Also, in a recession, every industry — not just the investment sector — normally contracts. The problem in the aftermath of a bubble isn't merely that a "given" level of demand switches from one sector to another. On the contrary, people in general are ''poorer'' than they thought they were at the height of the boom. In particular, during the boom, people unwittingly [[Capital#Capital consumption|consumed capital]].

==Example==
Imagine an economy with just one actor: [[Robinson Crusoe economy|Robinson Crusoe]] on an island. Crusoe loves fish, so he spends half of each day fishing so he can enjoy fish in the evenings. Additionally, Crusoe spends one day mornings maintaining his fishing dinghy and nets. In order to have fish on that day, he must fish for an extra hour every other day of the week. In economic terms, Crusoe has a [[saving]]s rate of one hour per day. His savings rate is also his [[investment]] rate, or the percentage of present income he sets aside to maintain or increase future consumption.

Crusoe doesn’t have a fridge, so he preserves his catch by throwing it in a small, dark pond. He can’t see how many fish are in the pond, so he keeps a stack of small rocks near it. Every time he adds a fish, he adds a rock, and every time he eats one, he removes one. The rocks are his [[money supply]].

Suppose that Crusoe shares the island with some mischievous monkeys, who see Crusoe adding rocks to his pile. They decide to imitate him, so every time Crusoe ads a rock, they sneak in and add one as well. The monkeys are [[Inflation|inflating]] the money supply by injecting currency into Crusoe’s investment fund.

One day, Crusoe suddenly notices that his "savings rate" of fish is larger than he thought - double the usual. He concludes that he really is a great fisher and saver and decides to take a day off each week, eating some of the fish he caught before. This is the [[consumption]]-side of the boom phase of the business cycle. Crusoe also decides to take some extra time each day to start building himself a new hut. This is the investment-side of the boom phase of the business cycle.

Crusoe now believes that the cost of saving fish is half the usual, while in fact his savings rate is too low for the investments he is planning.

And one beautiful day, when it comes time to eat his midday meal, Crusoe suddenly realizes that he’s out of fish – despite having a surplus of rocks. He’s exhausted his investment capital because the additional currency snuck into his money supply did not represent a real increase in his productivity or savings rate. He doesn’t have the capital (fish) to maintain his previous consumption rate, much less increase it. He is forced to cut his investment rate (he must spend some of his day off fishing) just to have some fish for dinner. He must also abandon his incomplete hut because he does not have the time to finish it. The abandoned hut is an [[Malinvestment|extravagant expenditure]] that represents a loss of capital. This is the bust phase of the business cycle.

To review, here’s the overall impact of the monkey’s trickery: Crusoe catches the same number of fish, but consumes more and invests more, and therefore saves less. That’s the boom period. Then, Crusoe has to consume less fish, and spend less time for maintaining his nets ([[capital]]). Some of his investment/consumption time must now be spent in production. That’s the bust period. If Crusoe’s initial savings rate allows him to just break even each week, his nets will gradually get worse and worse and he will eventually go hungry.

[[Category:Argumentation]]
[[Category:Austrian School of Economics]]
{{Stub}}

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-17T05:41:25Z

Diax: /* Argumentation */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

<p>To add a new item, add a <code><nowiki>==Level two header==</nowiki></code> to introduce it.</p>

<p>For discussion related to long-term planning and development, also see the [https://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/topics Mises Wiki Google Group].</p></div>
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
{{archive box collapsible|
*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
}}

{{TOC right}}

For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

I see an issure with the money section of your ABCT page. What you're calling money i.e. the USD(FRN) and other fiat notes are not money it is a common mistake to call them that. What the FRN is, is a promissory note, or a money susbstitute. I don't know how you want to go about fixing it. Your call. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:39, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)Diax[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-17T05:39:25Z

Diax: /* Argumentation */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

<p>To add a new item, add a <code><nowiki>==Level two header==</nowiki></code> to introduce it.</p>

<p>For discussion related to long-term planning and development, also see the [https://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/topics Mises Wiki Google Group].</p></div>
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
{{archive box collapsible|
*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
}}

{{TOC right}}

For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

I see an issure with the money section of your ABCT page. What you're calling money i.e. the USD(FRN) and other fiat notes are not money it is a common mistake to call them that. What the FRN is, is a promissory note, or a money susbstitute. I don't know how you wan to go about fixing it. Your call. Peace be with you! [[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 09:39, 17 May 2013 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)Diax[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)

User:Diax

2013-05-17T03:21:07Z

Diax:

My name is Michael Hendricks. I'm an anarchist an agorist and a Transhumanist. I'm currently working to become an author both of fiction and nonfiction works.

