Miscellaneous desk
< January 16	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 18 >

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.

January 17

Prohibitionist in the Mikado

In Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado the song "As some day it may happen" contains the line, in one version "And that singular anomaly, the prohibitionist" (replaced in another version by "the lady novelist"). What was a prohibitionist and what was he/she seeking to prohibit in 1885? --rossb (talk) 00:08, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The OED gives "A person who advocates or favours the introduction of a prohibition, esp. one restricting the manufacture, sale, or transport of alcoholic drinks", with English newspaper quotes from 1842 and 1866 which are rather ambiguous, but probably referring to alcohol in some way. Algebraist 00:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Every recording I've heard of that song says "the lady novelist". Was "prohibitionist" in an early version, or was that added some time later? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It may be a reference to the Lord Chamberlain, who banned The Mikado for a time (ref Hansard 10 June 1907). Our article for another G&S comic opera, Utopia, Limited says "Gilbert also throws some barbs at the Lord Chamberlain's office, as he loved to do." -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 01:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This[1] article is pretty good. The "lady novelist" line is original, put different performances have used different lyrics over the years. It's not unusual for G&S lyrics, especially topical to be tweaked to be more relevant to modern audiences. PhGustaf (talk) 01:23, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ooo, tasty Hansard link. Any idea what the play poking fun at the Kaiser was? 86.178.229.168 (talk) 01:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"The complete annotated Gilbert and Sullivan" says that "the lady novelist" was the original wording and that it was changed by the author to "the critic dramatist" or "the scorching bicyclist" or "the scorching motorist" in Edwardian revivals - and Sir Henry Litton later changed it in the 1920's and 30's to "the prohibitionist" and in 1942 to "the clothing rationist" - so evidently, the intent is to change the target of this acrimony to whoever was the more hated figure of the times. "The wall street banker" might be appropriate for 2010. SteveBaker (talk) 01:30, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Though it really doesn't matter who you put upon the list, for they'd none of 'em be missed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:38, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Of that there is no manner of doubt; no probable, possible shadow of doubt; no possible doubt whatever. :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 08:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Who says wikipedia ain't got no culture? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:07, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Even to this day, if you hear the D'Oyly Carte perform the piece, they will change those particular lyrics. I heard them in 1992-ish where the list included the big-toe fetishist. Marnanel (talk) 16:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That was Sir Henry Lytton, SteveBaker. --ColinFine (talk) 21:53, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cooking help

I'm home and I'm ravenous. I have pasta but no tomato sauce, no oil and no butter. Can I make a buttery type sauce with evaporated milk? I don't need it to be great but I'd rather not eat plain pasta. I have lots of spices and really little else but the evaporated milk to work from. In fact, other than spices, I'll tell you what I have since the list is really short. I have canned pineapple, canned peaches, a few kinds of jam, a jar of almond butter, mayonnaise and a loaf of whole wheat bread, some fresh corn, a few cans of evaporated milk, a can of sweetened condensed milk, canned cranberry sauce, a whole bag of tangerines, and three different types of pasta. That's it.--162.83.138.11 (talk) 01:53, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Condensed milk sandwiches are rather nice. You could put mayo on the pasta, and have the sweetcorn with it. DuncanHill (talk) 02:06, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd second the mayo on the pasta. Hot mayonaise is essentially Hollandaise sauce, which can be tasty on pasta. You could add some tarragon to it and make an ersatz Béarnaise sauce. Any other green herbs would be nice too. With all of the canned fruit and cranberry sauce or jam, and maybe a little vinegar, you could make a nice fruit chutney. --Jayron32 04:09, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

