User:Wragge

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This user is an English monoglot:

en This user is a native speaker of English.

That doesn't deter linguists contributions

Wragge is a pathological pedant, for whom Wikipedia is both an addiction and a means of therapy; his sub-editing is an outlet that allows pedantry to be used for creation rather than destruction (of any real-world relationship). Despite this, he often responds constructively to talk page additions, retaining them indefinitely.

Wragge shares the sentiments of many Wikipedia editors, expressed in the policy "Bad edits good" that it is not necessary to consult the original text author (or be an expert) before making changes. Please make broad alterations as you see fit, ideally before (or instead of) discussing them in talk pages. Another critical principal from this policy is: "Perfection not required", which Wragge considers (along with "be bold") to override all other policies (he is fond of contending that the weight of numbers will enforce all other policies, without resorting to talk page disputes).

FREE MONEY!!! Do you want free money? Wragge is giving it away! Your Bank of Wikipedia account will be boosted by 1 coin for each minor edit, and 4 coins for each significant^[1] edit on the subject of experimental economics courtesy of Wragge: Please add a User Wragge talk comment claiming your reward after establishing an account with the bank. If you name Wragge as refering you to the bank there is a 100% bonus for each minor edit.

Offer extended to cover related^[2] or unrelated (but sufficiently interesting) articles.

Contents 1 Term Definition: "Term Definition" 1.1 Reasons that the "no defining terms" rule is a bad rule 2 Being interesting 3 Rwanda 4 Postmodernism 5 Why Wikipedia is fantastic 6 Apocrypha 7 Wikiproblems 8 Tactics 9 Strategy 10 The Wikipedian argot 11 Inertial manifesto 12 reply 13 Your opinion... 14 Notes

[edit] Term Definition: "Term Definition"

Should Wikipedia articles "define terms"? There are good reasons that they should, despite the injunction against this, however it depends upon the meta-semantics of "Term Definition" itself. Specifically; if a "Term Definition" article is defined as one that consists of internal references without any assertions about the outside world, it is an exercise in pure linguistics, hard to dispute, and unconstructive. Such "Term Definition" pages should not be created.

[edit] Reasons that the "no defining terms" rule is a bad rule

1. The Godwin's law page is continuously reverting "corollaries" which would suffocate the page. None of these "adaptions" of the original law can properly have their own page because of this (time wasting) rule.
2. If the "no term-definition" rule were rigidly enforced it would mean that every article using the words "Superior goods" would have to define what the phrase meant; this is a problem because:
   1. It means different things to different people, and therefore leads to internal inconsistency in Wikipedia.
   2. It wastes valuable reading-time in complex articles; the advantage of a hyper-text encyclopedia is that the novice reader can instantly lookup terms they don't understand, where the expert will only need to know what's new on a page.
   3. A "term" might seem to require only a simple definition, but infact there's a vast amount to say about everything. Over time, the "history of a term" may become an interesting article in itself.
3. Term definitions can form a future "Core glossary" which will pop-up in some way for a quick review of a term within an article (to prevent the flow being broken by moving to another page).

The Wikipedia approach to quick definition is a definition list, but this is not suitable for searching or expanding, unless the terms have their own articles.

[edit] Being interesting

All impersonal statements fall into one of three categories:

1. Truisms
2. Dull information which might be right or wrong, but nobody cares very much.
3. Apparently Controversial claims, like the proven health benefits of high-dose DDT exposure.

Clearly, all interesting statements come from category 3. Such claims will be attacked unless they are stated neutrally from citations. The best defense appears to be the Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check project approach.

On Wikipedia, a claim isn't really worth making unless it needs to be backed up.

[edit] Rwanda

Wikipedia found Wragge's initial biography of Jean Kambanda interesting enough to mention on its front page (see: Wragge's reaction). In theory, systematic bias against articles covering the genocide in Rwanda is defensible on the grounds that "noteworthyness" is not a matter of actuarial statistics. However, this defense is weakened by an examination of the actual Wikipedia coverage; it is almost non-existent.

[edit] Postmodernism

Wragge prefers to edit articles that are essentially about themselves, including:

• The reason Wikipedia devoted less space to human extinction than Ivory-billed Woodpecker extinction
• Wikipedian's use of ipsedixitisms
• The mathematical growth of Wikipedia.
• A book advancing the superiority of the crowd over the expert in making judgements.

[edit] Why Wikipedia is fantastic

• The attention to detail by some readers here is awesome; in the Doomsday argument article, another Wikipedian spotted that a figure given as N should have been N-1, and they changed it. Unremarkable, except than N is unknown, and at least 60,000,000,000. It is now unknown, and at least 59,999,999,999. You can't get that level of care from professional fact checkers.

