Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 March 28

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March 28

36mo

Why is there no 36mo paper size?? Georgia guy (talk) 01:13, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

If that existed, what would it be? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:42, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

See Book_size#Common_formats_and_sizes. 36mo might be awkward in terms of the cuts and folds required, or the close to square small book that you would end up with. Hmm. These sizes may be an artisan thing by now anyway. Bigger print runs would be done on web presses. 2601:648:8200:990:0:0:0:C255 (talk) 03:23, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

It is not that it never existed (see here, p. 224); it was just rarely used, being only minimally smaller than 32mo, which was much more convenient to produce.  --Lambiam 08:39, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Political parties

Question I've had when working on some political articles is trying to find the party of elected officials from quite a few years back. For example, the Mississippi State Treasurer has been held by numerous people, but trying to find the party is always a bit tricky. Any standard formula to approaching this problem or does it just rely on digging through newspapers and books to find some mention of it? PoliticsIsExciting (talk) 03:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I fear it requires virtual legwork, or perhaps real armwork flipping through dusty ledgers. Voices whisper that in times bygone voters sometimes cared more about the qualities of a candidate than their allegiance to a party line, so there may even be cases where the candidate's party (if any; an independent candidate is not a candidate for the Independent Party) has not been recorded.  --Lambiam 08:49, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Also, not all elections are partisan. While Ballotpedia lists the election of Mississippi's treasurer as a partisan one, I don't know if it has always been that way and other elections that User:PoliticsIsExciting might work on could easily be non-partisan. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 09:49, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I mean you can't cite this reply, but anyone who knows U.S. political history knows the answers for all of them without having to look them up. Especially for Mississippi, which has always been a de facto one-party state, with the ruling party simply changing. First they would have been Democratic–Republican, because during the Era of Good Feelings that was the only relevant political party outside of New England. Then after that party split in 1824, inaugurating the Second Party System, they would have been Democratic, because that was then the party of the white South. This was interrupted only by the post-Civil War military occupation of the state during Reconstruction, when the military government of the state appointed Republicans, since the Republican Party was the national ruling party—and most Democrats who would have been interested in the job would have been disqualified from holding office under the "ironclad oath", which initially prevented anyone who had supported or served in the traitor governments from voting or holding office.

Following the end of Reconstruction, white Southerner "Redeemers" re-took power and disenfranchised Black citizens, establishing the uniformly-Democratic "Solid South", and, that's how things were into the 1960s, when the U.S. political system started "re-aligning" over the question of "civil rights" for non-whites—meaning, the Democratic Party abandoned the informal "gentlemen's agreement" to not talk about such things and began adopting explicit support of such as a plank, and the country's other major party then began adopting opposition to them, and voters began shifting accordingly. See Fifth Party System, Sixth Party System, Southern strategy. The "Solid South" began to break in 1964 at the top-of-the-ticket, but downballot the realignment unfolded over decades, with existing incumbents holding on to their jobs and party loyalties and voters largely following behind. Mississippi's governors remained Democrats until 1992, and notably the treasurer position was "flipped" Republican in 2004 by the now-current governor Tate Reeves. --47.155.46.15 (talk) 08:12, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

What is "Shakti Vahini"?

Shakti Vahini is mentioned in several articles but has no page. From the context I gather that it is either a woman's rights movement or a general movement for rights, and has bought a number of key legal cases to court in India. Q Chris (talk) 08:22, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

G**gle brings up https://shaktivahini.org/. It is an NGO, and their motto is "Strengthening Women & Child Rights in India". The "About Us" section should have more. --Wrongfilter (talk) 08:44, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Some independent descriptions in newspaper articles: "Shakti Vahini, an organisation which strives to protect Indian women and children from abuse and violence of any kind"^[1] — "From working with women with HIV/AIDS to fighting organised crimes like human trafficking, honour killing and violence against women, Shakti Vahini was involved in diverse services that took up the cause of women who had been abused, trafficked, attacked, or enslaved."^[2] — "The US Consulate in Kolkata in collaboration with the NGO Shakti Vahini is fighting human trafficking using Swayam Siddha model that allows a holistic approach by including police and educational institutions."^[3] — "Vital Voices, which was started by Hillary Clinton in 1997, upholds Shakti Vahini as a glowing example of how a group of men can — and should — work on women’s issues. ... Vital Voices is also holding Shakti Vahini up as a model NGO, one that addresses legal, advocacy and rescue missions simultaneously. ... Over the past decade, Shakti Vahini has rescued more than 2,000 people, 70 percent of whom were children. It has responded to more than 600 victims of honor killings, which are becoming more common in the northern provinces."^[4] It appears that there is enough in-depth coverage in reliable sources for a Wikipedia article. BTW, the Hindi rendering of the name is शक्ति वाहिनी.  --Lambiam 09:41, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@Q Chris @Lambiam Thanks for suggesting article. The organization appears to have enough RS like 1 2 3 coverage to have an article about and I would take that up.

@Q Chris Most mentions in Wikipedia articles are about a court case ruling named Shakti Vahini v. Union of India (2018). The case is though about right to choice in marriage in general, WP article Recognition of same-sex unions in India section seem to cover it. I suppose their would be multiple Indian court rulings deserved to be covered in the article Weddings in India. Bookku (talk) 11:39, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Btw as of now title Marriage in India gets redirected to Weddings in India which narrows the scope of the article. I will need to discuss the issue on article t/p first. Bookku (talk) 11:51, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

We have separate articles for Marriage in ancient Rome and for Weddings in ancient Rome, as well as two articles Marriage in the United States and Marriage in Canada next to Weddings in the United States and Canada, so it is reasonable to have two separate articles for India as well, each referring to the other in their "See also" sections. I'd say, be bold and replace the redirect by an article on the legal, social and religious aspects of the institution, leaving wedding traditions and celebrations to the other title.  --Lambiam 13:04, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks for helpful information. Bookku (talk) 06:24, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Who was Colonel Schuster?

According to our article on the Trade Facilities Acts one of the members of the Trade Facilities Committee was a Colonel Schuster. Who was he? I suspect George Schuster, but have so far been unable to obtain a definitive answer. Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 21:16, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Hansard for 2 March 1945 has the following from here, at 12:07 pm Sir George Schuster replies "Perhaps I ought to explain to the Committee that I have certain special reasons for speaking in this Debate. I happen to be a director of one of the "Big Five" banks, and a director of one of the insurance companies, so I can speak as one of the toads under the harrow, and give the toad's-eye view. Then the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) referred to the Trade Facilities Act, and I happen to have been one of the original three members of the committee set up after the last war, under that Act". Mikenorton (talk) 21:34, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

That's excellent, many thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 21:58, 28 March 2023 (UTC)