User:Diax

2013-05-17T03:19:50Z

Diax: Created page with "My name is Michael Hendricks. I'm an anarchist an agorist and a Transhumanist. I'm currently working to become an author both of fictiona and nonfiction works."

My name is Michael Hendricks. I'm an anarchist an agorist and a Transhumanist. I'm currently working to become an author both of fictiona and nonfiction works.

Coercion

2013-05-15T02:30:30Z

Diax: Created page with "Coercion: force or the power to use force in gaining compliance, as by government or police force.<ref>http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/coercion</ref> Coercion is used..."

Coercion: force or the power to use force in gaining compliance, as by government or police force.<ref>http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/coercion</ref>

Coercion is used in Austrian economic thought in a negative rights sense. In this sense only an action can be coercive, and inaction cannot be coercive.

<references/>http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/coercion

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-15T02:17:41Z

Diax: /* Red links */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

<p>To add a new item, add a <code><nowiki>==Level two header==</nowiki></code> to introduce it.</p>

<p>For discussion related to long-term planning and development, also see the [https://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/topics Mises Wiki Google Group].</p></div>
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
{{archive box collapsible|
*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
}}

{{TOC right}}

For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)Diax[[User:Diax|Diax]] ([[User talk:Diax|talk]]) 06:17, 15 May 2013 (MSD)

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2013-05-15T02:15:27Z

Diax: /* Red links */

<div class="messagebox" style="width:100%; padding:.5em;">Welcome to '''The Mises Commons''', the central discussion board where you can make announcements, propose new ideas, and ask questions of the entire community.

<p>To add a new item, add a <code><nowiki>==Level two header==</nowiki></code> to introduce it.</p>

<p>For discussion related to long-term planning and development, also see the [https://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/topics Mises Wiki Google Group].</p></div>
__NEWSECTIONLINK__
[[Category:Mises Wiki|Commons]]
{{archive box collapsible|
*[[MisesWiki:Commons/Archives/2010|2010]]
*[[/Archives/2011|2011]]
}}

{{TOC right}}

For older discussions, enter the [[/Archives|archives]].

== USA-centrism ==

I am wondering if we might consider aiming for a more global perspective in our developing articles. This has been occurring to me as I have been tinkering with [[Net neutrality]], a timely issue in the U.S. as of December 2010 but still with application elsewhere.

After all, at this writing we are billed as "A Global Repository". Further, in presenting praxeological truths that remain true regardless of location or era, a global approach--or at least acknowledgement--seems prudent and consistent.

Of course, I also recognize I can simply take this approach on my own whether or not anyone else "approves," and maybe it is mostly my eyes that have been slow to open, while perhaps most are already doing this. I thought I would at least put the idea out on the table for others' consideration.

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)
:Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/User_talk:Forgottenman#idioms different languages], so it could house them as well.
:Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)
::Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx. :) --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)
:::Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a [[MisesWiki:International|page]] is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)
::::Maybe we should eventually go for a scheme of en.miseswiki.org, fr.miseswiki.org, etc.? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:31, 7 August 2012 (MSD)
::::: If there is a sufficient amount of other-language pages, we can definitely go that way. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:26, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::::::In the meantime, perhaps users can do what they do at MediaWiki.org, which is create subpages for each language, and then use a navigation template to go from one to the other? See, for example, [[mw:Manual:LocalSettings.php/de]] or [[mw:Download/fr]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:36, 11 September 2012 (MSD)

==Argumentation==
I've started a little experiment, an [[Argumentation:ABCT‎|argumentation chain]] for Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the making. Planning to expand it in the next few days, see if you can use for it.

