Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2013 April 20

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April 20

The two ring gambit.

What is a "two ring gambit"?(It is apparently some sort of confidence trick.)Mr.Magik-Pants (talk) 00:00, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I can't find it in Google, so will take a guess: You offer to sell someone a diamond ring. They examine it with a loupe, checking it for authenticity, etc. Then, once they decide to buy it, you do some sleight of hand and replace the real diamond ring with a cheap copy, which you then sell to them at full price, keeping the valuable ring. After such a grift, it would be important to leave the area before they discover the swap. Of course, you could do the same trick with other items, but rings are easier to swap without the buyer noticing, than, say, cars. StuRat (talk) 00:15, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

It's an extremely common scam with laptops, where the punter ends up with a laptop bag containing a couple of bottles of water or something of equivalent mass and value. See this news article, out of many. Tevildo (talk) 08:16, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Tel Aviv Mizrahi and Sephardi Jew neighbourhoods and other cities

Which neighbourhoods in Tel Aviv are dominantly Mizrahi and Sephardi? Also, is there a website or Hebrew articles of Wikipedia that says about which neighbourhoods that are dominantly Mizrahi and Sephardi? Thanks.--Donmust90 (talk) 04:52, 20 April 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

There's an article here at English Wikipedia called Neighborhoods of Tel Aviv, which has an interlanguage link to the same article at Hebrew Wikipedia. I don't read Hebrew myself, but if you do, that may be a good place to start your research. --Jayron32 04:56, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Why do,you want to know? Itsmejudith (talk) 07:22, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Because Donmust90 is obsessed with minute distinctions of religion and ethnicity, and entirely unwilling to do any of their own research, or to discuss why any of this is the case. I'm increasingly impatient. AlexTiefling (talk) 08:23, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Donmust90 (and in his anonymous IP incarnations before he got his username) seems to be most obsessed with constructing symmetrical and uniform matrices or grids cross-classifying groups A,B,C,D,E with respect to regions/countries/cities 1,2,3,4,5 etc. etc. -- even if such theoretical symmetry and uniformity makes little sense in light of the actual real-life situation on the ground... AnonMoos (talk) 00:32, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps it is for a political propaganda project. I hope it is not in order to target these populations for abuse or violence. Donmust, please let us know what all this is about and then we might be more interested in answering your questions. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:18, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I am not doing this for propaganda. I am doing this because I like to study about certain cities and certain groups and their culture and religion they practice. that's all. I have never been to Israel or other places that has large Muslim population or Bangladeshi population or African population like Birmingham had, according to 2011 census had 234,411 Muslims; largest than any other cities in England. That's why I asked about other cities in Europe like which one has the largest in numbers in France, Italy, and Netherlands because these three nations colonized Muslim nations. Also, I asked about African population in France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Belgium because these countries colonized or controlled African nations Italy on Libya and Somalia and Belgium on Rwanda, DR Congo and Burundi and I wanted to know about which Belgian city had largest in numbers and same thing in Spain and Portugal. Then, I asked questions about which political party they support in Europe in these nations. That way, in the future, I can search books about these certain ethnic and religious groups in certain nations and their culture and political views. Please, just help me okay. Thanks. Google sometimes doesn't help with these web sites they come up with. --Donmust90 (talk) 15:38, 22 April 2013 (UTC)Donmust90

Boilerplate answer to Donmust90: "The term "Sephardi" has little or no relevance to modern day Israel". We could make it into a template. --Dweller (talk) 17:03, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

...and I explained the reasons in a reply to a query here in late 2012 or thereabouts. I'll consider retrieving it and pasting it to User:Donmust90's Talk page. -- Deborahjay (talk) 07:41, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

The large immigration from the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa occurred in the early 1950s, and those immigrants are of "Mizrachi" origin. Since then, several generations are native-born, among them the offspring of Mizrachi-Ashkenazi mixed marriages. Regardless of identification with Mizrachi origins, these generations of immigrants and offspring are Hebrew-speaking and comprise about half of native-born Jews in Israel, so can't be properly called a minority. Their being "disadvantaged" relative to the Ashkenazim is a matter for historical and socioeconomic record. HOWEVER, this query is the equivalent of asking "Which neighborhoods of Greater Los Angeles are predominantly Jewish?" "Jewish" isn't a category on the US census, though the local Jewish community and antisemites and their ilk will probably have answers. The Wikipedia pages on locales in Israel will usually state the origins of their founders. Beyond that - it's a volatile issue and therefore a questionable question, almost if not actually taboo. -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:17, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

