Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 January 8

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January 8

Refugees' immigration patterns in Europe

Why do some refugees migrate thru Austria, Switzerland or Denmark to Germany? I understand their wish to move to a save country, and give preference for more affluent ones, but what makes these former three countries less attractive than the latter? --Hofhof (talk) 02:07, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Relevant articles: Immigration to Germany, Asylum in Germany & European migrant crisis (and links therein). —2606:A000:4C0C:E200:50D3:F595:540:9925 (talk) 07:03, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Germany has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the EU with currently 3,6%. Austria has 5,4%, Denmark 5,6% and Switzerland 5,1%. Because of that there is also a considerable migration of EU-citizens to Germany[1] which is a different case tho because EU-citizens are officially free to choose where they like to work inside the EU by EU-law. On top Germany also has a structural deficit of young labor force, so especially German employers and their institutions are lobbying for a very warm welcome for the refugees which in fact are mostly young males. Additional the leading political, centre-right Christian Democratic Union and her Chancellor Angela Merkel are classically regarded to be very close to these employer institutions. --Kharon (talk) 10:42, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Moreover, Germany has a longer established tradition and a more organised official system than most other European countries for accepting and administrating foreign workers, called Gastarbeiter (-en in the plural). This means that both economic migrants and refugees (some of the former may present themselves as the latter) from the Middle East are more likely to have settled communities of their ethnic peers, or even relatives, already in Germany, making their own reception easier. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.41.3 (talk) 13:30, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

See also Demographics of Germany#Migrant background and foreign nationality, a large number of migrants from areas where refugees are leaving already live in Germany, making it likelier that refugees, seeking to live near family, friends, and associates, would also end up in Germany. There's 637,000 people from Syria and 253,000 from Afghanistan, and 227,000 from Iraq, for example, so additional refugees would naturally seek Germany as a final destination as there are already ready-made communities in Germany. You can check similar articles for other countries, and see the numbers are much lower. --Jayron32 15:27, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Switzerland is not part of the European Union and has its own policies towards immigration. The Foreign Nationals Act (2005) specifically places annual quotas on permits for foreign residents and primarily opens the door to the "skilled workers" needed for its economy. One of the Swiss referendums, 2010 was about deporting "criminal foreigners" and was intended to expel immigrants involved in criminal acts. The Swiss immigration referendum, February 2014 was intended "to limit immigration through quotas" and one of its consequences is that the legislation "requires foreigners to demonstrate that they are integrated in Swiss society in order to receive a residence permit.". Dimadick (talk) 14:01, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Windows 10 Mobile's Cortana's Quiet hours feature: possible collusion with MNOs and cold callers?

As far as I know, Windows 10 Mobile's Cortana's Quiet hours feature enables the user to set one automatic quiet-hour period for all the weekdays he or she chooses. This may be very inconvenient for some people, as these restrictions do not allow for different quiet-hour settings on workdays and weekends. Thus, there being no alternative apps with the Quiet hours feature, no Windows 10 Mobile user can automatically protect themselves from both unwanted night calls & unwanted early-weekend-morning cold calls. Has this hypothetical profit-over-people policy ever been criticized or at least neutrally described by any reliable source ? --Синкретик (talk) 18:48, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Would this question make more sense at the Computing Desk (WP:RDC)? --Jayron32 19:30, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Did Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Italy or the Biblical Holy Land ever get close to "full"?

That is, getting close to running out of land that could have a farm, garden, orchard, vineyard, livestock herd or fallow farm field on it (at contemporary technology level) but doesn't have one of those nor a human structure like a road or city (nowadays even full desert's farmable if you spend enough on irrigation and petrochemical fertilizer and they haven't gotten close to running out of unused desert yet (source: Google Earth) so if this ever happened technology later made them "unfull" again. And even running completely out of unused land wouldn't necessarily be "full" in the carrying capacity sense since imports and yield advances are a thing) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:15, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I have trouble parsing your explanation - it sounds more like a statement than a question. But ancient Rome was "full" in the sense that it could not reliably feed its population and relied heavily on grain imports - first from Sicily, later from the province of Africa. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:48, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Ancient Israel had plenty of desert areas; even if you're just talking about the basic Eretz Yisrael from Dan to Beersheba, there's plenty of wasteland, and of course there's a lot more if you go from Damascus to the Wadi of Egypt. Just try Google Street Viewing the area around Beersheba, for example. Or maybe you're excluding deserts (like Stephan, I'm not quite clear about your meaning); if so, I'm not sure what the answer is. Nyttend (talk) 23:00, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

The problem with your question is that the meaning of "full" depends on the level of agricultural technology (if any) available at a given time. When the cutting edge (heh!) is hunter gathering, the capacity of a given area of land to support a population was lower than for (the later adopted) semi-nomadic pastoralism, which again could support a less-dense population than the next stage, village-level agriculture (see the neolithic revolution), which in turn was less than subsequently-developed city-state agriculture. In our own lifetimes, the Green revolution has doubled or better the amount of food that farming (on land or water) can produce, and techniques such as hydroponics may in future produce yet more increases in the amount of food producable from, and hence the supportable population of, a particular area.