The concept can be expanded for other arguments, of course. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:54, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:"No, it can't!"
::"Yes, it can!" (heh) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 17:17, 16 January 2011 (CST)
:::See? That's what I'm talking about. :D [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:22, 16 January 2011 (CST)

Could you guys comment at [[Category talk:Argumentation]]? I don't understand what its scope should be. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 08:02, 27 January 2011 (CST)
:Will do so soon, after further reflection. Myself, I have actually been back and forth on this one (haha). It is my plan, however, to make suggestions and changes in a friendly, flexible, and non-abrasive manner, which is completely consistent with a [[Classical liberalism|classical liberal]], [[Austrian School]], and/or [[Anarcho-capitalism|anarcho-capitalistic]] outlook. Further, this approach may be implied or even demanded by the [[Argumentation ethics|argumentation justification]] for [[libertarianism]] first offered by [[Hans-Hermann Hoppe]] in the 1980s. When coupled with the increasing biological empirical data that [[R. Douglas Fields|disrespectful and harmful words can damage the listener's (or reader's) brain]], polite and respectful discourse may even be necessary to sustain the species. So, I will comment soon. :) -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 19:24, 27 January 2011 (CST)
::N.B. to Forgot: No worries: I did not mean to sound like I was implicating you. You are just fine! It's just that, this topic (i.e., my "mini-rant") has been on my mind of late. Further, upon listening to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR2LWUM8in8 this 25-minute video interview about the Mises Wiki], recorded in mid-December 2010, I was reminded how I have distanced myself from the Wikipedia project as I increasingly encountered editors who need some basic kindergarten people skills. Is it any wonder people draw back from editing, newcomers especially? To paraphrase [[Gresham's Law]]: Bad manners drive out good manners. Their chilling effect is unseen but powerful. I would like this community to champion an atmosphere of mutual respect and to more readily shun or exile those who cannot or will not do so. Living by example is important, yes, but boundaries need maintenance. -- [[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 21:31, 27 January 2011 (CST)
To continue the kindergarten analogy, I would say the problem is not so much that the kids lack the necessary social skills to play well with each other over on Wikipedia, as it is that the designated "adults" (sysops, ArbCom, etc. operating under the ultimate authority of the Board of Trustees) have either instigated or permitted the stifling of much productive activity, which has discouraged people from wanting to continue participating. Jimbo, who is analogous to the principal of the school, could have run it in a Montessori manner that gave the kids more liberty, while dealing firmly with those who sought to interfere with that liberty. Instead, he put in place a bunch of overly restrictive rules and invited the community to decide by "rough consensus" matters that really should have been left to individuals' discretion.

If you look at a kindergarten where all the kids are allowed to do what they want, as long as they don't hurt others, you'll see them exploring many different avenues (e.g. one may read a book, others may play hide and seek, others may build a tower with blocks). But tragically, there often comes a point at which the adults say "Put that away; it's time to study x now," or some group of bullies (typically operating with the support or acquiescence of most of the class members, and with the tolerance of the mostly-apathetic teacher) will interfere with someone enjoying himself and being productive in his own way. I am reminded of this passage from Ayn Rand's essay "The Comprachicos":
{{cquote|He does not know what to do; he is told to do anything he feels like. He picks up a toy; it is snatched away from him by another child; he is told that he must learn to share. Why? No answer is given. He sits alone in a corner; he is told that he must join the others. Why? No answer is given. He approaches a group, reaches for their toys and is punched in the nose. He cries, in angry bewilderment; the teacher throws her arms around him and gushes that she loves him. . . . He learns that regardless of what he does—whether his action is right or wrong, honest or dishonest, sensible or senseless—if the pack disapproves, he is wrong and his desire is frustrated; if the pack approves, then anything goes. . . . He learns that it is no use starting any lengthy project of his own—such as building a castle out of boxes—it will be taken over or destroyed by others.}}
The Wikipedians are happy to express their insincere wikilove by delivering a plateful of virtual cookies to your talk page when you arrive, but they won't allow editors the freedom to [[w:Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built|build a house]] (i.e. an article) without subjecting it to the arbitrary judgment of the community on issues of notability and so on. If you try to post, say, a resume in your userpage giving useful background about yourself, they put that up for deletion too, saying it's a vanity page or spam. A lot of times, it just amounts to a popularity contest in which editors with unpopular opinions or independent styles are more likely to be assumed to have bad faith. If you express an opinion that maybe this isn't the best way to run an encyclopedia, they say "If you don't like it, the rest of the internet is that-a-way." And so, here we are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

== Red links ==

New issue for discussion...a user recently [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Austrian_School&curid=42&diff=11623&oldid=11614&rcid=11779 reverted an edit], removing an internal link, stating "Please add article then link. No point having dead internal links." Is this a policy we are going to agree on? No red links on the Mises Wiki?

