Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 September 26

= September 26 =

Cause of death of Liliuokalani
Can someone help me find the cause of death for Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani in 1917? Wikipedia has said for a long time that it was complications after a stroke and this has tainted almost all recent web and published sources so I am not sure anymore if it is true or not true. I'm looking at a few newspaper sources and many don't say and some just accredit it to old age. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 08:26, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Have you checked "Helena G. Allen, The Betrayal of Liliuokalani: Last Queen of Hawaii 1838-1917, ISBN 0935180893 "? That is one of the references mentioned in our earlier article so I presume predates it [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Liliuokalani&oldid=1569825]. Nil Einne (talk) 12:10, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The Lili'uokalani Trust says she died of a stroke - I would expect them to be reasonably reliable. Newspaper reports are always quite circumspect about causes of death, historically especially - things like cancer, heart attack and stroke were very taboo back then - so you normally only see "a long illness" or "a short illness". I wouldn't expect to find any obituaries that explicitly say what she died of, especially as a well-respected elderly female royal. Smurrayinchester 12:18, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * This Biographical Dictionary of Notable American Women dated  1971 mentions her ( I could not read whether they do apologize or anything about including her notwithstanding her birth and statutes - but America is also a region of sorts.. )  They do mention a "severe stroke". --Askedonty (talk) 12:46, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * (Multiple EC) Looking at the other references/sources mentioned in our early article, the claim she died from a stroke was also mentioned in the earliest available version that I could find of this ref [//web.archive.org/web/19970606233402/http://www.uic.edu/depts/owa/history/liliuokalani.html]. It's from 1997 so the claim definitely doesn't originate with us. Unfortunately that page no longer exists at least at that URL so I'm not sure if anyone who wrote it would be easy to get in touch with and it doesn't list sources. The other reference [//web.archive.org/web/20030422050240/http://www.almanach.be/search/u/usa_hawaii.html] doesn't seem to mention the claim. I also found this for the Lili‘uokalani Trust which also mentions the claim. That specific page seems to have only existed since 2014 but I found this earlier page from 2003 [//web.archive.org/web/20031118225812/http://www.onipaa.org/jsp/page.jsp?pagetype=about] which also makes the claim. While it does minorly postdates our article, and the working older version I can find doesn't mention the claim [//web.archive.org/web/20030205070145/http://www.onipaa.org/queen.htm], I find it fairly unlikely they would have been influenced by our article in about 2 months in 2003. (Also their whole website seemed to undergo a major revision around this time and I expect but can't be sure that the new page which mentions the stroke actually predates our article.) Since they still exist and given their nature, you could always contact them and ask what their source is if the book doesn't pan out. Finally [//digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1059&context=jwel] while postdating our article by a few years, does include 2 refs which predate it. Nil Einne (talk) 12:49, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the ECs, Nil. I take it you must have started editing your own answer quite some time before I did. --Askedonty (talk) 13:01, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * My second response was basically a followup to the first response and so I basically wrote it from my first response to I posted it except for a brief period where I went to check something unrelated in real life. (Actually I searched for other sources and found the PDF and website before my first response but didn't explore them since neither predated our article. So I decided to go back and find exactly when the claim in our article originated first, finding at the same time it included 3 refs and the book seemed important enough to post quickly and I knew exploring the histories of the various websites would take a while. It didn't help there was a period of confusion where I thought I'd read the second online ref from our article mentioning her cause of death but it doesn't seem to have ever done so which wouldn't be surprising since it's only a brief page about genealogies. I think I confused myself with one of the other refs somehow.) Nil Einne (talk) 13:12, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If you're still not sure, if you're working on a genealogy project you could probably receive a copy of her death certificate from the Hawaii government fairly easily since it's been over 75 years . If you do so, remember to include her full legal names etc. It's possible it's available online somwhere, but I couldn't find it and from my experience looking before and looking here, you tend to get a lot of paid stuff which may or may not have what you want where it's hard to work out if they actually do. Nil Einne (talk) 13:23, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Aleppo vs. Vietnam, etc.
There is a lot of news about the barbarity of the Syrian regime in attacking Aleppo, e.g.. How do these attacks compare to the carpet bombing of previous conflicts?

