Talk:Human Action

Goal of the page

What is the goal of the stub? --Reserved 07:48, 29 December 2010 (CST)

Do you mean {{stub}}? It is used to mark short articles or articles without much prose. All pages that have {{stub}} on them are added to a category, Category:Article stubs, so they can be found easily. --Forgottenman (talk) 07:55, 29 December 2010 (CST)

No, I want to ask for the goal of that site at all. I cannot identify the further aim of the stub. The mises.org page contains already the content. --Reserved 08:16, 29 December 2010 (CST)

There are many opportunities. Yes, the full text is available elsewhere, but summaries of key arguments might make it more accessible to students (see William Smith's speech of February 25, 1830, for example—it's much easier to read that article than the original 50-page speech). Doing this would also allow us to compare and contrast Mises's views with those of Menger, Rothbard, Hoppe, and other Austrians, specifically referencing those different views. Besides this, obviously, we could include publication history and other information about the work itself. --Forgottenman (talk) 08:25, 29 December 2010 (CST)

Should mises.org content become rewritten in wiki format? What is about redundancy? --Reserved 09:04, 29 December 2010 (CST)

Its not redundant because its a wiki--you can click through topics at will. You can not do that in the *.pdf of Human action or the online version (you can click through Mises footnotes but not through worlds like "capital" or "evenly rotating economy").

I plan to work more on this page: should I go though by chapter (as I began to do) and cut it down later? Any suggestions? Its a lot of material and, frankly, I am new at this. Huckelberry 14:22, 6 February 2011 (CST)

New format

Am liking the new format so far. :) Will keep watching. Also tried narrowing the table of contents, as the long titles make it a little unwieldy. Adjustments welcome. -- RayBirks 15:18, 13 February 2011 (CST)

I think the code for narrowing the table of contents put it in the middle of the page instead of making it narrower. So I fixed that but I want to narrow it as well (if anyone knows the right code let us know!). The table of contents is a problem.. and it will only be getting longer I suspect. The page might need a different format in the long run. Huckelberry 16:34, 13 February 2011 (CST)

Acting Man - please test new lesson format

I have added a lesson which is new formated based on mises.org resources. You may discuss, if it could be useful or not. --84.60.253.91 13:36, 14 February 2011 (CST)

Right place of a link

"I have added a lesson which is new formated based on mises.org resources. You may discuss, if it could be useful or not. --84.60.253.91 13:36, 14 February 2011 (CST)"

I moved it down to the links section. Huckelberry 16:32, 14 February 2011 (CST)

Why? When I would have more lessons, do you would move them all to the links section? The link section is for further information. The task is to prove if the format would be an improvement or a useful choice of the study guide format. --84.60.253.91 16:58, 14 February 2011 (CST)

I am not sure where the best place for them would be honestly. They seem to fall under the category of "further information." Specifically since they are lessons associated with the text--the page being specifically for the text. Yet, the link would work on the page for Action in addition to this one. I personally think the best place for the links is further information--however I'm still new to this and the older members might have a better idea. -- Huckelberry 18:10, 14 February 2011 (CST)

The link contains just Human Action - Acting Man. It makes no sense to move it elsewhere because you are losing the direct connection. The link section is suited for resources about HA at all. In Action, I would place it just at #Links because it would be further info about action at all. --84.60.253.91 18:48, 14 February 2011 (CST)

Links to outside sites are at the bottom. I understand why you want it after Action, yet it doesn't seem right in a wiki. I'm sorry. --Huckelberry 23:32, 16 February 2011 (CST)

Are you enforcing the Wikipedia Guidelines? Links can have another meaning here. Links to Mises resources are quasi InterMisesLinks instead of InterWikiLinks. Please, read what is said about the MisesWiki and don't disturb other users when they are only doing their job:

Mises Wiki is still in its developmental stages, and as such, it does not have firm rules. Its parent, the Mises Institute, remains its guiding force. Its Editorial Vice-President has said, "We don't want an encyclopedia only and we don't want just opinion pieces. We want [Mises Wiki] 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." There is also hope that this wiki can eventually come to replace major sections of Mises.org itself. --84.60.220.190 12:50, 17 February 2011 (CST)

I put it back. I was merely making an aesthetic and organizational judgment. You should create an account, it will allow the community to get to know you better and allow us all to develop together. --Huckelberry 17:26, 17 February 2011 (CST)

Perhaps we can avoid any unhappiness by mentioning this topic generically in the Commons area to get many points of view. I see points on both sides and at the moment lean in the direction of diverging from the norm of the mainstream wiki and indicating the link to the specifically-related lesson close to the text summary. However, there may be other angles of which I am not aware. Now who can point out the issue most objectively without tipping his hand?? A lesson for the student. :) --RayBirks 13:56, 17 February 2011 (CST)

Good idea. And I can't make the judgment. --Huckelberry 17:26, 17 February 2011 (CST)

The rationale for de-emphasizing external links is that doing so prioritizes Mises Wiki content. There are a variety of reasons for this: a) we can't control content on someone else's website (links could break, material could change); b) we have the ability to build resources as good or better than things available off-wiki; and c) we want our readers to stay here and become contributors.

That said, we want to be helpful to readers who are looking for more information; that's why we include a links section. We put it at the bottom because we want readers to start here and not leave unless they have to, and because we don't want to act as a mere link farm for other people's websites. --Forgottenman (talk) 20:52, 17 February 2011 (CST)

I've created MisesWiki:Links, which includes a few other thoughts and provides a forum (its talk page) for further discussion. --Forgottenman (talk) 21:08, 17 February 2011 (CST)

New rules? I have no time and power to fight against new rules springing up like mushrooms. I put links intuitive what seems to be correct for me. When an external link is broken or its content, or not useful - so what? Delete it! I see no reason that an article section shouldn't have its own suited links. I see no reason that (external/internal?) Mises.org resources shouldn't be used like InterWikiLinks as long as there is no better wiki solution. The task is another here, i.e. to deliberate about whether the used lesson format could be useful to improve the mises.org pool. (But I have a friend who will maybe ask Mr. Murphy himself.) --84.60.195.116 06:37, 18 February 2011 (CST) (your blocked user Reserved, don't know for what)

It's not a rule until it gains widespread acceptance; right now it's just a collection of thoughts.

Maintenance of external links is a real chore, and, not surprisingly, it's very common for non-contributors to add less-than-helpful links to wiki pages. Keeping them organized in one section is just one step toward simplifying the difficult task of maintenance.

Mises.org resources are "technically" external links but I agree that they are an interesting case. In general I think they should be kept in the "Links" section, above links to other websites.

Lesson-format material is wonderful: such contributions to this wiki are welcome. In the long run we'll have to figure out how best to organize things, but there's no reason that I can think of that would make us want to not include such material here. --Forgottenman (talk) 08:15, 18 February 2011 (CST)

Note: this anonymous user is actually our combative friend User:Reserved, who was blocked at the request of the Mises Institute. I've blocked the IP range he has been using to prevent further circumvention of this block. --Forgottenman (talk) 09:37, 18 February 2011 (CST)

Combative indeed. Thanks for getting involved, I was surprised by his vigor. --Huckelberry 14:39, 18 February 2011 (CST)