I was under the impression that we were more or less going to follow along with a typical Wiki (no, not just Wikipedia, virtually all wikis do this) policy in which wiki-fying the article is encouraged, so long as common sense rationale is used, and only terms which will be created as pages soon or that should be created because they would be notable and verifiable and useful and in-line with the goal of the wiki, are linked. Obviously Wikipedia is the easiest place to go for [[Wikipedia:WP:RED|info and discussion]] on this, but that by no means means that that is the only place that has such a policy.

Of course, if this "add article then link/No point having dead internal links" is going to be the policy, a lot of pages are going to have to be revamped...including the [[Main Page]]. --[[User:John James|John James]] 18:05, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

:I would say that red links should be encouraged, within typical bounds (no links for common words, etc.). This has also been discussed in the email list and red links were supported by Jeff Tucker. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:56, 23 May 2011 (MSD)

::Yeah that's what I figured. That's virtually the policy of every wiki. And if you look at that page linked above it mentions how one study showed that red links helped Wikipedia grow. Let's have at least one more weigh-in and then I think we might go ahead write up a quick something for the guidelines. --[[User:John James|John James]] 01:12, 24 May 2011 (MSD)

:::I very much agree to encourage red links within reason. For the record, I think I can also understand the reversion - the 'Austrian School' is our showcase page of sorts, so it would look better if all links were blue. But that may take quite some more time. :)

:::Not sure if that needs to be in a guideline, but throwing it out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:59, 25 May 2011 (MSD)

First of all, the reason given for the reversion was not that it was a "showcase page", and should therefore be held in a special light where red links should be discouraged. It was made quite clear that there is "no point having dead internal links" [period]. So that defense doesn't hold much water. And second, I think it's actually ironic...We're going to encourage red links because they have been shown to help the project grow, yet we're going to discourage their inclusion on the very pages which are more likely to be seen by more people (and therefore are more likely to have red links actually ''turn'' blue, as well as being the pages where growth and development is most important)?

And third, call me crazy, but I was of the opinion that the [[Main Page]] is more of a "showcase page" than even the Austrian School page...did anyone bother to count the red links there??

In my opinion this "red links are encouraged, but 'showcase pages' should not have any" notion is a pretty poor defense, and an even worse guideline. I agree with virtually every other wiki project...that red links are a good thing, as they help the project grow, as well as encourage new users to get involved. A red link staring right in the face of someone knows something about it could be just the motivation a potential new user needs to throw his hat in the ring and try out some wiki-ing. I think that can be even more valuable than the particular instance of growth...because one new stub is one thing...but a new "Wikian" is something else all together. And it can make a world of difference not only for our Mises Wiki project here, but for virtually every other one in existence. I say that's a good thing. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 20:31, 25 May 2011 (MSD)}}

:It's worth remembering that while red links do encourage new contributors, they are not helpful to readers. It's reasonable to want to have a "showcase" article (like WP's featured articles) that represents what we'd like all our articles to look like in the future. Such an article would probably not have any red links: any red links that existed would be filled in by new articles.
:Eventually we might want to have no red links on the main page, but my goal there is to show new editors as many places as possible where they can jump in and start contributing. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:17, 2 June 2011 (MSD)

::Bingo. That's my whole point. That's what red links do, regardless of where they are located..."show new editors where they can jump in and start contributing." Yes, I understand the appeal of "featured articles"...but articles don't get that way because of some centralized regulation mandating that this article and that article be deemed "featured", and then every thing pertaining to those specific articles is treated in some special manner so as to "make" them featured simply by the fact that they are treated differently than other articles. It's quite the other way around. Articles get featured because they reach a certain level of quality, and are recognized to be good examples of the kind of product the project is working toward. Individuals making their own free choices about what articles to edit, what edits to make, and how much effort is put into each of those is what creates a wiki...not some central governing body telling everyone which articles will be "showcased" and which ones can be ignored.

::If editors of the Wiki wish for a certain article to be of a minimum level of quality, they can freely edit that article as much as they want to improve it to that point. (They can even form groups to organize and point out articles that need the most work and encourage others to help contribute to those. That's what [[wikipedia:WP:PJ|wikiprojects]] are all about.) And yes, part of what makes a quality wiki article is how well it connects to relevant and related articles. (This is why larger wikis like Wikipedia have some kind of "[[wikipedia:Template:Wikify|wikify]]" encouragement...because it improves the usefulness of the specific article, but also because it helps expand the wiki project.) And by the same token, that's why there is virtually no wiki that is in the practice of discouraging red links, let alone banning them...even if just on certain lionized pages.

