Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2020 October 1

= October 1 =

Homosexual
Please is it against the rules to create a page for homosexual I created one but the page is for them to stop it — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiara Karen Katie (talk • contribs) 08:06, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't understand what you mean. 1.53.37.151 (talk) 08:45, 1 October 2020 (UTC)


 * If you are talking about setting up a forum for general discussion, then that is not what Wikipedia is for. This is an encyclopedia. People have discussions about making an encyclopedia. We have a project WikiProject LGBT studies with a talk page for organising work on articles relating to that subject. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:16, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * She wants to change them. --Lambiam 15:17, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * In which case our article is Conversion therapy, and also many pages linked from there. The article and talk page and its archives look to be controversial, with many pushing different point of views. SO beware of inbalance. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:51, 1 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Kiara, gay people are welcome on Wikipedia and contribution about LGBT topics is welcome too. Does this answer your question? 73.190.69.178 (talk) 19:47, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Mars helicopter
From the article: "It is planned to make the first powered flight on any planet beyond Earth". There could possibly be thousands of planets where powered flights occurred. Should it be written in another way? Like "the first human- designed powered flight" or "on any known planet"? 1.53.37.151 (talk) 08:43, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Normally we talk about "known" things, and we do not have to make any mention of speculation or possible things. eg Helicopter mentions the first helicopter, and it does not have to speculate that other planet's species may have built them too. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:18, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

The discipline which investigates mass destruction
Hello, I look for the name of the science of mass destruction. For example committing butchering herd of cows efficiently, genociding and managing Extermination camps. Thanks--אודיסאה (talk) 18:48, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Naziism? Firejuggler86 (talk) 19:18, 1 October 2020 (UTC)


 * for natural things you can try Catastrophism and Neocatastrophism. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:31, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Regular or self-publishing Company?
Hi. Would "Bean Pole Bocks" considered to be a regular publisher or rather something like a self-publishing? Thanks in advance. --84.190.201.61 (talk) 22:37, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I presume you mean Beanpole Books. Well, they aren't literally self-publishing because they have published a number of books by different authors, none of whom are obviously the proprietors of the business.
 * Speaking as a former bookseller and former book publisher's editor, their Submission Guidelines seem to me to be conventionally professional, and in no way seeking writers who will pay for publication in the manner of a Vanity press or Predatory publisher.
 * Judging from the books shown, their cover artwork seems to be of professional standard rather than something cobbled together from free internet resources, and I notice that one of their authors has an article here on Wikipedia, and seems to be well regarded.
 * Overall, they look to me to be a respectable if recently founded publishing house (with 10 books so far published, as one can tell from their ISBNs).
 * If you are enquiring as a prospective author, remember Yog's Law: "money always flows towards the writer", and consider also consulting a specialist writer's advisory group such as Writer Beware. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.121.162.83 (talk) 03:14, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
 * What a fruitful answer, wouldn't have expected. Highly appreciated, thank you very much! --84.190.197.157 (talk) 09:37, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Are there any live US Election Night webcasts for nerds?
For number geeks who want to see what experiencing election night through TV would be like if it was a ""right-brain" free-zone" (with some suspension of disbelief as production values won't be TV-level probably, maybe the map will be 51 pieces of cardboard with stickers for Maine and Nebraska lol, I'd still watch that)

So like people playing newscasters who are all the nerdy commentator instead of just one unusually TV-friendly nerdy commentator and many pro anchors, talking about every blip of the 538.com win chance line graph on green screen or drawn in marker and barely giving a fuck about non-swing states or anything that doesn't affect federal balance of power (a few Senate seats might, zero to a handful of House seats, the rest are irrelevantly safe).

Less human interest stuff and narrative, more analysing win probs and tipping point obsession, is anyone planning something like this?