I suspect, given the propensity of human beings to reproduce and relocate, that most of the world has been at its contemporary carrying capacity for most of prehistory and history: one only saw major leaps in an area when radically different tecniques were introduced from outside. I'm sure that someone more expert in this topic will be able to give a much better answer, however. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.41.3 (talk) 23:21, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I was wondering when (if?) these two moving targets hit each other or got very close since the transition to agriculture there and you suspect it was "most of the time". Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:39, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Sagittarian_Milky_Way -- the correct term for what you're asking about is Carrying capacity (not "full"). In ancient times, a territory was close to carrying capacity not when every last acre of cultivatable land was cultivated, but when a slight disruption to the system (an unfavorable harvest due to bad weather etc.) meant that some of the population would not have enough food to eat. In some ancient cultures, a sign of being close to carrying capacity was the prevalence of female infanticide. Much of southern/central Greece was pretty close to carrying capacity in the pre-Hellenistic centuries, which was the reason for repeated founding of colonies and emigration to areas outside Greece, and for the rise of imports of grain from the Black Sea area. As has been mentioned above, the city of Rome in imperial times was beyond carrying capacity without the help of grain imports from the province of "Africa" (i.e. today's northeastern Algeria and northern Tunisia), and also from Egypt, and the city's population declined fairly precipitously once such supplies were permanently cut off... AnonMoos (talk) 23:32, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

P.S. Chapter III ("The Greek Cities: Social-Economic Conditions") of the 1952 book Hellenistic Civilisation by W.W. Tarn and G.T. Griffith has some melancholy passages on carrying capacity (though they don't use that term) and female infanticide in Greece: "the fundamental fact of life in Greece: the country had a limited amount of arable land, and could not of itself support [any] beyond a fixed number, long since reached". "Imported food had to be paid for" and there were only limited ways of doing that. "Of some thousand families from Greece who received Milesian citizenship c. 228-220 [B.C.], details of 79 remain, with their children. These brought 118 sons and 28 daughters... no natural causes can account for those proportions" etc. etc. AnonMoos (talk) 23:53, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

So at what point in history was it possible for a country like Israel, Greece, Italy, Egypt or Mesopotamia to have enough acres/farmer and/or enough wealth to cultivate almost cultivatable non-urban acre at contemporary tech levels without having to resort to famine culling, fleeing or infanticide? Is it still pre-industrial or later? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:39, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure your question is answerable; few societies live in such isolation that they are entirely self-sufficient based solely on what they themselves can grow as food; there are perhaps some historically (maybe ancient arctic peoples), but generally the existence of trade means that having a natural experiment to draw data from to answer your question are all but impossible. --Jayron32 18:43, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

In the case of Greece, one of the problems was the nature of the region: a lot of mountainous areas that could not be cultivated, various swamps, and many island areas with small amounts of arable land. By the time of the Second Greek colonisation (8th-6th century BC), the Greek city states were experiencing significant population growth, "a scarcity of farms and a restriction of the ability of smallholders to farm them". Which is why they kept sending their surplus population to establish new colonies. Dimadick (talk) 14:25, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Nazi "ideologists" besides Hitler himself

(No, I am not the troll)

Besides for (obviously) Hitler himself, were there any notable individuals in developing Nazi "ideology and philosophy"? Particularly during the Nazi era, not those who preceded it. And if yes, whom? (If we have articles on them, a link would be appreciated). Eliyohub (talk) 23:36, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

• List of Nazi ideologues —2606:A000:4C0C:E200:50D3:F595:540:9925 (talk) 23:50, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, much appreciated. I know WP:WHAAOE, but thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Eliyohub (talk) 23:57, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Himmler was the main man for ideology. Read Heinrich Himmler#Mysticism and symbolism. However Hitler himself called that "nonsense" and seemed to be into Heroism as in Richard Wagner#Nazi appropriation. So "ideology and philosophy" seemed less important in the Nazi mindset. The main nazi-focus was actually much more on "cultur and idols". --Kharon (talk) 07:30, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

• The Strasser brothers are important for early period political ideas, when there was still thought about needing a marketable political ideology, as opposed to an oligarchy for its own sake. They're where the "socialism" in national socialism comes from. Also the history of Hjalmar Schacht is essential background. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:09, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia threats spilling over into real-world violence

I gather that people who perform certain tasks on Wikipedia (such as dealing with vandalism and long-term abuse) regularly receive threats. I was myself subjected to a certain troll claiming I had threatened to butcher him with an axe, after I'd reported him to WP:AIV . (For the record, I had done no such thing, but I'm sure many here would not mind if the troll in question met a random sticky end).