My impression - which may be false - is that the Aleppo attacks are actually quite "humanitarian" by comparison to those of the Vietnam War. I see our article on carpet bombing credits the change to Protocol I (1977), which I note the United States still hasn't signed. Is the position of U.S. diplomats like Kerry that these attacks were war crimes all along, including in Vietnam (which given his history you'd think was possible, but I don't know...)? Or were they war crimes since some parts of Protocol I came to be "customary international law", whatever that is, whenever that happened? Or are they war crimes for Syria, because that state signed the protocol, and not for the US, because it did not? Wnt (talk) 16:52, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I must admit the business in Syria reminds me of nothing so much as the Spanish civil war with Aleppo corresponding to Guernica. Except Guernica was only bombed for one day. And I'm getting the feeling more and more that they'd be better off with a tyrant in charge rather than all the bloodshed. There was intense bitterness in Spain for years but Franco eventually died. And to war crimes if it was possible to take them before the court they'd be convicted and signing or not signing would make no difference to that. But I don't see that happening. Dmcq (talk) 17:05, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, Bombing of Guernica was 1600 dead in a town of 7000 with about 10000 people in it at the time; the article gives a lame explanation of it being a legitimate military target but there is also description of a Luftwaffe doctrine of "terror bombing", which we redirect to "strategic bombing", as the U.S. called it in Vietnam. About as many people (1600) were killed in the Christmas 1972 attack on Hanoi  but that was a much larger city, if that matters.  In Aleppo 90 and 100 people were killed in the preceding two days out of about 250,000 people in the rebel-held section.   What all these statistics mean or matter in a moral argument, I cannot r compared eally say at this point. Wnt (talk) 17:24, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Sorry by comparison I didn't know you meant numbers killed and percentages. Dmcq (talk) 19:13, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't, really. But it's all I can think of how to measure. Wnt (talk) 22:11, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * If you read many of these links you get some insight to answer your question. -- Jayron 32 20:15, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I may have something of that general perspective already. In the meanwhile, I should recommend against Google Chrome RLZ tracking spyware.  It inserts the "non-unique" identifier that you downloaded some kind of Google Chrome (their documentation doesn't explain the "C" code, which must be something newer than 2012) in the US on the 500th week since February 3, 2003, i.e. sometime early in September 2012, not directly from google but via someone tracking a package with the code 'LDJZ'.   These codes are supposedly not unique but if I search them on the Web they are pretty sparse - you can search just the first part "1C1LDJZ" and there's some guy talking about nude beaches in Atlantic City who downloaded it on Week 597, somebody in the Columbian government who wrote up some reports who downloaded it on week 570, etc.  If you ever post one of these tracking links from a named account folks will be able to look up your Secret Wiki Identity.  I don't know if the codes change on update or not - if they do, this would also reveal a specific vulnerability for hackers.  I would generally suggest a dislike for a company whose slogan is " Don't Be Evil"; an origin in a supposedly friendly nonprofit like Mozilla seems like a bare minimum for a browser. Wnt (talk) 22:09, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Your paranoia is refreshing. -- Jayron 32 11:38, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Is that a quotation? It sounds like something Dr Evil might have said... Tevildo (talk) 18:58, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Well that's quite interesting. I was thinking of the conflicts in terms of the political structures in that the Spanish civil war was another civil war involving a dictator who was helped by a ruthless outside power to bomb the citizens in a town. Wnt was thinking in terms of the numbers of people killed even if no dictator or particular town or other structural similarity was involved. Jayron equates all people in conflicts to each other so I guess they equate all parties to World War II, the US, UK, Germany and Russia, and Japan and Columbian drugs lords and ISIS etc etc without any distinction. Dmcq (talk) 22:43, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I equated no one with anything. I posted a link.  -- Jayron 32 11:38, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If you think of some quote and publish it with no indication otherwise of your feelings then you are supporting it. If you don't wish to support something you quote then say so when you quote it. Dmcq (talk) 18:05, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I also haven't quoted anything. I still just posted a link.  Links provide information.  I have posted no opinion on the information.  Merely noting that it exists.  This is not the tell everyone how to think desk.  This is the reference desk.  -- Jayron 32 19:59, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Don't be a dick. You typed 'one man's patriot is another man's freedom fighter' as something for us to contemplate. That is an indication of support. Fix your understanding of how such things work. Dmcq (talk) 14:59, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Don't be a bigger dick. You're claiming to read my mind.  I'm merely asking you not to do that.  -- Jayron 32 12:36, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I never claimed to read your mind. I said what your contribution implied and why it did that and how to fix it. If you want to be misunderstood and then blame people who don't get from what you write what you intended and then argue with them that's your choice. Dmcq (talk) 20:34, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, the problem with going by "political structures" is that it seems like it can easily reduce to saying "what the bad guys do is a war crime, what the good guys do is not." Though maybe there's a fundamental truth to that; there often is a right side in war and it is not clear that the concept of purely procedural war crimes doesn't depend on a moral relativism that is philosophically unjustifiable.  But I am more skeptical that a right side exists in the Middle East; I distrust even their best efforts at democracy.  So I find myself standing further from that way of looking at it than I might in some other region, I suppose. Wnt (talk) 02:49, 27 September 2016 (UTC)


