Content deleted Content added

Inline

Revision as of 20:01, 31 May 2014

Welcome to the miscellaneous section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

Shortcut

WP:RD/M

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

How can I get my question answered?

Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
Note:
- We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
- We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
- We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
- We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

May 25

County officials

Who is ahead or above the clark county, Washington code enforcement officer, ? Who do they have to answer to ? Or who is their boss? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Salinia50 (talk • contribs) 00:27, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That would be Martin Snell. Marco polo (talk) 00:35, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How is Kawasaki ninja 250 different from its new version with twin headlight?

Zonex shrestha (talk) 03:52, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Re Wiki Post of Amanda Todd

Rerouting to Talk:Suicide_of_Amanda_Todd#Hanged_vs_.27found_dead.27. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:52, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I have spoken with family of Amanda Todd. They have been un able to edit. A UK paper stated Amanda hung herself and seems so many rolled with it afterwards. That is all assumption as it was never released how she took her own life. Why can't they edit something as serious as that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reportamandatruth (talk • contribs) 04:11, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Context: Suicide of Amanda Todd —Tamfang (talk) 06:35, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia just summarizes outside sources, we're not a journalistic organization. We don't report the truth, just what other sources have printed. Sorry, but Wikipedia isn't the place to fix this. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:23, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It would be better to say that we report what we hope is the truth. That's why "reliable" sources are required. In this sad case, the OP would need to find suitable sources which contradict what the article says, otherwise what it is is the best we can do. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:47, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I found a reliable source stating that the cause of death was not released, and I updated the article a few minutes ago. It's unfortunate when mainstream news media publish incorrect information, or rumours/misinformation that is poorly sourced. However, those are the sources we have to work with. At least in this situation, I was able to find a source with better information. OttawaAC (talk) 16:11, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've further edited it to confine any mention of hanging to the Investigation section. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:01, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But I've been reverted. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:38, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

By someone crying censorship. But what's the practical difference between "reportedly" and "rumored"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:02, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that a newspaper/news website can publish just about any information credited to an anonymous source, and it's up to the readers to decide if the newspaper is reliable and worth taking at face value. It's not unusual for law enforcement members, or other people connected with an investigation, to speak off the record. What they say may or may not be accurate. Unfortunately, with the mad rush to be the first out with a story, it seems like more news outlets are publishing rumours, which they often have to correct in short order. In this case, we don't know the exact facts, because they haven't been released by the coroner in detail. That hasn't stopped a lot of news outlets from running with speculation. OttawaAC (talk) 22:18, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Of the two sources cited about hanging, only one actually say anything about hanging, and it doesn't even say "reportedly", it states it as a fact. So, the question is, is that particular source a valid source? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:32, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I moved the source that mentions hanging down to the relevant sentence in the Investigation section. I edited the sentence that I had previously qualified with "reportedly", to remove the reference to hanging. We'll see whether or not those changes stick. I think they should, since they more accurately reflect the info in the sources cited now. OttawaAC (talk) 01:27, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And...I got reverted for "Undue". How bogus. One or the other source for that statement on "hanging" is inaccurate; one mentions it, one doesn't. The statement should accurately reflect the information in the sources cited. Period. I reverted the revert, and will now take a break from this topic til tomorrow to avoid an edit war. If anyone else wants to join me, I'll probably be requesting edit changes on the Talk page tomorrow. OttawaAC (talk) 01:39, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring to putting weight onto that one source when there are numerous that mention it explicitly by hanging. 5 sources v 1 and choosing to go with that 1 would be pretty unreasonable. (Unless it came from TIME and the other sources were probably blogs, then it would be right) Tutelary (talk) 01:50, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A somewhat related question. Aren't the coroner's report and the autopsy report matters of public record? Or no? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:46, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A coroner can order that their findings not be released, and I couldn't find the coroner's written findings on the BC gov't website. It may be because there is an ongoing investigation, but I don't know. There was no autopsy. [1] OttawaAC (talk) 01:00, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks. I was not aware of those details. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:38, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I am the editor that reverted the attempt to change 'hanged' to 'found dead'. What ultimately is the deciding policy is WP:Verifiability. Wikipedia operates on the status of verifiability, not truth. We cannot take primary sources in this situation, as they wouldn't be sourced to anything. However, if reliable sources were to report on a public announcement that she had not hung herself, we would be able to use those references to verify that and get it changed. I ultimately do not have a vendetta against changing it to 'found dead', but I go by what is written in the sources. The vast majority of the reliable sources explicitly mention hanged so that's what we were using. I have no qualms to considering other sources, giving that they'd be reliable. Albeit a public announcement would probably get the attention of reliable sources, which in turn could be used. Tutelary (talk) 01:50, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just because something is verifiable as being published by some supposedly reliable sources doesn't make it trustworthy. You should always question where and how those sources got their information, to evaluate how much confidence you can have in their reporting. I understand that's not always possible, but that doesn't change the fact that the question needs to be asked. You also need to question whether multiple sources got their information from the same source. If they got their information from the same source, then consistent reporting by multiple sources is not corroboration. The OP seems to be suggesting that the widely reported account is wrong, without saying what the truth is. If the OP's connection to the victim's family is true, that's strong reason to question the accuracy of the details reported in news sources. "Being found dead" is consistent with "hanged", but less specific. How much diligence have you done before you decided that you could confidently stick with the "hanged" description? --108.16.202.209 (talk) 03:33, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia operates on verifiability. We need to be able to make sure that content is not just made up. We do not establish original research on Wikipedia. The only way to prove an edit is not original research is to provide a source for it. Ultimately, we go by what the sources say. If we're attempting to establish fact that she was not hanged, there needs to be a source for it. Personally contacting the family and asking whether she was hanged would be constituting original research. What would not be original research would be them releasing a statement on the true cause of death, reliable sources reporting on that, and then using those sources. The fact of the matter is that a good amount of sources have said that she was found to be hanged, and that's what I attempted to make consistent with the article. I am more than ready to question sources brought to the matter, and am patiently awaiting the bringing of sources to this discussion. I've already made a small list of the ones which describe her as being found to be hung on the talk page of the article. Tutelary (talk) 04:09, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If the coroner's report was not released, where did that source get the story about how she died? Has any published source stated where they got that alleged info? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:05, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, and frankly, it doesn't matter, because we go on what the sources say. Even if they're wrong, that's the tenant on Verifiability policies. You can propose a change and hope that within the RfC and everybody thinks it's a good idea, you can get that changed. However, as it sits, as long as a reliable source says it, that's what we go with. We can't insert original research into articles, either. (Though I acknowledge that it does not apply to talk pages.) My own edit inserting 3 reliable sources for the 'hanged' comment have been removed and reverted and I have attempted to discuss this on the talk page, yet no response as of yet. Tutelary (talk) 17:05, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

While being in a published source is a requirement, it is not a ticket to inclusion. If there has been no official cause of death released, any source alleging to know the cause of death is automatically suspect. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:20, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It does not matter. As long as the source is reliable, we go by what it says. My UNDUE comment was referring to the use of one source when a good amount of sources contradict that one source is putting undue weight onto that source. This discussion should be happening on the talk page, not here. Tutelary (talk) 18:32, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We are not slaves to sources, and if something is doubtful we don't include it. If the manner of death has not been released to the public, how can there be any "reliable" source for the manner of death? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:15, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, we are. That's why no original research was enacted, so that we would have to explain and backup our additions with reliable sources. The only way to prove an edit is not original research is to provide a reliable source for that edit. As it sits, the notice of how 'some media reported X', and then saying 'but the official cause of death was not released' is not original research, but is instead putting undue weight into that one source. Additionally, I am not going to entertain your request for the search of why media outlets reported it as a hanging. You can do that as you want, but any edits to the article must be reliably sourced. Tutelary (talk) 19:31, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You're failing to make an important distinction here. The no-original-research thing says we can't have material not supported by reliable sources. It does not say that we must have material just because it is supported by such sources. If we have doubts about the veracity of a source, it is sometimes reasonable to leave it out. News articles in general are relatively low-quality sources.

