The Austrian Economics Wiki - User contributions [en]

Resource-based economics

2014-02-07T02:34:32Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

'''Resource based economics''' or resource-based economy ('''RBE''') is a proposed system in which all [[goods]] and [[service]]s are available without the use of [[money]], [[credits]], [[barter]] or any system of [[debt]] or servitude. The setup has been advocated largely by a group called [[The Venus Project]], and promoted in the [[The Zeitgeist Movement|Zeitgeist]] film series.

Under a resource-based economy, all resources are said to be the [[the commons|common heritage]] of all of the inhabitants. The premise upon which the system is based is that the Earth is abundant with plentiful resources, and that the practice of rationing resources through monetary methods is irrelevant and counter productive to human survival. Proponents claim that under this system, money is replaced by gratitude, trading is replaced by sharing, and ownership is replaced by usership in a way that everyone's needs are met.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://occupyconcepts.org/wiki/Resource-based_Economy|title=Resource-based Economy|publisher=OccupyConcepts.org}}</ref>

The [[Austrian economics|Austrian]]/[[free-market]] (as well as mainstream) criticism of resource-based economics is largely rooted in the underlying reasons money developed. The famous [[tragedy of the commons]] offers reasoning as to why resources held "in common" end up being wholly depleted, and illustrates an argument for the need for [[property rights]]. Opponents of RBE point out that despite the advances in technology throughout history, [[scarcity]] still exists, and will always exist...thereby necessitating a system of property rights, as well as a means to transact for goods and services one desires.

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==Links==
* {{md|4636|Venus Needs Some Austrians|[[Robert P. Murphy]]|August 2010}}
* [http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/a-resource-based-economy/ A Resource Based Economy] by David Kramer, October 2012
* {{md|6140|Abundance vs. Scarcity|[[Frederic Bastiat]]|(''[[The Bastiat Collection]]'')}}
* {{mb|9310|Scarcity and Property Rights|[[Stephan Kinsella]]|January 2009}}
* {{md|4349|HuffPo Abolishes Scarcity|Robert P. Murphy|May 2010}}
* ''[[The Free Market]]'': [http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=429 What Scarcity Implies] by D.W. MacKenzie, February 2003

==Books==
*{{cite web|url=http://zgm.se/files/Books/The-Best-That-Money-Cant-Buy.pdf|title=The Best that Money Can't Buy}}

[[Category:Economics]]

Talk:Resource-based economics

2014-02-07T02:31:05Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: /* Comments by RBErs */ new section

==Jokes==
Sometimes RBE is said to stand for "really bad economics". [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:30, 12 December 2013 (MSK)
:Two RBEers walk into a bar. One points at the other and tells the bartender "I'll have what he's having". [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:17, 21 December 2013 (MSK)

== Comments by RBErs ==

If scarcity still exists, it's only because we are trying to profit from it. It's not real scarcity but assumed scarcity. And the only way it will always exist is if we continue with the monetary system.

Perhaps the largest misunderstanding about a Post-Scarcity system such as RBE is that we are not saying everything will be infinite, just that technology outside of a monetary-market model is capable of producing an abundance of goods (and of access) that are essential to human needs, while also providing the tools to create/customize specialized products for individual enjoyment, etc. The logic of property rights becomes irrelevant with sustainable and efficient technology.

There will always be finite resources, but if managed properly, everyone can have abundant ACCESS to resources, which negates the need for property as seen today. This is where free market advocates do not understand the RBE model, they read one paper, or one article and think they have the whole thing figured out.

You still have property in the sense that you will have a home. But if you want unlimited property (capitalism) then of course you would advocate a different system.

The RBE model is typically advocated by those who recognize that the whole planet needs to have equal opportunity. Free market advocates are generally selfish and desire nothing more than survival for their selves and their families (something I personally see).

People who advocate free market capitalism, also don't understand human psychology or sociology very well. And typically make no attempts to understand it, as to otherwise preserve their beliefs in a free market. As if they were to come to an understanding of sociology and psychology within a market system, and equally be moral people - they would have to change their minds.

This is called - cognitive dissonance.

The idea encompasses so many aspects of life -- people read one thing and immediately go to an association fallacy, or think it's some pigeon-holed utopian senate bill that "if we could all just vote this in" it'll take hold and change everything. No, in order to do that, we have to change EVERYTHING - including a puppeteer political system, and the idea of forcing ideas on others through legislation.

What flabbbergasts me is the frequent accusation that I "don't understand psychology/sociology/'human nature', which is fucking hilarious because I spent years studying psych and soc, not only in school but in independent research as well. As for 'human nature' it's a nonsense term to describe what people don't understand about human behavior. It's similar to the 'god of the gaps' argument in theology debates. If we don't understand it or have no explanation, it must be 'god did it'. The same is true of 'human nature.'

It's massively misunderstood, the ignorance or some to assume they know all about it without thorough research is unbelievable, especially for those who consider themselves intelligent.

I think what it is, outside of what I just described, is that they don't understand how an economy/way of life like RBE could exist, so beyond all the fallacies and equivocations they have about what it actually is (i.e. 'abolishing' money and property, universal socialism, etc.) they don't wish to investigate it further because they believe the premise is too unrealistic.

the other argument I get sometimes is "I don't need to understand human pathology, just how economics work." -I always retort with "But if your social system is designed to make people happy, vs make money. Then how can you say you don't need an understanding?" - typically causes cognitive dissonance again lol

It's amazing how similar creationism and free-market mentalities are. a lot of them are Christians lol I've seen that as well, where the market = god.

With ancaps in particular, its obvious when talking with them that they have ascribed all negative human behaviors to the state, and all positive aspects to the market. Therefore, no state = everybody happy!! And then they tell ME I don't understand the psychology of behavior...
----
[[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 21:31, 6 February 2014 (EST)

Talk:Exploitation theory

2014-02-06T17:32:17Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

"Exploitation" seems like a very vague and subjective concept. Perhaps that's why leftists find it so useful. If you take exploitation theory far enough, it can preclude all mutually beneficial human interaction and cooperation. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 12:31, 6 February 2014 (EST)

Talk:Exploitation theory

2014-02-06T17:31:28Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with ""Exploitation" seems like a very vague and subjective concept. Perhaps that's why leftists find it so useful. ~~~~"

"Exploitation" seems like a very vague and subjective concept. Perhaps that's why leftists find it so useful. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 12:31, 6 February 2014 (EST)

RBE

2014-02-06T15:30:46Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Redirected page to Resource-based economics

#redirect [[Resource-based economics]]

User:John James

2014-02-04T01:57:50Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Reverted edits by 91.200.13.57 (talk) to last revision by Pestergaines

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==Things I'll get to...==
You Can Help (hopefully)

* find & fix the code to display the text of the "school tradition" in {{tlx|infobox economist}} in the color white...all the time.

* {{fixed}} <s>figure out why any images I upload can't display in any pixel ratio other than full size.</s>

*{{done}} <s>Create interwiki code—like the <code><nowiki>[[wikipedia:...]]</nowiki></code> syntax that directly links to Wikipedia articles—for the other [[wikipedia:Wikimedia_Foundation#Projects|Wikimedia project sites]] [[wikipedia:wikisource|Wikisource]].</s>
**{{done}} <s>...particularly the [[wikipedia:Wikimedia Commons|Commons]]. I'd like to be able to easily tap into that repository of free-use media the same way the other wikis do. (For example see the description for [[wikipedia:File:Wikimedia_logo_family_complete.svg|this image on Wikipedia]]. Notice how it was not uploaded to, nor hosted at Wikipedia...it is in the Commons, and the other wiki sites are able to easily use it without uploading it to their local space. We need to do that.</s>
*{{done}} <s>Add functionality of the abbreviation shortcuts for [[wikipedia:H:IW|Interwikimedia links]]</s>

* Correct for URL coding (e.g. punctuation) on {{tlx|wplink}}
* Figure (and correct) why {{tlx|Infobox officeholder}} output text is too large
* Figure out issue and fix hide function on <s>navboxes</s> div navframes like {{tlx|politbox}} uses (i.e. make it appear and function)
** I was able to fix it for the normal navbox class like in {{tlx|navbox}}, but it doesn't seem to work with the divs used in politbox.

* Update [[David Gordon]] with links (interviews, etc)
* Expand [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Category:Writings_of_Thomas_E._Woods,_Jr. Category:Writings of Thomas E. Woods, Jr.] (with links from his site, etc)
* Add relevant Reisman articles to ''[[Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics]]''
* <s>Add fair use explanation to [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/File:Capitalism_cover.jpg File:Capitalism_cover.jpg]</s>
* <s>Add fair use explanation to [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/File:Rollback_cover.jpg File:Rollback_cover.jpg]</s>
*create [[The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution]]
* <s>Add fair use explanation to [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/File:Mises_on_Money_cover.jpg File:Mises_on_Money_cover.jpg]</s>
* Add image to [[mes]]
* Add relevant Mises Academy courses to links sections of articles
* Create [[Special:WantedPages|these pages]]

==Proposed pages on Mises.org==
* Resource page
** Human Action 4th edition
** The Theory of Money and Credit, 1981 edition
** Economics in One Lesson

==Book Covers to be added to Picasa==
* [http://mises.org/resources/1022/ A History of Money and Banking in the United States]
* [http://mises.org/resources/6061/ Antitrust: The Case for Repeal]
* [http://mises.org/resources/694/ America's Great Depression]
* [http://mises.org/document/3316/ The Betrayal of the American Right]
* [http://mises.org/resources/3430/ The Case Against the Fed]
* [http://mises.org/resources/3967 From Bretton Woods to World Inflation]
* [http://mises.org/resources/879/ Economic Freedom and Interventionism]
* [[Economics in One Lesson]]
* [http://mises.org/resources/2031/ Economics for Real People]
* [http://mises.org/resources/1001/ Historical Setting of the Austrian School of Economics]
* [http://mises.org/resources/4998/ Literature and the Economics of Liberty]
* [http://mises.org/document/1082/ Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market]
* [http://mises.org/resources/3295/ Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism]
* [http://mises.org/resources/595/ Principles of Economics]
* [http://mises.org/resources/4084/ The Privatization of Roads and Highways]
* [http://mises.org/resources/3358/ Reassessing the Presidency]
* [http://mises.org/resources/118/ Theory and History]
* [http://mises.org/resources/6650/ The Transformation of the American Economy]
* [http://mises.org/resources/120/ Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science]

==Stuff to fix==
* Search feature on [http://mises.org/media.aspx Mises Media] is broken
* Videos not grouped efficiently
**examples (Thomas Woods lecture on 14th amendment...[http://mises.org/media/1424/04-The-Fourteenth-Amendment-video video], [http://mises.org/media/1423/The-Fourteenth-Amendment audio]; 33 Questions on American History... [http://mises.org/media/2135/The-Mises-Circle-The-Economics-of-the-33-Questions audio from 2007] (no video?) [http://mises.org/media/2405/media.aspx?action=author&ID=1438 video from 2008] (no audio?)

* Add the [http://mises.org/rothbard/100percent.pdf PDF download link] to [http://mises.org/resources/611 the resources page] of ''The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar''. Update: there is now a new PDF of the book form sold by the LvMI, linked on a resources page [http://mises.org/resources/6131 here]. Ideally the link to the new PDF would be simply added to the original resources page, and this new resources page deleted.

* "HTML page" link on {{mr|2714|''Planned Chaos'' resources page}} needs to be corrected to [http://mises.org/daily/2454 this one]

* Correct the download link on the [http://mises.org/media/5894/Literature-and-the-Economics-of-Liberty-An-Interview-with-Allen-Mendenhall Allen Mendenhall interview] (instead of just going directly to the youtube page it should allow a download. Preferably it would have download links to various formats, like [http://mises.org/media/5866/Lessons-for-the-Young-Economist here].)

* Add [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mou5ID13HqI Doug French's In Studio interview] to the list on [http://mises.org/media/category/248/In-Studio-Interviews the media page]

* There are two resource pages for ''Economic Science and the Austrian Method'' [http://mises.org/resources/94/],[http://mises.org/resources/4950/Economic-Science-and-the-Austrian-Method]...and neither one includes the [http://mises.org/esandtam.asp HTML link]

* Add the text of this [http://blog.mises.org/9530/the-essential-von-mises/ blog entry] to [http://mises.org/resources/3081 the resources page of The Essential von Mises]

* Media page no longer includes link to Youtube version ([http://mises.org/media/4313 example])

* "Hazlitt as National Teacher" from the Nov. 2010 issue of The Free Market is listed online as by Henry Hazlitt...it's really by Jeff Riggenbach

* [http://mises.org/media/1507 "Law and Economics"] lecture from the 2005 Mises U is listed in the 2004 section.

* Add the [http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/betrayal/index.html HTML version] of ''[[The Betrayal of the American Right]]'' to the document page.

* [http://academy.mises.org/courses/entrepreneurship-in-a-capitalist-economy/ Entrepreneurship in a Capitalist Economy] is not listed in the [http://academy.mises.org/courses/ full course catalog] (but it does appear in the economics category)

* Add [http://mises.org/daily/2765 HTML] of ''[[The Theory of Education in the United States]]'' to [http://mises.org/document/3354 Document page]

* Add [http://mises.org/daily/3480 HTML] of ''[[The Case Against the Fed]]'' to the [http://mises.org/document/3430 Document page]

* Display creation date of media, instead of just upload date. (e.g. [https://mises.org/media/categories/25/The-Costs-of-War The Costs of War seminar]...all the dates say March of 2004. There is no documentation letting the visitor know the conference took place a full decade earlier, in 1994)

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2014-02-03T14:24:23Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: /* Recommended books */ re

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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)
:::http://xkcd.com/810/ Wow, [http://wiki.mises.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Special:Undelete&target=Essay&timestamp=20130528091338 that essay] on essays truly was a class act; it even used the word "learnt". I was very impressed at their subtlety. Also, it wasn't that long ago that an IP spammer hit the "undo" button on my revert of his spam. It made me take a second look at what was posted, because that's ordinarily behavior only humans have engaged in. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:03, 26 November 2013 (MSK)

==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)

I actually signed up because I was couldn't work out what "catalactics" meant. It was only as I started trying to figure out how a wiki works that I found this reference to Mises Made Easier and found the answer there. Mises Made easier is more like a dictionary than an encyclopedia, but if it provides the stubs from which stuff branches out, mass importing it sounds like a great idea. [[User:Labcoat|Labcoat]] ([[User talk:Labcoat|talk]]) 02:49, 22 November 2013 (MSK)
:Someone will have to actually muster the initiative to actually implement this idea, though. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 05:06, 22 November 2013 (MSK)

:: For things like these I suggest to create a [[MisesWiki:Call to Action|Call to Action]]. Mises Made Easier was already considered at some point (see the [[MisesWiki talk:Call to Action|talk]] page) but other topics seemed more attractive at the time. @Labcoat - if you were equipped with tools that would make the import easier, would you be willing to work on it? (It would still involve going through all the topics manually and doing some editing, but the copying and pasting would be taken care of. That doesn't mean you have to ''do'' everything by yourself, the question is only if you are willing to do some of it.)

:: (And aside - if you've learned a bit about catalactics, feel free to create a page or at least a stub about it. ;) ) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 17:36, 24 November 2013 (MSK)
:::For the [[catallactics]] article, one could start by borrowing [[wikipedia:Catallactics|Wikipedia's content]]. I think an automated tool would be the best way to import ''Mises Made Easier''. We could program a bot to do it, or we could run a script on the server. It's probably better to use a bot; the code would then be more reusable for other purposes, because it's easy for bureaucrats to create bot accounts, but only a few people are going to have shell access to the server.

:::I see this as requiring a few steps: (1) convert the ''Mises Made Easy'' page into a format that can be used by the bot. Ultimately, it's going to be turned into [http://us3.php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php an array] of glossary entries. It'll be necessary to convert the HTML into wikitext and make a few other changes (e.g. making the page titles bold); that shouldn't be too hard, because it'll be only a few kinds of things such as italics and hypertext that need to be converted. It might be good to go through that list and decide what categories you want those pages to be in; we can then include those from the beginning rather than later going through page by page and making edits one by one. (2) Create a clone of Mises Wiki as it exists right now and do a test import of the articles to it. Wait, say, a week for everyone to have a chance to review the new pages for problems before we do the import here.

:::(3) Create a new namespace on this wiki, e.g. MME:, to which we will import all this content. This will allow us to easily undo the changes if needed; e.g. if we discover problems at this point that we missed earlier, we can do a mass deletion of everything in that namespace, if needed, without disturbing our existing mainspace. I've generally found it's easier and cleaner to delete a bunch of robotically-implemented mistakes than to revert them. (4) Move everything from MME: to mainspace, unless there are already articles there with those names. (5) See what remains in MME:; either incorporate it into existing articles or delete it. (6) Get rid of the MME: namespace, once there is nothing left in it that's of further use.

:::I mentioned below the possibility of switching to a new glossary system enabled by {{w|Semantic MediaWiki}} or [[mw:Extension:BedellPenDragon]]. Prior to the importation of all those articles would be an excellent time to go that route, if we're going to do it. I've been pretty pleased with how it's been working out on my other wikis (PolyWiki.org, ChildWiki.net, and SuicideWiki.org) because it's such an efficient system for creating glossaries, quote lists, etc. and main page summaries simultaneously. However, those are all one-editor sites, and the extension was just created last month.

:::Also, I think we'd want to discuss what the templates should look like. E.g., should the parameters have names (like in [[:Template:Cite web]], which has parameters "url", "title", etc.) or should they be numbered (like in template [[:Template:Md]]? The latter is what I've been doing because it saves typing and is perhaps easier to read, but it makes it harder to change the parameters later, because you have to migrate all the transcluding pages over. One of MediaWiki's main weaknesses is that it doesn't have much metadata functionality; this is one way to solve that. The other alternative would be Semantic MediaWiki, which has a larger community of users.

:::[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=to+be+honest To be honest], if I were you, I'd go with SMW, because then you're not dependent on me for maintenance of the extension. MediaWiki upgrades are always breaking extensions, so that the developers have to write new versions. The idea BedellPenDragon embodies is a good and useful one, and there needs to be an extension with that functionality, but there are no other developers maintaining that extension, and I don't know how long I'm going to be around. Maybe for years, maybe not. Then again, we could say that about anyone.

:::I just noticed, some of this is going to need some manual intervention. E.g. [http://mises.org/easier/V.asp#4 Verstehen] should be a redirect to [[understanding]], not its own separate entry. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 07:29, 25 November 2013 (MSK)

:::: I was thinking of doing something smaller, since it will require some editing on every page (not just categories, but also linking to other pages, if no further editing is necessary). And if we have to pre-decide which article gets which category, it means we'll have to revisit each page at least two times anyway.

:::: That being said, having a universal import bot/script would be really neat, the significant time investment is my main concern here; I may not be able to help out with it much. Will we make use of it again?

:::: As for Semantic MediaWiki BedellPenDragon - the first is worrying as it is a one-way ticket that makes things more complex for new users (higher barriers to entry), the other is a indeed a new product with little support and no user base. I've been skeptical about these extensions for a while; then again, I'm mainly focused on (or to be honest, obsessed) with content and not as much with the presentation side of things.