 * That isn't too different from the Spanish civil war with the fascists and communists and the international brigade. But I'm pretty certain that the sending in of planes to go and bomb Guernica was done by a bad guy. Dmcq (talk) 08:39, 27 September 2016 (UTC)


 * One important factor is that precision bombing wasn't really an option until recently, so massive civilian casualties were inevitable with any bombing campaign. StuRat (talk) 23:39, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * See Aerial bombardment and international law which has a good summary of "To be legal, aerial operations must comply with the principles of humanitarian law: military necessity, distinction, and proportionality". Following this is required if the defeated isn't to be taken off and hung or incarcerated for the rest of their days as a war criminal. Dmcq (talk) 08:53, 27 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Even precision bombing produces plenty of collateral damage (ie: unintended victims) and smart bombs are often less smart than they're supposed to be. In the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the RAF resorted to using laser-guided bombs made entirely of concrete, which in theory at least, allowed them to demolish a house without killing the next-door neighbours.  I'm not sure what the operational reality of that was. Alansplodge (talk) 12:51, 27 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Note that with respect to Syria, one of the specific claims is that hospitals  . In addition that rescuers are being intentionally targetted (generally the White Helmets)  . Both of these are controversial. (Remember even if the people targetted are legitimate military targets, there are still some protections for medical help.) I don't know about Vietnam, but for the later the claim has been made that the US drone program does something similar   . In addition the US was well known for their idea that unlawful combatants should not be treated either as civilians or as military personnel in the last decade. Nil Einne (talk) 16:40, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Well cluster bombs should never be used in civilian areas and chemical weapons definitely are banned so I don't think there's any pretense even of protecting civilians in Aleppo. I am very sorry the US supported things like sticking prisoners in Guantanamo without any clear status or trial or anything. It must be a big blow to Obama that he'll be leaving office without being able to close it. It would have been much better too if a court had passed sentence on Osama Bin Laden in absentia. A high standard in oneself can encourage a better standard in others. Dmcq (talk) 15:29, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Should never be used in civilian areas seems a bit wishy-washy, presuming we're talking about comparisons with other countries, particularly the US or other major parts of the western world rather than personal opinions. The US is after all not interested in the Convention on Cluster Munitions and have only said that  they should not be used in "concentrated, civilian areas". It's nearly universally accepted you shouldn't intentionally target civilians, but precisely who is a civilian and what is intentionally targetting is more complicated. Ad as for "civilian areas", the ultimate questions is what is one, we've seen this in many wars, e.g. the firebombing campaigns during WW2 or nukes. And remember the US also said 'cluster munitions are actually humane weapons. "Because future adversaries will likely use civilian shields for military targets – for example by locating a military target on the roof of an occupied building – use of unitary weapons could result in more civilian casualties and damage than cluster munitions," the policy claims. "Blanket elimination of cluster munitions is therefore unacceptable due not only to negative military consequences but also due to potential negative consequences for civilians."' The US has always dropped many cluster bombs which are still causing injuries and deaths e.g. in parts of SEA and parts of the former Yugoslavia. Nil Einne (talk) 16:39, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I think what is going on in Aleppo can best be compared to conflicts where one side considers itself fighting an existential battle, which then changes the calculus about the risks one can take w.r.t. e.g. dropping bombs and then risking killing civilians or for that matter any other military action. Our point of view is that Assad could and should just leave power, so we will judge Assad just like we would judge ourselves if we were fighting a war of choice. But Assad's point of view is probably more similar someone fighting an existential battle and then his mindset will be similar to our mindset during the Cold war about a possible conflict with the Soviet Union. In the latter case our military doctrine was to do whatever is necessary to win regardless of civilian casualties "U.S. plans for nuclear war in 1959 included the "systematic destruction" of major urban centers like East Berlin, Moscow and Beijing -- with the populations of those cities among the primary military targets."


