Austrian Economics Wiki:Commons

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Style guide

I would like to recommend that we use the Chicago Manual of Style as a basis for a MisesWiki:Manual of Style rather than the Wikipedia Manual of Style. The WP:MOS makes a large number of stylistic concessions in order to appeal to international speakers of English, resulting in a MOS that incorporates a variety of styles. Mises.org uses CMS as its style guide, and I think it makes sense to use it here as well, as most of our readers are Americans. Two things affected are:

• Spelling (use American all the time)
• Punctuation in relation to quotation marks (commas and periods should always appear inside quotation marks)

I'm sure there are others, but these are the ones that come to mind. Thoughts? --Forgottenman (talk) 16:09, 29 November 2010 (CST)

Yes, keeping the readership in mind, that's probably a sensible idea. You'll have to be patient with me though, as I'm used to writing under British conventions. Sovereign 12:08, 15 December 2010 (CST)

New project

It seems we could use a new project for the organization of small things - checking links, wikification of text, creating stubs, etc. Also needs a way to easily vote on the next page of interest. Ideas? Pestergaines 18:05, 2 December 2010 (CST)

Sounds reasonable. I'll set it up with some ideas at MisesWiki:WikiProject Cleanup. We'll need to develop more cleanup categories. --Forgottenman (talk) 09:38, 3 December 2010 (CST)

Looks nice already! Thanks. Pestergaines 15:03, 3 December 2010 (CST)

Most wanted Stub

Below, let's vote on the most desired stub, that is still missing and really, really should be created, with some good content for a start. Please edit this list: anyone can add more candidates to it, and vote for any number of them - but only once on each. Of course, anyone can create the stub(s) in question, too! Once created, the candidates will be removed from the list. Pestergaines 15:03, 3 December 2010 (CST)

• Free market: +2
• World War I: +0
• New Deal: +0

For what it's worth, I've put this section and the one following at MisesWiki:Most wanted. --Forgottenman (talk) 12:54, 6 January 2011 (CST)

Most wanted update is better. --Reserved 13:29, 6 January 2011 (CST) The question is, why should I make a request to create a stub?--Reserved 08:11, 7 January 2011 (CST)

"Most wanted", as the name hints, attempts to find the most desired pages to be created or updated, which will be done by whoever feels like it. No need to overspeculate things, Reserved, join the fray and create some content! :) Pestergaines 12:19, 8 January 2011 (CST)

Most wanted update

Which page badly deserves to be extended? Please edit this list: anyone can add more candidates to it, and vote for any number of them - but only once on each. Of course, anyone can update the page, too! Once sufficiently improved, the candidates will be removed from the list (but can be entered again for another round of updates). Pestergaines 15:03, 3 December 2010 (CST)

• ‎John Maynard Keynes: +0
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt: +0
• Charity: +2
• Karl Marx: +1
• Estate tax: +0

It's maybe better to mark sections directly which have to be improved. --Reserved 08:27, 7 January 2011 (CST)

And yes, sections or pages, that need improvement, should be marked directly. This is for the "Most wanted" updates. Pestergaines 12:21, 8 January 2011 (CST)

Ah, it is only an additional snap-reading method for the caretakers, okay. --Reserved 13:10, 8 January 2011 (CST)

"External links" --> "Links"?

Any thoughts on not using WP's convention of calling the links at the end "External links" but instead simply "Links"? My thinking is that in many cases the links are pointing to mises.org pages (such as literature pages, blog posts, etc.) and thus are not strictly "external." Plus, the word is redundant anyway. We could still use "See also" for referring to tangentially related wiki articles. --Forgottenman (talk) 10:43, 6 December 2010 (CST)

I am open to that upon first reflection. I am assuming we would likely continue a "See also" section for other related Mises Wiki article links not mentioned already in the main text. -- RayBirks 10:46, 6 December 2010 (CST)

Right. --Forgottenman (talk) 10:49, 6 December 2010 (CST)

Actually, that is a good idea! Pestergaines 11:23, 6 December 2010 (CST)