:::: My general preference is to make things simple and easier to maintain. These days, I don't expect too much activity, more of steady slow growth with occasional bursts, which I'd like to accommodate. We'll see! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 02:37, 26 November 2013 (MSK)

:::: And here's a link for the whole thing: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Mises Made Easier]] [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 02:51, 26 November 2013 (MSK)
:::::Yeah, it's easier (and in fact inevitable, to some extent) to follow Wikipedia's lead, as far as extensions are concerned. Then there's pretty much a guarantee that it will be well-supported and that it will be compatible with any content, templates, etc. we might import from Wikipedia.

:::::It is indeed a one-way ticket when we implement a metadata solution — theoretically. It could be undone and migrated to a different system using a sufficiently sophisticated bot. We don't have a lot of bot developers around here, though. I think once [[wikipedia:Wikidata|Wikidata]] comes fully online, we'll end up integrating with it (much as we already integrate with the [[wikipedia:Wikimedia Commons|Wikimedia Commons]]) and maybe setting up our own MisesData installation to supplement it. Unfortunately, it might be a long time before they get around to finishing the Wikidata implementation. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:10, 26 November 2013 (MSK)

:::: [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Mises Made Easier|Updated]]. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 02:01, 10 December 2013 (MSK)

== 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)
:I've seen that done. I forget which wiki it was. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 05:07, 22 November 2013 (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)

:: Moved project into the inactive ones, could certainly have more content but it is more or less complete. Anyone feel free to reopen it. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:23, 26 November 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)
::Just so you know, we have [[mw:Manual:$wgNoFollowLinks]] set to false on this wiki, so we are also giving a pagerank boost to the pages our articles link to. There was a debate about the wisdom of doing this throughout the wikisphere; virtually all developers said "hell no" when I [[bugzilla:42594|suggested]] changing the default for MediaWiki. However, I have always had that configuration settings switched off on all my other wikis, and have never had a spam problem. I suspect that Google may indirectly reward us for keeping it switched off; see [[mw:Manual:Costs and benefits of using nofollow]]. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 20:21, 24 January 2014 (EST)

== 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)

::: As many of the articles about this topic explain, that is not what the regression theorem says. What I am wondering now though, seeing all that hoopla about it, is there any notable Austrian economist that claims this, or is it really just a few bloggers sniping at each other? One day we'll know it all. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 01:59, 30 May 2013 (MSD)

== Where to contribute ==

The question has been asked repeatedly. Where should one add to or create more new pages?

The simplest answer is to find something you are really interested in, it's the most fun and you probably already know a lot about it. And if not, it's only natural to want to learn a bit more - and help others as well. But let's offer some inspiration:

* [[Special:WantedPages|Most wanted pages, by missing links]]: This list shows which nonexistent articles have the most links pointing to them (some are just obscure links from templates and the like).
* [[MisesWiki:Most wanted|Most wanted pages, by vote]].
* A long list of desired topics is [[Category talk:Economic concepts|here]].

* Check out the [[MisesWiki:Call to Action|Call to Action]] (and it's talk page) - it contains several projects and suggestions for more, and there's plenty of things that can be still added. [[MisesWiki:Call to Action/Voluntary Cooperation|Voluntary Cooperation]] is particularly wide. The current project is [[Robber baron]]s, there's quite a few of those guys left.
* For those who don't mind to get their hands dirty, check out the [[MisesWiki:WikiProject Cleanup|Cleanup project]].

* If you are interested in a particular [[:Category:Countries|country or countries]], there is a good base to expand on. What is going on in that particular corner of the world anyway? How intrusive is the state? How's free is the life over there (and what's the quality of life)? What's of special interest to Austrians or libertarians?

* Are you more of a single-issue person, interested in a particular organization, person, or concept? Well, then see if a corresponding page already exists, how extensive is it, and what about all the related topics?

* Are you interested in a larger, overarching topic or a group of topics? See if there's a summary page and what subtopics can be created or brought up to the level.

* Are you into history? ([[Gilded Age]]? [[Great Depression]]? [[Financial crises]]? [[History of money and banking]]?) Writing a wiki page is a great way to learn about history.

* Are you more into the theoretical aspects of [[economics]] and [[praxeology]]? Create away whatever is still missing.

* Would you like to create good arguments for or against whatever discussion is currently raging on the Internet? There is [[Category:Argumentation|place for that]] as well!

And there's so much more...

(Anyone has more ideas? Add them here!) [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 21:31, 3 June 2013 (MSD)
:People can also offer constructive criticism about what they would like to see changed or added to the site so that it will better serve their and others' needs. It's useful to get input even from those who don't edit the site on a regular basis. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 17:00, 4 October 2013 (MSK)

== 1400 pages ==

Rather quietly, the wiki has just reached 1400 pages with the [[‎Second Bank of the United States]]. Good news in what is otherwise a period of downtime. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 13:39, 10 July 2013 (MSD)

== Teaching Austrian Economics ==

Are there any Austrian School Textbooks that can be used to teach college leval Macro & Micro economics. Everything iv'e found teaches Keynesian Economics.

:I'd say if you start with [[Human Action]] and [[Man, Economy and State]] you should be well provided for a start (of an advanced education), but I've asked this question [http://libertyhq.freeforums.org/college-level-textbooks-t943.html elsewhere] to see if there's a better answer. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 01:32, 15 July 2013 (MSD)

::Check out the link above, there are some good answers in the forum thread now. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:17, 17 July 2013 (MSD)

== Upgrade to MW 1.21 ==

If there is no objection, I will upgrade the site to [[mw:Release_notes/1.21#MediaWiki_1.21.2|MediaWiki 1.21]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 04:10, 4 October 2013 (MSK)
:Upgrade complete. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 10:31, 5 October 2013 (MSK)

== Debate -> Dialog, Fun -> Miscellany ==

I changed the namespace names from Debate: to Dialog: (see [[rationalwiki:Debate:Should_it_be_Dialogue]] for some thoughts on that) and from Fun: to Miscellany:. I figured Miscellany: would be a good repository for any off-topic or otherwise hard-to-classify stuff. Debate: and Fun: are still available as [[mw:Manual:$wgNamespaceAliases|namespace aliases]]. The main downside I can think of is that the name of the "Dialog talk:" namespace sounds slightly redundant. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 16:58, 4 October 2013 (MSK)
:I'm going to retire the Dialog: namespace and move all the content to Miscellany: if there's no objection. Even RationalWiki: has found that the Debate: namespace is kinda pointless; [[rationalwiki:Help:Namespace|they write]], "For some reason this namespace is not very well used. The function is largely usurped by talk pages." [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 00:58, 29 December 2013 (MSK)

== Another libertarian wiki ==

For later study, found by chance: "[http://v.i4031.net/Home A Voluntaryist Wiki]", appears to be a rather private affair focused mainly on argumentation. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 23:44, 20 October 2013 (MSK)
:Added to the [[MisesWiki:Wikinode|wikinode]] (and to [[wikiindex:A Voluntaryist Wiki|wikiindex]]). [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 04:57, 21 October 2013 (MSK)

== [[mw:Extension:BedellPenDragon]] ==

Hello, I've written [[mw:Extension:BedellPenDragon]], which adds metadata, glossary, essay list, and quote list features to MediaWiki. Perhaps the best way to explain it is by example. All of these features you can see either displayed or available from the [http://polywiki.org/ PolyWiki main page].
*'''Articles:'''
:*Transclude [http://polywiki.org/wiki/Template:FASummary Template:FASummary] to add themselves to [http://polywiki.org/wiki/Category:Featured_articles Category:Featured articles], from which are chosen the '''[http://polywiki.org/wiki/Template:Randomly_featured_article Randomly featured article]'''.
:*Transclude [http://polywiki.org/wiki/Template:InvisiblePageSummary Template:InvisiblePageSummary] to add entries to:
::*'''[http://polywiki.org/wiki/Special:Glossary Special:Glossary]'''.
::*'''[http://polywiki.org/wiki/Template:New_articles Recently added articles]'''.
*'''Essays:'''
:*Transclude [http://polywiki.org/wiki/Template:FESummary Template:FESummary] to add themselves to [http://polywiki.org/wiki/Category:Featured_essays Category:Featured essays], from which are chosen the '''[http://polywiki.org/wiki/Template:Randomly_featured_essay Randomly featured essay]'''.
:*Transclude [http://polywiki.org/wiki/Template:InvisiblePageSummary Template:InvisiblePageSummary] to add entries to:
::*'''[http://polywiki.org/wiki/Special:EssayList Special:EssayList]'''.
::*'''[http://polywiki.org/wiki/Template:New_essays Recently added essays]'''.
*'''Quotes:'''
:*Transclude [http://polywiki.org/wiki/Template:FQSummary Template:FQSummary] to add themselves to [http://polywiki.org/wiki/Category:Featured_quotes Category:Featured quotes], from which are chosen the '''[http://polywiki.org/wiki/Template:Randomly_featured_quote Randomly featured quote]'''.
:*Transclude [http://polywiki.org/wiki/Template:InvisiblePageSummary Template:InvisiblePageSummary] to add entries to:
::*'''[http://polywiki.org/wiki/Special:QuoteList Special:QuoteList]'''.
::*'''[http://polywiki.org/wiki/Template:New_quotes Recently added quotes]'''.
Examples of how this is done:
*[http://polywiki.org/w/index.php?title=Values_within_polyamory&action=edit Article example] (view source)
*[http://polywiki.org/w/index.php?title=Essay:Friendship_as_the_foundation_of_romantic_relationships&action=edit Essay example] (view source)
*[http://polywiki.org/w/index.php?title=Quote:Security_comes_first_from_inside...&action=edit Quote example] (view source)
I was thinking this could be useful on Mises Wiki. Perhaps we could enhance the main page by showing new content as well as randomly selected content that's an unpredictable mix of the old and new. Also, this data could be queried by other parts of mises.org or even sites external to mises.org using [[mw:API:Properties#pageprops_.2F_pp|the API]]. Another advantage is that vandals and spammers almost certainly won't know to use the templates that will cause content to be seen on the main page. We could use this as a means of new page screening for the Mises Globe on the main mises.org page as well.

Also, we can create sidebars similar to RationalWiki's [http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Template:Sex Template:Sex] that display a random list of x articles in a given category. So, for example, the article on [[fractional reserve banking]] could have a <nowiki>{{banking}}</nowiki> sidebar with a list of 12 randomly selected banking articles. This way, users who revisit the article will be exposed to new content each time.

There's other stuff that could be done with this extension too, such as creating "Did you know?" tidbits of information for display on the main page; we could then create another special page to display a master list of those items. It's not all that much different from what [[wikipedia:Semantic MediaWiki|Semantic MediaWiki]] was intended to do (except that SMW is more powerful); I just haven't had good experiences with SMW, or I would recommend using it, since it's the application that academicians tend to favor and to have more enthusiasm about. They've been fantasizing for a long time about what they could do if Wikipedia would switch to SMW.

To make BedellPenDragon be useful for us, we would need to (after installing the extension) start adding the featured summary and regular summary templates to pages we create. Since this would be a fairly significant change in how we do things, I wanted to see what your thoughts were and make sure there's a consensus before proceeding. Another option would be to use SMW; if we were to pick that option, I might switch my focus from improving BedellPenDragon to improving SMW, although I'm not sure how much success I would have getting that community to accept proposed changes. I have control over BedellPenDragon's development; I don't control SMW. I've often found than code review can be a bottleneck and that it can be quite hard for an outsider to get his changes approved due to inertia and lack of interested reviewers.

If we were to want to reverse this change later, it would not be too hard. We would just need to change the templates so that they either do nothing at all or so that they do nothing but display the text that is entered into them as parameters. Thanks, [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 07:27, 11 November 2013 (MSK)

== Script error on page ==

There is a script error [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Sweden#Links here] on what appear to be flags. Don't care much for the flags, but perhaps it can be fixed easily. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 02:09, 26 November 2013 (MSK)
:Those red "script error" messages are clickable; that one informed me that we needed to import [[Module:Yesno]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 09:02, 26 November 2013 (MSK)

== $wgUsersNotifiedOnAllChanges ==

Anyone care to be added to [[mw:Manual:$wgUsersNotifiedOnAllChanges|$wgUsersNotifiedOnAllChanges]]? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 03:17, 14 December 2013 (MSK)

: Is there anything in it that Recent Changes doesn't cover? Otherwise it seems like just getting more emails. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 14:11, 15 December 2013 (MSK)
::Nope, it's for people who want to get emailed everything that's in Recent Changes (except the changes they themselves make). But actually, at this point you can just use the preferences checkbox implemented by [[mw:Extension:EmailAllChanges]] if you want to be emailed all those notifications. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 14:15, 15 December 2013 (MSK)

== Happy New Year! ==

Haven't been much on recently but will come back for a spring cleaning. Meanwhile, enjoy Merry belated Christmas and especially a Happy New Year! Big thanks to everyone for holding the torch! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 13:45, 30 December 2013 (MSK)

== Linked discussion threads ==

Although I prefer central discussion areas for wiki communities, I have always found the single-page format rather cumbersome when multiple topics are covered. I am curious how users would respond to using a threaded style discussion forum on the Commons page. [[User:GMedich|GMedich]] ([[User talk:GMedich|talk]]) 18:12, 7 January 2014 (EST)
:Are you thinking about subpages or something like [[mw:Extension:Flow]] (the successor to [[mw:Extension:LiquidThreads]])? The Dialog: namespace was created basically for the purpose of holding discussion threads, but on most wikis it ends up not being used very much. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 18:14, 7 January 2014 (EST)
::Improving the visual order of the central discussion portal is my main point, I suppose. I think keeping the actual discussion pages in a dedicated namespace is a good idea, and can help finding older, archived threads when needed. Obviously, there is not much conversational traffic at present, but this would probably help keep track of the few separate topics we have underway at any given time.
::A fairly simple example can be found on [http://www.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Forum:Index Shout Wiki] and on [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Index Fallout Wiki]. They both use the same basic, template-generated forum which you might have seen elsewhere. ''Shout Wiki'' uses a simple version while ''Fallout Wiki'' has chosen to dress it up a bit. [[User:GMedich|GMedich]] ([[User talk:GMedich|talk]]) 11:36, 8 January 2014 (EST)
:::I guess I'm pretty indifferent to the matter. If no one objects, then you can probably implement your idea. I hope that it can be done in a way that doesn't add additional steps to the process of adding new threads, though. (e.g. creating the thread and then adding it to the central portal is a two-step process) [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 11:51, 8 January 2014 (EST)

== Video captions and transcripts ==

I notice that it's easier to transcribe videos when you turn on the captions, even though the auto-captions tend not to be very accurate. There are a couple articles on this, [https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2734796?hl=en Add captions] and [https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2734799?hl=en Transcripts]. I think that we (i.e. the Mises community) should seek to create captions and transcripts for the more important Austrian school-related videos out there, e.g. of Murray Rothbard, or of people discussing Mises Wiki. Unfortunately, I think only the owner of a video is allowed to do it. What shall we do about this? Or perhaps I should say, What can be done about this? [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 11:48, 18 January 2014 (EST)

== Redmine ==

It turns out there is a {{w|Redmine}} installation at http://projects.mises.org/redmine that mises.org developers use internally. I have asked Jordan and Chad to make it publicly available as an issue tracker. There was [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/misesdev/bugzilla/misesdev/y9AJbj6TDBA/YhSDe5QYuJoJ a discussion] about this earlier. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 21:29, 25 January 2014 (EST)
:Okay, it looks like this will never happen, until we migrate over to [[Liberty.me]]. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 00:06, 31 January 2014 (EST)

==Recommended books==
I was wondering, does anyone have advice for what books to give to different kinds of people you're trying to convert to libertarianism? See [[:Miscellany:Books to give to different kinds of people]]. I sent [[Jeremy Hammond]] ''FANL'' and ''The Market for Liberty'' and was told that might not be the best choice; I guess leftists tend to view Rothbard as right-libertarian, for some reason. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 00:06, 31 January 2014 (EST)

: Good idea! I've added Economics in One Lesson to the list, it's still hard to beat as an introduction to free-market economics. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 09:57, 1 February 2014 (EST)
::I thought about sending that one. Of course, it might come across as telling the person "You don't know squat about economics; read this" but the truth hurts sometimes, I guess. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 10:07, 1 February 2014 (EST)

::: It can be good for people who don't have much of a background or interest in the more advanced economics; it can be also an easy sell if someone wants a summary of 'what is all this free-market stuff about'. Last but not least, it can be used for the exact reason you have mentioned, if put politely enough. The person in question will probably underestimate it and might just be shaken by the force of the argument. Then again, it might not. But that's always a risk. [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 10:24, 2 February 2014 (EST)
::::I was just looking through ''Economics in One Lesson''. It has a lot of good stuff, but like Mises' works, says stuff like "A certain amount of public spending is necessary to perform essential government functions" and "A certain amount of taxes is of course indispensable to carry on essential government functions." I guess Hazlitt never went anarchist; he kept those passages when he did his 1978 extensive revision of the book. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 09:24, 3 February 2014 (EST)

MediaWiki talk:Captcha-addurl-whitelist

2014-02-03T09:28:27Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

If you know of any other sites that are clearly non-spammy, feel free to add them to this list. For more info, see [[mw:Extension:ConfirmEdit#URL_and_IP_whitelists]] [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 04:25, 3 February 2014 (EST)

MediaWiki talk:Captcha-addurl-whitelist

2014-02-03T09:25:29Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "If you know of any other sites that are clearly non-spammy, feel free to add them to this list. ~~~~"

If you know of any other sites that are clearly non-spammy, feel free to add them to this list. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 04:25, 3 February 2014 (EST)

MediaWiki:Captcha-addurl-whitelist

2014-02-03T09:24:47Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

# <pre>
# Syntax is as follows:
# * Everything from a "#" character to the end of the line is a comment
# * Every non-blank line is a regex fragment which will only match hosts inside URLs

mises\.org
\.mises\.org

#</pre>

MediaWiki:Captcha-addurl-whitelist

2014-02-03T09:24:05Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with " # <pre> # Syntax is as follows: # * Everything from a "#" character to the end of the line is a comment # * Every non-blank line..."

# <pre>
# Syntax is as follows:
# * Everything from a "#" character to the end of the line is a comment
# * Every non-blank line is a regex fragment which will only match hosts inside URLs
#</pre> 

mises\.org
\.mises\.org

Guilt

2014-02-03T06:56:10Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jksadegh/A%20Good%20Atheist%20Secularist%20Skeptical%20Book%20Collection/SMITH_The_Case_Against-God.htm

'''Guilt''' or '''remorse''' is an emotion that occurs when a person feels that his behavior has fallen short of what his own ethical principles called for him to do (or not do). It is a form of regret. [[Ayn Rand]] placed a great deal of emphasis on guilt as a means of controlling people, and titled chapter 19 of ''Atlas Shrugged'' "The Face Without Pain or Fear or Guilt." One of her characters stated, "The worst guilt is to accept an undeserved guilt".

