Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2009 September 7

= September 7 =

Project on Happiness
I found a website a while ago of a project about emotions. A guy handed out cards with a human figure on it and the instructions were for each emotion to draw on it how you felt, and another where you would draw a single dot. The cards of hundreds of people were layered to and put on his website. Has anyone else come across this and could direct me to it again? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.130.237.183 (talk) 03:25, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Which leads me to ask, is there a place, apart from here, where one may search for lost websites? "I saw this website about ... but I can't remember where the heck it was!" BrainyBabe (talk) 17:00, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Go to http://www.archive.org - "The Internet Archive" - enter the address of the web site into the "Way back machine" text box and hit "Take me back" it'll take you to a list of dates when that web site was archived - click on one of those links to get taken to a page that shows how that page looked on that date. Sadly, you don't have a decent search engine to search them - so unless you know the URL, you're unlikely to find what you need. SteveBaker (talk) 03:16, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Lost clothes at Waterworks Corner on the A406, London, UK
Today, 7-09-09 I noticed a large quantity of lost clothes on the roundabout known as Waterworks Corner on the A40, London, UK.

I wonder if anyone knows where they came from or who they belonged to. Alright, it's not the Marie Celeste, but I'm interested in any answers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.115.82.97 (talk) 15:42, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know the road in question but I saw an incident on a motorway when a suitcase came off a roofrack leaving lost clothes all over the motorway. The case broke to pieces which fortunatley ended up against the central reservation. This is of course just speculation on what may have happened. -- Q Chris (talk) 16:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * For the benefit of those in foreign parts, this is on the North Circular, near south end of M11. Q Chris's explanation sounds probable. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:26, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * In the countryside earlier this year, I think, I saw clothes strewn along the verge of the road, actaually mostly in little piles of two or three items. 89.242.115.9 (talk) 20:53, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments Juliankaufman (talk) 21:22, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Why do Dutch Antilleans have girls' names as surnames?
Examples include:
 * Vurnon Anita
 * Javier Martina
 * Angelo Martha
 * Albert Cristina
 * Charlton Rafaela

I have always wondered this but never known the answer. Spiderone 16:33, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know, but the Maltese do it a bit too: Barbara and Sylvia are two examples of Maltese surnames. --  JackofOz (talk) 19:54, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * This is truly bizarre. Does anyone know if there is perhaps a better place to ask something like this? Spiderone  20:13, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

It could be that they are from a history where the naming convention is Matronymic. ny156uk (talk) 20:26, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Jean de Florette suggests that this is the naming convention in rural Provence. AlexTiefling (talk) 20:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * the one netherlander i know, explained the reason his 'middle name' (as he termed it) was maria, was due to his catholic faith, and it was common for males of his generation and faith to have this name... I, of course from then on in, have gleefully used this as his given name (and rudy, being rudy has gleefully to me to f*** off) :) Perry-mankster (talk) 21:14, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * That happens in German and French too. (Like Klaus Maria Brandauer or Jean Marie Le Pen.) Adam Bishop (talk) 02:37, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Even in the anglosphere, it's not unknown for men to have unequivocally female middle names, particularly Mary among Irish Roman Catholics - see Archbishop Patrick Mary O'Donnell. --  JackofOz (talk) 08:28, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * As for Americans, two words: Hanna-Barbera. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots 11:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Only one of those counts as a girl's name. --  JackofOz (talk) 21:28, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Here's another one I've just come across: Bernard Hélène Joseph van Dieren. --  JackofOz (talk) 05:31, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Not to mention George Beverly Shea. --  JackofOz (talk) 05:39, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

poem that depends on punctuation
I debated putting this on the Language Desk, since it is about punctuation, or Humanities, for literature, but thought this the best bet. I am looking for a particular poem I read some time ago. (Of course, if our collective erudition turns up something similar, that would be fantastic too.) The one I am thinking of fits on one or two pages, and has short lines. I can't remember any of the phrasing precisely, but the gist of it was a long list of items the writer had seen, and the meaning appeared nonsensical until the punctuation (by line break and semi-colon) is reversed. Something like:
 * I saw a horse;
 * Running free there was a chimney;
 * Belching smoke there was a child;
 * Skipping rope there was a fish....

