Talk:Gold bug

Dubious article

This article seems to consist almost entirely of personal opinion and dubious speculation. But it is a worthwhile topic. DaveApter 09:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Use

The Rocky Mountain News uses the term as early as October of 1892, when Ed Chase, Soapy Smith and others were accused of providing slanderous comments to be circulated prior to the November election.

"The executive committee at its meeting last Saturday, of which an illustration was published Sunday's NEWS, received reports from the subcommittees appointed to blackmail the gamblers, to bulldoze the saloonkeepers by the issuance of capiases, to pack the boarding houses with fraudulent voters, to consider the falsification of returns, to arrange with county clerks for the throwing out of silver tickets, to crowd the court house with heelers and boosters for the prevention of honest registration, to hire thugs and repeaters for use at the polls, to supply slanders and falsehoods to the goldbug organs, and upon the other detals of the great moral movement supervised by Ed Chase, A. M. Stevenson, Bill Hamill, Willy Griffith, Soapy Smith, Willy Evans, Joe Smith, Jack Devine, "Robber Seventh" Eddy and the rest of them." (Rocky Mountain News, October 18, 1892) Digidak 22:07, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

True NPOV on this topic; which will not stand 1 second due to gold bugs!

For other uses, see Talk:Gold bug (disambiguation).

The term gold bug might apply to:

• an investor or speculator who is very bullish in buying the commodity gold, or similarly themed financial products such as junior mining companies, gold certificates, bullion efts, and other derivative instruments related to precious metals (or even potentially rationalizing bitcoin as having some of the same characteristics as gold)
• "bug" to unflatteringly describe a kind of zeal or zealotry; blind to fact or logic, "that creeps or crawls."
• a person, or firm, engaged in the marketing of gold irregardless of price or price action.
• a person who opposes or criticizes the use of fiat currency and supports a return to the use of the Gold Standard or some other currency system based on the value of gold and other hard assets.
• someone who considers one commodity, usually gold, "the appropriate measure of wealth, regardless of the quantity of other goods and services that it can buy".
• A person, often with views summarized above, that subscribes to conspiracy theories relating to gold and silver, frequently including but not limited to, alleged manipulation of the price of precious metals and the supposed disappearance of gold held by the United States Government at Fort Knox. The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) is a small but prominent promoter of such conspiracy theories within the gold bug community. However, such persons are widely dismissed as cranks and their beliefs as fringe by reputable economists, business leaders and government officials.

The concept, in the second sense, was popularized in the 1896 US Presidential Election, when William McKinley supporters took to wearing gold lapel pins, gold neckties, and gold headbands in a demonstration of support for gold against the "silver menace."

POV edits

Adnarkey I just took a look at all of your recent edits. Almost without exception they are clearly POV and poorly sourced or not sourced at all. The opening line changes are probably OK. But everything else is very problematic. The introduction of a dictionary definition for bug... Come on! Zerohedge is not a reliable source. Most of your other edits had no sources. If you disagree please feel free to ask for a second opinion or you can post an RfC. But please don't readd those edits without consensus. Thanks... -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:09, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Much more concise version

Collapsed proposed version by Plotograts (talk · contribs) Jim1138 (talk) 03:49, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
For other uses, see Talk:Gold bug (disambiguation). The term gold bug might apply to: an investor or speculator who is very bullish in buying the commodity gold, or similarly themed financial products such as junior mining companies, gold certificates, bullion efts, and other derivative instruments related to precious metals (or even potentially rationalizing bitcoin as having some of the same characteristics as gold) "bug" to unflatteringly describe a kind of zeal or zealotry; blind to fact or logic, "that creeps or crawls." a person, or firm, engaged in the marketing of gold irregardless of price or price action. The future gold price being in some way tied to an unproven, so far unrealized, and unverifiable, investment thesis that predicts that gold price will rise in time to hyper-inflation destroying the US Dollar. Many people marketing this viewpoint, including Doug Casey,Gonzalo Lira,Bill Murphy, and King World News, derive economic benefit by providing gold bugs with a steady stream of confirmation bias. Conflicts of Interest Jim Sinclair on JS MInesetas CEO of Tanzanian Royalty Exploration Peter Schiff making a case for gold on CNBC and then selling gold investments at Europacific Capital Eric Sprottrecommending gold while at the same time being the principal of Sprott Asset Management ,a firm engaged in the offering of bullion funds and other funds containing junior mining companies Mike Maloney suggesting that "if there is still a US Dollar around it will not be the US Dollar"while marking high margin bullion jewelry (low bullion value), emergency food, and gold and silver coins. Jim Willie advocating the case for gold while selling the Golden Jackass Newsletter References

Neutrality - When being called something is not a good thing.