It is not possible for a person to cause another person to feel guilt, except by getting that person to both (1) accept a moral precept as valid and (2) believe that he has fallen short of that standard. This is a quite different matter from impelling a person to feel regret that does not involve a sense of guilt. A government can, for instance, punish a person for smoking cannabis and thereby, in some cases, impel him to feel regret for using the drug (or at least, for getting caught). However, the government cannot make him feel guilty without getting him to believe that what he did was wrong.

George H. Smith, in ''Atheism: The Case Against God'', writes that people can be controlled by either physical or psychological sanctions: "A physical sanction, if successful, causes the emotion of fear. A psychological sanction, if successful, causes the emotion of guilt. A man motivated by fear may still retain an element of rebelliousness, of determination to strike back given the opportunity. A man motivated by guilt, however, is a man with a broken spirit; he will obey the rules without question."<ref>{{cite book|title=Atheism: The Case Against God|author=Smith, George H.|pages=173|chapter=Religious Morality|url=http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jksadegh/A%20Good%20Atheist%20Secularist%20Skeptical%20Book%20Collection/SMITH_The_Case_Against-God.htm}}</ref>

Shame and guilt sometimes, but not always coincide; either can exist independently of the other. A person can feel ashamed of an act that he regards as foolish but not morally wrong, without feeling guilt. He can also feel guilty about committing an immoral act without feeling shame, for example if he does not care about the opinion of others or if others do not know about the act that he committed.

==Courts==
In some jurisdictions, governmental courts can consider a defendant's remorse (or lack thereof) as a factor relevant to sentencing for criminal offenses. It could be considered relevant to his risk of re-offending; if he is likely to commit a new crime, then the court might deem it appropriate to protect society by imprisoning him for a longer period of time.<ref>{{uscsub|18|3553|a}}</ref> Of course, there can be epistemological problems involved in determining the defendant's level of remorse; for example, he might make an insincere statement of regret in allocution. Sometimes his remorse or lack thereof can be inferred from his behavior, such as attempting to make amends for his behavior or engaging in similar criminal behavior. However, these actions too could be done with the intention of giving the court a certain impression, rather than out of genuine remorse.

The courts' giving defendants extra prison time for lack of remorse could be considered an infringement of [[freedom of thought]]. As mentioned above, a defendant could quite easily feel regret, but not remorse, for his crime. His fear of future punishment might suffice to deter him from further lawbreaking. A defendant could also feel genuine remorse and yet still re-offend, if he succumbs to temptation or changes his mind about his ethical principles later. In a libertarian judicial system, the plaintiff might consider his perceptions of the defendant's level of regret in deciding how strict or forgiving to be in exacting restitution.<ref>{{cite book|quote=Assuming the aggressor could not make immediate payment of his entire debt, the method used to collect it would depend on the amount involved, the nature of the aggression, the aggressor's past record and present attitude, and any other pertinent variables.|title=The Market for Liberty|chapter=Rectification of Injustice|pages=101|author=Tannehill, Morris and Linda|date=1970}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Concepts]]

Human trafficking

2014-02-02T15:40:06Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: another advantage of legalization

'''Human trafficking''' is trade in humans, most commonly for the purpose of sexual slavery or forced labor. Some people, eager to migrate to another country, but unable to do so legally, pay smugglers to help them get across the border and then end up in [[indentured servitude]] until they can pay off their debt.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/human-trafficking-the-other-good-reason-to-reform-immigration|title=Human Trafficking: The Other Good Reason to Reform Immigration|date=14 November 2012|author=Andrews, Lewis M.|publisher=The Freeman}}</ref> A libertarian proposal for solving this problem is to remove or at least reduce immigration restrictions.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2011/04/on-human-trafficking/|title=On Human Trafficking|author=Zwolinski, Matt|date=6 April 2011|publisher=Bleeding Heart Libertarians|quote=I’m puzzled by the fact that so few people point seem to point to more open borders as a significant step toward solving the problem.}}</ref> Conservatives sometimes call for making the borders more secure in order to stop the traffickers from successfully crossing.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Sex-Trafficking-and-Securing-the-Border|title=Sex Trafficking and Securing the Border|author=McAllister, D.C.|date=11 June 2013|publisher=richochet|quote=Conservatives want stronger borders because we care about women and children; we don’t want any more girls like Maria to suffer at the hands of predators.}}</ref> Another libertarian proposal is to legalize [[prostitution]], so that the [[black market]] will be crowded out by legitimate businesses with longer time horizons and therefore more of a reason to want to protect their reputations and invest in [[human capital]]. Prostitutes would be able to report crimes committed against them without incriminating themselves.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/legalize-prostitution-fight-sex-trafficking-video/|title=Legalize Prostitution to Fight Sex Trafficking?|author=Huyett, Ian|date=14 January 2014|publisher=The Libertarian Republic}}</ref> Also, prostitutes would be less likely to end up with criminal records that would render them ineligible for many jobs outside the [[underground economy]].

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Crime]]

Human trafficking

2014-02-02T11:57:31Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "'''Human trafficking''' is trade in humans, most commonly for the purpose of sexual slavery or forced labor. Some people, eager to migrate to another country, but unable to do..."

Austrian Economics Wiki talk:Configuration issues

2014-02-02T09:16:51Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: /* TODO: Set $wgExportFromNamespaces to true */

==Collapsible tables==
It might actually be possible for a sysop to fix those, perhaps by updating some of the pages in the MediaWiki namespace. See [[mw:Manual:Using content from Wikipedia]]. We use Vector; what about [[MediaWiki:Vector.js]] and [[MediaWiki:Vector.css]]? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 08:21, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:Looking at the code on those pages at Wikipedia (which you recommended on the project page here), I'm not seeing how that would fix the issue. The [[w:MediaWiki:Vector.css]] doesn't seem to include any code that would affect the tables. And the [[w:MediaWiki:Vector.js]] doesn't contain any code ''at all''. As in, there is literally nothing to cut and paste. Could you point out what it is specifically that you think will fix the issue? {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] ([[User talk:John James|talk]]) 01:45, 14 August 2012 (MSD)}}
::Eek, looks like you're right about both. I must be smoking crack. It appears that it is indeed a Common.js issue, since I went to my wiki, updated its [[MediaWiki:Common.js]] with enwiki's Common.js, and then the show/hide buttons appeared and worked. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 18:30, 16 August 2012 (MSD)

:::We have a few different configurations than Wikipedia, and Wikipedia has code in there for things we don't have here, so simply copy and pasting their whole page and overwriting our own just to try and fix one issue is not a good option, nor is it ever really a wise practice...particularly for pages related to functionality of the entire wiki. I'll have a look. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] ([[User talk:John James|talk]]) 03:25, 18 August 2012 (MSD)}}

UPDATE: I also discovered the wiki isn't currently supporting [[w:Help:Sorting|sorting]] in tables either (or at least these features are not showing in the tables.) From what I understand, as of the later installations of wiki, these elements are supposed to be allowed through jQuery plugins, and the JavaScript code is loaded by the ResourceLoader as a [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ResourceLoader/Default_modules#jQuery.makeCollapsible default module]...

Looking [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Krinkle/Le_Tour_de_Wik%C3%AD/2011_Resource_Walker here] you can see how the JQuerys where simply created and tested locally before being deployed. I tried installing them locally on our wiki in the same fashion, but it didn't change anything. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] ([[User talk:John James|talk]]) 23:09, 9 September 2012 (MSD)}}

== MW Globe ==

"Insert Mises Wiki Globe into the top left corner, as the logo of the Mises Wiki" There's a certain logic to that, since the globe is the emblem of our wiki, we don't seem to be using the globe for much else, and globes are traditionally what people use for [[mw:Manual:$wgLogo|$wgLogo]]. On the other hand, isn't there something to be said for keeping the ribbon uniform across all of mises.org? Then again, maybe it's good to have the globe appear when people are using the wiki, as a cue to remind them where they are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 12:14, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

== Problems with Firefox? ==

Recently (i.e. for about the past week), when I have been attempting to view Mises Wiki using Firefox, it's either been displaying in a weird non-graphical (i.e. all-text) format or has been directing me to bastiat.mises.org or the "page not found" page (the one that says "Oops, that link appears to be incorrect..."). Or it says "Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete." That may be because for some reason Firefox keeps wanting to go to the https version rather than the http, even when I type http into the address bar. (Some links I have been trying include https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges and https://wiki.mises.org/ .)

Not sure why that is; I tried using the http address with two different computers running Firefox, and it kept wanting to go to the https. Anyway, shouldn't it work with either? Some users might want to use the wiki more securely.

I switched to Google Chrome and it's working fine with that browser. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 18:50, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

: Yeah, the problem is reported but it's unsolved for the moment at least. :/ [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 23:00, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Strange issue ==

Try typing a nonexistent user subpage, say, User:YourUserName/TestPage into the searchbar. Then you get "There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, search the related logs, or edit this page." Then click "search for this page title." It will then prompt, "Create the page "YourUserName/TestPage" on this wiki!" I.e., it will prompt you to create a mainspace page, when you had typed in a userspace page. A solution could be "[http://catb.org/jargon/html/D/Don-t-do-that-then-.html don't do that then]"; don't search for it, but rather click on "edit this page". I've never seen that issue before on any other wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 18:43, 16 August 2012 (MSD)

== Asirra ==
{{fixed2}}
It appears as though the kittens selection is no longer required and we now just have the common captcha. Can an LvMI developer confirm this was intentional and update the page with the changes made and summary of the current status? {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] ([[User talk:John James|talk]]) 18:25, 4 October 2012 (MSD)}}
:On 2 October 2012, Dave Veksler posted about it on the Google Groups list:
{{quotation|I just switched from Assira to ReCaptha. Does it work?

http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Special:UserLogin/signup

Does it work?

Can we re-enable new users accounts? I don't know how registration was disabled - I don't see anything in LocalSettings.

Can I give someone who knows MediaWiki server access?}}

:I guess he's given up on Asirra, so perhaps [[MediaWiki:Nologin]] can be reverted to what it used to say. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:24, 5 October 2012 (MSD)
Update: Asirra has been fixed. The issue was probably that the extension was stored in extensions/ConfirmEdit/Asirra rather than extensions/Asirra. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 15:57, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Blocks ==

"There is an issue with the symbol that is supposed to separate the info at the footer of the wiki, causing blocks to show up. (Scroll to very bottom of page, look at the contact info for the LvMI)" What kind of blocks? Are you referring to those diamonds with question marks? I thought that was a feature. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 00:15, 6 October 2012 (MSD)

== TODO: Fix the AbuseFilter user rights ==

Currently, no one can use [[Special:AbuseFilter]]. [[mw:Extension:AbuseFilter#User_rights]] [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 17:20, 6 January 2014 (EST)

== FIXME: Can't upload ==

We can't upload any files at the moment because it can't create the directories. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 01:50, 25 January 2014 (EST)

==TODO: Set $wgExportFromNamespaces to true==
[[mw:Manual:$wgExportFromNamespaces|$wgExportFromNamespaces]] should be set to true to make mass exporting easier. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 04:16, 2 February 2014 (EST)

==TODO: Install [[mw:Extension:DeleteBatch]] and [[mw:Extension:UndeleteBatch]]==
[[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 04:16, 2 February 2014 (EST)

Austrian Economics Wiki talk:Configuration issues

2014-02-02T09:16:38Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

==Collapsible tables==
It might actually be possible for a sysop to fix those, perhaps by updating some of the pages in the MediaWiki namespace. See [[mw:Manual:Using content from Wikipedia]]. We use Vector; what about [[MediaWiki:Vector.js]] and [[MediaWiki:Vector.css]]? [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 08:21, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

:Looking at the code on those pages at Wikipedia (which you recommended on the project page here), I'm not seeing how that would fix the issue. The [[w:MediaWiki:Vector.css]] doesn't seem to include any code that would affect the tables. And the [[w:MediaWiki:Vector.js]] doesn't contain any code ''at all''. As in, there is literally nothing to cut and paste. Could you point out what it is specifically that you think will fix the issue? {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] ([[User talk:John James|talk]]) 01:45, 14 August 2012 (MSD)}}
::Eek, looks like you're right about both. I must be smoking crack. It appears that it is indeed a Common.js issue, since I went to my wiki, updated its [[MediaWiki:Common.js]] with enwiki's Common.js, and then the show/hide buttons appeared and worked. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 18:30, 16 August 2012 (MSD)

:::We have a few different configurations than Wikipedia, and Wikipedia has code in there for things we don't have here, so simply copy and pasting their whole page and overwriting our own just to try and fix one issue is not a good option, nor is it ever really a wise practice...particularly for pages related to functionality of the entire wiki. I'll have a look. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] ([[User talk:John James|talk]]) 03:25, 18 August 2012 (MSD)}}

UPDATE: I also discovered the wiki isn't currently supporting [[w:Help:Sorting|sorting]] in tables either (or at least these features are not showing in the tables.) From what I understand, as of the later installations of wiki, these elements are supposed to be allowed through jQuery plugins, and the JavaScript code is loaded by the ResourceLoader as a [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ResourceLoader/Default_modules#jQuery.makeCollapsible default module]...

Looking [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Krinkle/Le_Tour_de_Wik%C3%AD/2011_Resource_Walker here] you can see how the JQuerys where simply created and tested locally before being deployed. I tried installing them locally on our wiki in the same fashion, but it didn't change anything. {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] ([[User talk:John James|talk]]) 23:09, 9 September 2012 (MSD)}}

== MW Globe ==

"Insert Mises Wiki Globe into the top left corner, as the logo of the Mises Wiki" There's a certain logic to that, since the globe is the emblem of our wiki, we don't seem to be using the globe for much else, and globes are traditionally what people use for [[mw:Manual:$wgLogo|$wgLogo]]. On the other hand, isn't there something to be said for keeping the ribbon uniform across all of mises.org? Then again, maybe it's good to have the globe appear when people are using the wiki, as a cue to remind them where they are. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 12:14, 7 August 2012 (MSD)

== Problems with Firefox? ==

Recently (i.e. for about the past week), when I have been attempting to view Mises Wiki using Firefox, it's either been displaying in a weird non-graphical (i.e. all-text) format or has been directing me to bastiat.mises.org or the "page not found" page (the one that says "Oops, that link appears to be incorrect..."). Or it says "Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete." That may be because for some reason Firefox keeps wanting to go to the https version rather than the http, even when I type http into the address bar. (Some links I have been trying include https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges and https://wiki.mises.org/ .)

Not sure why that is; I tried using the http address with two different computers running Firefox, and it kept wanting to go to the https. Anyway, shouldn't it work with either? Some users might want to use the wiki more securely.

I switched to Google Chrome and it's working fine with that browser. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 18:50, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

: Yeah, the problem is reported but it's unsolved for the moment at least. :/ [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] ([[User talk:Pestergaines|talk]]) 23:00, 12 August 2012 (MSD)

== Strange issue ==

Try typing a nonexistent user subpage, say, User:YourUserName/TestPage into the searchbar. Then you get "There is currently no text in this page. You can search for this page title in other pages, search the related logs, or edit this page." Then click "search for this page title." It will then prompt, "Create the page "YourUserName/TestPage" on this wiki!" I.e., it will prompt you to create a mainspace page, when you had typed in a userspace page. A solution could be "[http://catb.org/jargon/html/D/Don-t-do-that-then-.html don't do that then]"; don't search for it, but rather click on "edit this page". I've never seen that issue before on any other wiki. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 18:43, 16 August 2012 (MSD)

== Asirra ==
{{fixed2}}
It appears as though the kittens selection is no longer required and we now just have the common captcha. Can an LvMI developer confirm this was intentional and update the page with the changes made and summary of the current status? {{nowrap|--[[User:John James|John James]] ([[User talk:John James|talk]]) 18:25, 4 October 2012 (MSD)}}
:On 2 October 2012, Dave Veksler posted about it on the Google Groups list:
{{quotation|I just switched from Assira to ReCaptha. Does it work?

http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Special:UserLogin/signup

Does it work?

Can we re-enable new users accounts? I don't know how registration was disabled - I don't see anything in LocalSettings.

Can I give someone who knows MediaWiki server access?}}

:I guess he's given up on Asirra, so perhaps [[MediaWiki:Nologin]] can be reverted to what it used to say. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 11:24, 5 October 2012 (MSD)
Update: Asirra has been fixed. The issue was probably that the extension was stored in extensions/ConfirmEdit/Asirra rather than extensions/Asirra. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 15:57, 5 October 2012 (MSD)

== Blocks ==

"There is an issue with the symbol that is supposed to separate the info at the footer of the wiki, causing blocks to show up. (Scroll to very bottom of page, look at the contact info for the LvMI)" What kind of blocks? Are you referring to those diamonds with question marks? I thought that was a feature. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 00:15, 6 October 2012 (MSD)

== TODO: Fix the AbuseFilter user rights ==

Currently, no one can use [[Special:AbuseFilter]]. [[mw:Extension:AbuseFilter#User_rights]] [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 17:20, 6 January 2014 (EST)

== FIXME: Can't upload ==

We can't upload any files at the moment because it can't create the directories. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 01:50, 25 January 2014 (EST)

==TODO: Set $wgExportFromNamespaces to true==
[[Manual:$wgExportFromNamespaces|$wgExportFromNamespaces]] should be set to true to make mass exporting easier. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 04:16, 2 February 2014 (EST)

==TODO: Install [[mw:Extension:DeleteBatch]] and [[mw:Extension:UndeleteBatch]]==
[[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 04:16, 2 February 2014 (EST)

Template:EditOkay

2014-02-02T08:23:13Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Leucosticte moved page Template:EditOkay to Template:OkayToEdit

#REDIRECT [[Template:OkayToEdit]]

Template:OkayToEdit

2014-02-02T08:23:13Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Leucosticte moved page Template:EditOkay to Template:OkayToEdit

{{messagebox
|l-width = 30px
|image = [[File:Essay.svg|30px]]
|text = Yeah, you can edit this.}}

Template:OkayToEdit

2014-02-02T06:25:08Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "{{messagebox |l-width = 30px |image = 30px |text = Yeah, you can edit this.}}"

{{messagebox
|l-width = 30px
|image = [[File:Essay.svg|30px]]
|text = Yeah, you can edit this.}}

Austrian Economics Wiki:Community portal

2014-02-02T05:07:05Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Reverted edits by 122.177.157.126 (talk) to last revision by Leucosticte

__NOTOC__
Welcome to Mises Wiki's '''Community portal'''! This is a general listing of easy things you can do to get involved in this project.