Now, I am well aware that on some occasions, Wikipedia posts have been the subject of legal action. I am also aware that there are cases where Wikipedia edit wars have resulted in off-wiki harassment (as in, elsewhere on the net). My question is, for all the violence threatened, are there any recorded cases of real-world assaults stemming from these Wikibattles? Eliyohub (talk) 23:55, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I am currently reading List of Wikipedia controversies. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 03:01, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Haven't found any. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 03:07, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

For privacy purposes I cannot share, but I do know of people who are currently behind bars right now for the legal definition of assault, which is "an attempt to initiate harmful or offensive contact with a person, or a threat to do so", in relation to relationships initially established on Wikipedia. Does the OP mean battery ("the unlawful physical acting upon a threat") rather than assault? --Jayron32 12:05, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

I've had a few cases of fairly serious WP-related harassment. One is still behind bars. In one case the police were keen to get a statement from me, with which to pursue someone who was clearly more deranged than dangerous. In another case they were seriously disinterested in listening to my statement, because they weren't themselves interested in pursuing the harasser (already a convicted fraudster).

IMHE 1. - WP / WMF bureaucracy is useless at dealing with this. Some of the worst of it comes from admins. There is no interest in avoiding harassment by or of WP editors.

2. The way to deal with stalkers is when they stalk someone famous (MP or TV are good). Two of my stalkers have served / are serving time, one non-WP, and in both cases it was because they not only went for me, but then also for an MP. Then they were dealt with (I was in court for one but wasn't even called to give evidence). Or if a local TV celeb gets involved, their local force then take an interest.

The worst "harassment" I've had was almost accidental. Twice now, WP has "embarrassed itself" locally. As someone who's known locally as "someone who's connected with that wiki-thing", I've been tarred by association with this, even so far as being seen as a fraud risk with local community money. I don't mind the abuse, I do mind my family being stalked, I really don't like being called a crook just for editing here. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:42, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Quixotic_Potato -- I don't know why it isn't listed there (and I'm having trouble finding a link to it), but there was a notorious case connected with Dutch Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons involving administrators who used their powers to find out an ordinary editor's real name and location and violate his privacy. No assault involved, as far as I can remember... AnonMoos (talk) 05:26, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Such things happen - the question is what's then done about it. But in that case, the real disgrace was that a Commons bureaucrat then took it upon themselves to edit-war against WMF in order to restore the stalking admin's admin rights! Andy Dingley (talk) 16:36, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Meta:Requests for comment/Privacy violation by TBloemink and JurgenNL is I presume the case being referring to. Note that the claim, and I'm not suggesting it's accurate, is that administrative or other special permissions were not used to obtain the info, instead they parties involved saw it and remembered it. They were of course aware it confidential information they were not supposed to have seen on wikipedia. (Also I'm a bit confused whether they noticed it themselves, or they were made aware of it because someone else was asking for their help in dealing with it. The later would imply that the knowledge did come about because of their permissions.) In any case, the community almost unanimously agreed that people who would do what they did were not to be trusted with special permissions. You can see some details of the desysopping mentioned by Andy Dingley Commons:Commons:Administrators/Requests/JurgenNL (de-adminship). (You will also see there a link for removal of bureaucrats permission for the bureaucrat involved. This did not pass.) There was also an Meta:Ombudsman commission, I don't think any details of this were made public, I believe that's the norm for such investigations especially when there is no need for permission removal (and these had already been removed). Nil Einne (talk) 04:58, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

That the two did not misuse their administrator powers, but just happened to remember things they happened to see during the legitimate exercise of their admin powers, is what the two said in their defense; I don't know that I would necessarily put unlimited confidence in that version of events. In any case, the incident should be mentioned at List of Wikipedia controversies and/or Dutch Wikipedia... -- AnonMoos (talk) 04:57, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

If we're digging back into that case, I'd suggest looking from Commons:Commons:Bureaucrats/Requests/Odder (de-bureaucrat) and the links at the start. I was also deeply unimpressed with the victim-blaming that went on there. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:13, 14 January 2018 (UTC)