Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 November 29

= November 29 =

Stores and shopping malls
Which stores and shopping malls (anywhere on earth) have the most-complex mazes (complex branching passages), causing difficulty for customers who wish to navigate in them and to exit from them? I am providing links to archives of related discussions. —Wavelength (talk) 01:55, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Reference desk/Archives/Mathematics/2012 December 7
 * Reference desk/Archives/Mathematics/2013 March 3
 * You mean something like Speed Up Your IKEA Visits By Going In Through the Exit Doors where the store is designed to keep you in all day? Dmcq (talk) 12:52, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Does a souq count for the purposes of this question? I was thinking the likes of Al-Madina Souq would be pretty complex. Hack (talk) 13:12, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You do know a lot of it has been burnt or destroyed in the dreadful civil war there? Dmcq (talk) 18:14, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I saw something about that. Hopefully there's something left when they're finished. Hack (talk) 17:55, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I do, although (for my question) the navigational difficulties can be by design or by accident. Thank you for providing a link to that page, which (in turn) has a link to the article "Gruen transfer".
 * —Wavelength (talk) 21:51, 29 November 2013 (UTC) and 22:13, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Body Lice Bites and in my clothes
see General_disclaimer

Yellowstone Lake Shoreline Location
Where is this on the shores of Yellowstone Lake (as in GPS coordinates)? I know that it's between West Thumb (44.432, -110.584) and Bridge Bay. It's likely on a pullout with the road very near the lakeshore, but I can't quite place it. If you recognize the approximate location/GPS coordinates, that'd be helpful. Doctorcherokee (talk) 04:08, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * There are a number of pullouts along that stretch of road, so that several obviously feature very similar vistas. The Google street views from the road itself are somewhat obscured by trees, but to me 44.4675°N, -110.4669°W looks to be a likely spot. Deor (talk) 10:48, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I very much appreciate the input! I think you're right on the location, but as you say there are multiple similar views.  If anyone else has been to Yellowstone and/or sees something that could verify that, please feel free to do so.  Here's a higher resolution image of the view from the pullout if that helps at all. Doctorcherokee (talk) 14:36, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

what's the disclaimer for deleting ref desk medical requests? I can never find it
Can someone point out the disclaimer I should use for this: sort of removal? μηδείς (talk) 04:50, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:MEDICAL is linked to from the general disclaimer. WegianWarrior (talk) 05:23, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * on the desk, on the user talk page.  See WP:RD/G/M. Tevildo (talk) 07:58, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it's the RD-deleted one I was looking for. μηδείς (talk) 16:05, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Closing, this was meant for talk page. μηδείς (talk) 16:07, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Cultural References section in South Park articles
So since when did these become forbidden? I remember reading Wikipedia about five years ago and each South Park episode article had an extensive "Cultural References" section. Now I see they are all gone. Can someone point me to a policy discussion about this or what exactly happened and when please? Perrier Tyson (talk) 07:19, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't know when specifically the changes to the South Park articles were made, but WP:TRIVIA would seem to be the pertinent guideline. Hot Stop talk-contribs 07:24, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It looks like an editor called WikiuserNI took it upon himself to delete most of them in 2008 (a few survive, like Fun with Veal for instance). Examples are here, here and here. If you read his user talk page you will see quite a lot of opposition to what he did. It's not a question of them suddenly becoming "forbidden" or subject to some policy decision. --Viennese Waltz 08:21, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * They are not forbidden. You get wikicrusaders who delete them with the fervor of unmedicated WP:ENGVAR partisans. You have to decide if you want to get blocked for 3rr by fighting them. μηδείς (talk) 16:10, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not a wikicrusader, but I consider them unsuitable for a high quality encyclopedia and generally oppose them, in a hopefully non-fanatical way. I just can't see that the fact that a character in one episode of Grey's Anatomy had Parkinson's disease is appropriate material for a featured article, that's all. Looie496 (talk) 16:36, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * There's a difference though in putting a bit of trivia in the article on Parkinson's disease (which I would agree with the removal of) and explaining the jokes in an episode of South Park. And cultural references are the bread and butter of SP's humor. Dismas |(talk) 17:02, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * We're not here to explain (most) jokes, knock knock on wood. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:42, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The issue with the trivia noted in those links above was that the vast majority was uncited. Why would you want an article full of information that may not be factual? WikiuserNI (talk) 23:53, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you have an example of a non-factual item that you removed? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:05, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * These supposedly non-factual comments are often references to specific episodes of specific shows. That amounts to a reference to a primary source, and is all that is needed for verifiability if the show itself is notable.  For example, a comment that Christopher Lloyd appeared as the painter Phillip Semenko in the last two episodes of the second season of Cheers requires no further reference in support of the claim than the episodes themselves.  People who delete such claims as unreferenced are ignorant of the actual policy. μηδείς (talk) 02:16, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes. And if you counter the deletionists with logic, they'll find another excuse. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:55, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If you label editors, you'll make it difficult for them to create better articles with other users. Edits like this were made to remove information that was not cited, so could not be determined to be correct. Nothing inappropriate about that surely? WikiuserNI (talk) 17:12, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Wojciech Kurtyka, Polish climber - and his article The Path of the Mountain
I would like to ask for help - on the Wikipedia page about Wojciech Kurtyka, there is a list of his self-authored articles in English. Among them, there is the following: The Path of the Mountain, Alpinism, Vol. 1, 1986

