Humanities desk
< August 14	<< Jul \| August \| Sep >>	August 16 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 15[edit]

Economy of the Irish Free State[edit]

Economic history of the Republic of Ireland doesn't give much detail about the state of the Southern Irish economy in 1922. Going by today's IMF standards, would the Irish Free State of 1922 be considered a developing country, a developed country, or somewhere (perhaps like Botswana today) in between? Nyttend (talk) 00:02, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

History of Ireland (1801–1923) has some economic information sprinkled in here and there. --Jayron 32 00:16, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Try Economic Impact of the Irish revolution. Alansplodge (talk) 00:27, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The IMF's definitions of a developing country take into account "(1) per capita income level, (2) export diversification—so oil exporters that have high per capita GDP would not make the advanced classification because around 70% of its exports are oil, and (3) degree of integration into the global financial system." For point 1: List of regions by past GDP (PPP) per capita#Europe 1830–1938 (Bairoch) has Ireland's GNP per capita in 1925 as $624 (1960 USD), a bit below the Western European average, but above the average for Europe as a whole. For point 2:Ireland's exports were heavily dominated by agricultural goods, but they were more diverse than a typical oil exporter. For point 3: on the one hand, the Irish Stock Exchange was long established; on the other, the Great Depression had little effect on Ireland, which suggests that it wasn't as tightly integrated with Wall Street as other European countries were. It's also worth noting that Ireland used the pound sterling at that point, and when they did introduce an Irish pound it was pegged to GBP - the IMF see being a member of the euro as an advantage for a country, and they may have seen using the pound as a similar benefit. Whether or not Ireland would count as developing is impossible to say unless you are an IMF economist but my suspicion is that it would have classed as an emerging market rather than an advanced economy or a developing economy. Smurrayinchester 08:21, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Where is the Lincoln Bedroom scandal mentioned in Wikipedia?[edit]

Does Wikipedia have any articles about the Lincoln Bedroom scandal, where the Clintons sold off access to the Lincoln bedroom? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:56, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is it really a scandal? This says both Clinton and Bush invited guests to stay overnight at the White House. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:26, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

[1] claims Obama did stopped people sleeping in it overnight (but ~~not necessarily~~doesn't discuss accessing it) at least early on and [2] claims he planned to get rid of the flatscreen TV installed there (which I'm assuming wasn't installed during Clinton's time). I'm assuming he's still allowing invited donors/supporters guests to stay in the White House though, just elsewhere. [3] suggests Warren G. Harding was allowing overnight stays. but doesn't mention whether there were overnight stays for the rest. Nil Einne (talk) 13:47, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I thought it was a scandal, because the Clintons charged people money to stay there? In any event, why is there no mention of this "scandal" / "incident" on Wikipedia? Or is there? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:06, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's a three year old mention that it's missing from the article where you'd expect to find it.[4] If you ask why? I suggest no one's got around to writing it. Well, maybe someone tried once upon a time. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:26, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Did you read the above sources? It appears that US presidents regularly invite donors and supporters to the White House as an apparent reward for the donation or support, and these invitations sometimes include overnight stays in the White House, which for Clinton and probably W. Bush included stays in the Lincoln Bedroom. The general practice is controversial but there doesn't seem to be any evidence any particular president has been more guilty of it than others of a similar era. In particular, there doesn't appear to be any evidence that Clinton used the Lincoln Bedroom as a Airbnb style rental as someone jokingly suggested should be done [5] as "charged people money to stay there" seems to suggest. This isn't the place to ask why or whether something should be covered on wikipedia. I would say though that the general practice of presidents relationships with donors and supporters probably should be covered somewhere but frankly the influence of money on US politics is so huge it's difficult to know where to start. If you want to single out any particular president or incident, you'd need to provide some evidence that what they were doing was especially abnormal otherwise you'd run into specific problems like WP:BLP, WP:NPOV and WP:NOTNEWS. If you disagree well it's fairly pointless discussing it here, since nothing will come of it, you're free to take it somewhere appropriate but it's fairly likely you'll get the same answer. Nil Einne (talk) 16:31, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly the place to ask "does Wikipedia have an article on x-y-z?" (especially when x-y-z is a humanities-related topic). Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:33, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hence why I never said anything against you asking ""does Wikipedia have an article on x-y-z?" (your first comment) but simply provided sources affirming PalaceGuard008's point that it wasn't clear your claimed scandal really existed. But when you said "In any event, why is there no mention of this "scandal" / "incident" on Wikipedia" (your followup comment) while still claiming there was a scandal, I did point out this was not the right place to ask or debate such issues although you'd provided no evidence that our coverage was particularly lacking anyway as you hadn't actually established your claims about WP:BLPs. Nil Einne (talk) 13:51, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Look. It's a simple question. Not to mention a reasonable one. Does Wikipedia have any articles about the Lincoln Bedroom scandal, where the Clintons sold off access to the Lincoln bedroom? Don't make such a simple matter so over-complicated. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:44, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, not sure I agree. The question here is not evidence but "notability" (in the peculiar WP-term-of-art sense of that word), and that's based on coverage in "reliable sources" (another term of art, though maybe closer to the everyday meaning). If there are "multiple significant mentions" in reliable sources, then the controversy can be covered ("controversy" is a more neutral word than "scandal"), though editors are of course free to argue about whether it should be a standalone article or a section of a larger article. --Trovatore (talk) 16:41, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But the point is, if there are multiple significant mentions in quality sources, these sources will either make it clear the practice is unusual or make it clear that the practice isn't unusual. If the practice isn't unusual then you will need to put it in suitable context rather than simply singling out any particular person. If you don't have any sources which put the practice into context (i.e. make it clear whether it is or isn't unusual) then it's unlikely you have sufficiently good sourcing. And the nature of US politics generally means that significant mentions in quality sources generally requires an extreme amount of coverage, or better yet, evidence that it's still getting significant mention long after the event. Of course if the sources make it clear the practice is unusual, then you're free to single out a particular person albeit still taking care not to violate NPOV, BLP, or NOTNEWS. Nil Einne (talk) 13:44, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OP, if you are interested in how it actually worked, rather than how it's been spun, this article from the NYT back in 1997 might be interesting. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:48, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I will read that. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:33, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:24, 18 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

why not Anthropology?[edit]

I simply couldn't find any project entitled to anthropology, I confess it is surprising for me.