There is no question of "undue weight". Undue weight is an issue when sources disagree. But the sources do not disagree. Some of them make more specific claims than others; as far as I'm aware, there is no point where they make incompatible claims. It is not necessarily unreasonable to defer including the more specific claims, and stick with the more general ones, while awaiting higher-quality sources such as books. --Trovatore (talk) 19:44, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is a distinction, and the latter is what has happened. There are innumerable sources that state specifically that hanging was the cause of death. The current formulation of the sentence as it sits is

The cause of death was reported in some media as hanging.[20][21][22][23] However, the exact cause of death has not been released.[24]

There is too much weight put into that one source (24) while the other 4 directly contradict it. Using 'some' is also a weasel word but that's not the majority of the problem. Additionally, the word 'hanging' has been scrubbed out of at least 4 different places in the article, under what I would consider censorship. I am more than willing to go and participate at WP:DRN over this. Tutelary (talk) 19:53, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are you arguing that the coroner's report has been released? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:40, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to commit original research to find out. You can do that on your own time. Tutelary (talk) 19:53, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Editors have been known to hide behind the citation rules in order to force a particular viewpoint into an article. You can't just count sources like a scorecard, as they often emanate from a single source, and often not a reliable one either. For example, when Michael Jackson died, there were many news outlets reporting it - but the source for each was TMZ, which is not regarded as reliable, and it was kept out of the Wikipedia article. Once the story was independently confirmed, it became valid to include it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:09, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Googling the matter, I am hard pressed to find any reliable sources claiming she hanged herself. They mostly simply say "committed suicide". So, to claim a specific method requires cherry-picking of sources that make that claim. That is true "undue weight". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:22, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you're implying I'm a POV pusher, I'd like formally beseech that you focus on the content, not the contributor. Additionally, what you're referring to is considered a 'questionable' source. WP:QUESTIONABLE. The four sources listed are not considered questionable sources, and have editorial control, which is why they're considered reliable. No matter how I see it, putting 'some media' in that context and scrubbing out all mentions of hanging except for that single section is WP:UNDUE. In addition to your response, please provide the sources, as I have already provided mine on the talk page. Talk:Suicide_of_Amanda_Todd#Hanged_vs_.27found_dead.27. Tutelary (talk) 20:26, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you've cherry-picked sourcing to support a viewpoint, then something's wrong. One item I noticed near the top of the google list is this one, from ABC News, which doesn't say anything about hanging. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:33, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I am going to ask you to stop commenting on the contributor. Also, Google search results are ultimately filtered in a filter bubble based on your last search queries which you cannot turn off. I have not cherry picked sourcing, and I am going to ask you one more time to stop commenting on the contributor. Tutelary (talk) 20:35, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's a comment that POV-pushers often try to hide behind, so you'll have to do better than that. So, tell me, why do the sources that assert a particular method of death outweigh those that don't? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:41, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do not call or implicate me as a POV pusher, as I will consider it a personal attack. Anywho, it's because of the quantity of them. See the talk page of the article. Tutelary (talk) 20:46, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did. Your sources are not reliable. They're tabloids, i.e. "scandal sheets". Find some proper news organizations making the same assertions, and you might have something. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:49, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How is banning guns in U.S. going to work, exactly?

This has become a political discussion and exchange of opinions; let's all give it a break. - AlexTiefling (talk) 22:05, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I don't want to start a debate about the second amendment. That is not the purpose of the reference desk. My question is ONLY about the practical/logistical aspects of a gun ban that pro-gun control people seem to crave. How is it going to work.

Let us assume, temporarily, for the purpose of this question: guns are bad for society; permissive gun laws lead to murders; it is in society's interest to ban guns; a national gun ban is going to be passed by Congress, and the local governments will be on board with it as well and won't defy the federal government.

What, then, are we going to do with the millions of people in the US who already have legal guns? Do we, as right-wing anti-gun-control people fear, send out armed government agents to round up and confiscate all guns? Or do we have sort of a grandfather clause that states that if you already have a gun, that's fine, but people aren't allowed to buy any *new* guns? If the latter, how does that prevent any gun murders? There would still be plenty of legal guns floating around. If the former... yeah, good luck with that.

I am looking for a sensible and concise outline of how the proposed gun ban is going to work. Thank you.--24.228.94.244 (talk) 23:34, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you're going to get an answer to this without a debate. My short answer: you would not get a Congress that would pass such a law without greater social change on this topic than there has been. A society that elected such a Congress would be a lot more willing to give up guns, and to accept a degree of state interference with gun ownership. If you want to see a worked example, look at the increasing strictness of UK gun laws over the past 40 years. AlexTiefling (talk) 23:39, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Alex, I agree you would have to completely change society to get this to work. US has a different culture and history from UK. But doesn't someone out there have a plan on how the gun ban is going to work in *this* society?--24.228.94.244 (talk) 23:44, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To the person who hastily collapsed my question and said we don't do "debate" or "predictions" on the reference desk, let me clarify. I'm not asking for YOUR predictions. I'm asking what pro-gun control organizations' plan is. Every good organization/political movement has a plan. Pro gun control organizations are real, not hypothetical. What is their plan for how a gun ban would work? Thanks.--24.228.94.244 (talk) 23:41, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's not what you originally asked. And the tone of your '...yeah, good luck with that' in your original post belies your attempt at neutrality. Want to know what gun-control organisations say? Go and read their own literature. AlexTiefling (talk) 23:45, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Reference desk doesnt demand that the tone of the question be neutral. If it does, I'm sorry for not following that rule. Could you help me find some of the literature where their plans are outlined? Please be specific and show me what parts of the literature explain the answer to my specific question. Thanks.--24.228.94.244 (talk) 23:46, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It may not be a rule that you have to phrase your question neutrally, but had you done so it wouldn't look like your question is just a rhetorical question framing an ignorant strawman argument in an attempt to induce cognitive dissonance in yourself rather than try to understand what other people reasonably believe.

There are no serious attempts by legitimate and powerful gun control groups to completely ban all guns overnight ever in the US. Anyone who has seriously thought about the subject knows better. Do some gun control advocates wish we could get rid of them overnight? Yes, but they know that's not going to happen just as much as most people know the average citizen is never going to buy an M60 machine gun (or need to, for that matter). Restricting and reducing the sales of guns based on their capabilities, where they're bought, and who's buying them]? Sure. Gun buyback programs? Sure. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:01, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Presently, I am deeply skeptical that a gun ban would work. That's why I sounded very sarcastic. That doesn't mean I'm not open minded or willing to entertain attempts to change my mind. I don't even like guns, by the way. I just know America loves their guns and won't give them up easily. Thank for trying to contribute. to answering my question, and I will read up on some of the programs you linked to.--24.228.94.244 (talk) 00:04, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You're being skeptical about something that no one advocates. That's why you're coming across as close-minded. You're not presenting something that doesn't exist as the beliefs of gun control advocates. You're lying to yourself about what they believe, and asking people to argue in defense of something no one believes. It's no different than a gun control advocate asking why the NRA supports shoot babies and the elderly with bazookas. 00:12, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

It's true no one advocates banning ON ALL GUNS immediately and I've not encountered anyone who thinks it's feasible to start taking people's guns away. But I've been reading the news, and some newsworthy people have stated that they believe strict gun control laws will prevent mass shootings (even shootings that don't involve semi automatic weapons) and that we NEED to start passing these laws to save lives. I am just looking for more information on how these stricter laws are going to reduce the number of legal guns, especially in so-called red states. How is that going to happen?--24.228.94.244 (talk) 00:19, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you can't see the tone problem with comments like this, I can't help you. I've already told you - if you want to know what gun control organisations say, go and check their own publications. This is not the place for what is blatantly a debate. Now I'm off to sleep in a country which has about one firearms massacre a decade. AlexTiefling (talk) 00:21, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did check their publications; I didn't find anything terribly informative in terms of reducing the number of legal guns on the streets. But people at the reference desk are good at looking up facts that I'm unable to find, so that's why I came here.--24.228.94.244 (talk) 00:24, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

One might also have thought the USA hated marijuana and same-sex marriage, but times change. Heck, 90 years ago one might have supposed the USA hated alcohol, too. What loud politicians say, for or against gun control, is no guide to subtle shifts in public sentiment. AlexTiefling (talk) 00:17, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A constructive response here is to suggest a look at a country that relatively recently brought in much more restrictive gun control laws than it used to have. See Gun politics in Australia. In particular, after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, the country was ready for much stronger restrictions on gun ownership. The conservative government led the way. Eighteen years on, gun laws are not an issue. HiLo48 (talk) 01:00, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