With the evaporated milk (mixed with a little water), and the jam and fruit you could make a sort of bread and butter pudding. DuncanHill (talk) 04:17, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This question certainly rings a bell[2] Richard Avery (talk) 08:11, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would mix the cooked pasta with drained pineapple and sweetcorn (removed from the cob), with a few tangarine segments. If the almond butter is anything like ordinary butter then I would have some of that too. If the spices include herbs or pepper, then I would add some of those. I expect it is too late now. 92.29.80.215 (talk) 11:52, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Experiment! Some of the best dishes come out that way. Whatever you make will at least be (a) edible and (b) interesting. The bad things don't get made a second time and make great stories to tell your grandchildren ("Back in ought-nine we were so short of food we ate pasta with pineapple and mayo - you kids of today don't know what it's like to suffer!") - the fortuitously good things become family classics. SteveBaker (talk) 14:06, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If it were me, I'd run to the store (even a 7/11 will probably do), grab some hard cheese (e.g. parmesean or romano), and some peppercorns. Roast the peppercorns on a skillet until they start to jump around, then mash them into tiny pieces. Add them and the grated cheese to the hot pasta, mix and let the cheese melt a little. Delicious and simple with a bare minimum of additional ingredients. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:06, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But if you could do that, you'd be able to get some tomatoes and butter - and then the entire question becomes moot. SteveBaker (talk) 13:45, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It'd be a strange 7/11 which sold tomatoes. Marnanel (talk) 03:12, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If they don't sell things like tomato sauce or tinned tomatoes, what do they sell? Even my tiny local corner shop sells those. Or do you mean they don't sell fresh veg? AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:32, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trees saved

How many trees were saved by digital piracy of books last year? Neon Merlin 04:54, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is no way to know. We would need to know how many people that read a pirated version of the book would have bought a paper version had the pirated version not been available and that information is not available. --Tango (talk) 05:31, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And also how many people who wouldn't have bought a copy of the book, did so because they enjoyed the piratewd copy so much... -- SGBailey (talk) 11:53, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, because of the way publishing works, not buying a paper edition has zero effect on trees saved in the short-term, because the paper edition has already been printed. (The publishing industry is not, on the whole, print on demand.) What you'd need to know is if the total purchases made by piraters would have instead led to a new print run altogether had they occurred. This seems unlikely to me, but I don't really have a feel for the magnitude of the numbers involved. To put it more concretely, let's say the first print run of a book was 5,000 copies. No matter what piracy occurs, if another print run is not made, the total number of trees consumed will be the equivalent of those 5,000 copies. If, however, the publisher thinks the market is large enough, they can run off another 5,000 copies (or whatever). The question is, if the pirates had bought physical copies, would they have led to the publisher thinking the market is large enough for another printing? I suspect not. And keep in mind we are talking about individual book titles here—it is not a case where the aggregate of pirating matters, but how many of a given title. I suspect only in cases of extremely popular books would this have any effect (e.g. Harry Potter, Dan Brown), but by the same token of them being extremely popular probably means that the impact of piracy is probably negligible to decisions like printing runs. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:03, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The flip side of the question, and probably even less answerable, is how much extra fossil fuel was burned by pirates getting and reading their books digitally, instead of turning off the computer and getting and reading a hard-copy of the book? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

More fossil fuel? Computers use absolutely tiny amounts of power compared to the amount needed to ship meatspace objects about the place. Algebraist 13:23, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And even more, when the unbought books have to be shipped back, due to the pirates getting them electronically. :) The gist of the original question was the implication that pirates are somehow helping the environment. It's clear, from the various answers here, that they aren't. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:38, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Although conventional publishers do fixed length print runs - regardless of number of sales, when books don't sell, the book stores generally have to rip off the covers and send those back to the publisher to get their money back from unsold books. What happens to the remainder of the book is that the paper gets recycled when the bookstore throws out hundreds or thousands of unsold books. The can't simply put them into landfill because they can't have people pick them up and read them...they MUST be pulped. So I think we can equate books-sold to trees-cut-down. But the whole recycling thing makes that very complex. Also, it's a lot easier to re-sell or lend your paper books than it is to lend a DRM-laden eBook to a friend who (probably) has a different eBook reader anyway. So this is really a mess!

Anyway, let's try to get a maximum, optimistic number: $45 million dollars worth of eBooks were sold in the US in each of the last two quarters of 2009 (compared to $20 billion of paper books). The worldwide numbers are not much bigger because in the biggest book markets (China & India) - there are virtually zero eBook readers. So let's say (generously) that there are $400 million worth of eBooks sold per year. We don't have numbers for eBook piracy - but I'd be really surprised if it were 1 book pirated for every book sold...so again, let's say that $400 million worth are pirated. eBooks are pretty cheap - most of them are around $9 - so let's say that there are 40 million books pirated worldwide per year...and let's be REALLY generous and say that every pirate would have bought a paper book had he/she not pirated it (that's VERY unlikely if video-game and music piracy rates are statistically similar). How many trees does it take to make 40 million books? Well, Technical Association for the Worldwide Pulp, Paper and Converting Industry says that (with some considerable complication and some nasty assumptions) says that it takes 17 trees to make a ton of paper and that much paper is enough for 1000 books. So 40 million books is 680,000 trees. That sounds like a lot - but 1.8 billion new trees are planted by the lumber industry in the USA every year. So with all of these best-case assumptions, all of world-wide book piracy can can only account for about 0.004% of the US annual tree production. It's utterly, utterly negligable.

