Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 September 26

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

September 26

Hai Ti!

Does anyone know what happened to Hai Ti!? The website doesn't look like it has been updated in almost four years. For a supposedly famous webcomic in Namibia, you cannot actually even read the comic any more, because none of the image files forming the comic are there any more. Even the whole article hasn't been non-trivially edited in almost four years - in fact, there's been only one edit in the last three years, and even that was only a trivial bot cleanup. JIP | Talk 00:20, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

That is precisely why we have notability criteria - that article should probably never have existed in the first place. Our criteria for inclusion of web-based content is that it has to meet at least one of the following criteria:

1. The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself. This criterion includes reliable published works in all forms, such as newspaper and magazine articles, books, television documentaries, websites, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations except for the following:
   • Media re-prints of press releases and advertising for the content or site.
   • Trivial coverage, such as (1) newspaper articles that simply report the Internet address, (2) newspaper articles that simply report the times at which such content is updated or made available, (3) a brief summary of the nature of the content or the publication of Internet addresses and site or (4) content descriptions in Internet directories or online stores.
2. The website or content has won a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization.
3. The content is distributed via a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster; except for trivial distribution including content being hosted on sites without editorial oversight (such as YouTube, MySpace, GeoCities, Newgrounds, personal blogs, etc.).

I don't see how this long-gone web comic fulfills any of those criteria...hence the article should never have been written.

I have flagged it for speedy-deletion. SteveBaker (talk) 02:10, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

[1] suggests the website itself was last updated in 2007. [2] also has results from November 2006 at the latest. Frankly I'm not surprised. It's not uncommon that someone will come up with some initiative or idea, or whatever only for it to be abandoned when no one keeps up with it. Ditto it's common to develop a website and then no one bothers to up date it. While you don't see this quite so much in developed countries, at least with professional initiatives but the state of the schoolnet website is similar to what a number of Malaysian websites are like. Another example the Brunei/Bandar Seri Bagawan airport website [3] schedules are fron July 2004 Nil Einne (talk) 11:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

What bothers me is that it gives me, an arbitrary foreigner, access to the schools' exam results, complete with full first and last names of the students (but missing any social security info, if Namibia even has such a thing). At least here in Finland, exam results are strictly available to students and staff only. The website should ask for a username and password before showing exam results. JIP | Talk 19:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Well I'm not really that surprised that security and privacy is a bit of an afterthought (or no thought in this case) it's also something I've seen a lot before albeit I can't think of any examples off hand. Particularly since it's hosted at an unofficial website behind dyndns on a computer in a basement in New York [4] which also hosts a bunch of family holiday photos and stuff. However this [5] suggests that admin does at least recognise the problem (and also gives some clue as to why he or she hasn't been updating the results website). N.B. Some parts of the Schoolnet website do show apparent more recent activity then 2007 [6] and possibly [7] again not something unusual Nil Einne (talk) 12:26, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Even One Vote Counts

When I was thirteen, back in 1981, my History teacher told us that many years ago, the United States once voted to decide on their official language, and that English won over German by one vote. I believed that for years, having no reason to doubt it, and then at some stage just recently, but I cannot remember where, I heard the same thing again from a totally different source. I decided to check Wikipedia, but there doesn't appear to be a reference, and in fact the article on US Languages actually said the US doesn't actually have an official language, unlike here in New Zealand, which has English and Maori. Is what I was told in High School back then true ? I'm assuming the vote happened in the 1800's, and may not be so unbelievable, since Germans are identified as the single largest ethnic group in the US - more so than Anglo Saxons. - The Russian. Christopherlilly (talk) 08:03, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The German in the United States article has some information on this - it looks like the 'German as the official language' thing is mostly an urban legend, and that they were instead voting on whether or not to issue official documents in German as well as English. Today, despite the fact that Germans are ethnically well-represented in the US, not many Americans, German-American or otherwise, speak the German language - I'd be surprised if the percentage of people fluent in German was over 2%. AlexiusHoratius 08:29, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

...looking again at the article I linked to, 1.38 million Americans currently speak German out of a total of 305 million or so, although in the early 20th Century the percentage of German speakers in the US was as high as 6%. AlexiusHoratius 08:47, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

See this explanation at the always-useful snopes.com The German Vote. However, Rhode Island's final ratification of the United States Constitution by a vote of 34-32 might have been thwarted by the arrival of two Antifederalist delegates who could not cross the water to the state's readjourned ratification convention in May 1790. Rhode Island was the last of the original 13 states to ratify, so this would not have stopped the other states continuing under their new constitution (Washington had been inaugurated in New York City on April 30, 1789.) —— Shakescene (talk) 08:57, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Since the vote in question was in the US Congress, it seems odd that they couldn't find an actual important bill that came down to a single vote. Especially in the Senate, with only 100 members, which tend to be divided almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans, I'd expect bills to pass or fail by a single vote all the time. For example, the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, which required a 2/3 vote to pass, failed by a single vote.