None of those are the real phrases, but is that enough to get the idea? I am also aware of the "Dear John" letter, the interpretation of which switches depending on punctuation. Any others? BrainyBabe (talk) 16:58, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * There's a classic example, which I can dig out in a while, in Peter Quince's prologue to the play-within-a-play (The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe) in the last Act of Shakespeare's A Midsummer-Night's Dream with misconnected lines like "All for your delight/We are not here". —— Shakescene (talk) 19:29, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

'If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend, But with good will. To show our simple skill, That is the true beginning of our end. Consider then, we come but in despite. We do not come, as minding to content you, Our true intent is. All for your delight We are not here. That you should here repent you, The actors are at hand: and, by their show, You shall know all that you are like to know,'
 * Algebraist 19:34, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know whether there's a particular name for this kind of poem, but the most famous example (and perhaps the one you're thinking of) is the following (no. 398 in the Opies' Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes);


 * I saw a peacock with a fiery tail
 * I saw a blazing comet drop down hail
 * I saw a cloud with ivy circled round
 * I saw a sturdy oak creep on the ground
 * I saw a pismire swallow up a whale
 * I saw a raging sea brim full of ale
 * I saw a Venice glass sixteen foot deep
 * I saw a well full of men's tears that weep
 * I saw their eyes all in a flame of fire
 * I saw a house as big as the moon and higher
 * I saw the sun even in the midst of night
 * I saw the man that saw this wondrous sight.


 * It's fairly widely reproduced on the Web, as you'll find if you Google for the first line. Deor (talk) 20:45, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Bingo, Deor, that's it! I knew there was fire in there somewhere, and animals.  Any more would be very welcome, as ever. And User:Algebraist, how would you suggest re-punctuating Peter Quince? And shall we attempt to come up with a name for this trick of writing, if no one else has (which is unlikely)?  BrainyBabe (talk) 08:54, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Needless to say, four centuries' worth of actors playing Peter Quince and their directors have had to ponder how to deliver his speech, and where to put the breaks (stops). E.g. "All for your delight we are not here. That you should here you repent you the actors are at hand." —— Shakescene (talk) 23:01, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

How to "correct" a misleading Google result
Again, I have no better idea of where to place this. It's not really technical enough for the Computer Desk. Just one of those miscellaneous days.

I have been following the story of Lubna Hussein, the Sudanese journalist convicted today of outraging public decency by wearing trousers. If you enter her name in Google, one of the first results is a Daily Mail article dated 14 August. The headline as it appears on Google is "UN Christian woman facing 40 lashes for wearing trousers is barred from leaving Sudan". However, when you go to the article, the URL contains the word "Christian" but the headline and article text contain no reference to her religion. (In fact, she is a Muslim, as she makes clear in one of her first interviews .) Perhaps the error occured because a Daily Mail journalist assumed she was a Christian. Perhaps the first publication, in print and online, contained that error. Perhaps, on this being pointed out, the editors corrected the text and visible headline. My question is, why does the error persist in the URL and title visible in the Google search, and can it be amended? BrainyBabe (talk) 17:21, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Google is just giving the html title of the Mail article. When the Mail fix their title, Google will (after a period of up to a few days) update their cached version of said title. Algebraist 17:39, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The same thing happens with Wikipedia articles. You may notice that the little blurb on Google which links to a Wikipedia article may not match what's exactly here at the time, but eventually Google catches up when they re-crawl.  Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 17:42, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, so then, how does one persuade the Daily Mail to change the title? Specifically, who does one write to? BrainyBabe (talk) 18:21, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Looking at their contact link, technical@dailymailonline.co.uk and editorial@dailymailonline.co.uk seem the best options. Algebraist 18:26, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * (ec)There's a comment box on that page. I assume someone from the Mail reads comments prior to putting them up, so that may be one method to bring it to their attention. (Even if not, it would help clarify the story for future readers.) A more direct method may be to click on the "contact us" link at the very bottom of the page, which lists a technical contact address for MailOnline of "technical@dailymailonline.co.uk". Alternatively, there is a "Feedback" link on the top of the page which gives you a web form. If none of those options were available to you, you can usually reach the person in charge of a website by sending an email to the "webmaster" address, e.g. something like "webmaster@dailymail.co.uk" in this case. -- 128.104.112.179 (talk) 18:31, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * And if contacting them directly gives you no joy, contact the Press Complaints Commission. Nanonic (talk) 19:42, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Guys, the Daily Hate-Mail aren't noted for their accuracy or fact-based-only reporting. They are the UK equivalent of Fox News. -- EA Swyer Talk Contributions 20:51, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * As others have pointed out - Google re-crawls things fairly often - and in this case, it's already happened. The Daily Mail evidently fixed their article - and Google re-crawled it.  If you rerun your search, you'll see that the word "Christian" appears nowhere in their search results. SteveBaker (talk) 03:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Neither the Mail article's title nor the google description have changed that I can see. The only change is that the Mail has slipped to 11th in the results. Algebraist 03:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The article is changed. But the HTML  tag has not been changed. It still carries the original headline. That is what Google bases the text of its links on. APL (talk) 22:22, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

