User talk:FrankTobia

Frequenty viewed economics articles

This is a reply to a question you asked on the mathematics project talk page about Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Frequently viewed/List. I created that list based on article viewing statistics that have been released by the server admins. One interface to these is the site http://stats.grok.se. I used a list of all mathematics articles, together with that data, to make the list of frequently viewed math articles, and I plan to update it occasionally (every few months, if I remember). I don't mind setting up the same thing for economics. Unless you have a list of all economics articles somewhere, I will use the list of economics articles that are listed in the WP 1.0 assessment tables. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Utility

I'm writing here in response to your question about a book covering utility theory. I've always liked Varian's Micro Theory texts - you can pick whichever seems to be at the best level for you. For something a little more challenging, there's Riubinsteins Lecture notes in Microeconomic Theory: The Economic Agent. For a historical look, the article on Utility in the New Palgrave is good. Best, JohnJQ (talk) 05:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: Featured Article Drive status

I'm not sure anymore. I think you should take the lead as I don't have as much time for WP:ECON :) I'll certainly follow your lead, though. Gary King (talk) 06:56, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

general discussion

In regards to your warnings about editing and removing information from articles and a threat of blocking access to editing - please note that, depending on the IP, it may be one of thousands, as the changes are coming from users at a Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, a large company in Rochester, NY. For example, I have a warning regarding editing an article on hot dogs - I have never visited that page, and have never made changes. However, in regards to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute page, the 'source' that was given regarding the first undergraduate video game design degree was not only from RPI itself, but did not even provide proof. It simply says that they believe they might have the first in the country. I am not certain, but I do believe that the Rochester Institute of Technology had the first undergrad degree in game design, though I cannot find a source to back it up. So regardless, the article should not contain that information. Sorry if this is the incorrect place to discuss this, I am not an avid Wikipedia person.

I saw your comments on Federal Reserve System (interesting new history to me, btw). It made me wonder if there is a good way to branch of general discussions. I know WP isn't meant to be like that, but posting questions on an article's talk page seems an obvious way to try to get expert response. Cretog8 (talk) 17:19, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a good question, and I'm not sure I have a good answer. A possible solution to the problem of new users constantly asking the same Fed-conspiracy-type questions is developing a FAQ (Template:FAQ) that we can put at the top of the page. As for a place to branch more general discussions, I think we could offer WP:ECON and its talk page as a possible place for it. At least, I can't see why that would be a bad idea. I don't mind when people ask such general questions on a talk page, but it becomes problematic when 1) the discussions keep going, and 2) the same questions keep being raised. If you think these are good ideas, we can try implementing them. Let me know. -FrankTobia (talk) 00:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure. It's frustrating when the same questions keep coming up, so having some kind of FAQ (or index to discussion history?) might be useful. At the same time, if it's on any moderately-controversial topic that might just introduce a new place for endless debate. I'm going to avoid boldness on this one, at least for the time being. Cretog8 (talk) 00:52, 24 July 2008 (UTC)