In fact, Johnson was well and truly impeached - by the House of Representatives. What the Senate voted not to do was to try him on the charges specified in the impeachment bill. -- JackofOz (talk) 09:31, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, they tried him. They didn't convict him. Same as with Clinton, except the Clinton vote wasn't nearly as close to a conviction.

I've heard that some historians claim that the Johnson impeachment, even though it failed, drastically weakened the power of the presidency for quite some time after that. Supposedly that's why it's so difficult to remember the names of late-19th-century presidents. Sadly, it didn't work that way this time. The presidency badly needs taking down a notch or five; that applied to GWB and it applies to BHO also. --Trovatore (talk) 10:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

But, if this is supposed to indicate the importance of you voting in national elections, it doesn't work. The chances of one person out of 100 million casting the deciding vote is, well, one in millions. And even if it did happen, there is enough uncertainty in the vote (hanging chads !) that it would actually end up with the courts or Congress deciding the issue, as happened in the first election of the last Bush. However, on small local elections where only a few people vote, your individual vote might actually make the difference. StuRat (talk) 10:48, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The notion that American know English is also an urban myth.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:22, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

We took British English and improved upon it. :) The notion of this vote has got to be spurious, since there is no "official" language in the USA. The USA speaks English, but only by custom and by overwhelming numbers. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:02, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Arguably, you took British English and we improved it. American English (at least in terms of spelling) has more in common with English at the time of colonisation than British English does, as I understand it. --Tango (talk) 21:52, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Spelling, I don't think so. There was a partial spelling reform (surely, one of the very few examples of a self-conscious spelling reform actually working) promoted by Noah Webster.

There are certainly examples of features that changed in British English, and we didn't copy the change; that's always going to happen. One that comes to mind is the use of the present subjunctive in mandative clauses: It is important that you be/are prompt. Americans are more likely to use be than the British are. --Trovatore (talk) 22:00, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course it is the British who have corrupted their version of our common language. Americans have faithfully preserved much of the pronunciation and grammar that the colonists brought with them hundreds of years ago. Meanwhile, the Brits have abandoned [r] after vowels, most of the subjunctive, and various other useful bits of our linguistic heritage. That said, I am willing to politely accept the British version without comment, so long as they don't trash our version. :-) Marco polo (talk) 01:40, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

In differences like "-ize" vs "-ise", "color" vs "colour", etc., I believe the American way is the more traditional one. (The Oxford English Dictionary even refuses to move with the times and use -ise.) --Tango (talk) 10:00, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

American and British English spelling differences is probably of some relevance as it mentions a number of examples and when they arose Nil Einne (talk) 10:27, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

At the restaurant the Englishman pays his bill with a cheque while at the diner an American pays his check with a bill. An educated English person is greatly pained to hear such abominable expressions as "Absent his duty some dude out of LA snuck off of base and wrote a pakistinian disencouragising him from snikkering how he'd gotten laid September eleventh." Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Common misconception, technically the currecy that everyone calls a bill is a note.

If "bill" is what most people call it, then surely that is the common term and is ipso facto just as acceptable as the "technical" term. When Australia changed to decimal currency in 1966, the ad campaign included a cartoon character in the form of a personalised $1 note, named "Dollar Bill". Would you rather have people say "My mother died of an acute myocardial infaction" than "My mother died of a heart attack"? -- JackofOz (talk) 01:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

What language is that, exactly? Not American, that's for sure. --Trovatore (talk) 19:51, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. The American spelling is DISENCOURAGIZING. That will make it all clear. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Do you really want me to pick this thing apart? Your sentence is not a recognizable utterance of American English. It seems to be in a dialect that you made up yourself. --Trovatore (talk) 20:02, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The cited expression is an almost unrecognizable utterance but it can with perseverence be translated to English thus: An unknown person left his place of duty in Los Angeles and wrote to ask a Pakistani to desist from making frivolous references to having consummated a dalliance on September the eleventh. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:28, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

You miss the point. It's not American. It's your weird and baseless idea of what American English is. That idea of yours is wrong. --Trovatore (talk) 20:17, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Weirdness is a self-relative perception. The base of the cited expression is a number of well documented oddities of American speech. Trovatore should pick it apart as suggested. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 16:11, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, you asked for it:

• absent as a preposition: two things
  • First, this is legalese. It's in a completely different register from, for example, dude.
  • Second, it does not mean what you think it means. Absent x means, more or less, "unless x happens". A good example is from the movie Fargo, where the loan officer at the bank that William Macy has defrauded says something like "I must inform you that, absent receipt of those serial numbers, I will refer this matter to our attorney. My patience is at an end, sir.". So absent his duty is just plain nonsense here.
• Some dude. This is slang; so what? Substitute "some bloke"; same-same.
• snuck. Yes, we treat sneak as a strong verb. Makes the past tense easier to pronounce, and more distinct from the present tense. An improvement all around.
• pakistinian. This is a complete invention. I directly accuse you of making it up. Well, on reflection, I don't know that for sure — maybe you heard it somewhere. Put it this way — it is not in any way part of American English, and if you think it is, you're entirely mistaken.
• disencouragising. Again, you made it up. See amendment above.
• snikkering. It's spelled snickering.
• gotten. True, we use this as the participle, where y'all use got. So? Our way distinguishes "I've got" meaning "I have", from "I've gotten" meaning "I have obtained".
• September eleventh. I suppose you'd say "eleven September" or "eleventh September" or "the eleventh of September". So?

Bottom line, you made a lot of it up are quite wrong about a lot of it being in any way part of American English, a lot of the rest you misunderstood, and the rest is a big yawn. -Trovatore (talk) 20:56, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

In British English the date would be either "the eleventh of September" or "September the eleventh". I have no idea what "snickering" means - eating a snickers bar, perhaps? Otherwise, I agree with you - I've been exposed to a lot of American English and don't recognise much of that sentence. --Tango (talk) 03:10, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

A snicker is a poorly-thought-of sort of laugh, generally at someone else's expense. There's a British word snigger that covers much of the same semantic space, but I'm not sure it's exactly the same. The British version is risky here. --Trovatore (talk) 03:38, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Trovatore for that analysis. This thread has gone wildly OT. Be aware that I can post incivil things and pretend my evil twin did it too. Itemised rebuttals follow: If absent his duty is plain nonsense how can you know what I think it means? BTW I liked William Macy better in Pleasantville. dude originally meant a dilletante cowboy or dandy and is indisputably original American slang while bloke is indisputably London slang sourced 30+ years earlier. Dude, they are not same-same. snuck exposed your COI in the form of your pro-American allegation that distorting an English verb is an improvement. Perhaps that's so for Germans. pakistinian is not my invention, I saw Colin Powell say it on TV and is he not American? disencouragising/disencouragizing you don't seem sure about this and I deny making it up. snikkering/snickering can be spelled as you wish but it will never be the British word sniggering. gotten - I rest my case. Please refrain from addressing the honourable community of English speakers as y'all. September eleventh - I rest my case. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:45, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry, I FLAT don't believe you that you heard Colin Powell say this. Unless he tripped over his tongue with interference from Palestinian, which I suppose is possible. But you can't tar a whole dialect with a verbal misstep, even from someone as illustrious as Gen. Powell.
• Slang is slang.
• I still think you made up "disencouragising"; I just can't prove it. If you didn't make it up, you prove it.
• You rest your case on gotten? But you never in fact *made* a case.

You have insulted my mother tongue, which you can do, although it is not polite. But you have done so with blatant falsehoods, and this is completely unacceptable. --Trovatore (talk) 20:53, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Trovatore you are free to disbelieve me but please don't qualify your disbelief as FLAT when you also admit the possibility that I am right. I think your supposition of how Powell's misstep happened is a good guess. I have not tarred a dialect but merely stated that an educated English person is pained to hear such things. I have no further comment since my case that gotten is also one of those things is made. Please do not become defiantly jingoistic about the fact which George Bernard Shaw calmly observed: England and America are two countries divided by a common language. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:19, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

That's not gonna fly. You were the one who barged in with offensive nationalism; it is in decidedly bad taste of you to accuse me of it now. You have been extremely rude, compounded your rudeness with inaccuracy and misinformation, and need to apologize. --Trovatore (talk) 22:22, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Condo association question!

Are there rules to two out of three trustee in a condo association, being on committee with-in that building's association?

I don't understand your question; you haven't given us enough details. My guess is that the question is either governed by the association's by-laws or by the laws of the state, province, country (e.g. Scots law) or nation (if not federally-organized) where you live. Also remember that the Reference desk is not able to give specific or detailed legal advice, so while we can answer general questions about laws and constitutions, we can't advise anyone as to the best or soundest course of legal action or inaction in a particular situation; we can't even say whether someone's past, present or proposed actions are legally-justified or not. —— Shakescene (talk) 15:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

In Maryland and Virginia, where I've owned residential property, a condominium's board of directors must follow the procedures in the condo's master agreement (sometimes called the master deed) and any related bylaws. For a new condo, meaning one in which the builder or developer owns most of the units (until they're sold to someone else), the builder/developer will have great influence on the makeup of the board, since board members are elected by the owners of the condo units. Typically, the voting power of a unit will be spelled out in the master agreement; one condo based its vote on square footage per unit as defined in the master deed. That means that a slightly larger unit had, say, 0.843% of the vote, as opposed to 0.775% for a smaller one.