Positioning links from Mises Wiki to Wikipedia

I have been noticing links to Wikipedia main articles in various locations within the list of links to other resources, articles, etc. Perhaps we might suggest that, if the link to the related main Wikipedia entry is included, we make it the final entry in the list. I am thinking the reader is somewhat more likely to be getting a Classical-Liberal (and similar) point of view in the first links indicated, with the general readership-orientation of Wikipedia best fit for the reader's last choice. If this is already the working style, then perhaps someone might confirm. Thoughts? -- RayBirks 12:02, 9 December 2010 (CST)

That seems reasonable. Same for other general resources, I suppose. --Forgottenman (talk) 12:09, 9 December 2010 (CST)

Suggested order of closing sections

Is there a working rule of thumb for the order of the closing sections? I just added the See also section on the Great Depression page, and it seems out of whack.

I am thinking the order should be:

• See also
• Links
• References

Opinions? Input? And are there further sections we should take into account in this discussion? Thanks! -- RayBirks 20:06, 9 December 2010 (CST)

WP standard is "See also" then "References" then "Links" (see wikipedia:WP:FOOTERS). I like links to be last because they are least related to the content of the article. References specifically relate to the article itself; links point the reader outside the wiki and thus (IMHO) belong at the end. I'm okay with putting "See also" below or above references; either way makes sense. Other footer section types might be "Works" (i.e., on the page of a person – include a list of books he's written) and "Further reading" (like "Links" but to hard copy books for which links aren't available and which weren't used as references). Regarding those, I say Works first, and Further reading second to last. So:

• Works
• References
• See also
• Further reading
• Links

Or switch 2 and 3. Other ideas? --Forgottenman (talk) 22:57, 9 December 2010 (CST)

Article # 400

Don't know if anyone noticed, but our 400th article is on none other than Taxation !! -- RayBirks 13:06, 12 December 2010 (CST)

Yes, great work everyone! I wonder when we can get to 500. :) Pestergaines 17:59, 12 December 2010 (CST)

Guide

A guide of articles for newbies to basics of Economics or mises would be great. I don't know where start and it would be great to have that sort of guide/suggestion to start reading some articles. —unsigned comment by PLj9N (talk) 19:22, 12 December 2010.

An excellent idea! As we build the wiki a "reader's guide" of some sort would be quite helpful for others as well, I imagine. Thanks! --Forgottenman (talk) 21:55, 12 December 2010 (CST)

I second (third?) this. I would also suggest that there be two introductions: one for those completely new to economics (in a similar vein to Murphy's Lessons for the Young Economist), and one that introduces concepts in Austrian economics to those who are familiar with "mainstream" economics. -- Six 23:59, 12 December 2010 (CST)

Definitely agreed. The wiki itself is meant to be a backbone for educational efforts. One could start a project with a bunch of pages and steal text left and right, concentrating on simple writing. The underlying pages would supply links to more resources and would contain the more difficult and obscure details.

Add another wanted on the heap: a category for reading lists. Pestergaines 09:00, 13 December 2010 (CST)

Logic category

With the key basis for Austrian economics being deductive logic, and a lacking of articles on deductive logic, I'd like to suggest that logic in its general form should be part of the scope of this wiki, possibly cultivated within a 'Logic' category. Naturally, we can make this relevant to economics through examples (rather than the traditional All Men are Mortal example). -- Six 08:26, 13 December 2010 (CST)

Logic is already part of the scope of this wiki, and it is only logical. :) Pestergaines 08:51, 13 December 2010 (CST)

Repeat a link if already in references?

A minor issue perhaps, but if a link is already used as a reference, is there a working rule of thumb about whether or not to further include it as a separate and distinct link? The question occurred when looking at this entry: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. (At this writing, the Attarian work is mentioned twice.) --RayBirks 21:08, 15 December 2010 (CST)

Good catch. In general I think there's no need to link in both places. There may be a few exceptions to the rule; perhaps if the link is essential to the subject it might be permissible to put it in both. For example, if we cite the mises.org pdf of Conceived in Liberty in the Conceived in Liberty article, we'd still want to link the pdf in the external links section. But in this case references only is probably fine. --Forgottenman (talk) 12:05, 16 December 2010 (CST)