It might be good to be a gold investor. It might be good to be a gold speculator. It might be good to sell gold as a bullion dealer. It might be good to sell a gold newsletter. It is not a good thing to be a gold bug!

Potential conflicts of interest

• Agree that conflicts of interest is strong, as these are potential conflicts of interest
• Is it ok to recommend a product that you sell or is it disingenuous?
• This is a key whereby a gold bug might be blind to that fact, nevertheless it is fact.
• This is not a living persons biography as well. Even if it was it is demonstrable.
• Reliability of sources in that section; very reliable as they present recommendation and then area of sales
• This relationship is known but avoided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iotablue (talk • contribs) 13:23, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

• Since when is a business person unable to promote their own products or services? That's patently ridiculous. By the way please don't use multiple accounts. That is considered sock puppetry and it is a serious no no on here. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:28, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
• when gold bugs have not considered the connection between marketing and fact. It is called a conflict of interest to be providing "neutral advice" that is in fact biased and will result in buisness.

BLP issues

WP:BLP is very clear: "This page in a nutshell: Material about living persons added to any Wikipedia page must be written with the greatest care and attention to verifiability, neutrality, and avoidance of original research." Sources must describe a person as a gold bug and meet WP:RS. We'd probably need multiple sources. Dougweller (talk) 13:47, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks for your help. I think the article looks pretty good right now and I have removed the maintenance tags. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:30, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

posterity

The term gold bug might apply to:

• An investor or speculator who is very bullish in buying the commodity gold, or similarly themed financial products such as junior mining companies, gold certificates, bullion efts, and other derivative instruments related to precious metals
• A person who opposes or criticizes the use of fiat currency and supports a return to the use of the Gold Standard or some other currency system based on the value of gold and other hard assets.
• Someone who considers one commodity, usually gold, "the appropriate measure of wealth, regardless of the quantity of other goods and services that it can buy".
• A person, often with views summarized above, that subscribes to conspiracy theories relating to gold and silver, frequently including but not limited to, alleged manipulation of the price of precious metals and the supposed disappearance of gold held by the United States Government at Fort Knox. The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) is a small but prominent promoter of such conspiracy theories within the gold bug community. However, such persons are widely dismissed as cranks and their beliefs as fringe by reputable economists, business leaders and government officials.

The concept, in the second sense, was popularized in the 1896 US Presidential Election, when William McKinley supporters took to wearing gold lapel pins, gold neckties, and gold headbands in a demonstration of support for gold against the "silver menace."

• "bug" to unflatteringly describe a kind of zeal or zealotry; blind to fact or logic, "that creeps or crawls."
• a person, or firm, engaged in the marketing of gold irregardless of price or price action.

Notability and Attempted Redirection

This article addresses a term that is widely employed in the financial world and among economists. It is clearly notable. It is not a disambiguation as all of the variations on the term are closely related and apply primarily or exclusively within the context of finance and or economics. No further attempts at deletion by redirection should be made without first securing consensus per WP:BLAR and WP:ATD-R. If consensus cannot be reached and there is a strong feeling that the article does not meet GNG or irretrievably fails some other guideline, then the concerned editor may propose a WP:MERGE or send the article to AfD. Thank you. -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:48, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Ping GliderMaven, Anthony Appleyard, DGG -Ad Orientem (talk) 05:48, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I was asked to take a look; I see no current problems. DGG ( talk ) 08:12, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

A person that collects gold is in no way the same as a nation maintaining a stock of gold to maintain a gold standard. The definitions are trivial and disparate. It's literally like adding 'cow' defined as *a horrible woman* to the cow page; independent of the derogatory nature of that usage, it doesn't belong there. Similarly, having two or more different definitions doesn't belong here. GliderMaven (talk) 11:43, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I respectfully but strongly disagree. It certainly does belong here. The definitions are all closely related, essentially variations, they are well cited and the term is widely employed in the financial world and among economists. The fact that the term can also be used as a pejorative is neither here nor there. We don't exclude subject matter or material because we don't like it. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:34, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Even the article itself admits they're three distinct definitions, so, no.

