Humanities desk
< October 20	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 22 >

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.

October 21[edit]

ArtReview Power 100 list[edit]

I discovered this while trying to fix multiple discrepancies between the lead paragraph of the page for Okwui Enwezor and the section headed Recognition. In an Edit history check of previous versions by numerous editors, his ranking in ArtReview' annual list of the "Power 100" in the art world is variously mentioned as 24th, 42nd, 54th for the years 2010, 2011, 2014 - with the present version completely ambiguous as it mentions two years! Meanwhile, the citation links for each mention are either dead or lead to the ArtReview website's announcement that within hours the 2015 list will be published there. My repeated attempts at viewing the lists for previous years, e.g. 2014, yield nothing. What to do? -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:44, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for helping to fix this page. I have added the more recent Archive.org archive for the 2014 list, removed the mention of 2011 and can confirm he was in 24th place in 2014. I have also added a archive for the 2010 list (and confirmed his position), but couldn't find one for the URL used (well not one with the desired information). I didn't otherwise try to sort out the lead mentioning 2014, and section only mentioning 2010. (Probably the lead should mention 2014 as the current most recent ranking and also possibly highest position. And perhaps the section 2014, and the previous years where he has appeared? I'm not sure if it's necessary to mention every single ranking although wouldn't remove it. And I guess that's a discussion best held in the talk page anyway.)

For significant pages that have existed for a while, you can normally put the URL in to the archive.org main page [1] and find at least one working archive. (This didn't work for the older 2010 URL, archive.org only seems to have started archiving some of those pages fairly recently.)

It doesn't appear he is in the 2013 [2] or 2012 list [3]. But he was 52 in 2011, 42 in 2010, 67 in 2009 and 83 in 2008. The 2014 entry is marked as a re-entry, so the absence in 2013 isn't surprising. 2008 is also marked as a reentry so I assume he was missing from 2007 too but was in some earlier year. Also it looks like information about the people is updated in those pages, so you get stuff like Okwui Enwezor being "Curator of the Venice Biennale in 2015" mentioned in 2009, well before it was known [4]. However the positions etc seem correct.

The pages seem to be working as recently as September so I'm not sure why they aren't now. If I had to guess, they took everything down in preparation for the 2015 list, and they'll probably be back up after it's revealed, although it's still good to add the archive URLs in case they disappear.

Nil Einne (talk) 16:27, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Legality of selling useless products and services[edit]

How do they get away with it? For example: homeopathy, psychs, astrologers, but also less mystic alternatives: ultrasound insect repellents, hair growth products, cell phone radiation shields, bio-whatever. Obviously, believers in this kind of stuff won't buy them and sue afterwards. However, one of the several skeptics community could buy such products or services and sue them. From a legal perspective, how do providers cover their asses? --Llaanngg (talk) 15:02, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

They generally have sufficient small print to cover their asses. "For entertainment purposes only" sort of disclaimers. In other cases companies break the law until they are caught and then they start a new company. A lot of mail order companies have no physical location and can simply vanish(also known as "fly by night" companies). HighInBC 15:09, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) It's not so much the selling of these products that gets people into legal trouble, but rather the false advertising. For example, if people want to buy something that blocks cell phone radiation, why not? It does what it's supposed to do: block out the electromagnetic waves. Where there's demand, people will step in to provide a product, that's how a free market works. However, falsely claiming that something provides (health) benefits can get someone into trouble. That's why a lot of 'alternative' products rely primarily on word of mouth advertising or make ambiguous and unfalsifiable claims. Also note that if there is not (yet) any conclusive evidence that a products works that does not mean that you can successfully prove in a court of law (beyond a reasonable doubt) that the product does not work. - Lindert (talk) 15:30, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In the concrete case of EM waves blocking that I saw, it's a bracelet that when wear on your wrist would absorb the waves. So, no blocking here is possible. It also let's you keep using your phone, somehow. Isn't that magic?--Llaanngg (talk) 20:28, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Even in the case of mainstream medicine, you'll never see a sign on the doctor's premises saying "Healing guaranteed" or "No cure, no pay". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:54, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The efficacy of medicine is rarely 100%, but mostly above 0%. A serious doctor won't guarantee 100% results, and not only due to the laws against it. But the cases above are different. Any claim above a remedy, device or advice with efficacy 0% would be a lie. That's way beyond marketing fluff. Why is it possible to get away with that level of incompetence? Is it OK to cheat the ignorant? --Llaanngg (talk) 22:12, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, provided that you cover your legal bases. See Consumer_protection for an overview of some laws in some jurisdictions. Also caveat emptor, there's a sucker born every minute, free market, etc. The good news is, in the USA, actual drugs are treated a bit differently, since the Kefauver_Harris_Amendment.SemanticMantis (talk) 23:01, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And homeopathy is treated differently from actual drugs, for whatever reasons. See Regulation and prevalence of homeopathy for how to to cover your back when selling it.

Notice that they don't always get away with it. Kevin Trudeau didn't get away, for example. --Scicurious (talk) 20:24, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Belgian Congo[edit]

In the Belgian Congo, did the concept of 'civilised persons card' exist? If so, what information is available about it? --Lærskroos (talk) 20:14, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Can you direct us to where you learned of the concept of "civilised persons card" so we can better understand where we may help you? --Jayron 32 23:31, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I assume the OP is referring to some kind of Internal passport. Tevildo (talk) 23:49, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This book starting on page 176, section 11.3 is titled "introduction of identification methods in the Belgian colonies" and is likely an excellent starting point for the OP to begin their research. --Jayron 32 23:55, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent link Jayron. For those without the time to browse: the Belgian colonial authorities believed in the Hamitic racial theory and thought that some tribes were ethnically closer to white Europeans and thus superior. An identity card and an internal passport were required for travel outside of a person's tribal area; the identity card was marked with the person's tribal origin and therefore some Africans were given preferential treatment. Some commentators see this system as an underlying cause of the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Alansplodge (talk) 10:02, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]