But - I think we're being way too optimistic here. Paper is made from the waste from the lumber industry and 30% of the paper in new books comes from recycled material and paper books are read, re-read, loaned, sold-as-used and kept over generations of readers. When books are tossed out, their paper is often recycled. So you can't say that one pirated eBook saved one actual paperback - it probably saved about 1/10th of a paperback. Also, there is the assumption that if the pirate hadn't pirated the eBook, he'd have bought a paper book...but that's crazy! He'd have bought an eBook instead - because he's a person who has an eBook reader and happily uses it - and he's also a person who is out to save money (and eBooks are typically half the price of paper books and have a $0 shipping fee). So in truth, would eliminating eBook piracy cause even ONE actual, paper book to be purchased? I very much doubt it.

Worst of all. If eBook piracy is rife - and paper book piracy is zero (who photocopies a 400 page novel?!) then what piracy is doing is dissuading publishers from providing an electronic version of their books. That means that people who pay for eBooks are very often unable to find an electronic version of it - so they are forced to buy a paper copy anyway. If that happens then eBook piracy results in the sales of MORE paper books -- not less!!

So, I conclude that the number of trees that eBook piracy is saving is at best negligable - and almost certainly some negative number. Piracy is dissuading publishers from making eBooks available and that is causing significant number of paper books to be sold that otherwise would be eBook sales.

SteveBaker (talk) 13:56, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hear, hear. -- SGBailey (talk) 16:52, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a new page on Wikipedia

Dear Author,

I am new on Wikipedia. I'm currently working on a project to post an article on Wikipedia. But I don't know how it can be done. please help me. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hongenter (talk • contribs) 07:29, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Help:Contents is your friend. It can be easily accessed on the Main Page in the third box down on the left side of the page. Richard Avery (talk) 08:05, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For questions about Wikipedia, Wikipedia:Help Desk is the best place to ask. Vimescarrot (talk) 11:17, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Try Wikipedia:Your first article. But beware - starting an article on Wikipedia can be awkward and frustrating for new users. You're far better advised to contribute to some existing articles first, so you get the hang of it, before posting a new article. --Dweller (talk) 13:47, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The way I learned was mainly through practice. Try the sandbox, and play around with that as much as you can. I still find it useful. Also, using templates (scroll down on the article editing screen for a list) can help a lot, too. -- Imadeausername! (talk|contribs) 02:12, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

American states

I was surprised to see in the question US state and territory capitols above that some American states only joined the US in the 20th. century. Were Alaska, Arizona, and Oklahoma really seperate independant countries before they joined? And while Hawaii became an American state, why did some islands in the pacific whose name escapes me recently go in the opposite direction and become independant nations? 92.29.80.215 (talk) 12:05, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They were territories. Most of the U.S. states were originally territories, except for the 13 colonies which went directly to statehood, and a few (Maine, Vermont, West Virgina, maybe others) that were originally part of another state; and Texas, which was independent for about 10 years before it joined us (or we joined it, as they say). For various reasons, other U.S. territories (such as Cuba and the Philippines) were eventually given their independence (although we lived to regret the decision about Cuba, at least). The most likely candidate for a 51st state would seem to be Puerto Rico, but due to ambivalence about the notion, it remains a territory. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:18, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the area of what is now the US was land that was previously claimed by England/Britain, France, or Spain, or more than one of these at different times; or in the case of Alaska, by Russia. Under those countries if an area had enough population it was typically organized into colonies, while less populous areas did not have their own governments. Areas of the US that did not directly become states generally became territories and were then often divided into smaller territories which in turn became states; many of the straight-line boundaries in the western US result from these later divisions. Hawaii was an independent country before it joined the US as a territory. Vermont's status was disputed before it became a state -- both New York and New Hampshire claimed it, but it was de facto independent as well. --Anonymous, 20:54 UTC, January 17, 2010.