As time goes by and the building controls few units, if any, the builder's influence on the board and thus on the condo's business is minimal.

Committees may include owners who are not board members (meaning, owners who do not have a vote in the regular business of the condo). --- OtherDave (talk) 18:27, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Another weight gain question

This question has been removed. Per the reference desk guidelines, the reference desk is not an appropriate place to request medical, legal or other professional advice, including any kind of medical diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment recommendations. For such advice, please see a qualified professional. If you don't believe this is such a request, please explain what you meant to ask, either here or on the Reference Desk's talk page.

This question has been removed. Per the reference desk guidelines, the reference desk is not an appropriate place to request medical, legal or other professional advice, including any kind of medical diagnosis or prognosis, or treatment recommendations. For such advice, please see a qualified professional. If you don't believe this is such a request, please explain what you meant to ask, either here or on the Reference Desk's talk page. --~~~~

Uk disability living allowance for extreme

Does agoraphobia and being scared of interacting with people in the real world fall under the qualifications for disability living allowance in the UK?

I can't find anything about the UK, but it does not fall under the Americans With Disabilities Act in the US (i.e. you can get fired in the US for being agoraphobic). Xenon54 / talk / 17:53, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Well this site [8] says "The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) defines a disabled person as someone who has a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities...

substantial means neither minor nor trivial

long term means that the effect of the impairment has lasted or is likely to last for at least 12 months (there are special rules covering recurring or fluctuating conditions)

normal day-to-day activities include everyday things like eating, washing, walking and going shopping

a normal day-to-day activity must affect one of the 'capacities' listed in the Act which include mobility, manual dexterity, speech, hearing, seeing and memory".

It gives a link to the Government's guidance and interpretation about what constitutes a disability. From this information, it would appear that it's entirely possible that the conditions given would qualify for DLA, but that a lot would depend on severity and duration. --TammyMoet (talk) 18:47, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The DSM IV says that agoraphobia is not (by itself) a 'codeable' disorder - and suggests that what matters is what symptoms accompany the phobia. So (for example) panic attacks caused by agoraphobia might be considered a mental disability (although evidently not under US law) - but that's because of the panic attacks, not because of the agoraphobia. I don't know whether the UK disability laws use that kind of criteria - but it wouldn't surprise me. They aren't going to fork over a living allowance to someone who just says that they are afraid of open spaces or interacting with people - there has to be some set of demonstrable symptoms - and the symptoms are what make you disabled (or not). That's probably why the DSM lays things out the way it does. SteveBaker (talk) 21:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Possibly. If you look at our article on Disability Living Allowance you will see that there are 2 types of DLA - care and mobility and that these both have different criteria. It's possible that someone with agoraphobia might qualify for low rate mobility, since they would be unable to walk in an unfamiliar place. It could be argued that they would be virtually unable to walk at all, which is a qualification for high rate DLA. However, the decisions are subjective, and I would suggest talking with someone with specific expertise. You could start by ringing your local Citizens Advice Bureau. --Phil Holmes (talk) 15:55, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

My mother-in-law in the UK received nothing for her extreme agrophobia.Froggie34 (talk) 16:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

It's possible that she's too old to claim. It's also important to get help in applying, since the form is complex and it's easy to answer questions with unhelpful details. --Phil Holmes (talk) 17:53, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

No idea about the UK, but I've known of two agoraphobics in the US who receive disability allowances. In both cases, the agoraphobic lived with someone who handles things like shopping, etc. One of the two eventually became gainfully employed in an online job; the other, to the best of my knowledge, never did, and last I heard still is on GAU. - Jmabel | Talk 07:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Boston restaurant

Hi. I'm hoping someone can help me with the name of a restaurant in Boston that I went to in 1994. I don't know if it's still even around. All I can remember is that it's an Italian restaurant in the Little Italy section that served excellent pasta to order, had a huge wait outside on the sidewalk since it did not take reservations and did not have a bar (at least that I remember), served pasta to order, had everyone basically sit around a large open kitchen in the middle and served your order in the same metal bowl in which everything was cooked. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. 68.82.136.142 (talk) 23:14, 26 September 2009 (UTC)