{| class="prettytable" width="90%" style="margin: 0 auto 1em;"
| style="width: 50%; vertical-align: top; background-color: #fff5f5; padding: 1em;" |
===Create and improve articles===
* [[:Category:Article stubs|Stubs]]: These are articles that someone has marked with <code><nowiki>{{stub}}</nowiki></code>, indicating that they need to be expanded and/or improved.
* [[Special:NewPages|Newest articles]]: These brand new articles may need to be reviewed.
* [[Special:RecentChanges|Recent changes]]: Review the list of most recent edits.
* [[Special:ShortPages|Shortest articles]]: Prime candidates for expansion!
* [[:Category:Mises Wiki articles incorporating text from Wikipedia|Articles incorporating text from Wikipedia]] should be improved.
* [[Special:WantedPages|Most wanted pages, by missing links]]: This list shows which nonexistent articles have the most links pointing to them.
* [[MisesWiki:Most wanted|Most wanted pages, by vote]]: Vote on what should be created or improved next.
* [[MisesWiki:International|How to create articles in other languages]]: For those interested in creating articles in languages besides English.
* [[MisesWiki:Bounty board|Bounty board]]: Reward highly desired tasks.
|style="width: 50%; vertical-align: top; background-color: #fff5f5; padding: 1em;"|

===WikiProjects===
* [[MisesWiki:WikiProject Economic History|Economic history]]: An overview of the economic history project here on the Mises Wiki plus some identified economic history items that could use your assistance.
* [[MisesWiki:Anniversaries|Anniversaries]]: We need entries for the "[[Template:This week in history|This week in history]]" section of the main page. Find out how to add them here!
* [[MisesWiki:Development]]: Information to get volunteers started with improvements to the Mises.org website.
* [[MisesWiki:WikiProject Cleanup|Cleanup]]: Interested in helping clean up the wiki? Here are a few examples of ways to help:
** Put [[Special:UncategorizedPages|uncategorized pages]] in categories (see the [[Special:CategoryTree|category tree]] for ideas).
** Add wiki links to [[Special:DeadendPages|dead-end pages]], that is, articles that don't have any links on them.
** Add references to [http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Fact pages marked as requiring them].
|-
| style="width: 50%; vertical-align: top; background-color: #fff5f5; padding: 1em;"|

===Help for beginners===
*Ask any general questions you have at the [[MisesWiki:Commons|Mises Commons]].
*Questions specific to a particular article can be raised on the particular article's talk page: click the "discussion" tab at the top.
*To do a test edit, use the [[MisesWiki:Sandbox|sandbox]].
*For general help, see [[Help:Contents|help pages]], especially how to [[Help:Getting started|get started]].
*There's also a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUI9Ure8JCE video tutorial] on Youtube.
| style="width: 50%; vertical-align: top; background-color: #fff5f5; padding: 1em;"|

===Community===
*Join in the Mises Wiki discussion at either of two places:
**[[MisesWiki:Commons|The Mises Commons]] for questions and proposals
**[http://groups.google.com/a/mises.com/group/wiki Mises Wiki Email List] for future development ideas
**[https://plus.google.com/communities/110060526493582701443 Google+ Community] to start conversations in a social media venue
*[[MisesWiki:Meetups|Meetups]]: Find groups of libertarians, anarchists, and others influenced by the Austrian School near you, or add your group to the list.
|}

[[Category:Mises Wiki|{{PAGENAME}}]]

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2014-02-01T15:07:38Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: /* Recommended books */ re

Holy Bible

2014-02-01T14:46:40Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

The '''Holy Bible''' is the Scripture of the [[Christian]] [[religion]]. The authors of some of its books, such as the epistle to the Hebrews, are unknown, although scholars have made some educated guesses. In some parts of the Bible, those acting on behalf of [[God]] defy the government<ref><bible>Daniel 6:6-13</bible></ref><ref><bible>Matthew 2:13</bible></ref> or against religious authorities. However, the Bible commands obedience to government in those situations in which to do so would not be inconsistent with God's commands.<ref><bible>Romans 13:1-7</bible></ref><ref><bible>Titus 3:1</bible></ref><ref><bible>1 Peter 2:13-17</bible></ref>

==Logic and evidence==
The Bible notes that not very many wise people have accepted the Christian faith.<ref><bible>1 Corinthians 1:26</bible></ref> This is, perhaps, because the logic of the Bible is entirely different from that of earthly logicians. In what would usually be considered [[begging the question]], the Bible offers, as proof of its own reliability, its own assertion that Scripture is the Word of God,<ref><bible>2 Timothy 3:16</bible></ref><ref><bible>2 Peter 1:20-21</bible></ref> who cannot lie.<ref><bible>Numbers 23:19</bible></ref><ref><bible>Titus 1:2</bible></ref><ref><bible>Hebrews 6:18</bible></ref> [[Benjamin Franklin]], in ''A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain'', shows that the tenets of Christianity inevitably lead to the conclusion, "If a Creature is made by God, it must depend upon God, and receive all its Power from Him; with which Power the Creature can do nothing contrary to the Will of God, because God is Almighty; what is not contrary to His Will, must be agreeable to it; what is agreeable to it, must be good, because He is Good; therefore a Creature can do nothing but what is good."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Dissertation_on_Liberty_and_Necessity,_Pleasure_and_Pain|author=Franklin, Benjamin|date=1725|title=A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain}}</ref> The Bible does not fully explain why God has allowed (or caused) evil to occur. Paul responds to allegations of a contradiction between predestination and free will by arguing that it is arrogant for people to question God's choice of certain sinners for salvation.<ref><bible>Romans 9:19-21</bible></ref>

==Testaments==
The Bible contains an [[Old Testament]] and a [[New Testament]]. It is commonly believed that the God of the New Testament is less harsh than the God of the Old Testament, who decreed draconian punishments for such offenses as gathering sticks on the Sabbath.<ref><bible>Numbers 15:32-35</bible></ref> Actually, if anything, [[Jesus Christ]]'s teachings were stricter than those of his contemporary [[Jew]]ish teachers, because he preached an internal conformity to the spirit of the law rather than mere external compliance to the letter. Thus, for instance, it is considered not only sinful to commit murder or adultery but to even be angry at one's brother without a cause<ref><bible>Matthew 5:21-22</bible></ref> or to have lustful thoughts.<ref><bible>Matthew 5:27-28</bible></ref>

==Views==
[[Ludwig von Mises]] quotes or cites Scripture on thirty-two occasions throughout his writings.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mises.org/daily/1736|title=Mises Debunks the Religious Case for the State|date=10 February 2005|author=Vance, Laurence M.}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Links==
* {{wplink}}

[[Category:Literature]]
[[Category:Christianity]]

Liberty.me

2014-01-31T08:57:32Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

'''Liberty.me''' is a friendship network, publishing platform, news stream, broadcasting system, and discussion forum dedicated to the liberty-minded community. Its Chief Liberty Officer is [[Jeffrey Tucker]]. With regard to {{w|Beyoncé}}'s ''{{w|Love On Top}}'', Tucker stated, "I have no real power to officially declare this but I would strongly suggest that this song be the official song of Liberty.me, subject of course to universal agreement by the workers and peasants who are making this project amazing."<ref>http://www.jeffreytucker.me/beyonce-love-on-top-405222637.html</ref> The project also sells t-shirts that feature a drawing of a [[bow tie]] with the caption "Liberty.me: Anything Else Would Be Uncivilized." [[Cathy Reisenwitz]] writes, "This is how I describe Liberty.me: Imagine the [[Huffington Post]] and [[PolicyMic]] had a baby, and she turned out to be a libertarian."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://sexandthestate.com/want-libertarians-to-have-nice-things-please-give-to-liberty-me/|title=Want Libertarians to Have Nice Things? Please Give to Liberty.me|date=17 December 2013|author=Reisenwitz, Cathy|publisher=Sex and the State}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External link==
*http://liberty.me/

[[Category:Websites]]

Jeffrey Tucker

2014-01-31T08:53:43Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: typo

[[File:jeffrey_tucker.jpg‎|right|thumb|Jeffrey Tucker]]
'''Jeffrey Tucker''' is the Chief Liberty Officer of [[Liberty.me]], a social and publishing platform for liberty-minded individuals. He also is the publisher and executive editor of [[Laissez Faire Books]], Distinguished Fellow of the [[Foundation for Economic Education]], research fellow of the [[Acton Institute]], economic analyst at the Daily Bitcoin, and consultant to Praxis. He is a former editorial vice president of the [[Ludwig von Mises Institute]]. He is author of several books including [http://lfb.org/shop/philosophy/bourbon-for-breakfast-lfb-edition Bourbon for Breakfast] (2010), [http://lfb.org/shop/economics/its-a-jetsons-world/ It's a Jetsons World] (2011), [http://lfb.org/shop/ideas-of-liberty/a-beautiful-anarchy/ A Beautiful Anarchy], and The Annotated Bibliography of [[Henry Hazlitt]] (1992). He is adjunct scholar at the Mackinac Center, speaks annually for the Acton University, has been interviewed on countless media venues, and from 2007 to 2013,he wrote a weekly column for The Wanderer. He writes regularly on economics, culture, and society for Crisis Magazine, Laissez Faire Today, The Daily Anarchist, [[Fee.org]], [[Mises.org]], [http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker-arch.html LewRockwell.com], [http://insidecatholic.com InsideCatholic], and serves as publications director for the [http://musicasacra.com Church Music Association of America].

==Links==
* [http://mises.org/daily/author/205 Mises.org Article Archive]
* [http://mises.org/media.aspx?action=author&ID=205 Mises.org Media Archive]
* {{wplink}}

[[Category:Mises Institute]]
[[Category:Journalists]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tucker, Jeffrey A.}}

Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

2014-01-31T05:06:22Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

Prison Litigation Reform Act

2014-01-30T00:46:23Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

The '''Prison Litigation Reform Act''' (PLRA) is a U.S. federal law that was enacted in 1996.{{Fact}}

==Views==
According to the [[Human Rights Watch]], makes it much more difficult than in the past for prisoners to bring lawsuits against the government: "The debate and legislative processes leading to the passage of the PLRA were hasty, one-sided, and did not give much thought to the possible ramifications on prisoners' constitutional rights." The rise in prisoner lawsuits was blamed on prisoners filing frivolous lawsuits, rather than on the swelling prison populations and deteriorating prison conditions. In reality, prisoners were filing lawsuits at about the same rate as non-incarcerated persons.<ref name=HRW/>

The PLRA has been interpreted to require exhaustion of [[prison administrative remedies]] even when the damages sought are not available through the institution's grievance procedure. The PLRA, while intended to conserve judicial resources, could actually waste them by requiring an inquiry into the exhaustion requirements rather than disposition on the merits. That can lead to cases being dismissed and then re-filed. The exhaustion requirement can also delay time-sensitive claims of constitutional violations, such as where the relief requested is an injunction against prison officials.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Doing Away with More than Just Crunchy Peanut Butter, The|journal=St. John's Law Review|volume=78|issue=1|date=Winter 2004|pages=203-232|author=Chen, Cindy}}</ref>

[[Human Rights Watch]] notes, "If the effect of the PLRA were to selectively discourage the filing of frivolous or meritless lawsuits, as its sponsors predicted, then we would expect to find prisoners winning a larger percentage of their lawsuits after the law’s enactment than they did before. But the most comprehensive study to date shows just the opposite: since passage of the PLRA, prisoners not only are filing fewer lawsuits, but also are succeeding in a smaller proportion of the cases they do file. This strongly suggests that rather than filtering out meritless lawsuits, the PLRA has simply tilted the playing field against prisoners across the board."

HRW also notes, "A basic structural problem with the exhaustion requirement is that prison officials themselves—the defendants in most lawsuits brought by prisoners—typically design the grievance system that prisoners must exhaust before filing suit. This creates obvious incentives for prison officials to design grievance systems with short deadlines, multiple steps, and numerous technical requirements."<ref name=HRW>{{cite web|title=No Equal Justice|author=Human Rights Watch|url=http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us0609web.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|quote=The exhaustion provision of the PLRA puts the potential civil rights defendants in charge of defining the procedural hurdles that a prisoner must clear in order to sue them. This produces a perverse incentive for prison officials to implement complicated grievance systems and require hyper-technical compliance with them in order to shield themselves from prisoners’ lawsuits. That has become the main purpose of many grievance systems.|title=Statement Regarding the Prison Abuse Remedies Act|author=Bright, Stephen B.|url=http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg41903/html/CHRG-110hhrg41903.htm}}</ref> There is no requirement that the available administrative remedies be plain, speedy, or effective (as had been required under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act), much less fair.

According to the SAVE Coalition, "prisoner litigation has turned into a game of 'gotcha' in which correctional system lawyers and the federal courts scour the record for mistakes in exhausting, while the merits are forgotten, often on the most hair-splitting of grounds."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.savecoalition.org/pdfs/save_final_report.pdf|title=Reform the Prison Litigation Reform Act|author=Save Coalition}}</ref> In 2009, the Prison Abuse Remedies Act was introduced in an effort to reform the PLRA, but it died in committee.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hr4335|title=H.R. 4335 (111th): Prison Abuse Remedies Act of 2009|publisher=GovTrack}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Links==
* {{wplink}}
* {{cite web|url=https://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/prison-litigation-reform-act-must-be-fixed-law-denies-justice-victims|title=Prison Litigation Reform Act Must be Fixed, Law denies justice to victims|date=22 April 2008|publisher=American Civil Liberties Union}}

[[Category:Prison]]

Prison Litigation Reform Act

2014-01-30T00:45:54Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

Talk:Self-defense

2014-01-29T06:03:05Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with ""Although liberty can be framed as the absence of aggressive force, it can more accurately be described as the presence of defensive force." -- Wes Lysander, 29 January 2014"

"Although liberty can be framed as the absence of aggressive force, it can more accurately be described as the presence of defensive force." -- Wes Lysander, 29 January 2014

Talk:Vulture capitalism

2014-01-29T00:48:31Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "[http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/courier/sports/walls-vultures-have-good-qualities-too/article_ea42bf13-3588-588a-9456-3e4c04ce2023.html Walls: Vultures have good qualities, to..."

[http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/courier/sports/walls-vultures-have-good-qualities-too/article_ea42bf13-3588-588a-9456-3e4c04ce2023.html Walls: Vultures have good qualities, too] [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 19:48, 28 January 2014 (EST)

Restitution

2014-01-27T22:37:25Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "'''Restitution''' is compensation paid by an offender to a victim, often as part of a sentence imposed in a criminal case. The 2004 Libertarian Party (..."

'''Restitution''' is compensation paid by an offender to a victim, often as part of a [[sentencing theory|sentence]] imposed in a criminal case. The 2004 [[Libertarian Party (United States)|Libertarian Party]] platform called for "restitution for the victim to the fullest degree possible at the expense of the criminal or wrongdoer".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig7/platform.html#justindi|title=Justice for the Individual, National Platform of the Libertarian Party|publisher=Libertarian Party|date=May 2004}}</ref> {{stub}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External link==
*{{cite web|url=http://www.ruwart.com/restitution|title=Restitution Q&A|author=Ruwart, Mary}}

[[Category:Sentencing theory]]

Liberty.me

2014-01-27T16:05:51Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

Talk:Jeffrey Tucker

2014-01-27T04:34:58Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "He has been described as "50% {{w|Bruce Willis}}, 50% {{w|Tim Curry}}, and 100% awesome." ~~~~"

He has been described as "50% {{w|Bruce Willis}}, 50% {{w|Tim Curry}}, and 100% awesome." [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 23:34, 26 January 2014 (EST)

Category:Websites

2014-01-27T04:22:39Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "Category:Categories"

[[Category:Categories]]

Liberty.me

2014-01-27T04:22:27Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "'''Liberty.me''' is a friendship network, publishing platform, news stream, broadcasting system, and discussion forum dedicated to the liberty-minded community. Its Chief Libe..."

Costs of intellectual property

2014-01-27T03:00:44Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: permanent information loss

{{TOC right}}
This page attempts to list the '''[[cost]]s''' and detrimental effects of '''[[Intellectual property]]'''.

{{See also|Without Intellectual Property}}

==Legal costs==
Companies pay patent attorney salaries, patent filing and maintenance fees, and significant litigation costs (it can easily cost over a million dollars to defend from a patent infringement lawsuit, even if you win), as well as higher insurance premiums due to the risk of being involved in patent infringement litigation. Some patents that should not have been granted, and others whose coverage is ambiguous, plus the unknown existence of some hidden patent lurking in the thousands granted to date, pose significant uncertainty to companies, especially high-tech [[Startup company|start-up companies]] who cannot afford to risk a patent infringement lawsuit from a more established company. They might not even be able to afford to pay the patent attorneys to examine and issue an opinion regarding every potential patent issue that arises. So the company either forges ahead, risking a lawsuit, or decides to avoid making the product out of fear of litigation.<ref name="Kinsella_Free">Stephan Kinsella. [http://mises.org/daily/1763 "There's No Such Thing As a Free Patent"], ''Mises Daily'', March 07, 2005. Referenced 2011-09-17.</ref>

In a December, 2010 article, Forbes summarized the significant costs of IP:

* '''$10''' million Cost to defend a high-stakes patent suit
* '''$3.8''' million Median damages awarded in patent infringement cases from 2001-07
* '''482,871''' Patent applications filed in 2009
* '''191,927''' Patents issued in 2009
* '''2,700''' Average number of patent-infringement lawsuits filed per year
* '''$1,000''' Hourly rate charged by top patent litigators
* '''100''' Average number of patent cases that go to trial each year
* '''57%''' Percentage of trials won by patent holders
* '''34.6''' Average number of months to secure a patent<ref name="Langreth_Toe">Robert Langreth. [http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/1206/entrepreneurs-diabetes-nova-biomedical-patent-standing-up_3.html "Going Toe To Toe With Medical Device Giants"], ''Forbes Magazine'', December 06, 2010. Sources as described in the article: USPTO website; General Patent Corp.; Stanford IP Database; Ropes & Gray; PricewaterhouseCoopers. Referenced 2011-10-26.</ref>

===Non-practicing entities and patent trolls===
There are companies that make no products and whose only business is to acquire patents in order to enforce them against large industry segments.<ref name="Kinsella_Free" /> [[Non-practicing entities]] (NPEs) can, in principle, perform the socially valuable function of facilitating markets for technology. Some inventors lack the resources and expertise needed to successfully license their technologies or, if necessary, to enforce their patents. NPEs provide a way for these inventors to earn rents that they might not otherwise realize, thus providing them with greater incentives to innovate.

On the other hand, critics, including many technology firms, compare these NPEs to the mythical trolls who hide under bridges built by other people, unexpectedly popping up to demand payment of tolls. The critics call these NPEs "[[patent trolls]]," claiming that they buy up vaguely worded patents that can be construed to cover established technologies and use them opportunistically to extract licensing fees from the real innovators. To the extent that the recent NPEs opportunistically assert "fuzzy patents" against real technology firms, they can decrease the incentives for these firms to innovate.