thanks, I didn't think about Australia, and I read the article now. I was a bit confused by the category A/category B stuff. How hard is it to get a handgun in Australia compared to getting a hunting rifle? And do people conclude that the drop in gun violence is attributable to the restrictions on handguns, or on more powerful semiautomatic weapons, or to something else?--24.228.94.244 (talk) 01:30, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, what was the estimated compliance rate on the mandatory gun buyback in Australia?--24.228.94.244 (talk) 01:38, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what people conclude because, as I said above, it has become a non-issue. Hardly anybody ever even discusses the issue now. We haven't had a mass shooting since 1996. As for handguns, as I understand it, apart from law enforcement people, only gun club members (target shooters) can own handguns, and the guns must be stored separately from ammunition. There was a lot of objection to the buyback initially, but when people realised they could get cash for guns they hardly ever used, and which would become illegal, it became quite popular. HiLo48 (talk) 01:43, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see. And plenty of people still own hunting weapons, correct? It would seem that, due to their difficulty to conceal, that it would be a lot harder to commit a mass shooting with a hunting weapon (though there have been cases in the US, like that guy who climbed the belltower, and the elemnatry school kids in Arkansas, etc.)--24.228.94.244 (talk) 01:53, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not many city people own hunting weapons, and most Australians live in big cities. Country folk have shotguns for killing foxes and rabbits, but it's not a big part of the population. Hunting is not a big activity in Australia. HiLo48 (talk) 08:41, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You might also want to look at Gun politics in the United Kingdom, since (as that article states) "The UK has one of the lowest rates of gun homicides in the world." --Viennese Waltz 10:21, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The answer to the OP's question is, "It won't" work. No serious discussion of banning guns is going on here. The issue is "regulation" of guns - such as how or if it's possible to keep guns out of the hands of lunatics, like that guy in California the other day. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:00, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well quite. Even lefties like me who can't think of many good moral reasons for people to own guns don't think it's sensible (or necessarily right) for a government to say "OK, guns are banned". Things that might work would include a more stringent licensing regime, more narrowly defined categories of legal firearms, and more closely vetted sales. It's still legal to own certain guns, under certain circumstances, here in the UK - and yes, there are still homicides with legally owned firearms. But it's unthinkable that a government would just up and ban something that so many people already have. (Well, I already mentioned alcohol prohibition...) AlexTiefling (talk) 11:16, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I take everybody's points about the UK being different to the USA, but this article describes how it was done in the UK - after handguns became illegal there was an amnesty when you could hand in your weapon at a police station. There was no "round up" as the OP suggests. Alansplodge (talk) 11:47, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Preceding any such move, at least in a relatively democratic nation, there must be consensus from the public. No such consensus exists in the US. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:07, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what you mean by "consensus". The only (albeit flawed) way of finding out the consensus on a single issue such as this is a referendum, and AFAIK the US doesn't do referenda. I don't pretend to understand the constitutional process in the US, but if the President and/or Congress wanted to push through gun control legislation they could do it by virtue of the fact that they were elected, regardless of what some imagined "consensus" might be. --Viennese Waltz 12:43, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What I mean is that the people have to be willing to give up their guns. If not, when the government tries to confiscate them, there will be massive bloodshed - which seems counterproductive to the reason for trying to ban guns. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:52, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the 2nd Amendment states "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed". That would prohibit Congress from passing a law banning the private ownership of guns, unless:

1) The Supreme Court reinterprets the 2nd Amendment to only apply to state militias, specifically "well regulated" meaning that they are run by the state government and don't let people take the guns home with them. This would require a majority vote by the Supreme Court.

2) The 2nd Amendment is repealed, which would require 2/3 of Congress or 3/4 of the states.

Considering the powerful lobbying group, the National Rifle Association, would go all-out to stop such a repeal (or the appointment of Supreme court judges who might vote that way), you'd probably need like 90% of voters to favor such an action to overcome all this inertia. So, you would have a powerful mandate if such a law was ever passed.

The more practical effect would be if you could ban carrying and selling guns, rather than owning them (although you could ban owning large numbers). This would allow people who carry guns in public to be arrested. As for the ownership of existing guns, you'd need to wait until they break down with age, although the ability to make one using a 3D printer would allow for replacement. Since most gun crimes are committed by young people, they would need to obtain guns somehow, as soon as we get a new batch of young people. StuRat (talk) 12:48, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A prevailing theory among gun advocates is that the purpose of the 2nd amendment is to allow the people to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. An attempt to confiscate guns would be seen as exactly that, and there would likely be a large-scale civil war. Which would kind of defeat the point in trying to ban guns in the first place. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:56, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't buy the "large-scale civil war" argument. Guns were banned, collected and destroyed in the UK without those kinds of dire consequences. When the 1997 law was passed, effectively banning handguns, 162,000 pistols and 700 tons of ammunition and related equipment were handed in and duly destroyed...peacefully and certainly without rioting in the streets.

The 2nd Amendment argument is flakey too, you can read those words in any of half a dozen different ways and conclude that private gun ownership either should or shouldn't be allowed. The UK also had dusty old rulings: "Subjects which are Protestants ...(Eeek!)... may have Arms for their Defence, suitable to their Condition, and as allowed by Law." in the 1689 Declaration of Rights - and it was also accepted Common Law: "The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute I W. & M. st.2. c.2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.". Sounds kinda similar to the spirit and intent of the US constitution...and for good reason - the people who wrote these things came from the same era and the same mind-set.

The problem is that surveys have shown (eg [2]) that the percentage of US voters who want more agressive gun control always hovers around the 50% mark. With intense lobbying from the gun manufacturers and their proxies (eg the NRA which gets more than half of it's funding from gun manufacturers), nothing much is likely to change because not enough people want it to change. If a clear majority Americans really wanted gun control - they'd find a way around the poorly-written, badly-thought-out and *way* out of date, 2nd Amendment in a heartbeat. eg "Sure, you're allowed to bear arms...cudgels and pocket-knives" - that's within the scope of the 2nd Amendment - nothing there says that you have the right to bear "guns" any more than it says that personal nuclear weapons are allowed.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:33, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Constitution does not define or limit the type of arms that the people are allowed to have. That's left up to the Congress, which of course has long banned truly military weapons. The assault rifles are in kind of a murky area. They were illegal for a while, but that law had an expiration date on it and was not renewed. In the case of the recent California looney (which I expect is what prompted the question), the guy had done everything by the book, up to the point where he started shooting at everybody. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:41, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it seems to me that any attempt to limit the 2nd Amendment to small weapons excluding firearms would meet no small amount of opposition from those same lobbying groups you mention. The problem with banning guns, of course, is that the only people you need to take guns from are those who already have them ("Duh," you say). In the UK (and evidently in Australia) those with guns didn't seem too opposed to the idea of handing them over. The sociopolitical situation is quite different in the United States, especially in the South, where you have a huge number of civilian paramilitary groups who would have no problem telling you that they will use their weapons to defend what they see as their constitutional right. "Civil war" might be an exaggeration, but perhaps imagine 500 simultaneous Wacos.

That aside, historical documentation is somewhat spotty on what the 2nd Amendment means and why it means it. The Supreme Court opinion in DC v Heller is particularly illuminating in that regard. Did the Founding Fathers really intend for the 2nd Amendment to be a safeguard against "tyrannical government?" Well, maybe... It might depend on which Founding Father you ask, though. One of the great untruths of the conservative American founding myth is that "the Founding Fathers" were a group of unimpeachable Holy Men who, by virtue of their divine inspiration, never disagreed with one another on any subject worth discussing. What is certain is that the guy who probably wrote the final version of it talks a lot more against foreign invasion as a pretext for the 2nd Amendment than he does any domestic tyranny. That's certainly a somewhat obsolete concern in our era of nuclear submarines and early warning systems, but the efficacy of any argument of that sort is necessarily limited by which sides of the debate want to hear it.

The argument over what "arms," "militia," and "people" mean is essentially a conflict between originalism (with a healthy dose of strict constructionism) and the Living Constitution idea. As an interesting aside, Antonin Scalia has no problem referring to the former position, which he supports, as idealizing a Dead Constitution. From what I've read, I do think the historical way of reading the 2nd Amendment is as a guarantee of private individual gun ownership. That is completely separate from the issue of whether that guarantee is any longer necessary or productive (which I don't think). Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:21, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that if you take the view that the literal words in the constitution are to be upheld, then either you have to read it as requiring that people be allowed to openly own nuclear weapons (Imagine a US-based nut-job, openly constructing a FOAB grade weapon in full knowledge of the authorities) - or you have to accept that government can act to limit those weapons. Since the words don't say anything about guns - you have to concede that if the government can ban people from owning nuclear weapons - then they can also ban them from owning anything more dangerous than a club or a 3" knife. If you argue that the founding fathers had in mind a particular weapon as an "arm" - then fixed-sight, single-shot, muzzle-loading smoothbores (and no smokeless powder) should be the legal standard because that's what they knew. If you regard the constitution as a "living document" because the founding fathers couldn't possibly understand how the world might develop - then we should be able to adjust the definition of "arms" to suit the modern world - which should result in something a lot more sane and adaptable than "any gun"...or whatever the current standard is.