::I really dislike the idea that articles need to be de-linked (i.e. weakened in their usefulness and diminished in their impact) because we want to showcase how great they are. That seems very contradictory in my view. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] 23:47, 2 June 2011 (MSD)}}
:::This is a very interesting and important issue. There is sometimes a tension between what is good for the reader and what is good for the editor, but I think the reader quickly learns that redlinks don't go anywhere. By the way — another topic to consider is whether to allow non-logged-in editors to edit, since a lot of times the newbies just want to make a quick change (e.g. typo correction) to one article and never edit the wiki again.

:::With reference to the issue of redlinks, I have installed on my wikis (e.g. Libertapedia) [[mw:Extension:RPED|an extension I wrote]], which links to Wikipedia if the wikilinked page doesn't exist on the local wiki. I used to have it set up to actually detect the page existence on Wikipedia, as follows:

:::*IF the page exists on the local wiki, then bluelink to the page on the local wiki. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, but it exists on Wikipedia, then bluelink to Wikipedia. Otherwise,
:::*IF the page does NOT exist on the local wiki, nor on Wikipedia, then redlink to the page on the local wiki.

:::Right now, the daemon I used to run to update the table of existing Wikipedia page titles is down, so I have simplified the extension to always bluelink to Wikipedia if the page doesn't exist on the local wiki. That extension needs some work before it's ready for prime time but you get the gist. It could be possible to make some other interesting and useful tweaks to it, to allow the reader to choose which wiki he wants to go to when he clicks on a redlink or bluelink. E.g., he might be notified that the page exists on both the local wiki AND Wikipedia, and given the option to choose. Or, in the event it exists on Wikipedia but not the local wiki, he could choose between visiting Wikipedia or creating the article on the local wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:38, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

Keep the red links. I'm new here and I wouldn't even have bothered to join the project had it not had some obvious red links. I mean ya'll don't have a page on coercion I'm going to write it now. Anyway let me know what ya'll think about that. Peace be with you.§

== Main page revamp ideas ==

As per [http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki/browse_thread/thread/f632e1305a0b4f4f# some discussion] on the group message board, I agree the main page could stand some new additions...

First off, I think it's pretty obvious if this [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]] incentive is going to be effective, we need to advertise. I think we should have either a section on the main page—perhaps replace one that is on there now, such as "this week in history"—or a prominent link to a full page that tells of all the projects going on, the articles that need creating and expanding, the promotions currently running, etc. And of course including all the useful links for that kind of thing (e.g. [[MisesWiki:2011 article improvement drive]], [[MisesWiki:Most wanted]], [[MisesWiki:Typos]], etc.)

I think it would be really nice to have a kind of quick overview of what's going on here and what specifically someone can do to help out. I think people would be more inclined to participate if they were aware of a requested article or some other project. Even aside from the prizes to be won, I think having a defined mission and objectives is really useful in helping someone feel like they're making a difference. Kind of like the "Operation Stub" drive. It's really motivating to see a request for a page that is currently a red link, and being able to see the instant result of having created a new stub and having the links go blue and seeing the article count increase...or seeing an article slowly but surely get more and more fleshed out as you collaborate with other editors and reach featured status. I think developing a sense of community would definitely entice editors to contribute as well as keep coming back, and a good way to do that is have a prominent display of what is currently being focused on.

Input? --[[User:John James|John James]] 16:26, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

:I very much agree. What about inserting a large "What can I do?" section into the middle of the main page, with links to the various projects and initiatives one can help out?

:And yes, we'll need to do a lot of advertising - at the latest when the 'improvement drive' is finalized. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 17:39, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

::I like the ideas, but I don't like removing the only part of the main page that ''is'' regularly updated. I'd prefer dropping "current events," perhaps incorporating it into the "this week in history" box.
::I think the Community Portal page should serve as the "full page" containing all the things going on. Go ahead and put together a box like [[Template:Current events]] (maybe call it [[Template:What can I do]] or [[Template:Get involved]]?) with a few of the important things you are talking about, along with a link to CP. The main page is very plug-and-chug, so you can just pull {{tl|Current events}} off the main page and substitute your new one. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 17:57, 29 July 2011 (MSD)

== Semantic wikis ==

Does anyone have experience with semantic wikis? I keep being recommended to introduce the feature to MisesWiki. I can see that it might be practical, but can't really tell what in the end the impact would be, besides a lot of work. Looking for some insight here. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 16:59, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