 * There are plenty of examples from history that demonstrate that war crimes on a massive scale are the norm and not an exception (like those commited by Hitler, Saddam, Pol Pot etc.). Take e.g. the killing of South Korean prisoners in the early stages of the Korean war. Obviously if a country is being invaded and there are a large number of prisoners suspected of having sympathies with the invading regime, then it doesn't take an Adolf Hitler to get to a horrible outcome. Count Iblis (talk) 02:23, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The Cold War is still on... has anything changed? Kim Jung Un might nuke San Francisco tomorrow, and what would you suppose happens next?  Honestly, I can't imagine one percent of the American population wanting to see one stone standing on another within fifty miles of Pyongyang. Wnt (talk) 02:31, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


 * And what have the people in Syria never mind Aleppo ever done to Russia to deserve their civilians being bombed? Dmcq (talk) 09:39, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Jus soli
Our article on jus soli states that: "the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" excludes children born to foreign diplomats and children born to enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country's territory."


 * 1) Are children of tourists who were not born in their country's embassy not excluded?
 * 2) Are children of illegal aliens not excluded?

46.198.195.80 (talk) 18:42, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes on question 1, per with the caveat that a child raised outside of the U.S. must wait until their 21st birthday to claim their birthright citizenship.  Yes on question 2, per, with no qualifications; if the family lives in the U.S., even in an undocumented state, the child is a U.S. citizen from birth and can begin voting and exercising other citizenship rights as soon as they are legally available to other citizens. -- Jayron 32 19:06, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * To be clear, Jayron's "yes" means yes, they are not excluded. --Trovatore (talk) 18:59, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Neither group 1. nor 2. are excluded. Jus soli in the USA is associated with permissive citizenship rights meaning that a person does not relinquish any jus sanguinis or jus matrimonii right to a non-US citizenship unless they voluntarily seek Naturalization. Illegal immigrants in 2010 were parents of 5.5 million children, 4.5 million of whom were born in the U.S. and are [consequently] citizens, see Illegal immigration to the United States. AllBestFaith (talk) 19:14, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It's worth noting that neither question has been addressed by the US Supreme Court. Someguy1221 (talk) 21:20, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Only insofar as it has no bearing, since the U.S. Supreme Court does not, itself, make laws. It did, however, decide United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which is at least tangentially related.  -- Jayron 32 21:30, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the case I was thinking of. I bring this up because there are contemporary arguments to render children in both cases 1 and 2 non-citizens. Since there is neither an amendment nor a Supreme Court precedent explicitly dealing with either situation, such cases are governed by statute and regulation, which could conceivably change in the future, though I have to simultaneously note that essentially all movement in this area for two centuries has been toward greater inclusion. Someguy1221 (talk) 21:38, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Plagiarism from Wikipedia
Have there been any interesting cases of plagiarism from Wikipedia? I've been editing on Wikipedia since 2008 and I've noticed a lot of my words and bits and pieces from articles I've contributed are found in book such as The Real History Of Hawaii: From Origins To The End Of The Monarchy for example where they are recited verbatim.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 20:44, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * See this discussion.—Wavelength (talk) 21:19, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * See these reports.
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2007-01-08/Press plagiarism
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2007-07-09/Japanese plagiarism
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2007-11-19/Khobar plagiarism
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2010-05-17/In the news
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2015-07-15/In the media
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2005-05-09/Brockhaus plagiarism suspected
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2014-08-27/In the media
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-29/In the news
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2015-03-18/In the media
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2006-01-16/Tim Ryan dismissed
 * Wikipedia Signpost/2006-01-02/Reporter plagiarizes Wikipedia
 * —Wavelength (talk) 23:22, 26 September 2016 (UTC) and 23:31, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * The article I wrote on angel dusting has been used by a South African cosmetics firm in their ads. StuRat (talk) 23:34, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * My favorite was one I found about "glucojasinogen" - see my description at Talk:Diabetic neuropathy. Then again, I'll spoil it.  Somebody wrote some utter nonsense about diabetic neuropathy being related to this nonsense term, complete with a reference to "intrapectine nerves" between the arms and legs.  Wikipedians dutifully polished this turd for something like seven years, marginally improving the grammar.  Meanwhile, the statement turned up in two different articles in (apparent) scientific journals (I strongly suspect the pre-paid model of open publishing is at fault here; it is clear we have not yet exhausted all the dumb ways to pay for publishing), each of which had plagiarized parts of the Wikipedia article word for word.  So it was actually indexed in NCBI.  What makes it so funny is that the authors clearly committed "strong plagiarism" - no petty offense of simply borrowing the words to avoid the labor of shuffling them around, but a willingness to swallow the text whole, on blind faith that it meant something, without being willing to put in any effort to figure out just what.  In my opinion this was, simply, the greatest triumph of Wikipedia vandalism ever done, and we owe the unsung hero a debt of gratitude for lifting the curtain and showing us a bit of the sheer ridiculousness of the world.  I do feel guilty for having spoiled it, and yet, without someone coming in to harvest, we would never have had the chance for admiration. Wnt (talk) 02:57, 27 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I once got given a book on marine life for a birthday present, the entire text of which was lifted from Wikipedia. (The general style of writing made me suspicious, but what gave it away was that they forgot to remove one of the [citation needed] tags). Iapetus (talk) 09:47, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * This reminds me (though Wikipedia was not involved) of a calendar I once had that showed holidays around the world; at least one of the entries ended with "(cliccate)", apparently Italian for 'click' (V-form imperative). —Tamfang (talk) 01:20, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm going to quibble on the "V-form" bit, there. "Cliccate" is the plural imperative.  The conceit is that the impersonal commercial speaker is addressing the customers collectively.  If you wanted to address a single customer formally, you would say "clicchi", though this is mildly problematic because it's the same (in this case) as the informal indicative, so you need to make sure the context is very clear. It is true that there is an older usage, still somewhat current in the Italian South, that uses the second-person plural as a genuine "V-form".  That probably does influence the commercial usage.  But I think it's not the main way the usage is intended to be heard. --Trovatore (talk) 19:52, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Neo-nazis and conservatives
Do neo-nazis consider themselves to be conservative?Uncle dan is home (talk) 22:30, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia doesn't seem to have the answer. Neo-Nazism in general is described as being part of Far-right politics, and it does have some overlaps with conservatism (pro-Christianity, anti-immigration, and anti-communism). But do individual neo-nazis consider themselves conservative? I tried looking through some Wikipedia biographies of notable neo-nazis, but I haven't found any who self-labeled as anything other than Nazis or other far-right ideologies. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:20, 27 September 2016 (UTC)