The idea that the constitution specifically permits things precisely conceived of as modern firearms is simply indefensible - it says nothing of the sort. SteveBaker (talk) 20:01, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I didn't mean to suggest that all guns were encompassed by the 2nd Amendment, just that, whatever class of objects Madison and the framers had in mind, some firearms were certainly in the mix. The amendment is permeated with ambiguity in practically every word, and imposing one construction or another doesn't resolve the ambiguity inherent in the text. As long as that ambiguity stands, there's going to be serious disagreement on how to interpret the constitution. Evan ^{(talk|contribs)} 20:12, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

May 26

I am not making this up (famous last words)

I had read somewhere that the world's first modern environmental movement was in Japan, during the Meiji period, regarding preservation of the wilderness of Hokkaido, however I can find no reference for this, has anyone else heard this?--Kintetsubuffalo (talk) 08:46, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Information about early conservation in Japan at Local Environmental Movements - A Comparative History of US and Japanese Invironmental Movements. Alansplodge (talk) 11:04, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt if the Meiji period was the first instance of environmentalism. Establishment of large parks, like Central Park, may also qualify, as might implementation of clean water and sewage systems, such as the Roman aqueducts. For that matter, when the first cave men decided not to just poop wherever they happened to be and set aside a place for that, this would qualify, too. StuRat (talk) 13:16, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This was probably pre-human, but post arboreal.

But early environmental movements might be the creation of the New Forest in 1079, or even the estate formations of the previous millenia. Exactly what constitutes a "modern environmental movement" is something that would need to be defined before one could consider "first". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:10, 26 May 2014 (UTC).

I believe that if you consider the legal preservation of the environmental system of a particular area as an end in itself, rather than for hunting, water catchment, grazing or other human activity, then the first example I can find is Yosemite National Park in 1864. The New Forest was created by a a brutal military tyrant expelling thousands of people from productive farmland so that he could chase deer about, which didn't really have the same lofty ideals. Alansplodge (talk) 17:24, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OP specifically asked about the first instance of modern environmentalism, not the first instance. Come on, peeps. Viriditas (talk) 22:37, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Define modern and environmentalism. Every example thus given has been objected solely by the "no true Scotsman" defense. We have a case of shifting goalposts, which should be said were very ill-defined to start with. --Jayron32 02:39, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, assuming that the premise of the question is correct, the Meiji period started in 1868, so on that basis, the creation of the first national park in USA was earlier. Alansplodge (talk) 12:34, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Saved pages

Where are my saved pages gone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimi76 (talk • contribs) 12:52, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Saved pages from what source using what tool? SteveBaker (talk) 14:06, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Renovation of the White House under Obama

I hardly find any updates update that project? What is the current status of the renovation? Is it on hold due to the GOP's objections or are the shovels still active? 112.198.79.49 (talk) 14:37, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This report (from February 2013) says that a major two-year renovation programme is underway. --Viennese Waltz 14:47, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

May 27

Lethargy

My lethargy, though having enormous contacts and practical ideas, has making me unsuccessful in all areas namely, family life, financial and health. I have a name of good worker when I worked with various organisations. I need to know the obstacle in me and I want to remove it and be successful. Is it Procrastination? If so how to overcome it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vijayakrishnam (talk • contribs) 10:31, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If the lethargy is ruining your life, then you ought to consult a doctor -- it is possible that you are seriously depressed, or have some sort of illness. Looie496 (talk) 13:27, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I second that. See a doctor. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:28, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Procrastination is the act of postponing, delaying or putting off, from Latin prō ("to") + crāstinus (“of tomorrow”), from crās (“tomorrow”). While procrastination is often associated with feelings of laziness and guilt, there is enough scope for normal people to procrastinate for rational reasons and/or as part of their coping strategy in complex situations for it not by itself to amount to a Mental disorder. 84.209.89.214 (talk) 14:07, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You know very well that medical advice is prohibited here. You have no way to know what the OP's real issue is. Only a professional, in a face-to-face meeting, can provide possible answers to whatever might be ailing the OP. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:15, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Baseball bugs here...but then we don't really apply our standards to the reference desk. We let editors get away with breaking Arb com sanctions and nothing happens so...give whatever advice you want. No one really cares that much...but be careful, you could also destroy someone's life by pretending to know what is wrong with Them.

We need to start putting our foot down on the reference desk and stick to policy. Otherwise this is just a secondary venue for editors to bypass our policies and guidelines.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:47, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Arb Com Sanctions", User:Mark Miller? Can you be more specific? μηδείς (talk) 15:57, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Vijayakrishnam, you may benefit from the short book The War of Art.[3] It talks about how to remove the obstacles you describe. Joe Rogan and many artists, writers, and celebrities swear by it. Good luck. Viriditas (talk) 22:15, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Reasons for granting or denying a motion for summary judgment

What percentage of motions for summary judgment are granted or denied for lack of jurisdiction, failure to state a claim, a contested issue of fact or some other reason? Raquel Baranow (talk) 16:27, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly enough.....I had this information at one time but cannot, for the life of me, remember where I found it.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:49, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It should be taught in law school. What are your chances of winning, is it a waste of time or the client's money? Is filing such motions like churning stocks to gain commissions? Raquel Baranow (talk) 03:28, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is this what you wanted? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:36, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No Richard-of-Earth, I've seen that, what I'm looking for is probably pay-walled or I'm not using the right search terms. I think there might be some good articles about lawyers using motions to increase income but it can't be too obvious that the motion has no merit. Raquel Baranow (talk) 14:25, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This 2006 paper indicates that there is considerable variation among studies in finding what percentage of summary judgment motions is successful. If we can't even get good numbers on the success rate for motions generally, I would not be optimistic with respect to more specific inquiries. John M Baker (talk) 19:15, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can't give you the stats, but there's something odd about your question. Your first two reasons for denial are easily handled under Rule 12(b)(6) reasons. In fact, most of those denials will never reach summary judgment stage. Your third reason is by far the primary reason such motions are granted. You could never grant a summary judgment motion for jurisdiciton, except for some posture where that was the only material fact, which in most cases would be rare. I'm sure there are exceptoins to all of my generalizations. This would be a good law review article: textually analyze summary judgment decisions. Unfortunately you'll find few of them are published; you'll have to troll pacer, and moreover, you'll have to break them down. If you have westlaw access perhaps you could do some keysight searches. Shadowjams (talk) 03:56, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's only anecdotal. But an artist I know had sold some works of art on commission to a client who received them, but refused to pay. After hearing preliminary testimony, the judge asked the parties to confirm that the facts of the commission and consideration were stipulated, that the defendant was in possession of the art, that he refused to pay, and that he intended to destroy the art rather than return it. The judge made an immediate (summary, without full trial) judgment in favor of the plaintiff, and issued an injunction to have the bailiff restrain and escort the defendant to the location of the art where it was to be seized and given to the plaintiff. Apparently the defendant had made the mistake of representing himself in court and admitting to four conditions which allowed this judgment. μηδείς (talk) 04:09, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

May 28

Watchlist notice

My watchlist has a notice at the top including "This event honours Adrienne Wadewitz, who died suddenly last month"; her name is really Adrianne Wadewitz so this should be corrected.--Johnsoniensis (talk) 19:57, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Johnsoniensis, thank you for the notice. To correct that an admin has to edit this page: MediaWiki:Geonotice.js. - Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 20:01, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Update: It has now been fixed [4] - Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 20:11, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you.--Johnsoniensis (talk) 20:51, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

May 29

Downloading very large forum topics as some sort of document

I want to download a number of forum topics from an invisionfree forum, preferably as documents or something readable. They're really long, bordering on like 230 pages each, so I don't want to go through with Copy-paste unless there's no easier way. What would be the best way for me to do this? 98.27.255.223 (talk) 08:30, 26 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You should close this and ask it again at computing where you'd probably already have gotten an answer. μηδείς (talk) 04:00, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

They already did: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing#Downloading_very_large_forum_topics_as_some_sort_of_document Rojomoke (talk) 04:25, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If it's still live there it should not have been posted here. μηδείς (talk) 19:20, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Metro lines crossing themselves

I notice that Line 1 (Naples Metro) crosses over itself mid-route. I am aware that the Tyne and Wear Metro Yellow line also crosses over itself. Do any other metro/subway/underground systems do this? I would not count, for example, the Heathrow loop on London's Piccadilly line, as it rejoins itself without really crossing (track layout notwithstanding). —Nelson Ricardo (talk) 18:44, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It appears to me that London's Northern line does so in the neighborhood of Camden Town tube station (see the diagram headed "since 1924" in the sidebar below the infobox in that article); but I'm not actually familiar with the tube, so I can't be sure. Deor (talk) 19:56, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