Creating a new sub-category

Tried to create a subcategory of Writings by Author|Chodorov, Frank and I don't seem to be doing it correctly. I supplied the new entry Out of Step (book) with the sub-category, thinking I'd end up with a red link to create it, but it's not appearing the way I imagined it. Perhaps someone can enlighten? Thanks in advance. --RayBirks 13:34, 18 December 2010 (CST)

You needed to create a new subcategory by adding the full category name to the Chodorov work: Category:Writings by Frank Chodorov. What you did was simply add the book to Category:Writings by Author—the "|Chodorov, Frank" didn't do anything because that is only used for sorting on the category page. In general, my process for creating a new category is to add a nonexistent category to an article, resulting in a red link. Then click the red link to access the about-to-be-created category page. On that page, add the parent category and create. See Category:Writings by Frank Chodorov to see what I did there. --Forgottenman (talk) 10:54, 20 December 2010 (CST)

Thanks! Will explore more later.  :) --RayBirks 11:19, 20 December 2010 (CST)

Mark all copies

Please mark all copy text from Wikipedia or elsewhere with

--copy text--

or so.

Code:
{| style="background-color:#ffffe0;" cellpadding="10"
|-
| style="background:yellow" | || text
|} --Reserved 10:25, 1 January 2011 (CST)

I'm not sure that such visible notice is necessary. Copies from Wikipedia need simply to be acknowledged. But really only editors need to know which information was copied. So it would be much better to use html comments (<! -- and -- >, without spaces, see the edit window for an example) to indicate this. --Forgottenman (talk) 19:02, 1 January 2011 (CST)

Such ideals don't exist. Editors start in the state to be a reader. Everything that should be rewritten needs comments. The best place is the direct one. See also the edits of Karmaisking after my ones in Austrian School. --Reserved 04:41, 2 January 2011 (CST)

Fair enough. To make this easier, you can use a template I just created, Template:Rewrite. --Forgottenman (talk) 16:22, 3 January 2011 (CST)

Fine --Reserved 03:58, 4 January 2011 (CST)

USA-centrism

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

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

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

Any of you non-USA folks care to chime in? Are readers of Mises Wiki as concentrated in the USA as we might think? Please feel free, all. -- RayBirks 15:58, 2 January 2011 (CST)

Do you have specific suggestions on how to aim for this goal? In general I'd leave this to the discretion of the users, let them work on whatever they are interested in. A certain USA-centricity is probably unavoidable (speaking from Europe here). But if you want to make the thought more popular and maybe even coordinate the efforts, you could make an "International" WikiProject. There are even users thinking about writing in different languages, so it could house them as well.

Speaking of statistics, the page with the Meetups is the second most visited page, but the number of international visitors (or visitors in total) would be interesting to know... will try to find out more. Pestergaines 05:53, 4 January 2011 (CST)

Pestergaines, thanks for your comments. No, I don't have specific goals, and starting up a WikiProject seems like it would be more than I would like to handle just now. We are still "just getting going," after all. Your thought of leaving it to users' discretion makes the most sense to me in the here and now. My main thought is, for myself, to keep the experiences of others in mind, rather than fall into the trap of my own geo-centrism, if you will. Thx.  :) --RayBirks 13:20, 8 January 2011 (CST)

Well, it's still something to keep an eye out for in the long term. (And should it be necessary, the start of a page is already there. :) ) Have a nice day! Pestergaines 13:43, 8 January 2011 (CST)

What constitutes a minor edit

From the Help:Wiki FAQ:

"...Generally, small formatting changes, adding a link, changing a category, or fixing one or two spelling or grammar mistakes are all considered minor edits. If that describes your edit, check the box. It helps other users keeping an eye on that page that you didn't make a drastic edit.

"Larger edits, like those involving actual content, or substantial reorganization of the article, are not minor edits. Don't check the "This is a minor edit" box when you save; otherwise people might think you're trying to mislead them. For this reason, if you think your edit might be controversial, no matter how big it is, don't call it a minor edit." --RayBirks 11:25, 5 January 2011 (CST)

Is this a question? --Forgottenman (talk) 13:50, 7 January 2011 (CST)

No. The "minor edit" indicator has been used incorrectly of late, so I thought I would include this here for general review. Sorry to confuse. -- RayBirks 23:10, 7 January 2011 (CST)