It appears to me, as a user of Google News, that when Google first visits an article they cache the headline and initial text as it was at that time, and if the news provider later updates the article at the same URL, Google never sees it. I think they don't care much because they assume there will be a newer article that will soon take precedence in search results. But this is not something I've actually seen documented anywhere. --Anonymous, 03:26 UTC, September 8, 2009.
 * That may be the case, but since we're not dealing with Google News, or with a miscached headline, it's of no relevance here. Algebraist 03:54, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you all. (OP). BrainyBabe (talk) 16:21, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Of course we're dealing with Google News -- regular Google search results include Google News hits these days. What's described above fits perfectly with the scenario that the original news source got the headline wrong and then corrected it in place. --Anon, 22:25 UTC, September 8, 2009.

Press responsibility for the accuracy of information?
I was reluctant to merge this with the previous question, so I am formatting this as a new one. Are there any valid, legal channels or means to ensure that what we read on the news is actually what happened? I do not mean the cases when the erroneous reporting constitutes libel or deliberate political bias. I mean when the reporting is just plain wrong. Earlier today CNN reported on the discovery of a new Mallomys species, here, saying: Initial examinations of the rat... suggest that it belongs to the Mallomys -- a genus of rodents in the muridae family which are the largest living species of rodent. Disregarding the bad grammar (genus ... are the larges living species - WTH?), it is fundamentally not true that Mallomys rats are the largest rodents. Capybaras, maras, porcupines, beavers, and marmots are all significantly larger. Can anything be done about false reporting, at all? --Dr Dima (talk) 19:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I haven't visited the CNN website in a while, but I'm almost certain that it has a list of contacts at CNN, including editors, webmasters and very, very likely an ombudsman or "public editor". Most newspapers have a box, often on page 2, that provides corrections, clarifications and amplifications. This isn't practical or useful for broadcasting or video, but the web version of a story can very easily be corrected, sometimes explicitly, sometimes silently. Many news sites will also add readers' comments (positive or negative) to individual stories. While it's not feasible to recreate a whole location shot after it's been broadcast just to correct the script, any subsequent version of that story could incorporate a correction. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:13, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * You can complain to the news organization and they can issue a correction (if they choose to). Other than that, no, nothing, other than frequent other news organizations. CNN and other "quick cable news" agencies seem to do a bare minimum of fact checking. There are no consequences unless it is libel, generally. My experience is that more high-brow sources (NPR, the New Yorker) go to extreme, sometimes ridiculous lengths for fact-checking. In any case, CNN and others' errors are far worse than rat species... --98.217.14.211 (talk) 20:15, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * It is unrealistic to expect any legal remedy for such a reporting error. For that one would have to prove there was negligence that caused one real harm, for example if you had paid good money for a Rodent Encyclopedia. The CNN article does mention that capybaras are larger. It is apparent that an unnamed CNN reporter is quoting from a BBC team (did BBC report wrongly?) and an expert at Oxford University. Normally journalists clear their articles with people they quote so the main possibilities are:
 * The OP is wrong.
 * The CNN reporter failed to clear their whole article with the expert.
 * The expert is wrong. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:18, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * ¶ It looks to me more like either misunderstanding or bad phrasing by the reporter, who might have been trying to say that Muridae (not Mallomys) are the largest group (I leave the exact Linnaean taxonomy to others) of rodents, in fact Wikipedia says they're the largest family of mammals. To be redundant, the reporter probably didn't mean to say that Mallomys are the largest rodents, but that Muridae are. Work on a deadline every minute and you'll make mistakes in arranging your words without ambiguity. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, OK, that's what the reporter was trying to say. That makes more sense. Muridae is indeed a valid family in Rodentia:Myomorpha, and indeed the largest extant family of mammals. Regarding the animal length and weight, Mallomys rats are quite large, even by the rat standards; but not the largest. The (somewhat dubious) honor of being the largest rat may go either to Cricetomys or to Thryonomys rats; the latter are now placed in the family of their own, though. Phloeomys rats are also quite large. Anyway, thanks everyone for your input! --Dr Dima (talk) 21:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Unless the journalist is slandering or commiting a crime such as libel, it is probably not possible to force them to retract incorrect publications. However, consistent publication of incorrect material will eventually be noticed by enough people, and the organization's overall credibility will fail.  However, if there is no alternative means of communication except through the mass media, (sort of de-facto censorship by sheer market share), the level of complaint may not reach critical mass to really invalidate the journalist's credibility.   Nimur (talk) 22:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * While semi OT, since the issue has came up... In NZ various codes of conduct, which most media organisations adhere to require balance, fairness and accuracy in reporting. . There are various semi-independent organisations which deal with complaints and may require an apology and correction. Media organisations also of course are therefore expected to have a way to deal with such complaints themselves and I doubt you'd need to go to the BSA or Press Council over something like that for something like which rat is the largest. They tend to deal with controversial things.   have rulings if anyone is interested Nil Einne (talk) 18:24, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I have to say - over the years, I've been involved in many stories that made it into the newspaper and onto TV - in not one single one of those were the facts reported 100% correctly. Unless I'm extraordinarily unlucky - that means that essentially all newspaper and TV reporting is likely to be subtly incorrect.  Only very significant errors are ever likely to be corrected. SteveBaker (talk) 03:01, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * My similar though more limited (UK-based) experience agrees completely with Steve's. I remember in particular one local newspaper item following a reporter's visit to the amateur astronomy club observatory I used to help run, which worked out to something approaching one factual error per line: most or all of them would have been obvious to anyone who had read any child/entry-level Astronomy text such as The Observer's Book of Astronomy.
 * The bottom line is that no (UK) general newspaper regards science as "important", few if any employ full-time reporters or editors with any scientific knowledge, let alone training (note that even completely accurate reporter's copy can be FUBAR-ed by a subeditor), and none can be routinely trusted to get any scientific details correct: nationally circulated newspapers at least have a lower error rate than the local press, which is generally appalling.
 * This may in part be because the Press has traditionally regarded itself as providing an ephemeral product ("Today's news is tomorrow's chip-wrapping."), and in part because its personnel has generally been drawn from the "wrong" half of C. P. Snow's famous "Two Cultures" dichotomy: all of the foregoing applies equally to the even more ephemeral broadcast media.
 * One should, therefore, rely on items from general publications/broadcasters as no more that alerts to the existence of a potentially interesting scientific story, and refer to more specialised science-oriented publications for more (though not necessarily totally) trustworthy information. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 13:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