At Camden Town itself, the Northern pretty much joins up and then diverges again. The spot where the line actually crosses itself is just north of Euston - Mornington Crescent is on the eastern arm, not the western as the map shows, but the lines swap sides. AlexTiefling (talk) 21:25, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But this is not "crossing itself" in the manner of the line in Naples. Rather, the line splits into two branches that then cross each other. (The reason for this, by the way, is that the two branches originated as separate lines owned by different companies, and when the second of them reached Euston there was no intention to extend it to join with the other.) I'm not aware of any other line anywhere that makes an actual loop like in Naples. --69.158.92.137 (talk) 01:59, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, but I just thought of a real one—in the past. When the first east-west line of the Toronto subway was opened in 1966, for the first 6 months the system was integrated so that there were three train routes serving all three possible pairings of the system's three endpoints. And the Eglinton–Woodbine (or Danforth–University–Yonge) route crossed itself at Bloor-Yonge station, stopping each time through the station. But after the 6 months, the integrated service was withdrawn and that route ceased to exist. --69.158.92.137 (talk) 03:26, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you.—Nelson Ricardo (talk) 05:32, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've just checked out the Tyne and Wear situation, and our article on Monument Metro station tells me that the only other place in the world where this happens at a station is at Commercial-Broadway Station on the Millennium Line in Vancouver. I'm still trying to recall if there are other places where it happens away from stations. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:29, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There appears to be a small crossover - like the Northern Line one - on the Paris RER A, close to Nanterre Université station - the line through the station (A1) crosses over the line it has just diverged from (A3/A5). It's only non-trivial because the station is on the opposite side of the crossover from the remainder of the branch. Similarly, the D4 between Moulin-Galant and Mennecy crosses the D2 between Villabé and Le Plessis-Chenet - both lines having diverged at Corbeil Essonnes, the stop before Moulin-Galant. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:47, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. —Nelson Ricardo (talk) 01:03, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Appropriate Article Page?

I am on the board of directors for Recovery Coaches International a non-profit organization providing information for and about recovery coaching. RCI recently launched the first step in a nation wide credentialing process for Recovery Coaches. Is "Recovery Coaches International" an appropriate topic to write a page about?

http://www.recoverycoaching.org/

thanksJjansen20 (talk) 21:52, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not, especially when one of the organization's officers is asking; see WP:NOT and WP:COI. Maybe the article Recovery coaching ought to mention RCI; the place to raise that question is Talk:Recovery coaching. —Tamfang (talk) 02:16, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

May 30

Rolfing: classification

Is Rolfing (a) a type of bodywork (alternative medicine), (b) a type of manual therapy, or (c) a type of massage? (Despite appearances, this is not a homework question.)
—Wavelength (talk) 00:50, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why does it need to be only one? --Jayron32 02:48, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it can be more than one.—Wavelength (talk) 03:06, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:14, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Which (one or more) of these statements is true? (This is not a homework question.)

Rolfing is a type of bodywork (alternative medicine).
Rolfing is a type of manual therapy.
Rolfing is a type of massage.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:43, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

According to our articles on the topics, all three seem true enough to me. Especially since WP considers massage to be a subclass of manual therapy. However "Rolfing is a type of massage that has not been proven effective, and is often considered a form of pseudoscience or quackery" also seems true to me. See e.g. these links, and the medical journal articles cited therein [5] [6]. I guess the problem is, bodywork comes with "alternative medicine" implied, so it stands to reason all techniques in that area have not been rigorously tested for effectiveness. However, manual therapy also deals with the "straight" world of medicine and physical therapies, so considering Rolfing as manual therapy might be seen as giving it too much credence. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:54, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your reply. My question was prompted by a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories#How to deal with conflicting sources on how to categorize a topic. Here is a link to the version of 17:19, 30 May 2014.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:32, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This was a bad place to ask that question for that purpose. The difference between how something is generally and "correctly" classified and how Wikipedia classifies it is profound. Wikipedia classifications are intended to be an additional means of navigation rather than an encyclopedic statement of fact. That's why we don't require references for classifications. Very often we may wish to deliberately mis-classify something in order that people can find it more easily. A common misconception that X is a kind of Y may result in us "incorrectly" putting X into category Y so that people looking for X will find it if they (incorrectly) search for it in category Y. So the issue here is not whether Rolfing really is a form of any of those things - but rather a question of whether people could usefully be pointed in the direction of reading about it if they are trying to research those types of activity. SteveBaker (talk) 16:12, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I searched for a guideline supporting what you said, but my search was unsuccessful. Please direct me to a supporting guideline.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:26, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Self-storage in Bangladesh

Can anyone find a Bangladeshi self-storage facility that has an online presence? It can be anywhere in the country, as long as they either have a website or are at least mentioned somewhere online. -Elmer Clark (talk) 01:24, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Suitable car for tall driver

Hi. I'm tall (actually I'm not that tall, but have rather short legs, so sitting down I am). I've been looking for a new car today, but although just sitting in some is fine, once on a test drive I find I cant really fit in them properly. I have had larger family cars in the past, but am looking for something a bit smaller - renault megane and peugeot 308 were the ones that took my fancy today - but once driving, the headroom wasn't sufficient. Is there some sort of list of headroom, or is it just a case of trying everything? Thanks, and sorry if this is wafffly.86.157.129.169 (talk) 18:18, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There are lots of different car "classes" with different shapes and profiles which may fit your needs. Many smaller SUVs and "crossover" vehicles have different interior configurations than a sedan, and may have the combination of head room and leg room you seek. There are also a trend for taller subcompacts like the Nissan Cube and Scion xB which are small and tall. --Jayron32 18:54, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a big fan of the MINI Cooper - for such a small car, it has really good headroom. You should at least take a test drive. SteveBaker (talk) 20:40, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As you are in the UK, a second-hand taxicab would be ideal Taxicabs of the United Kingdom. The height is still regulated today, so a gentleman can ride in one without the need to take of his Top hat. They also have a very small turning circle, thus avoiding the need to do three-point-turns. As Michael Cain might have said “not a lot of people know that”.--Aspro (talk) 23:21, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The trouble with buying a "Black Cab" is that they have a fairly low top speed. The very latest one tops out at 80mph - which means that you're redlining the poor thing even at normal road speeds. The older ones were often limited to 55 or 60mph. I don't think they make a very good personal-use car - unless you only EVER plan on driving it in town. Also, if you buy a used one - you can pretty much guarantee that the thing has an astounding number of miles on it, so plan on needing lots of repairs! SteveBaker (talk) 15:48, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you're interested in a small car the Citroen C1/Peugeot 107/Toyota Aygo is surprisingly roomy. Sjö (talk) 10:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

middle school teacher wants to reassure history students of Wikipedia's reliability

Hi,

I'm a middle school world history teacher in San Diego, California.

A student told me he read that Wikipedia is unreliable. (He said 70% unreliable, but he couldn't tell me his source. He read it on an app, he said.)

Our school librarian presents (during school wide lab orientation) a hacked Wikipedia entry for "Spot the Dog".

I'm seeking student accessible articles that can explain the editing and governance of Wikipedia webpages. Are you able to help me? I'd like to share the information with my students.

Thank you,

Alisa

A simple example of how vandalism gets fixed would be to show the edit history of Spot the Dog. It seems to have quite a few bad edits, but they never last more than a few hours, and are often fixed within minutes. The same pattern will be evident on higher-traffic pages, but the vandalism gets fixed faster, especially on pages known for abuse. Many articles are well-cited, and you can demonstrate to students that they can check out the original sources for the claims made in the articles. I don't usually reference Wikipedia directly in my work, but I often use it as a starting point for finding references I can use. Katie R (talk) 19:34, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Our own article Reliability of Wikipedia has some links to independent studies. Dbfirs 19:36, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, there are certain policies in place which guide content and the way that Wikipedia works. There are also guidelines that editors are expected to follow. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_guidelines and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_policies for proof of this. Giving a good glance at one or two of the important ones, I figure would be No original research, which basically means that you can't do your own original research, you have to abide it by a source. As well as neutral point of view, which stands that Wikipedia should have a neutral tone for aspects, even controversial. Tutelary (talk) 19:41, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Studies have shown that Wikipedia is more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica. That's pretty good. However, Wikipedia has one GIGANTIC benefit over other encyclopedias - and that's those little blue numbers you see scattered everywhere. We try hard to cite our sources...Britannica (and similar works) generally do not.

My opinion is that if it really matters, your best bet is to find the information that you need in a Wikipedia article - then to follow the blue number links to the references at the foot of the article. Then you can check where the information came from and see for yourself whether we somehow distorted the facts when we wrote about it. However, if it's just idle curiosity, or some relatively unimportant matter - you can generally trust what you find here.

That said, vandalism is an issue in some sorts of article. You can look at the history of the article by clicking on the "history" tab at the top - and from that you can see how recent each change to the article is - if the article is changing a lot - and especially if it's bouncing back and forth between two different versions of the truth...then distrust it.