Look, I'll keep it simple for you. An article is supposed to start with a WP:LEAD that says 'A Gold Bug is ...' and it can't because, as defined in this 'article', isn't even single thing. The article is a dictionary definition of 3 independent definitions of 'gold bug', as such it needs to be either rewritten from scratch, and/or it should be merged into the perfectly good disamb page and merged into other articles. What it cannot do is continue as the current abortion that you are so lamely defending.GliderMaven (talk) 15:53, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Look, I'll keep it simple for you. An article is supposed to start with a WP:LEAD that says 'A Gold Bug' is ... Nonsense. Since when are we limited to a single definition? WP:LEAD establishes no such limitation. If something can mean more than one thing or a combination of things within a specific context, in this case finance and economics then it is fine. Indeed I would say the article would be deeply flawed if it omitted any generally accepted usage that is backed by RS sources. It's perfectly acceptable to cover it all as long as its adequately sourced, which this is. We have all kinds of articles about terms and phrases, as long as there is enough coverage from independent reliable sources to ring the notability bell. Nor are the definitions independent. Suggesting they are is an affront to commonsense. They are all closely related and often overlapping in their usage. If you don't understand this, then that would raise serious questions regarding your competency to be editing articles in this topic area. Finally, NOTDICTIONARY applies to words and phrases that lack independent notability, which this term clearly has. As a rule we do not delete well sourced articles about notable subjects which is what you have been trying to do. Both of the maintenance tags are inapplicable. All of which said, I DO think that the lead needs to be beefed up a bit and more clearly separated form the body of the article. But that's a copy editing issue. I will try and work on that a little later tonight when I have some spare time. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:51, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

WP:LEAD establishes no such limitation- in fact WP:LEAD specifically states that that is the way it is supposed to be. And NOTDICTIONARY applies to every article in Wikipedia including this one. You don't get to make up your own rules. If it violates a rule like that one, then the probability is extremely high that the article will continue to royally suck balls until it follows it. They're not rules that you get fined for violating, the article just sucks if you do. Some of the rules are more subtle than others; this is definitely a more subtle rule.

You might think that they are the same definition, but they really aren't. A gold bug in the economic sense of opposing fiat money is very different from somebody who collects gold items or gold currency. The definitions are independent. Just because somebody collects gold doesn't mean they are against fiat money, and just because they are against fiat money, doesn't mean they collect gold. They may well be correlated, but they're distinct definitions.GliderMaven (talk) 05:05, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

WP is meant to be used. It's not an intellectual exercise in making formal rules. If the best way to cover a confusing range of overlapping meanings is an article, then an article is appropriate. My own feeling is we should be doing this more, instead of trying to fit everything into the disam page format,. DGG ( talk ) 01:18, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

The rules are not there to count the number of angels on the head of a pin, they're there solely to improve articles- and they do. Articles that follow these particular rules are universally better than those that don't. I see nothing about this article that leads me to believe that this article is any different, and on the contrary, right now it's a total mess, and flouting these rules make it very difficult to improve the article. Articles that go this route close off, they stop growing. Where can I add material on people that are against fiat currencies? Nowhere! The article isn't about people, it's only about terminology. If the article has defined the term, there's nothing much more really to add. If I did add it, then it would go beyond the scope of the article, which is clearly terminology. But the reader needs more than a definition. So really, it's incredibly unhelpful to write articles this way. As I say, it's a subtle problem, but it is a real one. Virtually no good articles are written this way.GliderMaven (talk) 05:05, 27 July 2015 (UTC)