A 2011 paper argues that defendants to lawsuits by NPEs have lost over half a trillion dollars in wealth from 1990 through 2010 — over $83 billion per year during recent years. While the lawsuits might increase incentives to acquire vague, over-reaching patents, they do not increase incentives for real innovation. The defendants in these lawsuits are firms that already invest a lot in innovation. Their losses make it more expensive for them to continue to do so and it also makes them less willing to license new technologies from small inventors. Meanwhile, independent inventors benefit very little from what the large companies lose.<ref name="Bessen_Trolls">James Bessen, Jennifer Ford, Michael J. Meurer. [http://www.bu.edu/law/faculty/scholarship/workingpapers/documents/BessenJFordJMeurerM091911.pdf The Private and Social Costs of Patent Trolls"] (pdf), Boston University School of Law Working Paper No. 11-45, September 19, 2011. Referenced 2011-10-13.</ref>

In July, 2011, The Guardian reported that app developers are withdrawing from the US market out of fear of patent lawsuits, which can be expensive for developers to defend even if they are successful. The growth of patent lawsuits over apps raises serious issues for all the emerging [[smartphone]] platforms, because none of the principal companies involved - Apple, Google or Microsoft - can guarantee to protect developers from them.<ref name="Arthur_App">Charles Arthur. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2011/jul/15/app-developers-withdraw-us-patents "App developers withdraw from US as patent fears reach 'tipping point'"], ''The Guardian'', 15 July 2011. Referenced 2011-10-23.</ref>

For a different example in the music industry, the so-called "sampling trolls" sue successful music artists for routine sampling, no matter how minimal or unnoticeable. Some music genres, like hip-hop and rap, heavily use sampling. Artists have sometimes combined and mixed thousands of sounds in a single album. That makes sense musically, but it is problematic legally. Thousands or even hundreds of samples would mean thousands of copyright clearances and licenses. If clearing rights would cost a fortune, music production would become that much more expensive, and innovative music that much riskier a bet.<ref name="Wu_Sample">Tim Wu. [http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2006/11/jayz_versus_the_sample_troll.single.html "Jay-Z Versus the Sample Troll"], "The shady one-man corporation that's destroying hip-hop.", ''The Slate'', November 16, 2006. Referenced 2012-08-26.</ref>

==Hostility to customers and innovations==
The music industry in particular and the broader copyright-dependent entertainment industries in general are in decline. Their profit margins are going down, and they don't like it. The consumers aren't as pleased with their products as they once were. The seemingly rational course of action for the industry is to look into why consumers aren't pleased with their products, see what they can do better, innovate, and drop their prices to increase demand.

That is not what the industries (like the members of the [[IFPI]] and [[MPA]]) do, however. In fact, not only are they unwilling to innovate, they have gone to the extreme of starting to sue their own potential and real customers. That doesn't seem to be a good way to gain favour with customers.

* The industries have always been afraid of new technology. The [[radio]], the player-piano, the phonograph, the VCR, cassette tapes etc. were seen as threats by the industry, which responded by attempting to restrict sales and ownership, unwilling to experiment and find new ways to fulfill customer demand. Apple practically had to force iTunes onto the market, the record labels weren't willing to go along with it at first. They weren't willing to only sell individual songs, they wanted whole albums sold.<ref name="Krehic_Protectionism">Vedad Krehic. [http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/krehic1.1.1.html "Modern Day Protectionism"], "How copyright has turned the record labels, software writers and film studios against their own customers", ''LewRockwell.com'', November 9, 2009. Referenced 2011-10-02.</ref>

* One glaring example of the entertainment industries' fear of technology was ex-MPAA president Jack Valenti's 1982 statement to a U.S. Congressional panel: "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."<ref name="Hearing_Recording">[http://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm "Home Recording of Copyrighted Works"], Hearings before the Subcomittee on Courts, Civil Liberties and the Administration of Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary , House of Representatives, Ninety-Seventh Congress, April 12, 1982. Referenced 2011-10-02.</ref> VCRs went on to become one of the biggest profit sources for Hollywood in history, and DVDs and Blu-Ray discs later filled the VCR's role.

* The attempts to shut down various file-sharing networks ended up to be free publicity for the movement. For example, [[ThePirateBay]], a Swedish [[BitTorrent]] (a popular file-sharing technology) tracker and search engine, was attempted to be shut down multiple times by various governments, as well as many national government attempting to ban Internet providers in their respective countries from allowing their users to access the site. Every single attempt has been met with ridicule, and ThePirateBay's user base grew exponentially as a result of the publicity.

All of these elements combine to form a highly unfavourable impression of the copyright industry in consumers' eyes. Technology is making traditional entertainment industry business models obsolete. Instead of innovating, the industries are using the hammer of government to force their customers to comply with 1970s business models – and now those customers are rebelling. As a result, the measures applied by governments to coerce them just keep getting more and more draconian.<ref name="Krehic_Protectionism" />

==Patents as a Hindrance to Technical Progress==
In practice, the patent system often hinders technical progress. In the automobile industry, for instance, [[Henry Ford]] did not own the patent over the automobile, and had to fight against the patent’s owners, who constituted a closed cartel and were not interested in mass production of inexpensive models.

Henry Ford was denied a license on the ground that he had not demonstrated his competence, and when Ford persisted in producing cars, the cartel immediately brought a lawsuit against him for infringement of the patent. The suit was ultimately decided in Ford’s favor in 1911 and the cartel disintegrated.

Another interesting case is the early history of aviation. [[Wright brothers|Orville and Wilbur Wright]] mimicked the wing twisting of gliding birds by constructing a mechanism that warped the horizontal plane of an airplane’s wings at either side in opposite directions. They patented this mechanism and claimed in their patent that their rights extended to any system that varied the "lateral margins" in opposite directions.

The Wright-Martin Company was threatening to sue those considered to be infringers— effectively any airplane manufacturer, and engaged in protracted litigation. With the formal entry of the United States into [[World War I]] imminent, however, the US government sought a solution to the patent litigation, since some firms were reluctant to take contracts because of the threat of patent infringement suits.

Inordinately broad patents are especially problematic. For nearly a quarter of a century, for example, [[James Watt]] was able to prevent other engineers from constructing new types of steam engine, even under license from himself. At least one historian argues that the [[Industrial Revolution]] did not really take off until 1785, the year Watt’s patent expired.<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>

During the period of Watt's patents the United Kingdom added about 750 horsepower of steam engines per year. In the thirty years following Watt's patents, additional horsepower was added at a rate of more than 4,000 per year. Moreover, the fuel efficiency of steam engines changed little during the period of Watt's patent; while between 1810 and 1835 it is estimated to have increased by a factor of five.

Many new improvements to the steam engine, such as those of William Bull, Richard Trevithick, and Arthur Woolf, became available by 1804: although developed earlier these innovations were kept idle until the Boulton and Watt patent expired.

Ironically, Watt's own efforts at developing a superior steam engine were hindered by the very same patent system he used to keep competitors at bay. When the patents expired, far from being driven out of business "Boulton and Watt for many years afterwards kept up their price and had increased orders."<ref>[[Against Intellectual Monopoly]], Michele Boldrin and David Levine, p.1-5. Referenced 2011-09-18.</ref>

===Deadlock and patent pools===
A significant and widespread example of private companies voluntarily relinquishing intellectual property are the so-called "patent-pools." A [[patent pool]] is an agreement, generally by a number of businesses in the same industry, to share patents. Although it is sometimes the case that when the pool is set up, a company that has few patents will make a payment to a company that has many patents, once the pool is operating, there is no payment between companies for patents. Any patent by any company in the pool is freely available to any other company in the pool. In some cases patent pools take the form of cross-licensing agreements in which firms agree to automatically cross-license all patents falling into certain categories.

In the United States, in a number of industries, processes of "collective invention" were implemented by means of
patent pools. In some cases, patent pools were created after having experienced phases of slow innovation due to the existence of blocking patents. In the 1870s, producers of Bessemer steel decided to share information on design plants and performances through the Bessemer Association (a patent pool holding control of the essential patents in the production of Bessemer steel). The creation of this patent pool was stimulated by the unsatisfactory innovative performance of the industry under the "pure" patent system regime. In that phase, the control of essential patents by different firms had determined an almost indissoluble technological deadlock. Similar concerns over patent blockages led firms operating in the railway sector to adopt the same expedient of semi-automatic cross-licenses and knowledge sharing.

At the current time, patent pools are generally mandatory for participants in recognized standard setting organizations such as the International Telecommunications Union and American National Standards Institute. Large microprocessor corporations, such as IBM, Intel, Xerox and Hewlett-Packard engage in extensive cross licensing. Important computer technologies, including the MPEG2 movie standard and other elements of DVD
technology are part of a patent pool.

Given the widespread willingness of large corporations to voluntarily relinquish patent protection through cross-licensing and patent pools, you might wonder why eliminating patents would even be necessary. Unfortunately, while patent pools eliminate the ill effects of patents within the pool – they leave the outsiders, well, outside. So while patent pools may give a strong indication that patents are not a terribly good idea, and that competition has many benefits – they do not unfortunately undo some of the most important harm of government enforced monopoly – that of preventing entry into an industry.<ref name="Boldrin_Monopoly">Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. [[Against Intellectual Monopoly]], Chapter 3, p. 69-70.</ref>

===Ignoring patents===
As a consequence of of the significant legal costs, both researchers and companies in component industries simply ignore patents. Companies and lawyers tell engineers not to read patents in starting their research, lest their knowledge of the patent disadvantage the company
by making it a willful infringer. Patent lawyers commonly don’t conduct a search for prior patents before seeking their own protection in the [[Patent and Trademark Office]] (PTO). Nor do they conduct a search before launching their own product. Rather, they wait and see if any patent owner claims that the new product infringes their patent.

Even then, it is common in many industries characterized by a significant number of "[[patent troll]]s" to ignore the first cease-and-desist letter one receives from a patent owner, secure in the knowledge that patent litigation is expensive and uncertain and that some letter-writers will never follow up with a serious threat of suit. Finally, and most significantly, companies in component industries who in fact get sued for patent infringement never pull their product off the market pending the outcome of the suit. Rather, they decide to take their chances in court and hope that they can avoid infringement or invalidate the patent. Even if they embark upon a product redesign to avoid infringing the asserted patent, the redesign rarely replaces the original product unless and until the patent is held valid and infringed. This intentional ignorance of patent rights in the hands of others has led some to label major manufacturers in the IT industries "patent pirates."

Patents are supposed to confer information to scientists, but they can’t do that if scientists ignore patents. In this way, the patent system doesn’t achieve this disclosure goal.<ref name="Lemley_Ignoring">Mark A. Lemley. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=999961 Ignoring Patents] (abstract; [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1134927_code32215.pdf?abstractid=999961&mirid=3 pdf]), Stanford Public Law Working Paper No. 999961
Michigan State Law Review, Vol. 2008, No. 19, 2008. Referenced 2012-03-04.</ref>

==Barriers to entry==
It is often argued that, especially in the biotechnology and software industries, patents are a good thing for small firms. Without patents, small firms would lack any bargaining power and could not even try to challenge the larger
incumbents. However, as Boldrin and Levine argue, dominant firms can prevent entry by holding patents on pretty much everything that is reasonably doable. For one small firm finding an empty niche in the patent forest, how many have been kept out by the fact that everything they wanted to use or produce was already patented but not licensed?

Second, because of the patent system, most small firms in these sectors are forced to set themselves up as one-idea companies, aiming only at being purchased by the big incumbent. In other words, the presence of a patent thicket creates an incentive not to compete with the monopolist, but to simply find something valuable to feed it, via a new patent, at the highest possible price, and then get out of the way. This may be quite advantageous to the few lucky entrepreneurs who manage to be bought out by the monopolist at a good price. However, it is not beneficial either to consumers, who keep living in a monopolized world paying high prices for bad products, or to the average potential entrepreneur who, plain and simple, cannot enter and compete.

According to a survey on why companies choose to patent, patents are not directed at innovation, but are primarily used as legal and bargaining tool. They are also instruments for preventing new firms from entering the industry. New firms, not having a portfolio of defensive patents, and not participating in the patent pool, find that they cannot legally compete with the existing oligopoly.<ref name="Boldrin_Barriers">Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. [[Against Intellectual Monopoly]], Chapter 4, p. 79-85.</ref>

==Freedom of Innovation==
As Lawrence Lessig has pointed out in his book ''The Future of Ideas'', innovation exploded in the [[Internet]] because it provided an innovation [[commons]], a neutral platform upon which the widest range of creators could experiment. But this structural design is changing–both legally and technically.

Another example is the movie industry, where the copyright costs can be unexpected. A song in the opening credits requires the rights of the artist performing the song. But even incidental art and creative works (like posters on a wall in a dorm room or an advertisement on a truck driving by in the background) need a permission.

Today, "if any piece of artwork is recognizable by anybody . . . then you have to clear the rights of that and pay" to use the work. "[A]lmost every piece of artwork, any piece of furniture, or sculpture, has to be cleared before you can use it." The lawyers thus decide what’s allowed in the film. They decide what can be in the story.

The film ''Twelve Monkeys'' was stopped by a court twenty-eight days after its release because an artist claimed a chair in the movie resembled a sketch of a piece of furniture that he had designed. The movie ''Batman Forever'' was threatened because the Batmobile drove through an allegedly copyrighted courtyard and the original architect demanded money before the film could be released. In 1998, a judge stopped the release of ''The Devil’s Advocate'' for two days because a sculptor claimed his art was used in the background. These events teach the lawyers that they must control the filmmakers. They convince studios that creative control is ultimately a legal matter.<ref name="Lessig_Future">Lawrence Lessig. [http://www.the-future-of-ideas.com/ "The Future of Ideas"] ([http://www.the-future-of-ideas.com/excerpts/index.shtml excerpts], [http://www.the-future-of-ideas.com/download/lessig_FOI.pdf pdf]), 2001, Random House. Referenced 2011-09-30.</ref>

==Freedom of speech==
Intellectual property rights provide the legal basis for copyright owners' stifling the creation of fan fiction featuring characters from stories, movies, or TV shows.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chillingeffects.org/fanfic/|title=Fan Fiction|publisher=Chilling Effects}}</ref> Some of these works are parodies that poke fun by portraying the characters or plots in a ridiculous light. By suppressing such works, as well as "sucks sites",<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2000/08/38056|title=Legal Tips For Your 'Sucks' Site|date=14 August 2000|author=Cisneros, Oscar S.|publisher=Wired}}</ref> the copyright laws hinder free expression and criticism.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chillingeffects.org/protest/|title=Protest, Parody and Criticism Sites|publisher=Chilling Effects}}</ref> Copyright laws can also be used to breach anonymity by forcing the disclosure of people's identities based on mere allegations of infringement.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chillingeffects.org/johndoe/|title=John Doe Anonymity|publisher=Chilling Effects}}</ref> Some copyright holders are even issuing cease and desist notices to people who merely link to allegedly infringing content, or who link to the copyright holder's website in ways that haven't been approved by that copyright owner.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chillingeffects.org/linking/|title=Linking|publisher=Chilling Effects}}</ref> According to Stephan Kinsella, [[censorship]] was one of the main original purposes of copyright laws.<ref>{{md|5029|Rethinking IP|Kinsella, Stephan|10 February 2011}}</ref> The King James Version of the Holy Bible is still under copyright in the [[United Kingdom]], largely for the purpose of protecting it from parody and other uses that might be deemed by the government to be disrespectful.

==Orphan and banned works==
{{Main|Orphan works}}

Because copyright terms are so long, in many cases extending well over a century, much of twentieth-century culture is still under copyright and unavailable. Much of this, in other words, is lost culture. No one is reprinting the books, screening the films, or playing the songs. In fact, it may not even be known who holds the copyright. Companies have gone out of business. Records are incomplete or absent. A film, for example, might have one copyright over the sound track, another over the movie footage, and another over the script. These works - which are commercially unavailable and have no identifiable copyright holder - are called "[[orphan works]]". Not only are these works unavailable commercially, there is simply no way to find and contact the person who could agree to give permission to digitize the work or make it available in a new form.<ref name="Boyle_public">James Boyle. [http://www.google.com/books?id=Imn6yQjcfZIC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false "The public domain: enclosing the commons of the mind"], 2008. p. 9. Referenced 2011-10-11.</ref>

Some works have a known owner, but they are still not interested re-issuing them. There are tens of thousands of books, movies and music pieces, which had a discrete success at the time, faded away from the top-seller list, and are now out of print and impossible to purchase. Many of these products are valuable artistic pieces that have a discrete but small demand, too small to be "profitable" for media giants. They may be an attractive product for small publishers or music companies, they may be valuable inputs for new artists and creators that could find in them inspiration for additional works, but they are not worth the effort or re-issuing for the likes of the Disney corporation. Worse, re-issuing a substantial portion of these titles would "crowd out" current products that the same media giants are heavily marketing. Monopolists maximize profits by restricting supply, elementary economics teaches us, and a simple way of restricting supply of artistic work is to make sure that not too many "equivalent" western movies, adventure novels, comic novels, symphonic pieces, and so on, are available for purchase at any given point in time.<ref name="Boldrin_unpublished">Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. [[Against Intellectual Monopoly]], Chapter 5, p. 117.</ref>

In another example, the preservation of deteriorating piano rolls (made out of paper, used in the player piano, an old automated musical instrument popular in the US in the early 20th century) is hampered by copyright laws.<ref name="Hall_CopyWrong">Jon maddog Hall. [http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Paw-Prints-Writings-of-the-maddog/CopyWrong "CopyWrong!"], Jul 12, 2010. Also see the commentary: [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/18325210185.shtml "Copyright Finally Getting Around To Destroying Player Piano Music... One Century Late"]. Referenced 2011-10-23.</ref>

In some cases, enforcement of copyright can lead to actual banning of books - like the attempted publishing of a "sequel" to J.D. Salinger's famous ''Catcher in the Rye''.<ref name="techdirt_Catcher">[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090702/0125045432.shtml "District Court Bans 'Catcher In The Rye' Sequel; Since When Did The US Ban Books?"], ''techdirt'', July 2nd 2010. Referenced 2011-10-11.</ref> In another case, an online library focusing on scholarly works was closed down.<ref name="Ernesto_Library">Ernesto. [http://torrentfreak.com/book-publishers-shut-down-library-nu-and-ifile-it-120215/ "Book Publishers ‘Shut Down’ Library.nu and iFile-it"], ''Techdirt'', February 15, 2012. Referenced 2012-03-04.</ref>

[[File:New_Books_from_Amazon_Warehouse_by_Decade.png|thumb|right|New Books from Amazon Warehouse by Decade]]

In 2012, Paul Heald did a random sampling of 2500 new books sold by Amazon (not used books, or books sold by Amazon associates - only books directly in Amazon's warehouses). The biggest number of books is from the decade 2000-2010. That is to be expected; they're more recent, more popular. The numbers drop off really quickly for books in the 1990s, 1980s... to 1930s - where books start falling in the [[public domain]]. Then the numbers go up and up. There's as many books that Amazon is selling brand new from the 1900s to 1910 as from the 2000s to 2010. There's twice as many books from the 1850s being sold on Amazon as the 1950s.<ref name="Heald_Bad">Paul Heald. Summary at: [http://offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/copyright-stagnation.html "Copyright stagnation"], see the presentation: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DpfZcftI00 "Do Bad Things Happen When Works Fall into the Public Domain: The Market for Audiobooks"] (video), March 16, 2012 at the Econ Dept University of Canterbury. Referenced 2012-04-25.</ref>

==Product Differentiation==
The existence of patents also induces wasteful expenditure of resources by competitors trying to "invent around the patent," i.e., to develop competing products that are sufficiently differentiated so as not to infringe on an existing patent. There are incentives for a firm to duplicate the prevailing best technology patented by another firm in a way that does not infringe on patents. More generally, there are incentives for a firm to develop a technology even if it is worse than the current best one, if it is better than the one it has and the best is blocked by patents.