State‐owned casini

Has there ever been a gambling institution completely owned by the state? Perhaps in one of those state capitalist regimes? --66.190.69.246 (talk) 04:58, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know about 100% ownership, but the Monte Carlo Casino is primarily owned by the state of Monaco and the Grimaldi family (Monaco's ruling family). I think some shares are in private hands, but as a controlling interest is in the hands of the government, it would not be incorrect to call it "state owned". Also, many Native American casinos are owned (in part or in total) by Native American tribes, which have a limited form of sovereignty which could be seen as a form of "state" ownership. Also, I'm not entirely sure how Macau works since China re-annexed it from Portugal in 1999; that is to what extent Macau's gaming operations have been nationalized or not. --Jayron32 05:06, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Gambling in Macau has the operating concessions parcelled out to private hands in 2002. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:24, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The Kansas Star Casino in Kansas is state-owned. ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 05:13, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Casino Cosmopol, who run four casinos in Sweden, are wholly owned by Svenska Spel, a government owned company that used to have a monopoly on all gambling and betting in Sweden. (In practice, it doesn't anymore, because Internet...) /81.170.148.21 (talk) 07:41, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Not a casino, but The Tote was (1928-2011) a chain of bookmakers' shops wholly owned by the British government. AlexTiefling (talk) 08:21, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• State-run lotteries are more typical since they don't require the management of a high-overhead building facility with lots of machines and a high opportunity for theft, fraud, and corruption. μηδείς (talk) 16:35, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Well, two out of three ain't bad... State run lotteries have a high potential for corruption, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? and all... --Jayron32 22:33, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

By state do you mean the government of the entire country or the provincial/state government as you would find in Canada or the US? If the latter then the Société des casinos du Québec, a subsidiary of Loto-Québec which is a Crown corporations of Canada, owns four casinos of which we have articles on three. Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation another Crown Corporation owns 10 casinos of which there are articles on eight. A look through Category:Casinos in Canada should turn up more and List of casinos in Canada show some but looks incomplete.[www.abgaminginstitute.ualberta.ca/Canada_casinos.cfm This] is the source for the list but I'm getting a runtime error on that page. For the US take a look at state owned casinos which seems to indicate Kansas is a leader in this field with at least three but other states are considering them. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 07:50, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

The Casinò_di_Campione is owned by the Italian government, and operated by the local municipality. Dalliance (talk) 10:02, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

witchcraft

which Pope prohibited practice of witchcraft in Rome? --82.81.204.217 (talk) 08:54, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a reason to suspect that one single pope did this (you heard it somewhere) or is this just a question of curiosity? In general it would be banned along with any pagan practice. I'd be surprised if at some point in the middle ages witchcraft had been allowed and was suddenly banned. There have been papal bulls against witchcraft, for example that of Innocent VIII here. μηδείς (talk) 16:41, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

More information in Witches and Witchtrials in Italy, but not an answer to your question. The Biblical passage which was used as a pretext for the persecution of supposed witches is from the Book of Exodus, chapter 22, verse 18; "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.", so it seems unlikely that the church would have actually approved of witchcraft at any stage. Alansplodge (talk) 16:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The entry on witchcraft in the Catholic Encyclopedia has quite a lot of detail on various papal bulls relating to witchcraft, though how objective it is about them, I am a little dubious. But it is a good start. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:51, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I do love when the old Catholic Encyclopedia gives in to a little scholarly sarcasm, such as "[the confession manuals] were largely compiled by men who were in actual contact with the people" The old Catholic Encyclopedia is generally a reliable source for what was known when it was written: if it says a historical document says something, it does. And if one is sceptical of the surrounding context (as is quite reasonable), just about all the documents it references are now freely available online. The only question is whether it has left any useful documents out that were known when it was written, and it does typically actually include the bad as well as the good, but it's a very reasonable point to be dubious on. I don't know of a better source, though. 86.161.209.128 (talk) 16:37, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Two questions regarding Influential Imams in non-muslim countries

