Talk:Real-estate bubble

wow, what an excellent article. Kudos. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.96.190.185 (talk • contribs)

Why was the article reverted?

Monkeyman, why was the article reverted on May 11, 2005? Specifically, why were the IMF articles removed? Doesn't it raise the bar to link to scholarly economic sources, instead of a commercial real estate portal? Also, you added back an Economist article that is already listed under the references section. Does it really need to be in there twice? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.96.15 (talk • contribs)

Hi 130.76.96.15. The edits that took place from April 30 to May 5 were horrid. The earliest edit was an addition of a google adsense link. The next edit was a link to www.jparsons.net/house/ which redirected to here which is a dead link. On this edit someone removed one link and gave their's higher priority (one that similarly redirects to http://mysite.verizon.net/vodkajim/housingbubble/ to the other link above). Here the links were shuffled around here for no apparent reason.

In short, the only legitimate edit I saw from April 30 to May 5 was the change from "U.S. housing bubble" to "United States housing bubble" which I added back after my revert to Kevin Taylor. I don't see where I broke the link to United States housing bubble. If I did so, it was unintentional. If you have time please correct it. Also, feel free to add back the IMF links. They must have taken some collateral damage.

Monkeyman^(talk) 23:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I'm the guy who made most of the changes between May 1st and May 6th. I think Monkeyman's comments completely misrepresent the changes I made during that time. While I believe he is well-intentioned, I feel insulted by his depiction of my changes. The google adsense link was added by someone else before me, but please let me defend the changes I made during this period:

1) I noticed that the various real estate bubble articles use a lot of copyrighted material from The Economist. This appears to me to be a violation of U.S. copyright law and Wikipedia's own copyright policy. It may or may not be fair use. I am not a lawyer. I created some inflation-adjusted house price graphs myself and then placed them in the public domain. I didn't want to step on the toes of other Wikipedia editors, and quite frankly I don't know how to add graphics to Wikipedia articles. So, instead of removing existing graphs and replacing them with my own, I added a link to my public domain graphs. I expected that it was most polite to add a link and then let others decide if my content was worthy of inclusion in the article. I have since learned that Wikipedia policy is the opposite of what I expected. Due to problems with spammers, Wikipedia would prefer that people add content, but not add an external link. However, I still need to learn how to add graphics to Wikipedia articles.

2) I removed two links to researchworldwide.com, because the links had nothing to do with real estate bubbles. Perhaps they did in the past, but since they no longer do I removed them. Changes 1 & 2 are reflected here.

3) The next changes I made were to correct the links to United States property bubble. These changes are reflected here.

4) The next change I made was to move my site to the end of the external links, because by this time I had read "How Not to be a Spammer" and I realized that I had unintentionally done wrong. (I would include a link to "How Not to be a Spammer" here, but I can't find it right now. Unfortunately, Wikipedia's collection of rules is a disorganized mess.) "How not to be a spammer" says that each new external link should be added to the end of the list.

5) I also added both of the IMF articles to the external links to make it easier for others to use them as references in the future.

6) Finally, I removed the external link to an Economist article because it is already listed under the references section. You can view changes 4-6 here.

I fully appreciate the hard work Monkeyman is doing to remove spam from Wikipedia, however I hope he will keep two Wikipedia guidelines in mind: Assume Good Faith and Please don't bite the newcomers. JHP 05:12, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi JHP. I'm sorry you felt insulted by my comments, it was not my intention to do so. Sometimes my replies to other editors are curt and this can be mistaken for rudeness on my part. I appreciate your efforts to improve this article and hope you stick around.

Monkeyman^(talk) 16:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

housepricecrash.co.uk

Monkeyman, someone added housepricecrash.co.uk to the external links section again. Is that spam or a legitimate site? How can you tell (besides the fact that it keeps getting added)? JHP 00:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi JHP. There is a section in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Spam called How to identify spam and spammers that I use as a standard for determining whether or not a link is spam. This particular link I removed because it matched the following critera from the list:

1. User is anonymous (an IP address)
2. User:page and/or User_talk:page are red links (it was until I added the spam1 tag)
3. No edit summary (other than, perhaps /* External links */)
4. User has made only one edit, which consisted of inserting a link
6. The majority of user's edits are to external links sections
7. The link is a site that has Google/Yahoo ads (AdSense/SM).
14. User adds links that have been previously removed, without discussing on the talk page.
20. Text of the link goes beyond describing the contents to actively encouraging you to read it. For example, including text such as, "Read more about [subject] in [this fascinating article]" (In this case the editor writes, "a good read")

This paticular link isn't too bad as far as ads go. And I do think they have some content (though I think most of their information is already covered in this Wikipedia article). But the fact that they are unwilling to sign up for an account and discuss the link's merits makes me question their intent.

Monkeyman^(talk) 17:58, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My UK perspective

Please dont take this the wrong way, Monkeyman.

Nice article, but I'm not sure that it is suffiently world rather than US orientated, as most of the various ratios I've never heard of before (despite being involved in housing in the UK for a great many years) and I therefore expect they are in use in the US only - indeed at least one of them only links to USA statistics.

I have added two ratios used in the UK: the rental yield and the Affordability Index. The Affordability Index is published by the Nationwide Building Society and Rowntrees, and when I've got time I will search out these links and add them.

I wrote a dissertation for a master's degree that included evaluating the income/price ratio, and the Building Societys Association (or was it the Council For Mortgage Lenders - cannot remember) economist criticised it by saying it took no account of the actual cost of the mortgage payments (which in the UK usually vary with interest rates), and I agree with him. However it does fluctuate more than the Affordability Index, and thus it helps to add drama and sensation to journalists and book-writers accounts.

Shouldnt the ratios be moved to their own article, Property ratios?

No offence, but I would not have thought that the pop books from the "Rich Dad Poor Dad" author were worth adding to the bibliography, and I have read them.

I've recently read a book about Bubbles by an American banker that includes discussion of UK and US housing bubbles, and when I've found out the name and author will add it.

A seperate comment about rental yields: statistics of these are difficult to get hold of, and it would be great if people would add links to various sites where they can be obtained online.

Thanks. --81.104.12.19 18:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bubble

Calverley, John P., Bubbles and how to survive them, N. Brealey, 2004 ISBN 1857883489

Books in Reference that ought to be deleted

These books, which I have read, have got either nothing or so very little I didnt notice it about housing bubbles, and I think they ought to be deleted:

Robert Kiyosaki (2000). Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money—That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!, New York: Warner Business Books. ISBN 0446677450. Burton R. Malkiel (2004). A Random Walk Down Wall Street, 8th ed., New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. ISBN 0393325350 John Allen Paulos (2003). A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market, New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0465054811.

There may be other books which I have not read which also ought to be removed.

Why no links to news sites?

Hi, why is it unacceptable to link to news sites that maintain daily lists of relevant articles? I noticed a large number of links to blogs and other sites under the United States housing bubble topic, but it looks like there are different rules for this page...?

Thanks.