New perspectives are coming from the systemic disciplines, from A.I. impressive works, from neurosciences, and I firmly believe we all need to review our basic concepts about human being, as single being, as couple, as group, as community, as species.

This indispensabile review can easily subvert our common understanding of art as well as of economics, of behaviour as well as of learning and change.

After appropriate meditation, reading, reflexion, I resolved we can't simply implode this subjects within ordinary psychology, because also psychology must be deeply reformed: ordinary psychology deals with "homunculus", not with the real men and women we are. And we must try, at the very least, to improve our understanding by crossing and linking many and different fields of studies and researches.

May I propose a new project, entitled to Anthropology? Focused on how we live, learn and change (or don't learn and don't change) within our environments (both real and virtual)? Where we can try to re-describe, and to understand, the real minimal unit, the single human being, how it survives and grows, how it learns, why it behaves the way it behaves... then the couple, then the group, then the community, up and up to populations, nations, and global community.

I have been studying and writing, and working for years on those topics, I strongly believe we all need a refreshed knowledge, perspective and awareness of who and what we really are, for our personal sake and for mankind sake as well.

Thank you in advance Ugo Bonora — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ugo Bonora (talk • contribs) 08:04, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are perfectly correct to be surprised. Wikipedia has more than five million articles in English only, and the browser-based access to them will not always make perfectly obvious there is a very efficient table of content-like access. In fact the same I'm inside it, it must be there syndrome is also enjoyable in classical encyclopediaes. Please do visit: all Portals, from the set of directing links accessible at the Wikipedia Main Page. --Askedonty (talk) 09:07, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Anthropology portal leads to articles about Outline of anthropology, Anthropology, and Development anthropology distinct from Anthropology of development, some of which may be of interest. AllBestFaith (talk) 10:46, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just FYI, there is an "anthropology project" as the term "project" is often used around here — see Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthropology. It's different from the anthropology portal, referenced above, in that the portal is meant to help readers find articles, whereas the project is meant to help coordinate the efforts of editors trying to improve the articles. It's not very clear from your question which one you're looking for (if either), but perhaps you will be interested to know about the WikiProject as well. --Trovatore (talk) 16:48, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

PhD academic requirements[edit]

How stringent are the academic requirements for entering PhD programs at the world's highest rated colleges? For example, if one was top of the class during a master's degree, would they care about poorer results (bad 2:1 actually) at undergraduate level? Also, I see the application deadlines will all be before I get any exam results from my master's degree. Is it likely they will reject me based on my earlier performance without viewing my most recent academic achievements?--Questionaboutcollege (talk) 16:20, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is no universal answer here. What you're going to have to do to find out what any one particular PhD program requires is to contact that school and ask them about their program requirements. We can't answer for them. --Jayron 32 18:06, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. In the classical German/Austrian process, you "only" need to fulfil the technical requirements, and find a supervisor. Requirements for more formal PhD programs vary extremely wildly, as does the definition of "the world's highest rated colleges". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:08, 16 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Academic requirements are only one criteria for entering PhD programs. Remember, the world's highest rated colleges all place most emphasis on prospective students that come from the wealthiest families. They are the ones that are most likely to go on to achieve high status (gained trough family connections) and thus will reflect well on the Collage. The UK did away with Grammar schools in the hope that students would go on to university based on merit alone. Yet, the intake to the top universities still favor the those from the wealthiest families as being more deserving. It is an often repeated that when Sir Winston Churchill sat his entrance exam for Harrow, he didn’t write a single word. [6] But got in, he did. So if the OP wants admittance to a collage of his choice he must first choose to be born to wealthy parents. To ask now, shows that he choose to be reincarnated into the wrong social class and he has to live with that karma.--Aspro (talk) 00:54, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

^{[citation needed]} Aspro. I have never heard of anyone complaining that wealthy students are overrepresented at a PhD level at any Australian university. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:11, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here [7] is a well-referenced write up about how socio-economic status affects higher education. Not too specific to Aspro's claims, but clearly shows that lower income people are less likely to make it to grad school. The problem probably gets worse at the most elite schools. Anecdotally: while my graduate student peers at several USA universities were not necessarily "rich" people, I was just about the only one who had working-class parents. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:20, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My issue with Aspro's claim was more the sweeping claim about all universities, and secondarily the claim that the universities actually use wealth as an admission criterion. On the first point, the issue about poor educational outcome for poor people in the US is of course well known, and in the UK it is at least popularly perceived as a problem. But the world's top 20 or 50 or 100 universities (by most popular counts) are not all US and UK universities, and many of the countries represented are at least not perceived to have the same problem, because they have proper publicly funded higher education. And on the second point, I don't know whether Aspro means to be facetious, but I can't imagine even in the US any PhD programme actually assesses potential candidates for wealth. (Harrow does not offer a PhD programme.)--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:55, 17 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]