 * You might want to read up on the alt-right, which seems to be the link between the two. StuRat (talk) 02:22, 27 September 2016 (UTC)


 * "Neo-Nazism in general is described as being part of Far-right politics". True, but I'm not sure why. The original Nazism was of course National Socialism, and Socialism is generally described as being leftist and is typically not pro-religion. Something would depend on how similar Neo-Nazis consider themselves to be to the original Nazis.


 * The original Nazism, though it did have a socialist character, does not neatly fall anywhere on the modern right/left spectrum. In addition to being socialist, the first Nazis were also staunchly anti-communist, anti-feminist (as we'd recognize today at least), and pretty much anti-everyone-who-isn't-a-nazi (jews, gypsies, gays, foreigners). So yeah, not neatly on one side. Their economic policies are also more complicated than simply "socialist", and you can read more at Economy of Nazi Germany. On the subject of neo-Nazis, it's my own impression that they don't really emphasize the socialism very much. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:45, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * To the extent that left/right makes sense across political cultures (as opposed to within one, where the axis can be placed arbitrarily), the closest thing to a sensible measure of it is that the "left" is the side for which equality, however construed, is the highest political value, whereas the "right" is everybody else.
 * So the Nazis are "right" in the sense that they do not highly value equality. But libertarians are "right" in the sense that they value individual liberty higher than (substantive) equality (though they place a very strong value on formal equality).  Yet Nazis and libertarians have nothing interesting in common, and are bitter enemies.  Also, Nazis and communists do have interesting things in common.  That's about how much the left/right scale is really worth. --Trovatore (talk) 07:01, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It may be more interesting to compare ideologies on a continuum of authoritarianism, because that generally has the greatest effect on the most people living under such regimes, and thus is the most germane to most discussions. -- Jayron 32 11:43, 27 September 2016 (UTC)