Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 January 30

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January 30

When was Dr. Robert H. Horwich born.

Dr. Robert H. Horwich, received his Ph.D. in zoology 1967 from the University of Maryland. http://www.communityconservation.org/personel.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.28.14.51 (talk) 00:42, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

This gives a date but may not be reliable. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:20, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Lee vs. Lee Cooper

I know that these brands are not related. But, do they have the same quality, prestige, etc? How do they compare? 212.169.190.75 (talk) 13:18, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Their prices at the same location may suggest what the public thinks their brands are worth. But this would be very unreliable. 92.28.255.71 (talk) 10:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Definition/guide needed

Hi, what do you call a person (usually an expert) who is paid to write an opinion on a subject/issue so that the opinion supports the idea or view of the person who is paying the expert? This is usually done secretly, of course. eg: govt of country X pays an expert from country Y (country Y is more advanced than country X) to write an opinion which would support that government's views and policies. ќמшמφטтгמ^torque 14:23, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Think tanks are more or less that: their funding conditions their opinions.212.169.179.2 (talk) 14:27, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

First thing I thought of was shill, but I'm not sure that's what you're going for here. --Onorem♠Dil 14:38, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I would call them an "astroturfer" because the activity you describe sounds a lot like astroturfing. From that wikipedia article:

The term "astroturfing" is also used to describe public relations activities aimed at "falsely creating the impression of independent, popular support by means of an orchestrated and disguised public relations exercise....designed to give the impression of spontaneous support for an idea/product/company/service," according to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Social Media Guidelines

--Quartermaster (talk) 15:09, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Lawyer? Lobbyist? Wikiweek (talk) 15:20, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks all. Astroturfing and shill are very close to what i had in mind. But astroturf/shill are mainly devices trying to create an impression of support from grassroots or lay public opinion. I was looking for more of an expert opinion (like how an independent scientist would say that humans do not contribute to global warming). But not really a think tank and lobbyist, because, from my understanding, think tanks and lobbyist are not independent. I hope i'm making some sense. Thanks. ќמшמφטтгמ^torque 01:17, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I think that shill is the right word for the idea you want to express. Marco polo (talk) 02:16, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I thought of "shill" too, but another phrase (suitable once this sort of context is established) is "expert for hire". --Anonymous, 04:05 UTC, January 31, 2011.

I wonder if "apologist" is the right word here? You could add the word "paid" to make it clear that they've been paid for writing on behalf of someone. --TammyMoet (talk) 11:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure of that. It would be hoped that the expert hired to write the piece firmly believes that what he's writing is the truth, and he would have expressed such views anyway. In that sense, he's not an apologist. The word "apologist" is always used of people who argue for things that are not popular (such as Marxism; or trying to prove that Hitler killed far fewer Jews than is popularly supposed); it's never used of people who argue for popular things - nobody has ever been called an "apologist for chocolate", for example.

This extends the idea of "cherrypicking", where particular existing opinions that would support your side of an argument are highlighted, while those that would detract from it are downplayed, pooh-poohed, or totally ignored. We see that a lot on Wikipedia; and after all, it's only human to defend your argument as strongly as you can, and not undermine it with contrary views. There are plenty of others who'll willingly supply those contrary views. Fortunately, we're not allowed to commission written pieces that would support our views; we have to take existing sources. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 12:00, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Dr. Ben Goldacre has covered this phenomenon at length in his newspaper columns, book and blog, in relation to scientists who are prepared to produce snappy, sciency-sounding but worthless "expert opinions" (usually for marketing companies) in return for money. In this entry, for example, the term closest to your definition would be "corporate whore" rather than "media slut", but I'm not sure either is exactly the term you're looking for. Karenjc 14:46, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Lobbyist? 92.28.255.71 (talk) 10:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

GPA

Hi. I'm applying to colleges now and on pretty much every application form it asks me for things like 'GPA' (which I had to look up to understand as 'grade point average'), class rank, etc. I went to a private school in which we don't believe in 'grading' and 'ranking' students; i.e., we don't think that one student can be 'good' and another 'bad' in a subject simply measured by crude implements such as tests and homework (which is why we never had any of it at my school); we also don't believe we can say one student is 'better' than another through these 'grades', hence no ranks. Since we don't have grades or ranks of any kind at my school, what do I put in these fields? Thanks. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 17:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I would recommend calling the admissions office at the schools you are planning on applying to. Some schools may have a way of dealing with this, such as requesting narrative evaluations from your teachers. Also get ready for a big change, unless you are applying to some really alternative universities, homework, test and grades are usually a big part of undergraduate college life. --Daniel 17:10, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with this, and would also suggest you talk to the counselors at your school, since you are undoubtedly not the first person there who has ever thought about going to college, and they must already know how to handle this to some degree. I would also suggest that you might look into universities that have a similar model as your high school — there are a number of them. Evergreen State College is one I know of, where a friend of mine had an excellent time (and managed to get into a prestigious institution for graduate study as well, later), and according to its Wikipedia article, it is considered quite excellent despite its frankly "alternative" status. I might also note that while lacking a GPA would seem, superficially, to be a detriment, in fact it is probably in your favor from an admissions standpoint. Whereas the traditional applicant will be pre-screened based on their numbers, you will require personal attention at every stage of the way, and will certainly "stand out" from the rabble, even if you are only an average or "just above average" student. So I would not despair. (I say this with some personal knowledge of how admissions offices operate at top-ranked universities.) --Mr.98 (talk) 17:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