:I'll give an example of how this could be helpful. Let us say that we want a table that displays all countries by their indexes in the Infoboxes. In [[Template:Infobox Country]], you would find where they ask for each index, and put a property tag such as<nowiki>[[Economic Freedom Index::{{{row 10 info|}}}]]</nowiki> (that template needs to be more semanticly named). Then, you would use the following code (with templates from http://dnd-wiki.org/):

:<nowiki>{| style="text-align:left;" class="sortable"</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|-</nowiki>
:<nowiki>! Name !! Economic Freedom Index !! Corruption Perception Index !! Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>{{#ask: [[Category:Countries]]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Economic Freedom Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Corruption Perception Index</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|?Doing Business Ranking</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|format=template</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|template=Table Row</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|link=none</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|limit=9999</nowiki>
:<nowiki>}}</nowiki>
:<nowiki>|}</nowiki>

:And then the table would generate, and changing the facts on the individual pages would cause these tables to update (within 24 hours usually) automatically. It allows for Wikis to implement the policy of DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). And as I've said a few times already, I've got quite a few templates for making SMW easier to deal with. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 23:05, 26 August 2011 (MSD)

::What would be the effort needed to migrate the wiki, and keep it updated? How much would our users need to learn about the syntax and what will it do to the readability of the page source code? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 14:17, 31 August 2011 (MSD)

:::The effort involved for migrating the wiki is as follows:
:::#Installation and configuration. I've never installed SMW (or any other Mediawiki extension), but I don't expect this to take very long. Configuration might need to be done for which namespaces it is enabled on. I cannot recall. One choice that has to be made is whether or not to show properties at the bottom of a page.
:::#Planning properties. This is where somebody (or a group of people) sit down and decide on the initial properties to have on the wiki. This can easily be streamlined by looking at the current category structure, and if there is the equivalent to a morpheme (for example, categories such as ''Books by Ludwig von Mises'', ''Books by Bastiat'', ect.) and turning those morphemes into properties (in this case, the property would be called Author).
:::#Implementing properties. This is where the above plan is realized. Using the example from planning, one would look at the book articles in general, and see if there is a template where the author is placed. If so, that template is edited so that it adds the property to it. If done correctly, a content editor won't have to deal with the properties themselves. Also, categories have to be renamed. ''Books by X'' would be renamed to ''Books''.
:::#Implement navigation. If you can think of a table that would help users find information, it takes all of five minutes to create generally. Some of the queries you can think of (the ones you want specific to a certain entity) can be templated.

:::For the syntax, just knowing how to set properties is enough. Taking [http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Ask_Syntax the dnd-wiki help page] on it and modifying the examples at the bottom to fit this wiki should suffice. It doesn't go over tables, but copy & paste from a working table suffices for anybody who has needed to do so.

:::For the readability of the source code, it all looks like templates and links, and in many cases, is easier to read, since implementation details are hidden. --[[User:Havvy|Havvy]] 17:35, 7 September 2011 (MSD)
Semantic MediaWiki has a number of advantages beyond making it easier for academics and others interesting in running queries to gather data. It can also be used for putting together dynamic tables within the wiki itself, creating more powerful templates, automating labor-intensive tasks, and more. I will offer the caveat, though, that as of a few years ago SMW had some troublesome bugs, and I'm not sure whether they have made a lot of progress since then.

A lot of sites that have SMW installed don't make much use of it. This may be partly because any templates imported from Wikipedia won't use it. To get the full benefit, you have to be willing to get creative in coming up with uses for it, and put in the work to implement those ideas.

The academic community is, of course, strongly in favor of SMW. I think it will do an important favor to the wikisphere and the world to be part of the effort to realize SMW's potential. That might have to include fixing some bugs. How much you want to focus on that, as opposed to more MisesWiki-specific concerns, is up to you. One last caveat — if you use caching, there may be some performance implications to consider.

Here are a couple examples of how I used SMW to make my life easier. On my wiki, we had a "Today's featured article" (TFA) page for each day. Perhaps you are familiar with how on the Wikipedia main page, the TFA blurb is followed by a list of three "Recently featured" articles — specifically, those from one, two, and three days ago.

