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spectrum

I took one long "political spectrum" test -- I can out within a millimeter of dead centre <g>, with a rating of 67% Libertarian, 65% Republican and 64% Democrat. Be sure to use a test which has a broad spectrum of options for each question -- some of them seem possible slanted a tad. Collect (talk) 18:31, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I took the Nolan chart test and scored 0,0, i.e., dead center. The problem with these tests is that they determine issues that divide left and right and assume that is what defines them. They probably provide a good guess. No child left behind was mostly supported by liberals so if you support it you are more likely to be a liberal. But similar policies in England and the Canadian province of Ontario were considered right-wing. So the further one gets from people living in the U.S. today, the less accurate the test will be. Still, the chart shows that U.S. Republicans and UK Conservatives are further to the right than their competitors, which shows they have some predictive ability. Incidentally being dead center places one to the left of all four of these parties on the Nolan chart. TFD (talk) 19:47, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Dunno the one you took -- but the one I took gave about 8 choices for each question for about a hundred questions -- pretty much the most detailed one I have seen. I also found a couple of tests with only ten question, three choices per question -- quizzes which seem pretty useless. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:44, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I took one from the Nolan Chart website, it was not as detailed. I would be interested to see what relation there is between scores and how people actually vote. Have you taken Altermeyer's test for right-wing authoritarianism? It's on p. 11 of his book. The relative results for legislators on pp. 201, 208 seem very accurate. TFD (talk) 10:35, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

The one thing I absolutely an mot is "right wing authoritarian" <g> Collect (talk) 13:40, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

The test has a mean of 100 and very low scores are significant as well. It is similar to one of the two axes on the 2-dimensional spectrum. Altemeyer said that libertarians generally scored low but in the U.S. at least, there was also a correlation between RWA and economic attitudes. So someone could score low and vote right, and vice versa. TFD (talk) 20:30, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

If a score has no predictive value about positions at all, is it really a particularly good value to look at? Collect (talk) 22:07, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

It has predictive value. In the Canadian example, all the left-wing caucuses scored below 100, while all the right-wing caucuses scored above. with a gap of more than 30. For the U.S. with a 2-party system the correlation was still striking. Of course the correlation is only 80%. TFD (talk) 23:49, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Ref for the "80% correlation" and its context -- like with what is the correlation? Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:48, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Altemeyer wrote, "If you look at just the New Democrats’ and the conservatives’ scores on the RWA scale, party affiliation correlated .82 on the average with authoritarianism...." (p. 207) For U.S. legislators, where there are only two parties, the correlation was 44%. Obviously this is not the only correlation, but it is one of them. TFD (talk) 01:54, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

A "correlation of .44" is basically just above pure chance -- and .82 is not all that much better. When 20% or more of a sample falls outside what is predicted, the utility of that measurement is not all that great. Cheers. Collect (talk) 02:15, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Over 70% is a strong correlation, 30-40% is weak to moderate, and 0% is no correlation. Of course it is only one correlation. There are other factors that make one decide to run as a socialist rather than a Tory. TFD (talk) 02:32, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

If the study were solid numerical measurements -- the .44 is still not very good. See OpenU on "correlations"

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Thanks, A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:52, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Rob Ford

Thanks for the revert, but I have to say... 300,264 kb worth of 'crack' is pretty hilarious.

Cheers. CaffeinAddict (talk) 06:08, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Austrian economics opened

You were recently listed as a party to a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Austrian economics. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Austrian economics/Evidence. Please add your evidence by February 8, 2014, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Austrian economics/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Ks0stm 01:50, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Fleet / MacMillan

Hello TFD. I didn't want to prolong the RSN thread unduly, because I believe that the content issue has been resolved there. However, I have tried to replicate your research indicating that Fleet Publishing Corporation was acquired by MacMillan, and I am unable to do so. I found a single volume, published by Fleet, in a third party bibliography with the "MacMillan" in parentheses. Is that the sole basis of your conclusion that Fleet was acquired by MacMillan? Fleet appears to have been a very small independent press and much of its output seems to have been reprints of out-of-copyright old material. There is nothing to suggest that such a company would be of interest to a global publisher such as MacMillan. Is there some further basis for your view, or could it be that you made an unwarranted conclusion in this case? Thanks for any clarification you can offer. SPECIFICO talk 01:06, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Apparently there was a second company set up by Doris Schiff, "Fleet Academic Editions", which is cited in 2,600 books in Google books. I don't hear any alarm bells in looking at the titles. TFD (talk) 04:35, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 04:46, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