• Which Mosques are influential in politics in countries outside the Muslim World. For example I recently read that the Imam of Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque is used by the intelligence agencies in Russia for suppressing Jihad
• Are there any similar titles to Shahi Imam, that is associated with royalty and royal decree and is the post of Imam always hereditary. I am not counting any mosques of Saudi Arabia since the country became a kingdom only in 1932. Solomon7968 (talk) 12:10, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what kind of influence you are looking for, but Abu Hamza al-Masri was pretty influential in London... Adam Bishop (talk) 18:04, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Traditionally, the opinions of the the head of al-Azhar in Egypt were widely influential among Sunnis, but after the various twists and turns of the last 50 years, I'm not sure how true that still is. The internet age has led to the proliferation of numerous "cybermullahs" issuing authoritative-sounding pronouncements despite being quite obscure off-line ("in real life"). Of course among Shi`is, the term "Imam" is often reserved for (claimed) hereditary successors to Ali ibn Abi Talib; the Aga Khan is the main living person publicly claiming to be an Imam in that sense (though his followers are quite few in proportion to all Muslims). AnonMoos (talk) 21:39, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Aga Khan IV is the 49th Imam of the Nizari Ismailis and is to a certain extent, as their leader, politically involved, just not in the politics of any particular country. In this case there is a degree of hereditary rule. The current Aga Khan's father was passed over and thus he is the grandson of Aga Khan III. Don't forget there is quite a difference between an imam in Sunni Islam and one, Imamah (Shia doctrine), in Shia Islam. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 07:03, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Isn't the second sentence of this question a BLP violation? RNealK (talk) 20:07, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

country voting patterns

Hello, I was wondering if there is a name for the phenomenon I have noticed in some countries with two political parties. One is normally biased to the right and the other, the left. One is voted in for their term; then several years later, the country votes and the opposite party is then in power. For example, the Conservatives (right) were much around the 1980s in the UK, then it was Labour (left) in the 1990s-2000s and now it is back to the Conservatives. This is what has happened during my lifetime but I'm sure if I went back in British political history much of the same pattern would appear. A similar situation appears to happen in the US with the Republicans and Democrats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.2.235.204 (talk) 14:40, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's known as a two-party system. Political scientists argue about why it happens. Probably the best explanation is that it is the natural result of a single-winner voting system, where voters vote for a specific person rather than for a party. In a plurality voting system proportional representation system, where voters vote directly for a party, there are almost always multiple parties. Looie496 (talk) 14:54, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree with that. The simplistic reason for shifts from left to right and back again (known as "swings"), is that there are a significant minority of "floating voters" who don't have a fixed party loyalty, but make their mind up in the weeks before an election. They get fed-up with the party in power and decide to give "the other lot" a chance. Sometimes it takes a few years for them to forget how awful "the other lot" were when they were actually in government. Political parties often target groups of voters whom they believe are likely to change allegiance in their favour; most famously the 1980s Conservative drive to capture the vote of "Mondeo man", a working-class home-owning voter with a family who was moving up the social ladder and was likely to espouse Conservative Party values that were tailored to suit him (or her). Alansplodge (talk) 16:26, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

That's one reason why I've never joined a political party and never will. No matter how electorally successful a party may be now, its ultimate fate is defeat. Most politicians are really only interested in being around when their party is the flavour of the month. Sooner or later, it won't be, and they won't be. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:59, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The so called "Swing voters" can make major changes to the electorate, even if they only make up a small proportion. Consider a hypothetical country with a two-party (or two coalition) system with a winner-take-all single-member district election style, which is evenly divided between, say 45% rabid, died-in-the-wool far-right conservatives and 45% bleeding-heart leftist progressives, with the remaining 10% made up of centrist swing voters who are fairly middle of the road. Assuming the right would never ever vote for a leftist candidate, and the left likewise, that means as little as 5% of the electorate (well, an infinitesimally small amount more than 5%) actually plays "kingmaker" and decides which party wins. That's actually how elections work in the U.S. (the numbers probably don't break down exactly like that, but conceptually, you can follow it). If your the kind of voter who votes "straight ticket", i.e. if you are a Republican who would never vote for a Democratic candidate in your life, then no one cares and no one campaigns for your vote. The politicians who represent you don't have to do anything for your vote, because you've already guaranteed it to them before they even made a campaign promise. Throw in a healthy dose of Gerrymandering and there's very few competitive electoral districts; and thus there is very little incentive for politicians to respond to the needs of the electorate in any meaningful way. --Jayron32 22:30, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