It was a pain in the neck to enter those manually, and if I changed my mind and substituted a different featured article for a particular day, I had to edit three different featured article blurbs that referred to it as a recently featured article. To eliminate that chore, I put some sort of SMW code in each blurb — I think it was something along the lines of <code>featured::Libertarianism</code> if the article in question was [[libertarianism]] — and that associated that page with that featured article title. So then, all I had to do was use a bot to prepopulate a bunch of featured article blurbs with some SMW code telling it to grab the featured article title from the previous three days' blurbs. Specifically, <nowiki>Recently featured: {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 14, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 13, 2010]]|?featuring=}} – {{#ask: [[Libertapedia:Today's featured article/May 12, 2010]]|?featuring=}}</nowiki> I could do that for a year in advance if I wanted, and it would eliminate the need to edit the "Recently featured" wikitext later on for any reason.

Another example was when I had a bunch of articles on political prisoners, and wanted to enter various data (such as mailing address) just once per page. E.g., I could change the data in the infobox template and it would change it in the article text, or vice versa. Unfortunately, this didn't work. I sought support from the listserv and they said it was probably a bug in SMW. At that time, I didn't feel like familiarizing myself with the SMW code and hunting down and fixing that bug, so I abandoned that project. There is still enough functionality that works, though, for you to accomplish some useful tasks with it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 03:27, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== The Big One ==

It is coming... can you feel it? [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 19:15, 30 January 2012 (MSK)
:You mean another Great Depression, or something even worse? I'm not sure if the conditions are ripe for that to happen. We have a lot of Keynesians in office, ready to worsen and prolong any economic slump that develops, but we don't have the equivalent of a Smoot-Hawley Tariff to destroy global trade. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:: Sorry, didn't want to produce any panic. The Big One in question was the 1000th article on Mises Wiki. :) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 03:41, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Sysop promotion request==
I request promotion to sysop so I can assist with maintenance of the MediaWiki namespace, vandalism cleanup, template importation, miscellaneous requests, etc.

We may want to consider being pretty liberal in giving out the sysop tools, since that is is accordance with the spirit of the "wiki way," which is to make mistakes easy to correct rather than hard to make. The more sysops you have, the faster vandalism gets deleted and so on. It tends to improve the quality of the wiki.

What makes sysops more of a detriment is when the rules of engagement are set up in ways that produce perverse incentives. E.g. if pages are allowed to be speedily deleted for questionable reasons, then the more sysops you have running around speedily deleting stuff, the more good content will tend to get deleted quickly. The sysops are similar to cops or security guards — if the laws (and overall system) are good, then these officers tend to be beneficial; but if the laws are bad, then the situation is similar to that described in the Declaration of Independence, of having "erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." They can only harass and eat out the substance to the extent that the nature of the system allows and encourages that to happen. Here, our hierarchical system (ultimately reporting to the Mises Institute) and mistrust of mob rule prevents the kind of abuses we've seen on other wikis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:25, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

: Hallo Nathan,
: the Mises Wiki is a bit conservative with awarding the Administrator privileges. These days - *fingers crossed* - the wiki is actually quite stable and does not need much of an administrating effort. Most mistakes are easy to correct for most users, and even templates are easy to create (in case you want to make some more involved changes in this area, [[User:John James|John James]] is our template guru). We also don't tend to speedily delete pages, far from it! The biggest issue for admins has been the recent flood of spam, which was thankfully contained - in a large part also due to your help! I do not see a particular need to expand the ranks of Admins right now, I hope you understand.
: Best regards, [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:38, 12 August 2012 (MSD)
::Yeah, on a wiki with the type of user behavior patterns (largely molded by the wiki's culture, which in turn is greatly affected by its rules, including the wiki mission) that are encountered here, the issues that require sysop intervention do indeed tend to be few and far between. That is assuming spam problems remain solved; those spammers are always innovating, making it necessary to find new countermeasures. It's a continual arms race. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

==Wiki configuration issues==
Given our webmaster's other duties, does he have enough time to give wiki issues prompt service? I hope I'm not being too unreasonable by saying that and I apologize if I'm displaying lack of tact in how I'm addressing this. I just see certain issues, most notably the [[MisesWiki:Configuration#Asirra|CAPTCHA problem]] (which is of critical importance to the wiki), remain unresolved for long periods of time, despite reminders.