What kinds of jobs do those Evergreen graduates end up with? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:24, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Probably the same sorts of jobs everyone else ends up at. Grades don't matter all that much for the workforce, you may have noticed, and in fact, if a potential employer did care about your academic achievement, the kinds of personal evaluations that professors do for you at Evergreen probably have more effect than a generic list of As and B+s. A prestigious university is a prestigious university. It's not a mail-order degree by any consideration. It wouldn't have worked for me, as a student, and I don't think the model is generalizable to all educational institutions, but I see no reason to knock it just because it is different. They seem to have high standards and turn out great students. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Grades are a good indicator of a student's willingness to focus and to be measured on it. In the real world, we have what are called "performance reviews", which are typically more stark than GPA's: exceeds, meets, or fails to meet expectations. And if someone comes in and says he's never had to take exams nor to get a GPA, we'll point him to the exit quickly. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:50, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

You seem to misunderstand entirely what I have written — you are letting your gut reaction get in front of your reading comprehension. They do do performance reviews in these kinds of institutions. They don't use letter grades as a way of doing them. At Evergreen, for example, every professor in every class has to write up a report on your performance in the class. When you apply to, say, graduate school, you actually forward along an in-depth, personalize "book" of reviews that chart your development class by class, year by year. Now, you can say, "well, that's actually TOO MUCH information!" and I'd be inclined to agree; you're really testing the patience of an admissions committee to read said "book" and find out what kind of student you are. (But it can, as I've said, be done. The friend of mine who went there got into pretty much the most prestigious university in the country for the stuff he studies, because the guy who did the admissions at the department he applied to read the entire book. Which I find astounding, given how quickly they go through applications.) But you can't fault it for not having enough information. The Evergreen philosophy is that grades by themselves are a crude metric to measure progress and development: there can be a lot of reasons behind an "A-" or a "B+" or even an "A" that don't come across on the report card. Now I can see the argument that crude metrics are sometimes better — if I were running admissions and had to process thousands of applicants, I don't want to have to read 100 pages of text on each one, I want to spend about 10 minutes on each applicant at most. I don't think the Evergreen approach is scalable. But you can't fault them for too little evaluation. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:22, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

You're talking about admissions while I'm talking about getting hired. But you're onto it: No one is likely to be bothered to read some 100 page evaluation of some potential student. Grades are a quick way to detect a trend. The absence of grades and the presence of a megillah would suggest that the applicant is trying to snow someone, even if they aren't. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:20, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

n/a. 129.120.141.200 (talk) 19:48, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I would definitely not just write "N/A" because the first screener looking through the paperwork may toss the application in the "reject" pile on the assumption that you were just too lazy to fill it out, or didn't attend classes at all. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Location of Razitsia

According to his British naturalisation papers dated 1905, a relative of mine was born in Razitsia in the district of Vitopsk in May 1873 and was a subject of Russia. Can any user please tell me the location of Razitsia? Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 17:20, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Could 'Vitopsk' be Vitebsk? This is now in Belarus but would have been under Russian control at the time. I'll see if I can find Razitsia anywhere, but spelling could well be problematic. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

A Google search for 'Razitsia' doesn't find anything, and Google Earth doesn't seem to have it. A check of the Vitebsk area on Google Maps doesn't help either, unless I missed it (again, you'll need to watch for alternate spellings). Perhaps someone who is familiar with Belarusian and/or Russian might be able to help though. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:45, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

You can try the ShtetlSeeker, which gives you several options for finding communities in Eastern Europe. It might have been Rositsa, at 55°55' N, 27°45' E, or, more likely, Rēzekne, Latvia, which was called Rezhitsa in Russian and was in Vitebsk province. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 20:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

That looks a useful site, Mwalcoff. I'm not sure why you think Rositsa, Belarus is less likely though? The site says it is in Vitebsk province.[1] AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:58, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Because it's a tiny village, whereas the other one is a much bigger place. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 00:47, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Ah, good point - I hadn't though of that. I think to be certain, one would probably need to do more research. I don't know what birth records etc are like in that part of the world though. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:08, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

There are genealogical societies on the Internet that can help you out. http://www.feefhs.org/ is a good start. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Simonschaim (talk) 18:08, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Weight of a CD + all artwork/booklet + plastic sleeve = ?

This is eBay-related. Could someone provide me with a ballpark figure, in grammes? Assuming that the booklet is your not-atypical 6-pager. When I say 'plastic sleeve', I mean one of those thin wallet jobs, not the standard jewel case. Cheers. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 21:34, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I've just weighted a CDR + flexible plastic envelope + two CDROM sized sheets of 80 gsm paper (standard printer paper). It was 21grams, to the nearest gram. CS Miller (talk) 22:08, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I just did the same with two pieces of CD sized 'standard' printer paper and got 23 grams. . Richard Avery (talk) 08:16, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Cheers guys, much appreciated. Someone interested in bidding on my stuff wanted a guestimate for postage of several CDs without the jewel cases... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:04, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Image request site

Does exist a special site at wikipedia where I can request for pictures? Example: 1. I can't find a picture of Person X. 2. I go to the special page at wikipedia and ask for this picture. 3. Maybe an other wikipedia member found a picture and uploud it.

Thanks a lot. --Simon.hess (talk) 21:46, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Over at Wikimedia Commons they have a request page for pictures. --Antiquary (talk) 22:30, 30 January 2011 (UTC) And, though I hadn't realized it till now, Wikipedia has its own picture request page.

However, if you want the picture for some other purpose than adding it to a Wikipedia article, this may not be what you want. Wikipedia can only accept pictures that meet Wikipedia's legal requirements, roughly meaning that they can be republished without either cost or restrictions, so those are the only ones that people should be supplying in response to requests on those pages. If you just want a picture for personal use, it could come from a source such as a magazine that would not grant such rights. --Anonymous, 04:12 UTC, January 31, 2011.