Yeah, Puerto Rico doesn't seem likely anytime soon, from either side. Statehood votes there have been close enough that it's not implausible one would someday win, though I haven't heard of any recent movement to vote again. But PR's accession would significantly shift the balance of power towards the Democrats, permanently as far as anyone can tell. Two senators and I think a half-dozen representatives or so; maybe eight electoral votes. The Republicans won't permit that if they can stop it (nor would the Dems, if the shoe were on the other foot). When the political effect of statehood is clear, it's not going to move unless either (i) one party is so dominant that they can just impose it or (ii) you can admit another state to balance the effect. (ii) seems out of the question; there's no red statehood candidate on the horizon. --Trovatore (talk) 20:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is a wealth of information in the article called U.S. state, including a lot of "see also" links to various subjects. One of them would likely list the states by order of admission, and if you really want to learn a lot about how the U.S. developed, you could go to each of the 50 state articles and see where they came from. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:21, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's a clever animated map near the top of Territorial changes of the United States that shows the growth of the country (and Canada, too). The point at which a region changes from light blue to dark blue indicates the transition from territory-hood to statehood. Deor (talk) 16:16, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The difference between Hawaii on the one hand and Samoa, Tonga, Nauru, etc. on the other is that by the time decolonization became the rage after World War II, Native Hawaiians made up a minority of the Hawaiian population, which was well-integrated into the American economy and society. Statehood was much preferred among the locals and was achieved in 1959. There is a small secessionist movement in Hawaii to this day. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 16:09, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose it's an odd concept for old-worlders to think of a nation expanding the way the US did, but I suspect that most of the new world expanded the same way. Some of Canada's province joined Confederation (similar idea to the Union of States that is the United States)in the 20th century, as late as 1949. I wonder if Mexico or Brazil have similar histories. Would the relatively recent founding of Brasilia count? Or the fact that some cities in North America are barely 100 years old, compared to the millennia that London or Paris have behind them?Aaronite (talk) 18:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some of Mexico's states were territories before becoming states. See Territorial evolution of Mexico. The last territories to become states were Baja California Sur and Quintana Roo in 1974. As far as I know, Mexico didn't really have a "frontier" like the U.S. and Canada, except for the part north of the Rio Grande they lost to the U.S. in the Mexican-American War. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 20:31, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For Canada, similarly to the US, most of its area was previously under British rule, although some parts were French before that; and the more populated areas were organized into colonies while other areas were not. Areas that joined Canada and did not become provinces became territories or districts, which might later be broken into smaller territories or districts, and some later became provinces or were added to existing provinces, as their population grew. Newfoundland (now called Newfoundland and Labrador), like Canada, gradually advanced to independence (within the British Commonwealth) in the late 19th and early 20th century, but it went bankrupt in the 1930s and voluntarily returned to British control until it joined Canada in 1949. --Anonymous, 21:04 UTC, January 17, 2010.

As far as a nation expanding in the Old World, I'd like to see an animation of Russia's spread over the centuries. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 22:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's a good map of it in the Philip's Atlas of World History. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:24, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The 13 original states seem to have been regarded as 13 independent and sovereign countries in the papers signed by the British ending the American Revolution. Edison (talk) 22:29, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's the wording of the Declaration of Independence also. But immediately they started putting together a central government, in the Articles of Confederation. In some sense, you could compare the working agreement among the 13 states with the EU. One difference is that most everyone had a common heritage, so achieving cooperation and union was probably easier and more natural. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:50, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Under the Articles of Confederation, the Continental Congress was a weak enough body that the US might better have been thought of as a federation of independent countries that have chosen to give up a few powers, sort of like the European Union today. The real federal government didn't get going until the articles were replaced by the new constitution in 1789. I've seen it claimed that "the United States" continued to normally be construed as a plural expression until the time of the Civil War, after which it became a singular; I don't know how accurate that is. --Anonymous, 20:32 UTC, January 18, 2010.

If you want a source for that claim, I'm fairly certain it's in America, Empire of Liberty: A New History (series 2, disc 2). It's also cited in the United States article.