I don't know what level of priority the Mises Institute wants to give the wiki at this point. Being such a wiki enthusiast, my own sentiments toward waiting till other matters have been dealt with to resolve wiki configuration issues tends to be rather similar to [http://i.qkme.me/3q3j8b.jpg those expressed by Batman] concerning post-production fixes. But I realize the Mises Institute and those who seek to help it also have other matters on their plates besides the wiki. So I'm just going to throw that out there and leave it at that. I don't know whether it would be appropriate to lobby for more technical assistance resources, or how would be the best way to go about that. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:23, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Today in history ==

We could, if we wanted, have more than the a few entries available for each day's "Today in history". We could use [[mw:Extension:Random]] or a similar extension to select, say, two items out of a list for each day. That list could be hundreds long; the more the merrier, as long as they're high-quality, because that means more possibilities for users to see on different visits to the site. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 23:25, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Mass imports ==

A lot of wikis, in their early stages, have done mass imports of content. E.g., Wikipedia imported a bunch of Census data on various localities. I wonder if we might do well to import, say, the contents of ''[http://mises.org/easier/easier.asp Mises Made Easier]'' as articles. Although they would be a bunch of stubs, it might be better than nothing. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:54, 20 October 2012 (MSD)

== MediaWiki 1.20 ==

MediaWiki 1.20 has been released. Here are the [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/gitweb?p=mediawiki/core.git;a=blob;f=RELEASE-NOTES-1.20;hb=REL1_20 full release notes]. I didn't see anything major in there. MW 1.19 will continue to be supported for the next two years, so unless there is some capability v1.20 offers that we particularly need, it might be just as well to stick with what we have. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 20:20, 9 November 2012 (MSK)

== Asirra cracked ==

Word has it that the spammers are starting to crack Asirra. We seem to be getting a spam rate of about one a day. I forget what it was like before Asirra; wasn't it about five a day? Anyway, another option would be to use [[mw:Extension:QuestyCaptcha]]. We could ask [[Austrian school]]-related questions like "The Ludwig von Mises Institute motto is tu ne cede _____ (fill in the blank)" or "What was the first name of the wife of Ludwig von Mises?" People knowledgeable about the Austrian school would have the reward of not needing to google for the answers, and those who did have to look it up would learn something. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:44, 11 November 2012 (MSK)

== WikiNode ==

Wikiindex has an interesting idea about wikinodes. See http://wikiindex.org/WikiProject:Wiki-Noding : "We think every wiki needs a page (called "WikiNode") that briefly describes the wiki and the top 7 or so closely related wikis." Here is [http://wikiindex.org/WikiIndex:WikiNode their wikinode]. It sounds like a good idea in theory, but apparently it never caught on. Maybe it should. But what would be the most closely related wikis to this one? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 19:33, 20 November 2012 (MSK)

== Voluntary Cooperation ==

I've created a new Call to Action: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]]. Let's see if anyone dares to join! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:10, 30 November 2012 (MSK)

: I hope to complete the project soon. There is now an index page called '''[[Privately supplied public goods]]''' - please check it out and let me know what you think. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:48, 25 February 2013 (MSK)

== Early spring cleaning ==

Having some time at hand, I started to make a long overdue cleanup of last year's pages. Some need to be overhauled completely, some polished, some moved into Essays. It is a lot of work, so help is invited, as always. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 18:57, 4 January 2013 (MSK)

== Outreach ==

It is sometimes not easy to see what kind of impact these pages have. They may seem too obscure or not noticed by anyone. If that's the case, what's the point?

However, the Mises Wiki ''is'' being used as a resource, in arguments, debates and forum discussions all over the Internet. It could be certainly more, but it is out there. How can you find out? Google '''''"wiki.mises.org" -site:mises.org'''''. Then, with the search tools limit the results to last month or whatever criteria you prefer. Dig in.

The biggest hits can be surprising, like "Principle of non-aggression". :)

The wiki has also high Google rank on obscure keywords like [[regime uncertainty]] (#1!) and quite a few [[Financial crisis#History|19th century panics]]. Google ranks original content higher, and remixing of other content - instead of simply copying whatever is on Wikipedia or other articles. Diligent linking also pays off. Plus, for some articles - such as regime uncertainty or some of those panics, Wikipedia doesn't have anything or very little. It's not hard to be better than that.

So, don't get discouraged. This stuff is used by people out there. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:55, 2 February 2013 (MSK)

:As it turns out, Google is not the end-all resource to find out what links a page. There are websites better equipped for that - [https://ahrefs.com/site-explorer/backlinks-new/subdomains/wiki.mises.org/29-3-2013/all-all here's one] (allows only a few limited views a day though). Turns out there's way more sites using this wiki! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 16:33, 30 March 2013 (MSK)