Thus, although these activities increase the level of research-and-development spending, from the social point of view they are not necessarily an efficient use of available resources.

Worse still, patent owners also have incentives to invent around their own patents to preclude potential competition. To the extent that the patent system itself induces these activities, resources devoted to them (as well as the associated legal expenses) are essentially wasted from the social point of view, and should be regarded as another cost of the system. For example, to protect its monopoly position in the market for plain-paper copiers, [[Xerox]] patented every conceivable aspect of its technology. [[IBM]] had spent millions to ‘invent around’ Xerox’s major patents—with 25 percent of the budget going for patent counsel, not R&D.<ref name="Cole_Benefits" />

==Availability of drugs==
Although it is sometimes argued that the "welfare triangle" (the net loss to society) from this policy is not large, in the case of innovation this is not always true. The example of AIDS drugs both illustrates the theory and the potential losses. AIDS drugs are relatively inexpensive to produce. They are so sufficiently inexpensive to produce that the benefits to Africa in lives saved exceed the costs of producing the drugs by orders of magnitude. But the large pharmaceutical companies charge such a large premium over the cost of producing the drugs – to reap profits from sales in Western countries where those drugs are affordable – that African nations and individuals cannot afford them. Through IP and international "free" trade agreements, they also prevent potential competitors (read: imitators) to enter the African or Latin American markets for such drugs.<ref name="Boldrin_AIDS">Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. [[Against Intellectual Monopoly]], Chapter 4, p. 76. See also [http://www.avert.org/generic.htm AIDS, Drug Prices and Generic Drugs] for a more up-to-date information.</ref>

==Distortion of research==
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. Resources are wasted and development slowed down because the workers are engaging not in the types of innovations they need for their product development but rather in things that satisfy the patent office.<ref name="Kinsella_Free" />

==Defensive patents==
Venture capitalists insist on a strong patent portfolio when evaluating whether to invest in a company. But this is because, in part, patent portfolios are necessary to defend against other companies' portfolios. If there were no patent system, one would not need to defensively spend money building up a mountain of patents to use in counterclaims or cross-licensing negotiations.<ref name="Kinsella_Free" />

==Orchestral music==
Any symphony orchestra that wants to play a piece of music has to obtain the sheet music, the actual physical pieces of paper to be placed on the music stands for all the members of the orchestra so that they can play the music, and of course there’s a score for the conductor who has all the parts. For any given piece of music, there are essentially two possibilities - the piece is available for purchase or it’s only available as a rental.

If an orchestra can buy the music, it will own it and can keep it in its library and perform it as frequently as it would like to without having to re-buy the music every time. The price varies but for a 10 to 15 minute piece the price might be $150, for a longer more substantial piece, an hour-long symphony maybe, the price would be up to $300 or so.

In addition, there’s also a question of all the performance markings that go into playing any piece of music. Before the orchestra musicians get the parts, the conductor and the librarian and the principle players have worked to create a series of markings that is transferred into all the parts - for example strings bowings. That is hours and hours and hours of preparation. During the rehearsal process more markings are put in - the conductor might say play that softer, play that louder, etc. The markings stay in the parts for the pieces that the orchestra was able to purchase. And it’s much easier and less time consuming to revisit them the next time the piece is played.

Some pieces can be only rented by the publisher. The average price to rent a symphony is around $600-700 to rent it to perform the piece one time. The orchestras are charged for each concert, although usually the second and third performances are at a reduced rate. And then there is the same process to create all the markings, which have to be erased afterwards and the sheets returned mark-clean to the publisher. If the orchestra wants to play the same piece again in a few years, the orchestra has to pay again - depending on the number of performances - and go through all the bowing and marking process. So it is much more advantageous to be able to purchase music and keep it in the library and just reuse it at will. That’s the general procedure.

There's also a licensing fee. But when something is rental only and under copyright, on top of the rent, a licensing fee has to be paid to the publisher every time the piece should be played. And that even goes for pieces purchased before that law came out.

The larger organizations -- like the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, or Chicago Symphony -- have very large budgets and although they’re not happy about it, they can afford to rent whatever pieces they need to rent. They also pay a blanket licensing fee every year that covers all their copyrighted music.

The smaller orchestras - professional orchestras in smaller towns or youth orchestras - also have a budget for renting and/or purchasing music but it’s obviously much, much smaller. In effect the law, because of the costs involved, prevents many, many smaller orchestras and educational institutions from physically performing these pieces. If they don’t have more they can’t play the piece. So they’re simply not playing them.

The law is supposed to protect the heirs of the composers. With the large orchestras, the heirs of these composers are getting a very small royalty check from the couple of orchestras that play these pieces. But by and large, the pieces are simply not being played.<ref name="Bailey_Golan">Rich Bailey. [http://questioncopyright.org/golan_on_golan_v_holder "Lawrence Golan Speaks about Golan v. Holder"], ''QuestionCopyright.org'', 2011-10-06. Referenced 2011-10-10.</ref>

==Persecution of opposition groups==
In Russia, where [[software piracy]] is rampant, security services have carried out dozens of raids against outspoken advocacy groups or opposition newspapers in recent years. Several investigations had been mishandled; it is also claimed that raids are rarely if ever carried out against advocacy groups or news organizations that back the government.<ref name="Levy_Russia">Clifford J. Levy. [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/world/europe/12raids.html?pagewanted=all "Russia Uses Microsoft to Suppress Dissent"], ''The New York Times'', September 11, 2010. Referenced 2011-10-23.</ref>

==Car repairs==
As cars become vastly more complicated than models made just a few years ago, mechanics are often turning down jobs and referring customers to auto dealer shops. Many new vehicles come equipped with multiple computers controlling everything from the brakes to steering wheel, and automakers hold the key to diagnosing a vehicle's problem. In many instances, replacing a part requires reprogramming the computers ---- a difficult task without the software codes or diagrams of the vehicle's electrical wires.

Independent mechanics often do not have the thousands of dollars to purchase the online manuals and specialized tools needed to fix the computer-controlled machines. This has left customers with fewer options for repair work.

Automakers say they spend millions in research and development and aren't willing to give away their intellectual property. They say the auto parts and repair industry wants to get patented information to make its own parts and sell them for less.

Their opponents say automakers are trying to monopolize the parts and repair industry by only sharing crucial tools and data with their dealership shops.

Dealership shops may be reaping profits from the technological advancements. A study released in March, 2009, by the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association found vehicle repairs cost an average of 34 percent more at new car dealerships than at independent repair shops, resulting in $11.7 billion in additional costs for consumers annually.<ref name="Nguyen_vehicles">Daisy Nguyen. [http://www.nctimes.com/news/state-and-regional/article_4ea03fd6-090d-5c2e-bd91-dfb5508495ef.html "High-tech vehicles pose trouble for some mechanics"], ''Associated Press'', December 26, 2009. Referenced 2011-10-17.</ref>

==Studies==
It seems reasonable to assume that patents must have ''some'' effect on technological [[innovation]], but the interesting question is the practical magnitude of this effect. The results of the few studies that have attempted to detect it empirically do not favor the pro-patents position.

* Edwin Mansfield directed two important studies on this topic in the 1980s. The first studied thirty-one patented innovations in four industries: chemicals, pharmaceuticals, electronics, and machinery. One purpose of the study was to answer a simple question: what proportion of innovations would be delayed, or not introduced at all, if they could not be patented? According to the firms, about one-half of the patented innovations in the sample would not have been introduced without patent protection. The bulk of these innovations occurred in the drug industry. Excluding drug innovations, the lack of patent protection would have affected less than one-fourth of the patented innovations in our sample.

* The results of the second study were even more negative: According to detailed data obtained from a random sample of 100 firms from 12 manufacturing industries, patent protection was judged to be essential for the development or introduction of one-third or more of the inventions during 1981–83 in only 2 industries — pharmaceuticals and chemicals. On the other hand, in 7 industries (electrical equipment, office equipment, motor vehicles, instruments, primary metals, rubber, and textiles), patent protection was estimated to be essential for the development and introduction of less than 10 percent of their inventions. Indeed, in office equipment, motor vehicles, rubber, and textiles, the firms were unanimous in reporting that patent protection was not essential for the development or introduction of any of their inventions during this period.<ref name="Cole_Benefits" />

* A more recent paper approached this problem from a slightly different angle, but also failed to support the pro-patents position. If patents do indeed stimulate innovation, then presumably stronger patent protection should induce a higher rate of innovation. The authors addressed the question "Do Stronger Patents Induce More Innovation?" by studying the impact of a significant Japanese patent law reform implemented in 1988. Their main finding was that "the average response in terms of additional R&D effort and innovative output was quite modest." An econometric analysis using Japanese and U.S. patent data on 307 Japanese firms confirmed that the magnitude of the response was quite small.<ref name="Branstetter_Stronger">Lee G. Branstetter and Mariko Sakakibara. [http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=sds&sei-redir=1#search=%22Mariko%20Sakakibara%20Lee%20Branstetter%2C%20%E2%80%9CDo%20Stronger%20Patents%20Induce%20More%20Innovation%3F%20Evidence%20from%201988%20Japanese%20Patent%20Law%20Reforms%E2%80%9D%22 "Do Stronger Patents Induce More Innovation? Evidence from the 1988 Japanese Patent Law Reforms"] (pdf), ''Carnegie Mellon University'', ''College of Humanities and Social Sciences'', ''Department of Social and Decision Sciences'', 4-1-2001. Referenced 2011-09-17.</ref>

* A study published in ''The Columbia Science and Technology Law Review'' suggests that patents may harm new technology, economic activity, and societal wealth. The study was a multi-user interactive simulation of patent and non-patent systems.<ref name="Torrance_Regress">Andrew W. Torrance and Bill Tomlinson. [http://www.stlr.org/volumes/volume-x-2008-2009/torrance/ "Patents and the Regress of Useful Arts"] ([http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1411328 abstract], [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1411328_code857510.pdf?abstractid=1411328&mirid=1 pdf], [http://www.ics.uci.edu/community/news/press/view_press?id=89 press release]). ''Columbia Science and Technology Law Review'', Vol. 10, 2009. Referenced 2011-09-17.</ref>

* In an empirical study of the effects of patent law on innovation based on data from two 19th century world fairs, strong evidence was found that patent systems influenced the distribution of innovative activity across industries, but no evidence that patent laws increased levels of innovative activity. Countries without patent laws brought many important innovations to the fairs. Mid-nineteenth century Switzerland, for example, had the second highest number of exhibits per capita among all countries that visited the Crystal Palace Exhibition. Moreover, exhibits from countries without patent laws received disproportionate shares of medals for outstanding innovations. These countries shared a strong focus on innovations in scientific instruments and food processing (where secrecy was particularly effective at protecting innovations). On the other hand, patenting was essential to protect and motivate innovations in machinery, especially for large-scale manufacturing.<ref name="Moser_Influence">Petra Moser. [http://econ161.berkeley.edu/movable_type/refs/Safari_Scrapbook3/w9909.pdf "How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteeth-Century World Fairs"] (pdf), ''NBER Working Paper'' No. 9909, August 2003, JEL No. N0, L0, O3. Referenced 2011-09-29.</ref> (However, scholars have argued that both [[Switzerland]] and the [[Netherlands]] benefited greatly from their unfettered ability to use and improve upon inventions patented in other countries.<ref name="Bifano_Influence">Larissa Bifano. [http://www.researchoninnovation.org/tiip/archive/2005_1e.html "How Do Patent Laws Influence Innovation? Evidence from Nineteenth Century World Fairs"], 2005. Referenced 2011-09-29.</ref>)

* An extensive review of many studies from Dixon and Greenhalgh (2002) speaks about a "limited evidence on IP as an incentive for innovation" and quotes Penrose (1951): "If national patent laws did not exist, it would be difficult to make a conclusive case for introducing them; but the fact that they do exist shifts the burden of proof and it is equally difficult to make a really conclusive case for abolishing them."<ref name="Dixon_Review">Padraig Dixon and Christine Greenhalgh. [http://www.dklevine.com/archive/dixon-review.pdf "The Economics of Intellectual Property: A Review to Identify Themes for Future Research"] (pdf), November 2002, p. 37-53. Referenced 2011-10-06.</ref>

* In a 1958 review of the patent system, [[Fritz Machlup]] concluded, that "No economist, on the basis of present knowledge, could possibly state with certainty that the patent system, as it now operates, confers a net benefit or a net loss upon society.<ref name="Machlup_Review">Fritz Machlup. [http://mises.org/etexts/patentsystem.pdf "An Economic Review of the Patent System"] (pdf), Study of The Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights, 85th Cong., 2nd Session, 1958, Study No. 15; p. 79. Referenced 2011-10-07.</ref>

* In the September, 2011 "The Uneasy Case for Software Copyrights Revisited", Pamela Samuelson maintains that the economic case for copyright in the software industry was stronger up to the 1990s, but became "uneasier" afterwards. The author does not suggest that copyright protection for computer programs should be repealed concluding that, "Copyright protection has become so deeply entrenched in software protection law and in software industry’s expectations that it will stay for decades to come, regardless of whether it really is (or is not) economically necessary.<ref name="Samuelson_Uneasy">Pamela Samuelson. [http://groups.law.gwu.edu/lr/ArticlePDF/79-6-Samuelson.pdf "The Uneasy Case for Software Copyrights Revisited"] (pdf), ''The George Washington Law Review'', September 2011. Referenced 2011-10-10.</ref>

* An August, 2003, study "An Empirical Look at Software Patents" explored the economic effects of granting software patents in the U.S. during the 1990s. It found its results difficult to reconcile with the traditional incentive theory—that granting more patents will increase R&D investments. Instead, the study concludes, the result might well be less innovation. The shift in legal standards for patenting software was a potent incentive to increase expenditure in patents. This increase in the number of patents in the U.S. economy was not accompanied or followed by an equally visible increase in any economic measure of effective innovation and productivity. Software patents may have complemented R&D during the early 80s – when patenting standards were still relatively high – but they substituted for R&D during the 1990s. Regulatory changes increased the amount of patenting, but they were also associated with lower R&D. The naïve arguments that more patents, relaxed standards, or lower patenting costs lead to more R&D could be rejected.<ref name="Bessen_Empirical">James Bessen and Robert M. Hunt. [http://www.researchoninnovation.org/swpat.pdf "An Empirical Look at Software Patents"] (pdf), Working Paper No. 03-17/R, First Draft: August 2003, This Draft: March 2004. Referenced 2011-11-07.</ref>

* An August, 2005 study for the Library of Congress focused on the "reissue" of popular audio recordings commercially released in the United States between 1890 and 1964. The analysis suggests that a significant portion of historic recordings is not easily accessible to scholars, students, and the general public for noncommercial purposes. Besides technical reasons, copyright law allows only rights holders to make these recordings accessible in current technologies, yet the rights holders appear to have few real-world commercial incentives to reissue many of their most significant recordings. The law has severely reduced the possibility of such recordings entering into the public domain, at least until 2067. The study indicates that there is an active and hardy network of foreign and small domestic companies, associations, and individuals willing to make historic recordings available; indeed, some do this in spite of laws that force them underground or overseas.<ref name="Brooks_Reissues">Tim Brooks. [http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/reports/pub133 "Survey of Reissues of U.S. Recordings"] (abstract, see [http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub133/reports/pub133/pub133.pdf pdf]), Commissioned for and sponsored by the National Recording Preservation Board, Library of Congress, August 2005. Referenced 2012-04-25.</ref>

* A 2004 empirical study found that [[file sharing]] had no statistically significant effect on purchases of the average album in its sample. Noting that the movies, software, and video games industries have continued to grow since the advent of file sharing, it concludes that file sharing can explain only a tiny fraction of the decline in sales in the music industry. Alternative factors include poor macroeconomic conditions, a reduction in the number of album releases, growing competition from other forms of entertainment such as video games and DVDs, a reduction in music variety stemming from the large consolidation in radio along with the rise of independent promoter fees to gain airplay, and possibly a consumer backlash against record industry tactics.<ref name="Oberholzer_Sharing">Felix Oberholzer and Koleman Strumpf. [http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales - An Empirical Analysis"] (pdf), March 2004. Referenced 2012-08-26.</ref>

* A 2008 study by Paul Heald of bestsellers from 1913 to 1932 showed that public domain books were more available than the copyrighted books (were in print at a higher rate and had more editions available by more different publishers).<ref name="Heald_Sellers">Paul J. Heald. [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=955954 "Property Rights and the Efficient Exploitation of Copyrighted Works: An Empirical Analysis of Public Domain and Copyrighted Fiction Best Sellers"] (summary, see [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID955954_code227781.pdf?abstractid=955954&mirid=1 full pdf]), University of Illinois College of Law; Bournemouth University - Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management (CIPPM), January 9, 2007. Referenced 2012-04-25.</ref>

* Commissioned by the Dutch government, a recently published report concludes that file-sharing has a positive effect on the economy, both on the long and short term. The report estimates the positive effect on the Dutch economy to be around 100 million euros a year. While it is recognized that the entertainment industry suffers some losses, these are not said to outweigh the positive effects of file-sharing. The researchers further found that people who download music and movies are not buying less than people who don’t. In fact, downloaders are reported to be more frequent visitors of concerts, and game downloaders actually bought more games than those who didn’t. In the music industry, lesser-know bands profit most from file-sharing, the researchers report.<ref name="Torrentfreak_Profits">[http://torrentfreak.com/economy-profits-from-file-sharing-report-concludes-090119/ "Economy Profits From File-Sharing, Report Concludes"], ''Torrentfreak'', January 19, 2009. Referenced 2011-12-13.</ref>

* In November, 2011, the Swiss government has conducted a study about the impact downloading has on society. It concluded the law allowing downloading copyrighted material for personal use doesn't have to change. Noting that the Internet has indeed changed the market, the income spent for entertainment purposes did not change and is used more for visiting concerts and cinemas and merchandising. The cultural impact is therefore not negative.<ref name="Swiss_copyright">''Der Bundesrat''. [http://www.ejpd.admin.ch/content/ejpd/de/home/dokumentation/mi/2011/2011-11-30.html "Urheberrechtsverletzungen im Internet: Der bestehende rechtliche Rahmen genügt"] (''German'': Copyright breaches in Internet: The existing legal paradigm is sufficient), Swiss Confederation, 30.11.2011. (An English summary can be found [https://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111202/ here].) Referenced 2011-12-13.</ref>

==Permanent loss of information==
Some media deteriorates or is destroyed because copyrights prevent it from being copied onto other media and distributed. There are substantial costs involved in preserving information in its original medium until the copyright expires, and the devices used to retrieve the information may no longer exist by that time. An example would be wax {{w|phonograph cylinder}}s from the early 20th century.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323826704578356282705139450|title=Copyright Protection That Serves to Destroy|author=Teachout, Terry|date=14 March 2013|publisher=Wall Street Journal}}</ref>

==References==
<references/>

==Links==
* [http://reason.com/archives/2000/03/01/copy-catfight Copy Catfight] by Jesse Walker, March 2000
* [http://www.ted.com/talks/drew_curtis_how_i_beat_a_patent_troll.html Drew Curtis: How I beat a patent troll] (video), April 2012
* [http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/5/3138705/richard-posner-apple-v-motorola-judge-patents In wake of Apple v. Motorola, Judge Posner speaks: 'it's not clear that we really need patents in most industries'] by Evan Rodgers, July 2012
* [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushed-the-shopping-cart-patent-and-saved-online-retail/ How Newegg crushed the “shopping cart” patent and saved online retail] by Joe Mullin, January 2013
* [http://lfb.org/today/the-patent-bubble-and-its-end/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=linkedin The Patent Bubble and Its End] by Jeffrey Tucker, February 2013

[[Category:Intellectual property]]
{{Stub}}

Solomon-Lautenberg amendment

2014-01-27T00:19:21Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: *{{cite web|url=http://www.hoboes.com/pub/Prohibition/Crime%20and%20Punishment/Solomon-Lautenberg/|title=Solomon-Lautenberg|publisher=Negative Space}}

The '''Solomon–Lautenberg amendment''' is a 1991 law that requires [[U.S. state]]s to impose a mandatory six-month [[drivers license]] suspension for drug offenses, or face loss of federal highway funds. The suspension applies regardless of whether the offense involved [[driving under the influence]] of a drug or not. For example, a person could be charged with [[possession of cannabis]] in his home and still be penalized with a driver's license suspension. States are allowed to pass legislation opting out of this. This initiative was called "smoke a joint, lose your license." The next anti-cannabis initiative was "smoke a joint, lose your car" which called for impounding cars from people who committed misdemeanor drug offenses.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cannabisnews.com/news/3/thread3253.shtml|title=Smoke a Joint, Lose Your Car Under Planned Law|author=Maxwell, Scott|publisher=Orlando Sentinel|date=12 October 1999}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External link==
*{{cite web|url=http://www.hoboes.com/pub/Prohibition/Crime%20and%20Punishment/Solomon-Lautenberg/|title=Solomon-Lautenberg|publisher=Negative Space}}

Solomon-Lautenberg amendment

2014-01-26T23:48:55Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "The '''Solomon–Lautenberg amendment''' is a 1991 law that requires U.S. states to impose a mandatory six-month drivers license suspension for drug offenses, or face..."