I'm surprised to see no mention of the D.C. statehood movement in a discussion of places that aren't states, so here's a mention. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:21, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The page Territories of the United States explains the somewhat confusing difference between Organized incorporated territories of the United States and Unincorporated territories of the United States. There's more detail than that, but the basic idea is "incorporated territories", whether organized or not, were from the start defined to be part of the United States with no option to separate--thus "incorporated". So for example, when the federal US bought the Louisiana Purchase all of it became incorporated territory. Over time bits and pieces of it were "organized"--meaning territorial governments were set up. The process by which incorporated territories became states was hashed out by Congress--it is not laid out in the Constitution. "Unincorporated territories" are different--they are not irrevocably part of the United States. So to answer the question, Alaska, Arizona, and Oklahoma were from the moment they were acquired by the United States (via the Alaska Purchase, Mexican Cession, and Louisiana Purchase, respectively) were incorporated territory and thus not independent countries. Hawaii was once an independent nation, but from the moment the Newlands Resolution was passed and the US annexed Hawaii, it became an incorporated territory, soon organized as the Territory of Hawaii. The key point is the difference between incorporated and unincorporated territories. Pfly (talk) 09:49, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On the section of the question reading, "Were... really independant countries...," Texas is the only state that was formerly an independant country before joining the Union. The reason for this is that Texas won the Texas Independance war, but Mexico warned the United Statesthat if they were to annex Texas, the government of Mexico would consider that an act of war. So, from 1836 to 1841, the great state of Texas was known as the Republic of Texas. In 1841 (or it may have been 1842...) the United States annexed Texas into the Union, starting the Mexican-American War, a plan devised by the American president of that time to extend the United States from coast to coast, as a part of an idea called Manifest Destiny. Because Texas was originally it's own country, the United States allows the Texas flag to be displayed at an equal or lesser height than the American flag, and is the only state with this privilege. -- Imadeausername! (talk|contribs) 02:22, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That last sentence isn't true (see subsection "f"). There is no exemption in the US Flag Code for the Texan flag; the only flag to which the Flag Code grants that privilege is the flag of the United Nations, and then only at the United Nations headquarters. See Flag of Texas#Urban legend. Marnanel (talk) 02:38, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Questions with the most replies

Which is the question that generated the most lengthy discussion in the Reference desks? --Belchman (talk) 14:18, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to look at questions that have previously been asked and answered, you may want to consider looking through the Reference Desk Archives. As to finding out which question generated longest discussion, I'm not sure how you would find it...there have been an awful lot of questions that have been asked! Chevymontecarlo (talk) 14:33, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It would probably take a coder 2 or 3 hours to fetch the entire history of a Reference Desk and write a python script to do a word count under each section header. This would not be 100% accurate, as there are sometimes questions where a new section header is created to continue the discussion. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:22, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Questions about sex, creationism, US politics, existence of God, conspiracy theories or any combination of the aforementioned and that don't actually need much research effort tend to produce the most verbose responses. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:43, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Like, "If God was US President, which political party would she support?". Oops, misses out creationism and conspiracy. 78.149.251.193 (talk) 00:28, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Libertine Party. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:11, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This suggests that Barack Obama is the Messiah. If this is the case, then why does he want to teach sex education to kindergarteners, and how come evolution is still taught in our schools? It's obvious that he's really a reptilian and just want us to think that he's our savior. Buddy431 (talk) 22:00, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

God created both sex and evolution, so I don't see why He would have a problem with either one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:15, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, admit that the Invisible pink unicorn created sex and evolution or She will get cross. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(mhhbb) SteveBaker (talk) 02:41, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

US Preadtor drone: total death toll

Hello, I'm trying to find out the total death toll in Pakistan due to predator drone strikes. Any ideas? Denito (talk) 15:10, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on Drone attacks in Pakistan appears to have totals for years, but I don't know if those are considered to be accurate or comprehensive. (I suspect not.) Graph #3 on this page suggests the numbers are higher than on the Wikipedia page. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:36, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

ThanksDenito (talk) 13:19, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jack Newell

In Ft. Worth, Texas there is a street named Jack Newell Blvd. Who was the Jack Newell that the street was named for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iamric2000 (talk • contribs) 15:17, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A developer, like so many street namesakes: [3] -- Mwalcoff (talk) 16:02, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FSH level

if your fsh level is 15.2 would follistim be helpful to conceive? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.68.147.46 (talk) 19:37, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is this a request for medical advice? Marnanel (talk) 21:09, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is to me. --Ouro (blah blah) 21:14, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are articles on both, and the reader can see if they answer his questions: FSH and Urofollitropin (a.k.a. Follistim, among other things). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:29, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If they don't, you can try asking your doctor, at Planned Parenthood (if you're in the US) or your local Family planning clinic. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:05, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

