Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 September 21

= September 21 =

Human Monoculture article
This article seems to be a huge essay. Is this a notable topic and a fixable article or is it just WP:MADEUP? I'm not an expert enough in the social sciences to be sure. Blythwood (talk) 04:18, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * As written it is a speculative personal essay, not a real thing with RS and experts in the field to quote--it reads like a poorly written undergraduate essay. I have restored the deletion tag, if the editor wants to go the edit war route there's ANI and 3RR.  You should warn him on his talk page, I am to tired (1am) to spend more time on this tonight. μηδείς (talk) 04:57, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * In my experience, the word "monoculture" is an indication that what you're reading is a polemic, not genuine anthropological research (for all that cultures have merged and influenced each other, they are still extremely distinctive). There are some real concepts in there (see for instance, our articles on World systems theory, Cultural globalization, Cultural homogenization, Language shift) - from the sounds of it, this person has also subsumed moral ecology) but I don't think there's anything salvageable from this essay. This bit - "we know for certain that our next Event will occur with the eruption of super volcano Yellowstone. Its last two eruptions terminated 90% of all life to a depth of 500 meters under the ocean surface of our planet" - is ludicrously false. We have no clue about when the next Yellowstone supervolcano eruption will be, and while it certainly wouldn't be a good thing, its previous eruptions are not linked to any particular mass extinction events. Smurrayinchester 11:24, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, I looked this up at google scholar earlier today and the term seems to come from a 1980 paper, and the other results were largely either quotations of that paper in a different work, or things with polemical titles such as "Manifesto..." μηδείς (talk) 18:18, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Is it true that a removed "prod" can't be re-prodded? Or is the one editor inventing that rule? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:29, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That's true - except in cases of obvious vandalism, a removed PROD tag should never be re-added, even if the original article creator removed it. Smurrayinchester 13:49, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah sorry it was me who readded the prod and I wasn't aware of that rule either. Seems a bit odd to me. I guess the idea is that the writer of the article is now aware of the interest and is expected to do something to bring the article up to scratch. But in this case I can't see him doing so. --Viennese Waltz 14:01, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It's not really that odd. The point of the WP:PROD is for uncontentious cases I.E. no one is going to question the deletion or thinks it needs discussion but where it doesn't quite meet any speedy criteria. It's intended to be uncomplicated and without fuss. If it's clear this isn't the case, it doesn't merit prod. Adding allowances like two seperate editors can prod or you can re-prod after a certain amount if time etc just risks too much drama, it's not supposed to be AFD-lite. Likewise allowing the creator to de-prod avoids drama & the unfairness of them having to somehow find someone to check the article and de-prod it. Note if an article is successfully prodded, it can also normally be undeleted on request for the same reason. (There is a special form of prod for BLPs without sources which can't be removed without a source supporting something in the article being added.) Nil Einne (talk) 14:53, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Fair enough but I would have thought allowing the creator to de-prod (as happened in this case) actually adds to the drama, rather than avoiding it. Anyway it's gone to AfD now, where I don't hold out much hope for its chances. --Viennese Waltz 14:59, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

For the record, at AfD now. Happy to close this discussion. Blythwood (talk) 18:44, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thy word is my command. μηδείς (talk) 01:52, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Laws on betting in Western Australia
I'm sorry if this is not appropriate, as I don't really spend that much time on this reference desk, but could someone provide some links to laws in Western Australia on betting outside of casinos and racing? Cheers JoshMuirWikipedia (talk) 11:27, 21 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Have you looked through the relevant state government site? Rojomoke (talk) 13:41, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Laurie Lee poetry
Is there such a thing as a list of all Laurie Lee's published poems, with the works in which they appeared? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 21:07, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Here is a bibliography of his works at the official website of the organization that ran his centenary celebration. There's contact information for an agent listed there.  That may be a place to start.  -- Jayron 32 22:35, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, have emailed the agent. DuncanHill (talk) 22:57, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

what could Rsis be?
Sorry for my english. I'm trying to understand where is the Rsis region mentioned in the Zoroaster article (to solve a disambiguation problem).

The only thing I found some poets or mentions of pa-rsis.

I see also that the mention of Rsis was introduced by user 182.182.25.219, any idea what this place could be ? --Melaen (talk) 22:14, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * My only guess is that this is a typo for Fars; that is someone misread Fars as Rsis. Since Fars is in the same general region as the other places listed in that article  Also, another name for Fars is Persis; so they may have forgotten to put the Pe in the front. -- Jayron 32 22:30, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That's right.  The name of the Persian language is Farsi. 86.128.234.7 (talk) 00:12, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Less plausible, translation problem w/ Vedic Rsis? .&mdash;eric 15:31, 22 September 2016 (UTC)