SteveBaker (talk) 20:36, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(Since others have given good references already, I'll share my thoughts as a teacher) I usually tell my college students that WP is not a reliable source (it doesn't even meet its own standards on the topic: WP:RS). However, that is not to say that WP isn't an incredibly useful resource for education, school projects, and research. When I teach math, I tell students that they can almost always trust things like trigonometric identities and List_of_logarithmic_identities on WP. First, there is almost zero controversy or politics involved, and also these are basic facts, and the key pages for highschool and college math are watchlisted by many expert editors. That is not to say that it is easy to learn a math topic on WP, quite the opposite, but our math pages are excellent for reference use. For other topics, a standard thing to do is to read the WP article for an overview of a topic, then use the sources that WP uses. By using forward citation records (e.g. "cited by X articles" on google scholar), many reliable sources can be found that are perfectly valid for school projects and even academic research papers. Of course, middle schoolers are a bit different. I guess I'd aim to convince them that WP is usually right (as indicated by DBfirs' links above), but to remain skeptical and critical of what they see here, unless they can find corroborating evidence elsewhere. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:45, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

One of the most valuable things I learned in history is that it is written be the victors. Therefore, it is better to presume there is no ultimate reliable source. Wikipedia is perhaps the best starting point today – but like anything else, it needs to be compared to other sources. For instance, I was taught that Julius Caesar's last words were Et tu, Brute? However, on deeper inquiry, he was a high class roman so could have well said 'και συ τεκνον' as high class Romans spoke in Greek. My best teacher once said, “Hey guys, I'm only telling you what the examiner will pass you on but I'm not convinced myself.” That is what education really means... To draw out and awaken the intellect. Otherwise you'll might as well just be programming robots. So yes, Wikipedia is a very good starting point, yet like every other source it needs explaining.--Aspro (talk) 00:00, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly Wikipedia requires interpretation and critical thinking on behalf of the reader-who-cares - but in that regard, it's no different than any other encyclopedia or other reference work. No books of any kind are ever error-free. What's kinda 'special' here is that in the past, there were many different encyclopedias that one might wish to consult to get a variety of perspectives and thereby form a coherent view. But that's getting harder to do. Wikipedia has so taken over the world that other sources that might have competed are vanishing. Encyclopedia Britannica is no longer in print - and the online version requires a subscription or LOTS of popup ads and other annoyance...and the online edition can now be edited by the general public - so it's going to start having similar problems to Wikipedia in that regard...it's dying. If Britannica - with it's impressive reputation - can't stand up to this juggernaut, then no other general-purpose reference work stands a chance.

If Wikipedia becomes "the only game in town" (as now seems inevitable) - and "The One True Source of All Human Knowledge" - then teachers need to adapt to how it works and what it can truly do for students. Learning when to accept it and how to check it is not just a skill that students need for writing papers and doing projects - the ability to be able to use Wikipedia effectively becomes a skill that's as important to their future intellectual development as knowing how to read.

That's just a part of a wider skill-set - knowing how to find facts on the Internet and figuring out what to believe and what to ignore. If I search for "Dangers of Vaccinations" - I'll find more complete nonsense about vaccinations causing Autism than I'll find useful material about the real risks such as injection-site infections. Figuring out what to believe and what to ignore (Hint: Look for a peer-reviewed journal article!) is a crucial life-skill these days. When I was a kid, we were taught how to use the Dewey-Decimal system...useful knowledge, actually. Well...yeah...that, but for the 21st century!

The people who work here at the Wikipedia reference desk (well, at least the ones who are good at it!) can pull off incredible feats of searching this vast array of material - teaching THAT skill would be incredibly useful to students later in life. It's a subtle skill - knowing which words, typed into Google, will get you the gold-mine of information that you need - and which will bury you in a sea of unrelated topics - is exceedingly difficult. But who teaches this to school-kids?

I recall one situation where someone posted a photo of a tree, looking out over a valley with some fairly nondescript buildings off in the distance and asked us where the photo was taken. They thought it was somewhere in Thailand - but it could have been literally anywhere in the entire world. And we nailed it, (it turned out to be somewhere in India) - being able to point out more or less exactly where the camera was, and finding another photo from a very similar location. The collaborative detective skills required to do that are what I believe should be taught. Figuring out how to use Wikipedia (and Google, IMDB, WikiCommons, WikiTravel, Wiktionary, etc) is just a part of that. Critical thinking skills are paramount - and a wide base of knowledge that allows you to filter out a lot of impossible answers.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:42, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Inducing Orgasm

What chemical process takes place during orgasm to make it feel good?

Can the same feeling be induced without sexual stimulation? Like a pill that releases the same chemicals and makes a person feel orgasm without genital manipulation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by LordNoodles (talk • contribs)

This really belongs on the science desk. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:33, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is a complicated thing. From what I can find, the actual moment of orgasm is a mental thing - it's the consequences of it that produce all of the chemical changes - notably the prolactin and oxytocin release that produces the profound feelings of relaxation afterwards. Oxytocin can be generated in other ways - and generates similar feelings of relaxation - but it doesn't CAUSE orgasm. Oxytocin is used in many medical situations - no orgasms result.

So I suspect that the answer is that there is no pill that can produce the orgasmic feeling itself - only the after-effects. Another problem with a literal pill is that these chemicals have to act on the brain - and most drugs can't cross the blood/brain barrier.

SteveBaker (talk) 04:21, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is no drug that can reliably induce orgasm all by itself. However, there are some drugs that occasionally cause them. Antidepressants are the best known -- their usual effect is to inhibit sexual function, but there are numerous reports of some of them (particularly clomipramine) producing spontaneous orgasms in some people, sometimes, strangely enough, triggered by yawning. There are also non-drug-related ways of producing spontaneous orgasms, including electrical stimulation of certain points in the brain, and certain types of epilepsy. Looie496 (talk) 14:07, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

elephant in the room

Where does the phrase "elephant in the room" come from to denote something people can't see? Surely if there really was an elephant in the room, everyone would not only be able to see it, but also smell and hear it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Elsa Anna 4 ever (talk • contribs)

It doesn't mean that at all. The elephant in the room is something that is making everyone present uncomfortable, but which everyone either ignores or refuses to address. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:34, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

agreed. It's the exact opposite of no one noticing. The reference is to something that everyone is VERY aware of, as they would be if an elephant was in the room. Bali88 (talk) 01:05, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think a better expression would be "It's the dog poo on the carpet that nobody can see" (because if they see it, they will have to clean it up). StuRat (talk) 05:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Driver-less cars

I heard that Google are making driver-less cars

Does the car have to take and pass a driving test, and get a driving license, before being allowed on the road? What would the picture be of in its license, the car itself? 200 ethernet cables (talk) 22:45, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Funny. As with anything to do with driving on public streets, a serious answer will depend on the laws of a given region, for example a US State. You may find Autonomous car of interest. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:54, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The answer is "nobody knows yet". The likelyhood of these things becoming consumer items is still a long way off. Some US states are trying to work on laws about this - others are ignoring it for the moment. In some places, the gizmo that makes the car drive itself is considered (by default) in the same way as cruise control is legislated - so the car wouldn't need any special testing - but the person sitting in the driver position would take full responsibility for the behavior of the car. That interpretation of the law is what has enabled Google (and a few others) to put experimental driverless cars onto US roads for testing.

There is a tendency to assume that these cars are going to become very common very soon - and that's not likely. The super-impressive Google car relies on very up-to-date maps that are accurate to better than a centimeter and detailed enough to show curbs and drain covers and anything else like that. Making those maps is exceedingly difficult - you can't just scan the roadways because you have to distinguish permenant features (curbs, roadsigns, buildings, etc) from things that just happened to be there when the road was scanned (parked cars, etc). So having driverless cars (using the Google approach) can't happen until enough of the road system can be mapped that way - and an infrastructure put in place to update those maps almost immediately every time anything changes (eg a junction is remodeled, a new road sign added, etc). We'd also need an efficient way to redistribute those incredibly bandwidth-intensive maps to these cars.

The other driverless vehicles (such as the ones that participated in the DARPA challenge) don't need such detailed maps - but they are in a much less advanced state of development. Most are not remotely ready to drive safely in normal traffic.

The legal impediments to doing this go beyond a "driving test" - there is also the issue of insurance rules. If you send your car home without you and there is a crash, can you be held liable? What about if the problem is a bug in the software? What if two cars from different manufacturers both have flaws in their software such that each is safe by itself, but fatal when the two of them meet in the streets...who has to do the recall of 10 million vehicles and fix the problem?

Can cars be allowed to run by themselves - or with just small children inside? One idea is that you'd be able to tell your car to take your kids to school so you don't have to.