¶ OK, I did visit the CNN web site, and at the time, the Giant Rat of Papua † was its fourth most-viewed story. When I clicked it, the sentence that (depending on how you read it) is either wrong, misleading or ambiguous was still there. However by following the links from the "Site Map", I found a form that Dr Dima can fill out to point out the error to CNN. So, although I think he was posing a more-general question, there is a specific way to address this specific source of confusion or error. Whether CNN will correct it (by issuing a clarification or by recasting the sentence) while the story is still fresh and popular, I don't know. It would be interesting to hear from Dr Dima (or anyone else moved to fill out this form) what, if anything, happened next.

† Cf. The Giant Rat of Sumatra, a celebrated but undocumented (apocryphal) case of Sherlock Holmes' "for which," he told Dr Watson, "the world is not yet prepared", although several writers after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, including The Firesign Theatre, have accosted that hitherto-unprepared world with their own asserted accounts. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:57, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think the "are" refers to genus, it refers to "rodents". And BTW, Shake, when I first read the blurb about the new rodent, The Giant Rat of Sumatra was the first thing to occurred to me, too.  Too bad this thing is from New Guinea.  :)  Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 05:44, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

It is illegal (in the Netherlands at least) for a company to have a name for itself or one of its products that is in some way misleading. If misleading info is illegal, then certainly false information from a company that is a professional provider of information (ie it's its core business) should be illegal too. It would make sense to fine them according to the 'damage' the false (or misleading) info might cause. Of course, they can never be absolutely sure about anything (no-one can ever be), but it will certainly help. Of course, this only goes for professionals, not for, say, Wikipedia. :) DirkvdM (talk) 13:27, 8 September 2009 (UTC)