Sentencing theory

2014-01-26T23:32:53Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: public good

'''Sentencing theory''' is the philosophy governing the determination of what response should be taken against an [[Aggression|aggressor]] of justly held life, [[liberty]] or [[property]] after he has been apprehended and it has been proven that he committed the [[crime]]. Sentencing theories include [[retribution]] (punishment), [[restitution]], [[deterrence]], and [[rehabilitation]]. In practice (and in theory) law has a tendency to implement a mixture of several or all of the theories. According to [[Murray Rothbard]], "The libertarian believes that a criminal loses his rights to the extent that he has aggressed upon the rights of another, and therefore that it is permissible to incarcerate the convicted criminal and subject him to [[involuntary servitude]] to that degree."<ref>{{cite book|url=http://mises.org/rothbard/newlibertywhole.asp|chapter=The Courts|author=Rothbard, Murray|date=1973|title=For a New Liberty}}</ref> [[Ludwig von Mises]] writes:<ref>{{cite book|title=Liberalism|author=Mises, Ludwig von|url=http://mises.org/liberal/ch1sec13.asp|chapter=The State and Antisocial Conduct|date=1927}}</ref>
{{cquote|[[Liberalism]] neither wishes to nor can deny that the coercive power of the state and the lawful punishment of criminals are institutions that society could never, under any circumstances, do without. However, the liberal believes that the purpose of punishment is solely to rule out, as far as possible, behavior dangerous to society. Punishment should not be vindictive or retaliatory. The criminal has incurred the penalties of the law, but not the hate and sadism of the judge, the policeman, and the ever lynch-thirsty mob.}}

==Public good==
Deterrence and incapacitation are sometimes described as [[public good]]s since they are [[indivisible]] and [[nonexcludable]]. [[John Hasnas]] argues that like [[lighthouse]]s, [[television]], and [[internet]], crime prevention can be supplied non-politically.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mises.org/journals/scholar/hasnas.pdf|title=The Obviousness of Anarchy|author=Hasnas, John}}</ref>

==Optimal crime rate==
[[Economic calculation]] problems arise in sentencing, as with other government services. The "parsimony provision" of {{usc|18|3553}} provides, for instance, that "The court shall impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes" of sentencing. The parsimony provision does not specify ''how much'' deterrence, protection of the public, and rehabilitation courts should strive to impose a sentence that is sufficient to provide. No [[cost-benefit analysis]] is prescribed. [[Laurent Carnis]] notes that the classical school of crime "searches for the optimal number of crimes for society (Becker 1968; Ehrlich, 1996). This optimal number is reached when the government authorities have minimized the social cost: the [[marginal cost]] equals the [[marginal revenue]]. It is supposed that the marginal cost for society of suffering the crime is the same as the cost to avoid it. For this optimal level of crime, the authorities, on behalf of society, define a level of tolerance. Society must tolerate this amount of crime to avoid waste."<ref>{{cite journal|title=Pitfalls of the Classical School of Crime|author=Carnis, Laurent|journal=Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics|volume=7|number=4|date=Winter 2004|pages=7-18|url=http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae7_4_2.pdf}}</ref>

Neoclassical theory holds that losses from crime will be perceived differently among social and economic groups within any society. Therefore, it is up to the political process to determine how the interests of various groups will be reconciled or which groups will be able to impose their will on the rest of society.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Two Irreconcilable Theories of Justice: Social Engineering vs. Ethics of Property|date=2011|volume=22|pages=399-436|author=Carnis, Laurent|journal=Journal of Libertarian Studies|url=http://mises.org/journals/jls/22_1/22_1_20.pdf}}</ref> [[Libertarian]] theory holds that in a free market, people would voluntarily decide what resources should be allocated to crime prevention, and that the resulting allocation would more closely approximate what is optimal for maximizing [[utility]].

===Practices of governmental judicial systems===
In governmental judicial systems, it is deemed important for the courts to at least pay lip service to the parsimony provision. In ''Ministro-Tapia'', No. 05-5101 (2d Cir. Nov. 28, 2006), the appellate court stated that "if a district court were explicitly to conclude that two sentences equally served the statutory purpose of § 3553, it could not, consistent with the parsimony clause, impose the higher." In ''U.S. v. Rosa'', the district court was reversed after it stated that the sentence it was imposing was harsher than necessary.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://appellate.typepad.com/appellate/2007/04/ca2_the_parsimo.html|title=CA2: The Parsimony Provision Does Matter, After All|date=11 April 2007|publisher=Appellate Law and Practice}}</ref> The upshot of this is that courts will have to be careful not to explicitly make such statements.

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Sentencing theory]]

Category:Sentencing theory

2014-01-26T22:51:19Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "Category:Concepts"

[[Category:Concepts]]

Incapacitation

2014-01-26T22:51:02Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "'''Incapacitation''' in the context of sentencing theory refers to the effect of a sentence in terms of positively preventing (rather than merely deterring)..."

'''Incapacitation''' in the context of [[sentencing theory]] refers to the effect of a sentence in terms of positively preventing (rather than merely [[deterrence|deterring]]) future crimes. {{uscsub|18|3553|a|2|C}} states that the sentence imposed should "protect the public from further crimes of the defendant".

[[Category:Sentencing theory]]

Sentencing

2014-01-26T22:49:59Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Leucosticte moved page Sentencing to Sentencing theory

#REDIRECT [[Sentencing theory]]

Sentencing theory

2014-01-26T22:49:59Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Leucosticte moved page Sentencing to Sentencing theory

'''Sentencing theory''' is the philosophy governing the determination of what response should be taken against an [[Aggression|aggressor]] of justly held life, [[liberty]] or [[property]] after he has been apprehended and it has been proven that he committed the [[crime]]. Sentencing theories include [[retribution]] (punishment), [[restitution]], [[deterrence]], and [[rehabilitation]]. In practice (and in theory) law has a tendency to implement a mixture of several or all of the theories. According to [[Murray Rothbard]], "The libertarian believes that a criminal loses his rights to the extent that he has aggressed upon the rights of another, and therefore that it is permissible to incarcerate the convicted criminal and subject him to [[involuntary servitude]] to that degree."<ref>{{cite book|url=http://mises.org/rothbard/newlibertywhole.asp|chapter=The Courts|author=Rothbard, Murray|date=1973|title=For a New Liberty}}</ref> [[Ludwig von Mises]] writes:<ref>{{cite book|title=Liberalism|author=Mises, Ludwig von|url=http://mises.org/liberal/ch1sec13.asp|chapter=The State and Antisocial Conduct|date=1927}}</ref>
{{cquote|[[Liberalism]] neither wishes to nor can deny that the coercive power of the state and the lawful punishment of criminals are institutions that society could never, under any circumstances, do without. However, the liberal believes that the purpose of punishment is solely to rule out, as far as possible, behavior dangerous to society. Punishment should not be vindictive or retaliatory. The criminal has incurred the penalties of the law, but not the hate and sadism of the judge, the policeman, and the ever lynch-thirsty mob.}}

==Optimal crime rate==
[[Economic calculation]] problems arise in sentencing, as with other government services. The "parsimony provision" of {{usc|18|3553}} provides, for instance, that "The court shall impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes" of sentencing. The parsimony provision does not specify ''how much'' deterrence, protection of the public, and rehabilitation courts should strive to impose a sentence that is sufficient to provide. No [[cost-benefit analysis]] is prescribed. [[Laurent Carnis]] notes that the classical school of crime "searches for the optimal number of crimes for society (Becker 1968; Ehrlich, 1996). This optimal number is reached when the government authorities have minimized the social cost: the [[marginal cost]] equals the [[marginal revenue]]. It is supposed that the marginal cost for society of suffering the crime is the same as the cost to avoid it. For this optimal level of crime, the authorities, on behalf of society, define a level of tolerance. Society must tolerate this amount of crime to avoid waste."<ref>{{cite journal|title=Pitfalls of the Classical School of Crime|author=Carnis, Laurent|journal=Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics|volume=7|number=4|date=Winter 2004|pages=7-18|url=http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae7_4_2.pdf}}</ref>

Neoclassical theory holds that losses from crime will be perceived differently among social and economic groups within any society. Therefore, it is up to the political process to determine how the interests of various groups will be reconciled or which groups will be able to impose their will on the rest of society.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Two Irreconcilable Theories of Justice: Social Engineering vs. Ethics of Property|date=2011|volume=22|pages=399-436|author=Carnis, Laurent|journal=Journal of Libertarian Studies|url=http://mises.org/journals/jls/22_1/22_1_20.pdf}}</ref> [[Libertarian]] theory holds that in a free market, people would voluntarily decide what resources should be allocated to crime prevention, and that the resulting allocation would more closely approximate what is optimal for maximizing [[utility]].

===Practices of governmental judicial systems===
In governmental judicial systems, it is deemed important for the courts to at least pay lip service to the parsimony provision. In ''Ministro-Tapia'', No. 05-5101 (2d Cir. Nov. 28, 2006), the appellate court stated that "if a district court were explicitly to conclude that two sentences equally served the statutory purpose of § 3553, it could not, consistent with the parsimony clause, impose the higher." In ''U.S. v. Rosa'', the district court was reversed after it stated that the sentence it was imposing was harsher than necessary.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://appellate.typepad.com/appellate/2007/04/ca2_the_parsimo.html|title=CA2: The Parsimony Provision Does Matter, After All|date=11 April 2007|publisher=Appellate Law and Practice}}</ref> The upshot of this is that courts will have to be careful not to explicitly make such statements.

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Sentencing theory]]

Sentencing theory

2014-01-26T22:49:48Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: expand

'''Sentencing theory''' is the philosophy governing the determination of what response should be taken against an [[Aggression|aggressor]] of justly held life, [[liberty]] or [[property]] after he has been apprehended and it has been proven that he committed the [[crime]]. Sentencing theories include [[retribution]] (punishment), [[restitution]], [[deterrence]], and [[rehabilitation]]. In practice (and in theory) law has a tendency to implement a mixture of several or all of the theories. According to [[Murray Rothbard]], "The libertarian believes that a criminal loses his rights to the extent that he has aggressed upon the rights of another, and therefore that it is permissible to incarcerate the convicted criminal and subject him to [[involuntary servitude]] to that degree."<ref>{{cite book|url=http://mises.org/rothbard/newlibertywhole.asp|chapter=The Courts|author=Rothbard, Murray|date=1973|title=For a New Liberty}}</ref> [[Ludwig von Mises]] writes:<ref>{{cite book|title=Liberalism|author=Mises, Ludwig von|url=http://mises.org/liberal/ch1sec13.asp|chapter=The State and Antisocial Conduct|date=1927}}</ref>
{{cquote|[[Liberalism]] neither wishes to nor can deny that the coercive power of the state and the lawful punishment of criminals are institutions that society could never, under any circumstances, do without. However, the liberal believes that the purpose of punishment is solely to rule out, as far as possible, behavior dangerous to society. Punishment should not be vindictive or retaliatory. The criminal has incurred the penalties of the law, but not the hate and sadism of the judge, the policeman, and the ever lynch-thirsty mob.}}

==Optimal crime rate==
[[Economic calculation]] problems arise in sentencing, as with other government services. The "parsimony provision" of {{usc|18|3553}} provides, for instance, that "The court shall impose a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes" of sentencing. The parsimony provision does not specify ''how much'' deterrence, protection of the public, and rehabilitation courts should strive to impose a sentence that is sufficient to provide. No [[cost-benefit analysis]] is prescribed. [[Laurent Carnis]] notes that the classical school of crime "searches for the optimal number of crimes for society (Becker 1968; Ehrlich, 1996). This optimal number is reached when the government authorities have minimized the social cost: the [[marginal cost]] equals the [[marginal revenue]]. It is supposed that the marginal cost for society of suffering the crime is the same as the cost to avoid it. For this optimal level of crime, the authorities, on behalf of society, define a level of tolerance. Society must tolerate this amount of crime to avoid waste."<ref>{{cite journal|title=Pitfalls of the Classical School of Crime|author=Carnis, Laurent|journal=Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics|volume=7|number=4|date=Winter 2004|pages=7-18|url=http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae7_4_2.pdf}}</ref>

Neoclassical theory holds that losses from crime will be perceived differently among social and economic groups within any society. Therefore, it is up to the political process to determine how the interests of various groups will be reconciled or which groups will be able to impose their will on the rest of society.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Two Irreconcilable Theories of Justice: Social Engineering vs. Ethics of Property|date=2011|volume=22|pages=399-436|author=Carnis, Laurent|journal=Journal of Libertarian Studies|url=http://mises.org/journals/jls/22_1/22_1_20.pdf}}</ref> [[Libertarian]] theory holds that in a free market, people would voluntarily decide what resources should be allocated to crime prevention, and that the resulting allocation would more closely approximate what is optimal for maximizing [[utility]].

===Practices of governmental judicial systems===
In governmental judicial systems, it is deemed important for the courts to at least pay lip service to the parsimony provision. In ''Ministro-Tapia'', No. 05-5101 (2d Cir. Nov. 28, 2006), the appellate court stated that "if a district court were explicitly to conclude that two sentences equally served the statutory purpose of § 3553, it could not, consistent with the parsimony clause, impose the higher." In ''U.S. v. Rosa'', the district court was reversed after it stated that the sentence it was imposing was harsher than necessary.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://appellate.typepad.com/appellate/2007/04/ca2_the_parsimo.html|title=CA2: The Parsimony Provision Does Matter, After All|date=11 April 2007|publisher=Appellate Law and Practice}}</ref> The upshot of this is that courts will have to be careful not to explicitly make such statements.

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Sentencing theory]]

Charles Dickens

2014-01-26T21:22:36Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "'''Charles John Huffam Dickens''' (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. His novels are sometimes viewed as providing examples of how cap..."

'''Charles John Huffam Dickens''' (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. His novels are sometimes viewed as providing examples of how [[capitalism]] is destructive to the [[working class]]. [[Roderick Long]] criticizes the oft-cited example of Ebenezer Scrooge as a heartless capitalist by noting, "Scrooge has no use for private, voluntary forms of [[charity]]. His solutions to the problem of [[poverty]] are all governmental solutions: [[prison]]s, with their [[forced labor]] (the treadmill), and [[government welfare]] (the Poor Law), with its Union workhouses. His visitor's plea that these solutions are inefficient at best and maleficent at worst falls on deaf ears; Scrooge regards governmental solutions as sufficient, and dismisses private charity as a waste of time."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://anarchywithoutbombs.com/2012/12/12/whos-the-scrooge-libertarians-and-compassion/|title=Who’s the Scrooge? Libertarians and Compassion|author=Long, Roderick}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Authors]]

Retribution

2014-01-26T20:50:23Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

{{stub}}

'''Retribution''' is the dispensing or receiving of reward or [[punishment]] according to the [[wikt:just deserts|deserts]] of the individual. In punishment theory, it refers to depriving a criminal of certain rights based on the nature of the offense.

[[Murray N. Rothbard]] suggested a theory of proportional punishment, "that people may be punished by losing their rights to the extent that they have invaded the rights of others," and defended it as a retributive theory of punishment.<ref>''The Ethics of Liberty'', p.91</ref>

<references/>

[[Category:Concepts]]

Retribution

2014-01-26T20:49:59Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: actually it's deserts. see wikt:just deserts. it probably stems from the same root as "deserve"

{{stub}}

'''Retribution''' is the dispensing or receiving of reward or [[punishment]] according to the deserts of the individual. In punishment theory, it refers to depriving a criminal of certain rights based on the nature of the offense.

[[Murray N. Rothbard]] suggested a theory of proportional punishment, "that people may be punished by losing their rights to the extent that they have invaded the rights of others," and defended it as a retributive theory of punishment.<ref>''The Ethics of Liberty'', p.91</ref>

<references/>

[[Category:Concepts]]

Freedom of association

2014-01-26T20:33:26Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

'''Freedom of association''' is the right to join or leave groups of a person's own choosing. This right is commonly denied as part of a [[sentencing|sentence]] imposed upon those convicted of crimes. In ''Malone v. U.S.''<ref>{{cite court|url=http://www.leagle.com/decision/19741056502F2d554_1987.xml/MALONE%20v.%20UNITED%20STATES|litigants=Malone v. U.S.|date=29 August 1974|court=9th Cir.|vol=502|reporter=F.2d|opinion=554}}</ref>, the defendant was found guilty of a unlawfully exporting firearms to the [[United Kingdom]]. The court ordered "4. That he belong to no Irish organizations, cultural or otherwise; 5. That he not belong or participate in any Irish Catholic organizations or groups; 6. That he not visit any Irish pubs; 7. That he accept no employment that directly or indirectly associates him with any Irish organization or movement". The court noted "The question is, has the Court abused its discretion and acted unreasonably in its effort to prevent the appellant from activities or participation in or contact with groups or organizations that might fan his emotions or in any way cause his mind to dwell on subjects or activities which would conceivably encourage him to commit criminal acts of the nature here involved?" and upheld the conditions.