Then we have moral issues to contend with. One recent problem that popped up is with crash-avoidance. If your driverless car sees that a crash is inevitable, it needs to be programmed to decide what is the least lethal route to take. If there is a choice between driving itself off a cliff, inevitably killing it's owner - versus swerving into incoming traffic and hitting a much smaller car with three little children in it, yet only slightly injuring it's own driver - should it decide to kill it's owner or to kill three small children and merely injure it's owner? What if it detects that there is a choice between hitting two oncoming cars and has time to consult a database provided by it's insurance company so it can aim for the one that's least expensive to repair...or to always aim for cars that have insurance and to try to avoid uninsured cars? Would you like your Ford to preferentially hit Chevvy's rather than other Fords in order to improve the reliability statistics for Ford cars? Difficult stuff! Do you really want to buy a car that is programmed to sacrifice your life or ding your pocketbook in some altruistic act?

So we're a long way off doing this. It's not just technology - there are infrastructure, commercial, legal and moral issues to iron out too. I'm pretty sure that most states will hold off writing any laws at all until everything settles down and we can understand where we're going.

There is some precedent for passing overly-restrictive laws to start with, and relaxing them as the technology becomes more widely accepted. When cars first appeared, there were laws passed in the UK and some US states that a man had to walk in front of the car waving a red flag! (See Red flag traffic laws) That kind of overly-cautious, unbearably-restrictive law will probably appear first.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:03, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Steve, lots of thought-provoking questions, but what is your source for the Google cars depending on maps that are "accurate to better than a centimeter and detailed enough to show curbs and drain covers and anything else like that. " I have not seen any suggestion in articles about the Google cars that they require more accuracy than typical GIS maps such as ordinary GPS units use. They have cameras/lidar to see curbs and such, and their press release shows them avoiding parked cars and traffic cones which one would not expect to me mapped down to a few millimeters in advance of the outing.

Why are there so many American Organisations

Why is it that there are so many food and other companies which exist in the US, but not in my country (Scotland)? I found this when attempting a quiz app on food brands, and cheated on 90% of the questions, given they were obscure brands which only existed in the US. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.229.232 (talk • contribs) 22:58, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Population of the US: 318,127,000. Population of Scotland: 5,327,700. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:06, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It could be interesting to see some of those "obscure" US brands, and maybe some brands well-known to Scots. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:16, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a chat forum. 208.31.38.30 (talk) 23:20, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to see some of those brand names. That's information. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:21, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If the question is about "number of food brands" one reason is simple - Americans markets can carry more than 60,000 different SKUs. This is quite a bit more than most European markets can carry, thus there is intrinsically a need for more "brands" even where they are made by the same company. European "hypermarkets" generally carry up to 35,000 SKUs it appears, and most local markets carry under 9,000 SKUs. As one example, Florida supermarkets generally carry more than 40 SKUs just for baked beans, which is likely more than one would find in a typical Scottish supermarket. Collect (talk) 01:40, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not only is this not a chat forum, in the US we have organizations, not organis..a..whatsits. Also, that Americans give more to charity than any other sepcies is widely know. As for the reputation of Scotts, it's not our place to say, is it? μηδείς (talk) 01:55, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- It's fair to say that Montgomery Scott and Sir Walter Scott had good reputations.←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:29, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For those of us unschooled in Inventory Management, "SKUs" are Stock keeping units. Dbfirs 05:50, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

...or more mundanely and specifically, a SKU is a unique bar-code pattern.

So 10 different flavors of the same food item would each have a different SKU...but a pack containing 10 smaller containers, each with a different flavor and "Not labelled for individual sale" would be a single SKU. So it's hard to tie what a SKU represents to the variety of product present. Our local food store has bags of potato chips in a dozen flavors - each with a different SKU, but also sells large boxes, each containing a dozen bags of the exact same kind of chips in a variety of flavors - which has a single SKU. You'd also find that an item that comes in a variety of sizes of packaging will have a different SKU for each size. Some companies even change the SKU when they change the printing on the box for some reason. For smaller companies, the cost of owning a new barcode is significant (you have to register those things with a central agency who ensures that they are unique) - and it costs around $1,000 per bar-code to do that. So in some cases a variety of identically-priced and similarly-stocked items (like the same cuddly toy made with different colors of fur in some 3rd world sweat-shop) might share the same exact SKU.

So counting the number of SKU's and relating that to "variety" of product is a very tricky matter. Much depends on the store policy - especially in the case of gigantic chain-stores who can order the manufacturers to package and bar-code in a certain way.

SteveBaker (talk) 13:35, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

[7] FWIW, one can buy UPC codes for as little as $80 each. If one pays $750 and an annual fee of $150,one can get a humungous number of bar codes (cutting cost down to only a few dollars each) Collect (talk) 15:25, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that the problem is that the number on the barcode is part a company code and part a product within that company. The people who sell the $80 (or so) UPC's are giving you one number out of a batch that they own. So the company code is theirs, not yours. I found that there are three categories of retailers out there:

The big guys (like WalMart) demand that each company that they order stuff from have their own company code...so the $80 UPC's you describe are not acceptable to them. The meaning of the code is important to them.
Middle-tier organizations (and I happen to know that Hobby Lobby is one of them) only care that the code is unique - so they are happy for you to use the $80 UPC's because the entire code is still unique - even though it doesn't mean much.
Very small retailers don't give a damn so long as your product doesn't have the same code as anyone elses that they sell. So you can get away with picking a random number (with a vanishingly small probability of coming up with the same one as anyone else)...and I know that some individual stores take that attitude.

So whether your code costs $0, $80 or $1000 depends on whom you're planning to sell to!

SteveBaker (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

People, please? The OP wants their question answered. Stop going off topic!

Light Bulbs

Energy companies and governments around the world are screaming that everyone needs to use compact fluorescent lamps because there aren't enough power stations. But there are more power stations in existence today than at any previous point in history, and years ago everyone used 100 watt incandescent bulbs instead of 7 watt fluorescents. Care to explain? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Melaonin (talk • contribs) 23:08, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I'm aware, nobody has suggested that there aren't enough power stations - the reason for advocating more efficient light bulbs is that doing so is intended to reduce the detrimental effects of power generation on the environment. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:13, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard that rationale either. Bali88 (talk) 01:00, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTFORUM, WP:NOTSOAPBOX

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

It's called the ethic of altruism, which means, I will fly on private jets for photo ops and you will buy lights you don't want to save coal you don't care about even though it is you and not Greenpeace who pays your electricity bills. μηδείς (talk) 02:09, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"But here's the curious thing: While Egyptians are content to live in filthy, battered buildings, the insides of their homes are always immaculate. Time and time again I trudged up darkened stairwells to apartments on the third or fourth floor, and when my host opened the door, I would step into an isolated world of elegance and cleanliness. …. When I asked friends if anyone had ever considered a neighborhood block association or an owners' association to clean up common areas, they would chuckle and say "Oh, THAT would never work here." No doubt it wouldn't. My friends did not feel that their responsibility extended beyond their own boundaries."Asmrulz (talk) 16:33, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There are more power stations because the demand for power is still increasing. That's not just because of lightbulbs. Lighting consumes about 9% of domestic electricity use (at least in the USA - figures for the UK suggest that 20% is the figure in that part of the world). The biggest uses are heating, water heating, refrigerators and air conditioning. Domestic power consumption is only about a third of the total consumption. So lighting is about 3% to 6% of total electrical usage - and switching to CFL's would cut that to more like 1% (switching to LED lighting would reduce it still more). Demand is increasing across the board - and power station construction grows to meet that demand.

Global climate change means that we have to cut back on the amount of power we use. In practical terms, it's hard to improve heating and cooling in an existing home - so we encourage people to nudge the thermostat a few degrees to save on those big costs...to buy efficient refrigerators and freezers. But not many people are going to change their heating or aircon systems. Getting people to change their light bulbs *ought* to be a no-brainer. These more efficient bulbs pay for themselves and soon save you money - and they help (a little) to save the planet. Making that change isn't anywhere near enough by itself - but every little helps.

We're not saying that there aren't enough power stations - if that were the only problem, we could just build more of them. The problem is actually that there are too many of them! We need to reduce the amount of CO2 produced - so fewer CO2-producing power plants - which means using less energy - which means making every economy we possibly can. Switching to more efficient lighting is only a small step - but it's an easy one to take.

SteveBaker (talk) 04:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why is there no human mating season?

Why is there no human mating season? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Firstonetotalk (talk • contribs) 10:56, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Being able to breed all year round seems like an obviously better way to maximize the number of offspring. The more litters you can have in a year, the faster your population can grow. So it's easy to see why it's a good idea for humans. So, perhaps a better way to understand this question to turn it around and ask "Why do so many non-human species have a seasonal mating pattern?"...and we have an article about that: Seasonal breeder.