who is the sponsor/ publisher of wikipedia.org? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.153.112.17 (talk) 19:39, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikimedia Foundation. Marnanel (talk) 19:48, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikimedia Foundation, a charity, owns the servers, etc., the money comes from donations from the public and grants from various charitable foundations (and a small amount from commercial deals - licensing the Wikipedia trademark for use in phone's with a Wikipedia feature, etc.). --Tango (talk) 22:37, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Because Wikipedia's license terms are so open, there are many hundreds of publishers of the information. You can read Wikipedia's content on around 2000 different web sites. There is a reasonably complete list on WP:Mirrors and forks. However, these other sites tend to be out of date - and they often miss images or whatever. Some of them allow you to edit the articles - but then they are guaranteed to be out of date compared to Wikipedia since once an article has been edited, it can't easily be updated with new content from Wikipedia. Hence, most readers come straight to the source and that drives these other places into relative obscurity. SteveBaker (talk) 02:24, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This type of question, in my experience, is usually asked by someone who really wants to know about Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia, or, even more simply, wants to use the Special:Cite tool (or rather they'd want to use that tool if they knew it existed). Jwrosenzweig (talk) 02:54, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Effects of snow on the generation of knowledge

OK, that's deliberately grandiose. Let's look, on the one hand, at the recent storms in North American and Europe and correlated snow days, and on the other hand, the amount of material added to Wikipedia (either new articles created or edits made). Obviously if a storm is so severe it knocks out electricity one might expect our editors to go quiet, but if it is merely a situation of offices or schools closed, was there an upsurge in contributions from employees working from home? There certainly were other effects: Online dating soars as temperatures plunge, according to the BBC on 7 January. Perhaps a clever Wikipedian could track this by area? Or has it already been done? BrainyBabe (talk) 22:46, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We had snow in the UK, but I don't think we had any storms. It is often said that the UK is very bad at coping with snow compared with other countries, and closes down with even a small amount. 78.149.251.193 (talk) 00:24, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wonderfully grandiose, but you are assuming, BB, that Wikipedia is a major contributor to knowledge production, which is not necessarily the case IMHO. The simple answer must be that the snow helped improve the level of knowledge in the general population about how to cope with snow - but it adversely affected knowledge production in general, due to the closures of schools and workplaces. I wonder if there was an effect on the number of patents filed. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:23, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The way I read the policy, Wikipedia should not produce any new knowledge at all. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:31, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The only daily statistics which I can think of are these. They aren't broken down by region, but it looks to me that there were slightly fewer edits made over the periods of heavy snow in much of the Northern Hemisphere, although that probably correlates better with the Christmas and New Year holiday period. Warofdreams talk 12:30, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say: Wikipedia isn't about the generation of new knowledge - it's about the recording of existing knowledge. We actively discourage people from adding new knowledge (WP:NOR and WP:SYNTH being two guidelines that say as much). It's perfectly possible that preventing people from doing other things might increase the number of articles written or improved - but with scientists not being able to reach their laboratories and archeologists being kept from their digs - really it's only going to be the mathematicians and theoreticians who'll get much done! So I'd say that the amount of new knowledge generated during the snow-in would be less than on a normal day - but perhaps more of it would be recorded and understood. SteveBaker (talk) 13:43, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The OP seems to dismiss the title as not entirely serious so perhaps we don't need to take the word generation (of knowledge) literally. The question is about Wikipedia editing activity so the word dissemination (of knowledge) can be more appropriate. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:15, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There could be some merit to the idea. I recall that 9 months after Mt. St. Helens erupted in May of 1980, which had wrought havoc for a few days, there was a surge in the birthrate in the Pacific Northwest. Johnny Carson made some comment in his monologue about "that big explosion leading to all those little ones!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:47, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was claimed (and disputed) that the 1965 New York blackout led to a bumper crop of babies. Likely ditto for Wikipedia edits during a blizzard. Edison (talk) 05:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I recall that factoid. Your last comment reminds me of a blurb in Reader's Digest, of all things, which is a somewhat long story, so I'll skip to (and somewhat alter) the punch line: the typical wikipedia editor has both a wife and a mistress, because each one will think their man is with the other one, and then he can get all the editing done that he wants. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all. Yes, I was refering to the amount of editing done on Wikipedia. We have so many clever data-crunchers that I wondered if anyone had tried to calculate the impact of bad weather (i.e. enforced staying at home) with WP contributions. Widespread closures of businesses and schools is geographically trackable, and ISPs are too. I don't know enough to say whether the two data sets can be brought together in any sensible way. BrainyBabe (talk) 11:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2010 January 17