East Germany

I'm just reminding participants that East Germany fall within the scope WP:Discretionary sanctions per Arbcom here. Please see recent comments at talk:East Germany. Thanks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:03, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Greetings TFD. I wonder whether the excitable participant 184.145.64.67 (London, Ontario) = 184.145.67.28 (London, Ontario) = indef block-evading sockpuppeteer R-41. Writegeist (talk) 11:43, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Well spotted. I have set up an SPI here. TFD (talk) 19:18, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Notice of a discussion that may be of interest to you

There is a Split proposal discussion on the Gun politics in the U.S. talk page that may be of interest to you. Lightbreather (talk) 04:34, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Arbcom talk evidence thread

Hello TFD. I am surprised and disappointed that you have been making false disparaging remarks about me on this thread, here . These comments are going to be read by Arbcom who have little prior knowledge of the AE articles and who will rely on the writings on the Arbcom case pages for facts and context with which to interpret evidence. I'd appreciate it if you would strike the statements you later acknowledged to be false. I view you as an editor who cares about policy on WP and certainly one of our most important policies is to be civil and not to misrepresent other editors' work here. If you think I've misunderstood what happened on that thread, please help me to understand better. Otherwise, please do the right thing and help dial down the personal tone of what should be a discussion of content and policy. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 14:01, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Probably better to continue the discussion here. Before replying could you please read Rothbard's article, [http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch5.html "Right-Wing Populism" (1992). In 1991, Duke was able to obtain the Republican nomination by abandoning the KKK platform and running on a populist conservative/libertarian platform. That is accepted as a fact not only by Rothbard, but by observers across the political spectrum.

What is in dispute is the sincerity of the conversion. As Rothbard wrote, "...the Establishment...refus to believe in the sincerity of David Duke's conversion."

When you say "Rothbard endorsed the right-wing populism of former KKK leader David Duke", you are implying that he supported the explicit racism of the KKK. That is a guilt by association argument used ironically by right-wing populists themselves. McCarthy used the tactic and today the same sort of people try to user the fact that Obama knew Ayers to link him to terrorism.

Of course, as Rothbard says, the mainstream did not accept that Duke had changed. Duke though set a pattern for the far right to take off their jackboots and put on blue suits. Hence the relative electoral success of neo-fascist parties such as the BNP. In fact there is an interesting video here in which BNP leader Nick Griffin, standing beside David Duke, explains that the far right should use "saleable words". "Nobody can attack you on those ideas."

If there were an anaylsis of Rothbard's essay in a rs, it might say something like this. "Duke was able to win the Republican nomination by using language that would resonate with conservatives and libertarians, rather than the old language of the Ku Klux Klan, which was explicitly racist. However this "conversion" was insincere and made for tactical reasons. Rothbard wrongly accepted the conversion at face value. Rothbard's tactic of reaching out to "rednecks", both in this article and in his later support of the Buchanan campaign, were seen by many as a betrayal of libertarianism. For others it was merely confirmation that the libertarian movement was inherently reactionary."

Unfortunately the sources are not there, and OR prevents us from writing that. As you are no doubt aware, even the best-sourced most neutrally worded statement about right-wing populism in America is likely to be challenged if there is a 0.0% chance that it could put them in a negative light, so only edits that meet content policy are likely to last long. However, with your qualifications, there is nothing stopping you from publishing an article about the relationship between Duke and Rothbard. Then we would have an rs.

TFD (talk) 20:18, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi thanks for the reply. If you'd been as clear on the initial discussion threads, we'd have saved a lot of back and forth and to be frank a lot of chatter from other editors who are not as knowledgeable and thoughtful as you. Just to be clear, I have never stated or even come close to insinuating that Rothbard was a racist or that he loved racism. From what the reliable sources tell us, it appears that he found it useful to build support for his far broader movement by courting many diverse constituencies, and some of those may have been hard-core KKK types. But we don't ask any institution, political or academic, or even the Red Cross to shun contributions from those whose views may be problematic. Anyway, my only remaining concern is that we not inflame or confuse the situation on these contentious articles. Part of that is taking the time to be clear and complete, and another important part is not to think or speak in terms of groups of editors. For example, I've several times been referred to as part of some sort of hydra or collective with Steeletrap and/or MilesMoney when in fact the record is quite clear that there is no more correlation among our views as there would be if the views of e.g. Carolmooredc and Srich or Binksternet were compared.

That's my 2 cents. Thanks again for the clear reply. SPECIFICO talk 20:32, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Queen Elizabeth talk page

Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Misplaced Pages. Your edits appear to constitute vandalism and have been reverted or removed. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Administrators can block users from editing if they repeatedly vandalize. Thank you. 69.165.134.154 (talk) 23:39, 2 February 2014 (UTC)