In ''U.S. v. Bolinger'', the court ruled "Probation conditions may seek to prevent reversion into a former crime-inducing lifestyle by barring contact with old haunts and associates, even though the activities may be legal."<ref>{{cite court|url=http://www.leagle.com/decision/19911418940F2d478_11337|litigants=U.S. v. Bolinger|vol=940|reporter=F.2d|opinion=478|date=30 July 1991}}</ref> These restrictions, then, are based on the theory of [[incapacitation]] and/or [[rehabilitation]].

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Freedoms]]

Freedom of association

2014-01-26T20:29:11Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: Created page with "'''Freedom of association''' is the right to join or leave groups of a person's own choosing. This right is commonly denied as part of a sentence imposed upon t..."

Main Page

2014-01-26T19:43:29Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3: random articles -> new articles

{| style="margin: 0 0 1em 0; border: 1px solid #569BBB; background-color: #f1f5fc; padding:5px"
|width=61% style="padding-right:5px;" |
<div style="font-size:200%; line-height:150%; font-variant:small-caps; ">Welcome to Mises Wiki,</div>

<div style="font-size: larger;line-height:175%;">''the global repository of classical-liberal thought that anyone can edit'' </div>
<hr style="color: #569BBB; background-color: #569BBB;" />
'''[[MisesWiki:About|Mises Wiki]]''' is a [[wiki]] project dedicated to the advancement of the [[Austrian School|Austrian School of Economics]] and related thought. Sponsored by the [[Mises Institute|Ludwig von Mises Institute]] and founded on 5 November 2010, the repository now has {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} articles. We are always looking for more contributors – to begin, you can experiment in the [[MisesWiki:Sandbox|sandbox]], edit an existing article, or start a new one. See also the [[MisesWiki:Community portal|Community portal]] for information about the project.

|style="width:6%; font-size:95%; padding:5px; border-width:1px; border-left-style:solid; border-color:#569BBB;"|
<div style="font-size:100%; ">
* [[:Category:Concepts|Concepts]]
* [[:Category:Argumentation|Argumentation]]
* [[:Category:History|History]]
* [[:Category:Literature|Literature]]
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* [[:Category:Issues|Issues]]
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[[Category:Main Page]]

Talk:Main Page

2014-01-26T19:42:03Z

FormerContributor-78162cb3:

<div class="messagebox" style="text-align:center;">This page is for discussion related to the [[Main Page]]. For general project-related discussion, use the [[MisesWiki:Commons|MisesWiki Commons]].</div>

==Ideas for Main Page organization==
The Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page main page] incorporates several features:

# Did You Know?: spotlights new articles or substantial revisions and incentivizes users to do substantial new work rather than just little tweaks here and there
# Today's Featured Article: showcases articles that have reached the highest quality level, according to the FA criteria developed by folks working on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_articles that project]
# In The News: provides short "breaking news" blurbs which link to relevant content
# On This Day: lists historical facts from this day in history and links to relevant content

We could develop a feature like #1 pretty easily, especially since everything is new right now.

Number 2 is something that I would like for us to have once we have adequate content to support it, but I don't think we are quite there yet.

On Wikipedia, the "In The News" feature is easy to run because almost any news subject is likely to be linkable to multiple pre-existing articles. We might create something like #3 as a way to draw attention to Austrians who are in the news or who have provided commentary on events covered in the news, and our equivalent of the "In The News" feature could be linked from "Current Events" in the nav box on page left.

I think #4 is out for right now, too, although we could eventually note birthdays of famous Austrians and other relevant historical tidbits once we develop a little more content.

The "Community Portal" link on the left could lead to a page much like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_portal the one on Wikipedia], with a running "to-do" list of articles that need to be created or substantially revised, links to projects (as they develop), and any notices about community-wide news.

Thoughts?
[[User:DickClarkMises|DickClarkMises]] 09:48, 6 November 2010 (CDT)

----

These all seem great to me but of course I have my usual concern about daily updates to the front page now. I find myself suddenly anxious to develop some intellectual eye candy up front along with links to how to write for wikipedia, if only because something tells me that we are the verge of a more public discovery. It would be good to have the curb appeal right up front.

I might suggest that we leave a featured piece up on [[Austrian economics]], right up there with some colored background or something.

--[[User:Jatucker|Jatucker]] 12:26, 6 November 2010 (CDT)

:: I have the next couple of days off, so I'll try to see what I can do to get [[Austrian economics]] up to snuff. By the way, should it be "Austrian economics" or "Austrian school"? Regarding this main page, I don't think "on this day" would be too difficult to set up early. We'd have to gather up relevant birthdays and events (such as the first Mont Pelerin Society meeting, that meeting in 1974 setting the beginning of the Austrian revival, et cetera). It will take some time, though. Maybe a more permanent template, for now, would do the trick—"during this week". We could do a featured picture widget, but instead of featured pictures maybe just rotating images of different Austrian economists and other relative individuals. At first, some of the stuff will prob. have to be "semi-permanent", in the sense that most stuff probably won't be updated every day. '''[[User:Catalan|JonCatalán]]'''<sup>[[User talk:Catalan|(Talk)]]</sup> 21:01, 7 November 2010 (CST)

:::Younger, less developed Wikimedia sites (such as [http://en.wikisource.org Wikisource]), have different items on the main page. A featured work of the month, a list of new articles (that anyone can add to), and current collaborations, for example. It may make more sense to pursue some of these less-intensive solutions instead of/in addition to the ones Wikipedia uses.
:::To start we can at least do "new texts" (probably instead of "Did You Know?") and once we've developed a particular article more fully, make that the month's featured article (maybe for December?). I like the idea of having an "During this week" box that starts off as weekly and eventually can be changed to "On this day". --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] 08:10, 8 November 2010 (CST)

==New design==
Work on a new Main Page design is ongoing at [[Main Page/new]]. For this initial design I kept many of Wikipedia's design features (but with a different header), and developed similar content. Feel free to make changes or suggestions. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 14:55, 8 November 2010 (CST)
: I implemented this. For whatever reason, the favicon is gone --[[User:Jatucker|Jatucker]] 09:06, 9 November 2010 (CST)

: For "on this week", should we link to years and such? I was going to suggest linking with wp:en, but then that wouldn't make sense because you'd direct the user off the site without that page actually being relevant. It makes sense to wikilink to the day, because we could fill in the days with important events and such (that can be used to update "on this week"), but what about the years? '''[[User:Catalan|JonCatalán]]'''<sup>[[User talk:Catalan|(Talk)]]</sup> 09:53, 9 November 2010 (CST)
::Mises Wiki year pages I think would be fine--they could be like WP year pages, containing the major events of the year, but with an austro-libertarian focus. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 11:48, 9 November 2010 (CST)

==Media Tutorial==

I've going to link this from the opening text [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNBahdIAzFo] --[[User:Jatucker|Jatucker]] 16:30, 11 November 2010 (CST)

== A Global Repository of Classical-Liberal Thought ==

Why "A Global Repository of Classical-Liberal Thought"?

I am no minarchist! Is this a minarchist wiki?! --[[Special:Contributions/84.60.200.246|84.60.200.246]] 09:48, 27 December 2010 (CST)
:This could indeed be a very rich discussion. Maybe there is room for a page or article on the "variants" of classical liberal thought. --[[User:RayBirks|RayBirks]] 16:12, 27 December 2010 (CST)
:It's not exclusively minarchist. I define "classical liberal" broadly, encompassing the thought of Spooner and Rothbard as well as J. S. Mill and Hayek. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 16:16, 27 December 2010 (CST)
I don't understand that. When it is "A Global Repository of Classical-Liberal Thought", why do you have sites like [[Kazakhstan]] and [[Harry S. Truman]]? Or should it be an encyclopedia in the Classical-Liberal Thought? Or is it rather "a wiki project dedicated to the advancement of the Austrian School of Economics and related thought", or do you think it is the same. If the latter is the case, what is to say about [[praxeology]] or [[argumentation ethics]] as "Classical-Liberal Thought"? --[[Special:Contributions/84.60.209.200|84.60.209.200]] 08:42, 28 December 2010 (CST)
:Thinkers in the tradition of classical liberalism can and will have perspectives on Kazakhstan and Harry S. Truman; this wiki is meant to capture those perspectives and contrast them with "mainstream," anti-liberty views. On the other hand, praxeology is a field developed by the intellectual children of classical liberalism, thus information about it obviously belongs here. Again: define classical liberalism broadly, encompassing the thought of Jefferson, J. S. Mill, Hayek, and Mises, as well as Spooner, Rothbard, and Block. The thoughts of all these people, and people like them, on any subject, is the scope of this wiki. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 09:00, 28 December 2010 (CST)
::"Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953)." What is the contrast with "mainstream," anti-liberty views, please? Or, you mean an encyclopedia ''in the view'' of Classical-Liberal Thought. But then a minarchist is also one who may offer his totalitarian doctrine on every issue, for example that of reasoning Jefferson's wars. Obviously, you believe that the descriptions are of the same meaning. But that is nonsense. Hans Hoppe, e.g., is not correctly to describe as thinker of the classical liberalism perspective. --[[Special:Contributions/84.60.209.200|84.60.209.200]] 10:12, 28 December 2010 (CST)
:::Note that above I said "perspective<u>s</u> on Kazakhstan and Harry S. Truman." That is, different thinkers within the classical liberal tradition (from Milton Friedman to Hans Hoppe) will have different perspectives (obviously), and this is the place to record all of them, comparing and contrasting them.
:::As for [[Harry S. Truman]], it's a work in progress: eventually, the article could challenge a number of mainstream views related to Truman's presidency. The article currently links to [[President of the United States]]: that article could be expanded to discuss how the position came into being (as part of the [[United States Constitution]]). The Constitution's article could describe the thinking of the founders, compare it against the [[Articles of Confederation]] and other systems of government and non-government (monarchy, democracy, state of nature, etc.). The goal is to use an encyclopedia format to challenge statist assumptions and lead people to libertarian and anarchist thought.
:::Like Wikipedia, the goal is not to write "truth" (because minarchists and anarchists disagree on what the "truth" may be), but to quote prominent thinkers and describe significant ideas. Unlike Wikipedia, our encyclopedia is biased in favor of liberty and in opposition to the state and its evils. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 11:03, 28 December 2010 (CST)
:::: You may say that Hoppe thinks in the result of classical liberal tradition but this would only be an awkward historical view of yesterday by someone who want to reboot the old American society. You claim also to use a full encyclopedia format which could contrast, or may contrast later, or never. But the result would be a new Wikipedia with 90 % copy code. For the goal to contrast, it is enough to give for every concept some useful urls of mises.org and other a-political think thanks and to abstract the differences to the mainstream views. This would be more useful and more reachable than to create an article for every small Hitler and every small region. However, my aim was only to find a well description of the project and I cant see that you have thought twice about it. --[[Special:Contributions/84.60.209.200|84.60.209.200]] 12:09, 28 December 2010 (CST)
:::::Re Hoppe as the intellectual child of classical liberalism: I suppose reasonable people can disagree. Nonetheless, if there is any inaccuracy, it is in the term: his thought is certainly included in the scope of this wiki. Re Wikipedia vs. Mises Wiki, it is my goal that this wiki not rely on Wikipedia. Some articles do, but others, like [[American Civil War]] and [[President of the United States]], do not. Re encyclopedia vs. collection of links: Wikipedia has had astonishing success ''because'' it is written in encyclopedia format and ''is not'' a mere collection of related links. Re "I cant see that you have think twice about it," there's no need to be unfriendly. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 13:58, 28 December 2010 (CST)
::::: Wikipedia should be an encyclopedia but a "global repository" must not be one. We should clear this point on [[MisesWiki:Commons]]. Okay, inaccuracy in the term. Hence, why not "repository of a-political thought." Thus, one must not assume to visit a Minarchist wiki. --[[Special:Contributions/84.60.209.200|84.60.209.200]] 14:52, 28 December 2010 (CST)
:::::: We are open to anything but I like repository partially because it lacks a strict definition. We don't want an encyclopedia only and we don't want just opinion pieces. We want it to be a guide to learning and studying; an archive of important and useful information; a documented assembly of important facts and figures and narratives; a valuable resource for discovery what is going on and what people think; most importantly, we don't want the scope limited. So repository seems to work here. As for classical liberal, anarcho-capitalism is certainly part of the liberal tradition if one thinks of it in a sweeping way, backwards in time and forwards in time. In this sense Seneca and Aristotle are part of the liberal tradition. I would be happy with liberal but of course that confuses people and hence the classical part, but that introduces the confusion that we are talking about 18th and 19th century thought of a particular kind (minarchism). Libertarian is good but that tends to conjure up political associations and not research or intellectual ones. Classical liberalism seems broader. Another possibility is "liberty-minded thought" but that has its own problems (certainly every conservative organization claims to favor liberty). Anyway, I just throw all that out there. Maybe something is better than classically liberal as a descriptor but I can't think of it.--[[User:Jatucker|Jatucker]] 12:56, 5 January 2011 (CST)

You haven't mentioned my proposal of "politically unaffected and independent."

There is a piece in the [[Mises Institute]] article that underlines this. It "does not seek to implement public policy. It has no formal affiliation with any political party (including the Libertarian Party), nor does it receive funding from any." and "Its declared mission is to back research and writing in defense of Austrian economics, the market economy, private property, sound money, and peaceful international relations, while opposing government intervention as economically and socially destructive."

This is short and clear enough. It is important that it clearly remains, and that all editors know what the Mises Institute expects of the wiki in order that editors are able to fulfill the wishes. Thus, I don't understand that you can't think of a better descriptor. It is already on hand.

Other pure verbal efforts in [[MisesWiki:About]] and [[MisesWiki:Five Pillars]] are diluting the clear guest above, too. I don't know, who is responsible.

Even if it slightly is another lot, it demonstrates the effects of a misleaded understanding. E.g.:"it does not attempt to adhere to a policy of neutrality." I would say it is partial nonsense implemented from a Wikipedia view. Neutrality is not a very clear term but it is impossible (in my opinion) to contrast different classical liberal and related thought without any kind of neutrality.

And the encyclopedia/repository controversy is also fortified here. "Mises Wiki is an online encyclopedia".

Or, "Even with this policy of bias toward the Austrian School, the personal experiences, interpretations, and opinions of editors do not belong here." What's then about completely unreviewed books by Stefan Molyneux like [[Universally Preferable Behaviour]]?

And btw., "Mises Wiki users should interact in a respectful and civil manner." This pillar is completely superfluous because it is nearly the same to say, you should insult nobody. That is a rule which has no praxeological stance in the Austrian view.
--[[User:Reserved|Reserved]] 05:50, 6 January 2011 (CST)
::That strikes me as too eccentric for a description of a wiki actually. --[[User:Jatucker|Jatucker]] 13:18, 11 January 2011 (CST)

Even when you want to use your slogan as eye-catcher (also eccentric for me but your matter) then it is still useful to explain what is actually meant by "classical liberal thought" at the Main Page, About or so.

So what we should write? Or even better, edit it yourself.
I have done the job for the part that belongs to "repository" by coping some of your text to the About page. I am not convinced enough by the rest.

The economist Mark W. Hendrickson narrates: "One of my colleagues now avoids labeling himself an Austrian economist because his interlocutors then assume that he is an anarchist." because of the name "Mises Institute". [http://www.brookesnews.com/101204mises.html]
I hope that I get no similar problem since people could assume that I am minarchist because of "classical liberal thought". --[[User:Reserved|Reserved]] 05:17, 12 January 2011 (CST)

== Changes ==

I've made some changes to the main page, to reduce the amount of maintenance required. First, I removed the "Current Events" template as it was probably too much of an attempt to copy Wikipedia; it has not been kept up to date lately. Second, I modified the "This Week in History" box, changing it to update automatically every day with one day of material. Thus I renamed the section "Today in History." There are no days that are missing material until April, so we have time to fill in the gaps. If no material exists for a given day, then a link will appear directing editors to the page where they can add an event.

Feel free to revert or suggest more/other changes. --[[User:Forgottenman|Forgottenman]] ([[User talk:Forgottenman|talk]]) 19:06, 19 January 2012 (MSK)

== Randomly featured articles ==

I recommend randomly featuring articles, so that no maintenance is required on that front after the initial set of rotating articles is set up. Install [[mw:Extension:RandomSelection]] and use the code and option tags the way they are used on Libertapedia: http://libertapedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Randomly_featured_article&action=edit . [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 13:11, 8 July 2012 (MSD)

:Hmmm... you may actually have a point there - given our activity level and the number of suitable articles that may be the best solution for us. Thanks for the idea! [[User:Pestergaines|Pestergaines]] 13:53, 8 July 2012 (MSD)
::One of the downsides would be performance loss on the main page, because that extension contains this line:

<code>$parser->disableCache();</code>

::It's dynamically loading the page anew each time, rather than loading a cached copy, because otherwise every user would see the same blurb every time they visited. Bottom line: the main page will probably load slower with this, but it's potentially better than a redlink or a blurb that only changes once a month. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] 11:58, 9 July 2012 (MSD)

== Random selection of articles ==

See [[User:Nathan Larson/Mockup of main page with random articles]]. If we were to do it this way, and also create a rotation of about 60 or even 30 randomly featured articles, the casual visitor might not even realize how low the level of activity on this wiki is, unless he happens to hit [[Special:RecentChanges]]. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 07:28, 22 October 2012 (MSD)

== Should we semi-protect? ==

{{done}} Should we semi-protect the main page and templates that are transcluded to it? There probably aren't very many constructive edits by IPs and newbies to those pages, and the most recent vandalism wasn't reverted for several hours. Of course, the downside is that if an autoconfirmed user vandalizes it, then an IP or newbie won't be able to fix it. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 01:51, 25 October 2012 (MSD)

== MisesQuote ==

I installed MisesQuote, but I notice that it only seems to cycle among a few different quotes. I suspect we might be getting hit with double-caching, because both our wiki and The Quotable Mises are probably cached by CloudFlare. Anyway, if you want to check out the code, it's at [[mw:Extension:MisesQuote#MisesQuote.php]].

Also, I'm starting to suspect that The Quotable Mises has a significant number of typos and misprints. [[User:Nathan Larson|Nathan Larson]] ([[User talk:Nathan Larson|talk]]) 12:11, 31 October 2012 (MSK)
:MisesQuote seems to have broken when the server was moved, so it's been disabled.

==Random or recent articles==
[[:Template:Recent pages]] would give us a selection of articles recently added to the wiki, similarly to the "In the Mises Wiki" item on the main mises.org page, but with more than four page titles listed. [[User:Leucosticte|Leucosticte]] ([[User talk:Leucosticte|talk]]) 14:42, 26 January 2014 (EST)