(the tipping point is the state or Mainepart/Nebraskasection with the median* vote when the 56 parallel presidential elections are ranked from Trumpy to Bidenish or vice versa using the final (re)count. It's the only thing that matters in the end, presidentially, assuming our 538 voters are faithful. It's also possible for the median vote of election eve rankings to not be in the most likely state to end up with it if another state's so much bigger but this year's probably simpler so we can obsess over only 1 state for now cause it's both the best bellwether and most likely to make someone win *technically Trump wants at least the median rounded down, unless the Dems gain the right House seats then he wants 1 more) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:44, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * There was for the last US presidential election, see Presidential Election 2016 LIVE, and The CBC NEWS - 2016 U.S. Election Special also FOX and MSNBC, PBS; so you could expect there will other YouTube live streams for this 2020 one to come. JSOnPolitics seems pretty level headed. Have your own opinion on their suitability for you. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:05, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Except for your last two and CBC those are just the commercial TV channels I'm never going to watch elections on again and am trying to avoid. Public broadcasting is almost surely better but is going to try to please humanities and non-humanities people about equally (as they should) so I'd probably rather follow on 538, I'll watch PBS and CBC the next day as I don't know what they're like and want to find out and the foreign view is interesting but live I'll probably watch some geeky stream or 538.com. I'll check out JSOnPolitics, maybe that's what I'm looking for. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:29, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
 * If you don't mind webcasts/liveblogs... you might like Fivethirtyeight? They do a lot of analysis I think? - Purplewowies (talk) 02:19, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, I forgot they have videos too, I had gotten so used to ignoring their bandwidth-hogging videos but that means they might have a broadcast that night. Or at least a good blog of course. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:49, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
 * If you google "Election Livestream" or search YouTube for "Election Livestream", you are likely to find options. Especially as you get closer to the date.  -- Jayron 32 10:03, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you want the results or the opinion? If you only want results, NPR has preiovusly had a website that published the latest results as they come in. If you want opinion, you have to tell us what your opinion is so you can be matched with a news outlet that echoes the same thing back. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 18:30, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't care if there's partisan politics or not as long as it's not excessive or the wrong side, we all know how evil the other side is and the background and main facts and issues, no need to reiterate. The networks sometimes waste time explaining things everyone should've learned in school though as it's for a mass market and they don't want people who forgot and haven't followed politics in years to be out of the loop. Me, I could listen to dudes gaming out paths to victory and Electoral College bellwethers and earliest signs of trouble for each side all night. Like the precinct/county most likely to report results first is estimated to be 66.3% Trump without mail votes if he barely wins, and we need at least 20 points off to be highly suggestive of a win from this tiny place alone, here's some others that could be first and their numbers, let's watch their results come in. Now while we're waiting we have an equivalent list of early-reporting states, metro areas, counties, cities and precincts most likely to vote for the winner for those of you that like scientific bellwethers, and here those with 0 predicted margin of victory to see who's beating our model. While we're waiting for results let's look at the most likely final map for each decile of electoral college votes. Here's the 50th percentile map, a more Bideny map, 60th percentile, more whoah he's winning Georgia now, 80th percentile, 90th, and now the Trumpy ones. And now we look at 10 possible maps for each decile, we'll just tell you how many copies of each map are the same when all 10 aren't different to save time. So in conclusion Trump's most likely paths to victory are Rust-Belt oriented, or keeping the ex-red now-purple states and Florida, [fast forward] and Biden needs to hold onto this and this or that and that and that [fast forward] his most likely paths to victory are heavily Rusty or heavily new-purple states with less likely ones including [fast forward] Here's our state Trumpiness pecking order estimate, activity series for you chemistry buffs, Pennsylvania's looks to completely own the 270 neighborhood. And here's the odds of each state actually being the median* vote, PA 49%, NC 24, Florida 20 and you can read the rest. We'll show these two lists to you again as soon as anything significantly changes. [fast forward] And the first precinct is off by x percent, that's why our win chance model moved 3 basis points. Let's watch our list, other rural precincts are going to start coming in now. [fast forward] (amateur Youtuber casually crosses camera frame and smooshes clay-backed cardboard cutout of Jersey on the wall while amateur newscasters talk about more important things, the map is growing) Why do you think the win prob graph just dropped 3 percent? I don't know Dan, you think it's Pennsylvania again? Let's look at counties till we have a guess. [fast forward] A huge slug of Bideny precincts just came in, that might be it.


 * Is it copyright infringement if someone does this and says the results and models are their's in dialog when it's really from websites? Even with a disclaimer at the beginning that it's really 538.com's etc. content and for artistic purposes only? I know there's AP but don't you have to be a professional and pay and say it's AP to retransmit AP? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 07:44, 6 October 2020 (UTC)