Can anyone help me to find out what this Alpinism is? A magazine? Where does it come from?

I would like to read the article, but I have no idea where I could get it.

Thanks very much for your help!

Tomas 79.98.72.161 (talk) 22:29, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It apparently was - see this blog posting, although that seems to indicate that it was published in 1988, not 1986. Note that Google doesn't allow me to even perform a search on "alpinism magazine", insisting that I mean Alpinist (magazine), which clearly isn't what we're looking for. Tevildo (talk) 22:41, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * If you'd have left the inverted commas (speech marks) on, things would have been different. Anyway, linked to the blog that you posted is Chic Scott's Website where you can buy a copy of Alpinism, Issue One for $10 (scroll down to the bottom of the page). Alansplodge (talk) 23:15, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the hint. :) I'm reminded of a novel I read about 30 years ago and set about now, where the protagonist does a web search on "democracy" and only gets articles on Athenian democracy - was it more accurate than the author feared? Tevildo (talk) 23:44, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You're very welcome. Alansplodge (talk) 00:09, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Someone was writing about web searches in c. 1983? Who was that prescient person?  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  00:14, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I've been trying to remember, without much success so far - I hope that will change soon. Not really _that_ prescient, though - Asimov was writing about them in 1958, after all, and I'm sure there are earlier examples. Tevildo (talk) 00:49, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The company that I worked for in 1983 used to communicate with its computer by writing figures by hand onto duplicate "data input forms" and then sending them from London to Leeds by train, where they would be typed-up by a roomful of young ladies who had no idea what they were typing. We found out if any errors had been made the following week. Alansplodge (talk) 02:09, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * We had a real computer (a PDP-11) at work in 1983, but when I was at school our "computer studies" lessons did indeed involve sending coding sheets to Carlett Park [we don't have an article on Carlett Park? See Wirral Metropolitan College, in that case] and getting the results back a couple of weeks later.  There was a special character (∇) we had to use for spaces...  Tevildo (talk) 20:27, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, I was preparing material for use by computers (not on my desk, mind you) at work as far back as 1969. But this newfangled "web" thing, that's a pretty recent innovation as far as your average joe's concerned, no?  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:48, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Ahh, in 1969 - I was still at school. ;) The author didn't explicitly refer to a "web search", the protagonist just looked up "democracy" on the big computer system to which he had access.  I think it's time to get the finest minds on the planet to work on this one - an appropriate question has been posted to RD/E.  Tevildo (talk) 21:22, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Homeworld, by Harry Harrison. Are we the best, or are we the best? Tevildo (talk) 21:47, 30 November 2013 (UTC)