In real life, enthusiasm and degree of voter turnout among the "base" are also important... AnonMoos (talk) 00:26, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and the use of primary elections in USA also means that Republican politicians have to care about Republican voters who would never swing Democratic. See for example Tea Party movement#2010 election. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:07, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

The question that is being asked is if there is a term for this phenomenon. In Norwegian, we have the word 'regjeringsslitasje', which would literally be translated as 'government "wear and tear"'. It is used somewhat as a 'catch-all' term for several effects of a government staying in power for a long time:

• The people's disillusionment with the governing party (or parties, if it's a coalition), often stemming from a government's inability to deliver on its electoral promises to the complete satisfaction of the electorate.
• Internal power struggles in the government, over time. This means that a government that was filled with energy when it won an election could 'break down' as its members do not work so well with each other anymore, due to personal/regional power struggles/conflicts.
• At a certain point, the government will become more focused on defending the policies it has already put in place, and run out of ideas for further change. Some voters might be satisfied with these, but it is easier to rally the electorate around something that is 'wrong' and 'has to be changed' than to 'accept that what is already in place is a decent compromise that shouldn't be tinkered with'. In short, the government loses its 'oomph'.

While I agree with what has been said in previous posts, they seem to assume that both the electorate and political parties are static, so that one aspect that is missing, is that both the electorate and political parties change over timer. The Labour party that Thatcher defeated in 1979 wasn't the same Labour party that won the election in 1997. Similarly, the electorate that voted Conservative in 1979 wasn't the same electorate that 'voted for' Tony Blair in 1997. The electorate isn't static: people die, young people come of age, and what seemed very important when you were a recent graduate at 26 is less important as a recent parent with a mortgage at 31. Similarly, while the political parties might have the same names and claim to follow an overarching political ideology, the way that translates into specific policies can change, and the electorate might be willing to overlook ideological differences, so long as they agree with the specific policies that are implemented. V85 (talk) 15:58, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Any demographies of counter-strike players or servers?

For example, how many percent of players or servers for Counter-Strike are located in each country?--163.125.82.189 (talk) 14:58, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

This sounds like proprietary information that would only be held by Valve Corporation, and which they would be unlikely to release as it provides them with an economic advantage over competitors or customers.--Bejnar (talk) 22:53, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

This link might help[1].--Inspector (talk) 07:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

NNDB and copyright

NNDB contains some useful photographs of celebrities. But it doesn't seem to say anywhere what the copyright status is of these. Can anyone throw any light on this? The context is that I do some editing for another Wiki, http://lgbthistoryuk.org/wiki/ (based in the United Kingdom) and have used the NNDB photograph (at http://www.nndb.com/people/167/000088900/) to illustrate an article on Terence Rattigan. Is this likely to get us into trouble? rossb (talk) 18:37, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

If you don't know the copyright status of the photograph, you should assume it is fully under copyright. Its presence on another website does not indicate anything about its copyright status unless the website explicitly states it or you have other reasons to infer whether it is in the public domain (e.g. by knowing its age). We are not qualified to give you legal advice and are explicitly prohibited from doing so. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:48, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't looking for legal advice, although I can see my question might have been interpreted that way. I was just a bit surprised that an apparently significant encyclopedic website such as NNDB appears to make no statement one way or the other about the images it displays and the extent to which people are permitted to reuse them, and wonder if anyone has any further information about what their attitude is, or how they deal with their source material.rossb (talk) 22:38, 20 April 2013 (UTC).

Ask on commons:Commons:Village pump/Copyright‎... -- AnonMoos (talk) 00:24, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

At the bottom of each page, they claim copyright on the content. That's their statement for reuse — they aren't explicitly allowing any. It is the most common stance in copyright on websites; it is much rarer to have something like Wikipedia where the terms of re-use are explicit. You should e-mail NNDB directly if you are curious about their copyright policy. There's not enough material on their site for us to possibly guess it. (Incidentally, the "legal advice" bit of your question was: "Is this likely to get us into trouble?") --Mr.98 (talk) 00:34, 22 April 2013 (UTC)