[edit] Apocrypha

The Wikipedia Dialectic proceeds by the layering of revisions, on top of qualifications, on top of cited facts, on top of ipsedixitisms on a bedrock of vague recollections. Wragge rushes to publish, in the hopes of triggering the accretion process; his early speculations cannot be relied upon, caveat lector.

Wragge has a record of trying to correct his own errors, especially if encouraged to do so by article contributions from others (or talk page requests). However, some niggling mistakes cannot be corrected; outstanding errors are:

• Incorrect Selenipedium picture. There appear to be no out-of-copywrite images of a true selenipedium. Furthermore, none grow in the UK.

[edit] Wikiproblems

• Wikipedia is actually very slow, because it is an amateur project. If you want something done you might have to do it yourself.
• If you try to do something yourself it may conflict with policy, or repeat other efforts. Unfortunately, the search technology available makes it hard to find McDonald's if you don't remember they have an apostrophe in their name. It's worth reading Wikipedia for a while before concluding that something is missing; it might be, but often it's just hidden. WikiWax, and Answers.com help.

[edit] Tactics

• A word can mean whatever you want it to mean by redefining it as something else.
• REDIRECTs themselves are the best place to conceal POV. For instance, Wikipedians have decided that "pedantic" means rigourous.
• If you want to say something controversial you need to find someone who's published the line first; it helps if they are famous, but it doesn't really matter if the quotation is out of context.

[edit] Strategy

Why use talk pages? If an opinion is worth writing it should be made in an article open to the power of Wiki criticism; in this way it can be refined, improved or rejected in an arms race of objectivity. This is not an edit war but a fact-war, in which the weapons of the sophist are:

• Eloquence
• Cross-reference
• citations, counter-citations
• Equations
• Equivocations

[edit] The Wikipedian argot

To decode the phrases in Wragge's articles, mouse hover over the following for translations:

• Ipsedixitisms:
  • It has long been known...
  • It is known...
  • It is believed...
  • It is generally believed...
  • There has been some discussion that...
  • It can be shown...
  • Some say...
  • It has been proven...
• Editorializing:
  • Of great theoretical importance
  • The evidence is inconclusive.
  • It might be argued that...

[edit] Inertial manifesto

Some people say it's more fruitful to document and understand the world than to argue about changing it.

Marx and JFK could dedicate their lives to the opposite position, but Wikipedians like Wragge are amateurs, prefering a NPOV.

"Wikipedia Games" returns no meaningful hits if typed into the search box, but Wikipedia:N degrees of separation is a Wikipedia test of the Small world phenomenon that actually is a game, rather than a quiz, hunt, or experiment.

[edit] reply

Thats OK, it was a pleasure to see someone actually contributing fresh content to the economics section, rather than just endlessy tweaking existing content, not that tweaking isnt helpful! I wouldnt worry about defining terms, obviously you have to draw the line somewhere, but if you do as you see fit then thats fine Bluemoose 14:54, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Bluemoose, I take that as an endorsment of my reasoning.

Cheers, Wragge 14:59, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

[edit] Your opinion...

...on what to do with Solow growth model and Neo-classical growth model, I think they should be merged, 2 names for same thing isnt it? they would compliment each other nicely as one is mainly maths and other is text. Bluemoose 15:04, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi,

Yes - although I don't really know the term "Neo-classical growth model", but both articles seem to be talking about the "Solow growth model" (which David Romer characterizes as essentially modelling growth by assuming it). It looks as thought they should be merged unless anyone can find a way in which they are covering a different topic. In my opinion the weak areas here are:

• Solow residual is almost undefined.
• The solow growth model introduction reads as though long-term changes in living standards are given by capital accumulation, where (I believe) the opposite is true in this economic model: Only productivity changes (coefficient A) can raise per-capita income dramatically in the long run (explaining the stalling of the soviet growth spurt in the early 1960s). I think the Neo-classical growth model article addresses this.
• Endogenous growth theory claims that most economists believe R&D spend increases productivity growth. That's how New growth theory often makes growth endogenous, but the correct level of R&D spending is controversial.

I'm not sure whether "Solow growth model" or "Neo-classical growth model" is the better name for a merged article, because Solow's formula can be converted to make the effectiveness of labour endogenous, where I suppose the neo-classical model specifically precludes that. Do you have a plan?

My suggestion is to combine "Solow growth model", "Neo-classical growth model", together as "Exogenous growth model"; although this is a neologism it is more descriptive than the other two names and makes the distinction between Solow models with and without growth. Wragge 19:54, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

[edit] Notes