Mostly, the reason for seasonal breeding is so that the young are born at a time when a suitable food supply is available. In many species, the timing of mating is carefully optimised so that the young appear exactly when some food item becomes available.

Some animals, such as the Periodical cicadas do it for the opposite reason - to NOT have offspring at a time when predators are there to eat them. These animals take this to an extreme by only breeding once every 13 or 17 years. This strategy works by starving out their predators...no species can easily evolve to survive by eating 17 year cicadas because they'd have to go for 16 years and 10 months at a time with no food!

In many other species (eg the Black widow spider or the Crematogaster ants), the effort of producing young is fatal to one or both of the parents - so the breeding season is limited to the amount of time it takes a newborn of the species to get to breeding age. In the case of Crematogaster, the male and female ants grow wings, engage in a nuptual flight and then the males die and the female loses her wings forever.

Migratory animals also have to time their breeding to fit in with their migration patterns. The young have to be sufficiently strong to endure the migration - and that ties the breeding period to the appropriate time for migration - which may be related to weather patterns, winds, tides and so forth.

That said, humans do have a set of specific times when mating is effective in producing offspring - that being once each month when our females are fertile. But because we're a "pair-bonding" species, it's valuable for us to have sex between the effective mating periods in order to form and maintain those social bonds.

SteveBaker (talk) 13:13, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

vegetable

is it true that in north america, pizza is considered a vegetable because it has tomato ketchup on it? approximately how many full tomatoes in the form of ketchup would there be on an average pizza? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coolist404 (talk • contribs) 12:14, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I wouldn't say that everyone in the USA thinks that! The pressure to come up with this crazy idea is that in some parts of the USA there is legislation requiring that children who have school lunches are provided with at least one serving of vegetables with each meal. Labelling a pizza (or even a serving of ketchup) as "A vegetable" allows schools to occasionally serve food that kids will actually eat - despite the legislation. Very recently, there was a study about the effectiveness of the law - and one finding was that although every child would duly have to pick a serving of beans or peas or something with their meal - nobody was checking to ensure that they were actually being eaten. Hence the law was producing enormous amounts of wastage of food...which might go some way to explain why this fairly crazy claim that the tomato sauce on a pizza is a "serving of vegetables".

FWIW, I'd heard the claim that a serving of ketchup was claimed by some schools in the UK to be a "vegetable serving" for much the same reasons. So it's not just the handful of crazy US school districts that thought this up!

But please don't go away with the idea that all Americans think that Pizza is a vegetable - I'm fairly sure that a large percentage know that pizza is not remotely a healthy food - and nearly everyone laughs at the idea of considering it to be a "vegetable portion". This is a stupid artifact of a poorly thought out law.

SteveBaker (talk) 13:22, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

See Ketchup as a vegetable, in particular the "Similar efforts" section. Graham87 14:26, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The claim comes down to the fact that government bureaucracies will tend to define what a "serving" is and what a "vegetable" is. We can reasonably define a vegetable (ignoring the edge cases, things like cucumbers and tomatoes which are botanically fruits, but which we all agree are culinary vegetables) and we can then define what a "serving" is. Let's say we agree that 30 grams is a reasonable serving size for a child (I have no idea if it is or it isn't. But lets just say that it is, for our argument). Now, if a piece of pizza contains 30 grams of an actual tomato as an ingredient, why wouldn't it contain a serving of vegetables? If I added 30 grams of tomatoes to a salad, that counts, but it doesn't in pizza? Now, this exercise may display the folly in this thinking (the idea that one can ignore the unhealthy portions of a meal merely because it happens to contain some randomly healthy ingredient), but it isn't dishonest or lying in any way. --Jayron32 15:24, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed! But aside from the actual weight of vegetable matter on the plate, the larger problem is the way the the vegetables are prepared. The more heavily processed it is, the less value it has in terms of being "A Serving Of Vegetables" with it's associated health benefits. The tomato paste in a typical pizza is incredibly heavily processed...I'd be very surprised if the nutritional value of an actual tomato was remotely present in a slice of pizza. Sadly, these laws are rushed in by politicians who are more interested in "Being Seen To Do Something" than actually making the world a better place. Passing a dumb law that says that something that a certain weight of what was once a vegetable has to be placed on the plate of every child in the nation - is quite easy for them to do. Figuring out how to intelligently persuade our children to make healthier food choices and eat a healthy mix of foods is really, really hard. Hence, we get stupid laws with great gaping loopholes that result in kids STILL eating pizza whenever they can get away with it - but also wasting our money by tossing their peas and beans, carrots, broccoli and cabbage straight from cook-pot to garbage bucket. If that's what the majority of them are doing (as a recent survey suggests) - then we might as well allow pizza as a loophole just to save that horrifying waste. SteveBaker (talk) 16:42, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a source for "tomato paste in a typical pizza is incredibly heavily processed"? I make my pizza tomatoes two ways: either cook it to reduce moisture, or even easier, just drain chopped tomatoes in a sieve. What more processing is required? I'm also skeptical about "pizza is unhealthy" - I don't think the pizza I make is any less healthy than, say, soup I make. Just understand what you put in it. 88.112.50.121 (talk) 18:53, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, home-made pizza could be pretty good - I'm thinking of the stuff they are likely to serve in a school lunch line. SteveBaker (talk) 19:43, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, pizza can be healthy, but the typical American pizza is far from healthy, with too much sodium, too many sugars, carbohydrates, calories, fat, saturated fat, and possibly trans fats, with minimal fiber, vitamins, and minerals. The classic pepperoni pizza is one of the worst, and there are even crazy pizzas that eliminate the tomato sauce and substitute something far less healthy, like alfredo sauce. Now, to make it healthy, it should have a thin multi-grain crust, minimal cheese, keep the tomato sauce but make it low salt, and put mushrooms and lots of veggies on it, avoiding heavily-salted veggies like olives and hot peppers. If you must have meat on it, avoid heavily salted and fatty meats like pepperoni, ham, hamburger, and sausage, and add grilled chicken, instead. Pineapple works, too. StuRat (talk) 19:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

American pizza has pizza sauce on it - never catsup. 75.41.109.190 (talk) 16:44, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I actually think the law requiring them to serve something healthy is a good one, and the attempt to weaken it is not in the interest of the kids. When I was in school I was appalled at the greasy junk food they served, like tater tots. I agree that, given the choice, most kids will choose junk food over healthy food. Well, don't give them the choice. Remove all junk food from the cafeteria menu, and remove all junk food vending machines. If the kids bring in junk food, at their own expense, that's between them and their parents, but schools should not be encouraging unhealthy eating. A kid who is hungry enough will eat healthy food, and may even grow to like it. StuRat (talk) 19:57, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

City of London

How many people have been murdered in the City of London since 1991? AppleSparkleDash (talk) 15:56, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To be completely clear: You're asking about the City of London which is a tiny 1.1 square mile section of the place most people call "London" - which covers about 600 square miles. I presume you're aware of that distinction! It's mostly government buildings, parks and such - very few people live there. (About 7,000).

I found this which lists the names of all 500 people murdered in Greater London since 2006...so VERY roughly, 500 people in 8 years is 62.5 per year - so perhaps around 1,500 since 1991. It seems though that the murder rate has been steadily falling, and dropped abruptly by about 20% in the last few years - so I'd imagine that this is an under-estimate and mayb 2,000 would be closer to the mark.

But that same article lists no murders at all in the square mile of the city itself - and since it has a population of just 7,000 people and it's full of high-security areas with a ton of cameras and police presence - that shouldn't be surprising.

Looking at it another way, the murder rate in Greater London in 2012 was 12.5 deaths per million people - so we would expect to see a little over one murder per decade in the City itself. On that basis, the answer I'd expect would be just one or two people...and with the additional security of the area, probably zero. Once the numbers get that small though - statistical approaches break down. It would only take one major incident with a terrorist killing a handful of people to push that number through the roof.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:31, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yup - statistics suggest that numbers would be very small this [8] seems to suggest that there have been no murders at all since 2006 (note that the City of London is in the drop-down list, suggesting that data hasn't simply been omitted). It should be noted though that terrorist attacks have occurred - the 1993 Bishopsgate bombing caused one fatality, and the bomb on the underground train between Edgware Road and Liverpool Street during the 7 July 2005 London bombings killed seven people (other fatalities were outside the City). I can't think of any further incidents which took place within the City itself. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:47, 31 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 424: / Line 424: @@
 ::::So whether your code costs $0, $80 or $1000 depends on whom you're planning to sell to!
 :::: [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 16:48, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
+:::::People, please? The OP wants their question answered. Stop going off topic!
 == Light Bulbs ==