Humanities desk
< April 23	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	April 25 >

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

April 24[edit]

Ottoman Armenian flag[edit]

The article on Ottoman flags shows distinct civil ensigns for Latins, Jews, Muslims and Greeks (with black, yellow, green and blue stripes, respectively) used through the 18th century; is there any record of one for Armenians or other Oriental Orthodox? 71.126.57.87 (talk) 05:32, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not on the Flag of Armenia article. If there was no significant Armenian nautical commerce, then the Ottomans would not have perceived a need for such a flag. AnonMoos (talk) 09:47, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note that all our coverage of these flags is entirely unsourced at the moment (on the image files themselves as well as on all the pages where they are used), so we can't really safely assume there even was such a thing as these ensigns in the first place. A pointer can be found on the fotw.info website to some 19th-century flag compendium listing some of them (though not the Jewish one), and I've seen a few contemporary 18th-century illustrations that seem to confirm the use of the Greek (red-and-blue) one at least. No information on how far back the existence of these flags can be traced - the claim that they are valid for the entire time of the Ottoman Empire since 1452 seems quite dubious. I haven't seen anything about other Ottoman nationalities such as the Armenians either. Fut.Perf. su 10:19, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some info on these two FOTW pages (which don't 100% agree with each other): Greece under the Ottomans, Ottoman empire... -- AnonMoos (talk) 17:09, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If Tesla shareholders re-approve Elon Musk's compensation package will he pay the original California taxes or now the 0% Texas tax?[edit]

Title Tikaboo (talk) 14:48, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We din’t offer legal opinions. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 20:15, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What makes you think he'll pay any taxes? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:41, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Info on statistical research papers / essays about blocking of Wikipedia users?[edit]

Looking for information on statistical research papers / essays about blocking of Wikipedia users in general, category wise and in polarized / contentious topic areas.

Just contemplating to include such information, while mentoring, to convince users to encourage them in learning constructive editing practices and deter them from attraction of destructive editing practices. Bookku (talk) 15:01, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You could look through the archives of the Wikipedia Signpost's "Recent Research" summaries. There doesn't seem to be an overall listing of all "Recent Research" articles, that I can find... AnonMoos (talk) 17:16, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

COMPETES Act and negative news about China[edit]

A questions to everybody who is educated about the American law:
Is there any fact which preclude that a bill like the COMPETES Act allowed the gouverment to spend 500 million dollars on media. Would it be allowed by the US constitution that the gouverment spends money on media which makes the a certain news?
I think, maybe it would be unconstitutional or something.
I just look for information how debunk the claim and starts to ask myself. 2A02:8071:60A0:92E0:410D:99D9:F99:A812 (talk) 21:10, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's very little about it on Wikipedia (and of course it has nothing to do with China), but during much of the 19th century, U.S. administrations subsidized newspapers they favored (i.e. with a congenial political tendency in their coverage) by awarding them government printing contracts. At various times Francis Preston Blair and John Weiss Forney ran newspapers with lucrative federal printing contracts. AnonMoos (talk) 01:24, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The United States directly operates a news network from the federal budget, the Voice of America. —Amble (talk) 04:00, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

From that article: "As of 2022, VOA had a weekly worldwide audience of approximately 326 million (up from 237 million in 2016) and employed 961 staff with an annual budget of $267.5 million", so that accounts for about half the $500m on its own.

Of course, we have no way of knowing how much is spent by the CIA and other 'black operations' for similar purposes, but it won't be negligible.

The fact that these expenditures are known or reasonably presumed suggests (though does not prove) that there can't be a Constitutional reason preventing them, or someone would have called "foul" before now. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 188.220.144.58 (talk) 04:44, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]