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January 9[edit]

Club Penguin[edit]

I would like to ask a question about the website mentioned in the title. One day when I was searching the Internet for something else, I came across information pertaining to this website. As far as I know, this website allows its members, usually children, to interact with and explore a virtual world and communicate with other website users. Feeling a bit curious, I decided to have a look at it, but before I do that, to avoid any problems or inappropriateness, I had to do a few checks. And, that is why I am writing here on this reference desk. Basically, my issue is my age; obviously I choose to keep that private, but I can tell you that I am old enough to have graduated from Secondary school within the last few years. Being a little older than the primary demographic, I'm not sure if I should investigate the website or not. There's been a lot of controversy in the UK media over older male celebrities who have done very unpleasant things involving children, and so I run very strict policies against this kind of madness, so I ask here about Club Penguin. What should I do? Pablothepenguin (talk) 17:49, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you're several years out from secondary school, you would be over 18, and it's unlikely pedophiles would go after you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:57, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I read it that Pablothepenguin is concerned that somebody will think that he might interacting inappropriately with younger children, Baseball Bugs. But I don't think that it would be appropriate for anybody here to advise you. Pablo. Somebody may be able to point you to some references that might help, but in my view what you are asking for is sufficiently close to legal advice that we are not allowed to advise you. Sorry. --ColinFine (talk) 18:40, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If that's the issue, then as a practical matter I don't see why someone would think he's a pedophile unless he starts acting like one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:50, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The correct spelling is paedophile. Pablothepenguin (talk) 22:03, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The British spelling is paedophile. "Pedophile" is a perfectly acceptable alternative. see here, here, or here, among many others. Mingmingla (talk) 22:25, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We have an article (Club Penguin) on the site, which states that "users of any age are allowed to play Club Penguin", and "the security features have been described as almost "fastidious" and "reminiscent of an Orwellian dystopia"." Tevildo (talk) 22:08, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if you're thinking of playing it or what. In any case, my personal opinion would be that there are many better MMOs if you want to play one. The cynical take on Club Penguin would be that it's designed for making money off of young kids. Might I suggest Eve Online? I don't play it, and I have no ties to the maker; I just know that it's often praised. Plus, spaceships. And hey, there's always World of Warcraft. Blah blah no legal advice, but I am fairly sure that there is no law in the UK restricting the ages of who is allowed to play certain online games. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 02:13, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Those games cost money, Club Penguin doesn't. Pablothepenguin (talk) 12:21, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is technically true that Club Penguin is free, but it works on the free-to-play model, where you are heavily encouraged to spend money to access many features. "Free-to-play" has a bad reputation among many gamers for being exploitative. Conversely, Eve Online and World of Warcraft, and some other MMOs, allow you to "buy" subscription time with in-game currency, meaning that you can play for free if you spend the necessary time and effort in the game. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 21:40, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you are worried you should write to the authorities about it. Try the Department for Education in the first instance, and you could send a copy to your own MP. I had worries about Habbo Hotel and didn't act on it. Eventually the site was exposed as somewhere with very low safety standards where children were being groomed. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:12, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Part of a series on _________________[edit]

How do I find such series as this article entitled Part of a series on Physical cosmology, on the right hand side box? I'm searching for all the boxes available in Wikipedia! -- Mr. Zoot Cig Bunner (talk) 19:57, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

see Category:"Part of a series on" sidebar templates. I found this by clicking on the "v" at the bottom of the box. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:48, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Okay thanks.

-- Mr. Zoot Cig Bunner (talk) 09:36, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

a correlation between a city's georgraphy and socioeconomic status[edit]

Hello,

Is it true that the southern area of large cities tends to be poorer? If so, why? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.160.147.141 (talk) 20:02, 9 January 2016‎ (UTC)[reply]

Not particularly, no. In Dublin the southside of the city, south of the river, is generally more upmarket and middle class than the northside. In London the east is the poorer side, mainly because it's downwind of the prevailing wind direction and so would pick up the pollution from the rest of the urban area. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 21:02, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think that is true generally, see slum. Example: Dharavi is in the north. Makoko is to the east of Lagos. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:03, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There aften is a geographic correlation, but it is not about north or south. It is about where the most beautiful (and profitable) beaches are VS. where the too steep and too dry arid slopes are (example Rio de Janeiro or Marseille), it is about where the soil is humid and foggy and difficult to drain from used waters VS. nice hills with smooth fresh wind... Such geographic parameters. Akseli9 (talk) 22:58, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's attractive 50+ meter deep valleys in New York City that are ghettos. Where you see down the valley for kilometers and there's a small river at the end. What might be considered the main stadium (Yankee Stadium) is in a ghetto. Where Boeing 767s almost scrape the rooftops right before the fence of LGA is not a ghetto. The main beach (Coney Island) is a dump except for the touristy parts. People sell drugs there in sight of those waiting for the bus. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:12, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's a Starbucks by the bus stop? --71.119.131.184 (talk) 02:38, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Men in loitering groups who exchange cash for drugs in their handshakes. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 08:58, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a source for this claim that you can provide? That might help us figure out what ideas are behind the claim. As discussed above, I don't think it's generally true. As another data point, I live in Southern California, and the property values for the big coastal cities tend to correspond to proximity to the shore. Examples: West Los Angeles, Malibu, Downtown San Diego. Los Angeles famously has South Los Angeles (still often known as South Central), but that area is also inland, and there's also significant poverty in the East Los Angeles area. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 02:38, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In ancient times, before water treatment and sewage treatment, being upriver was important, as you got the fresh water there, so that's where the rich lived. There are also cities now which lack effective water and sewage treatment, and the same now applies there, although having clean water delivered by truck is more of an option now, making it a bit less of a factor. StuRat (talk) 05:08, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So that's why Westminster and Oxford is upriver of London? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 08:58, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No. Westminster and Oxford are old settlements. For centuries they were no better off than anywhere else in the country and had no better water supplies. The reverse is true to some extent. When some of the East End areas were built up they had very poor water supplies. Charles Dickens' brother was a civil engineer and wrote about it. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:09, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Even if they were existing settlements, if the water later became polluted you would either find the rich people and institutions move elsewhere or that they would take measures to improve the water supply. StuRat (talk) 19:45, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Well, it's a bit more complicated in London's case. Firstly, London has not bothered itself with any kind of logical planning since the Romans ran away. Second, the link between polluted water and disease wasn't discovered until 1849 by John Snow (it was previously thought to be spread by bad smells or miasma), by which time London was already the world's largest city. When people did start to move out, they moved to places with their own springs or water supply, indeed a New River was constructed in the 17th century to supply the northern suburbs. The part of London and the Thames which was nearest to the sea was in the east, where they built the London Docks, which also needed a huge supply of manual labour who came to live in the East End. Because not many rich people wanted dockers as neighbours it was also a good place to put smelly industries like tanneries and soap factories. The prevailing wind direction mentioned by User:Matt Deres is, I think, a happy coincidence. Alansplodge (talk) 16:38, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You're right that germ theory developed in the 19th century, but long before that some people had noticed some connection between polluted water and disease. Now, this was prescientific and wrong about the details, but the correlation was there. Miasma theory thought that disease was caused by noxious vapors, and many felt polluted water was a source of these vapors. This idea may have stemmed from the fact that stagnant water is a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which carry malaria; indeed, "malaria" literally means "bad air" in medieval Italian. --71.119.131.184 (talk) 19:17, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but even if they didn't make the link on disease, rich people still wouldn't want to live in a place that smells bad or have to drink unpleasant water. (Poor people wouldn't like it either, but they might not have had any choice.) StuRat (talk) 19:43, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard or considered a north-south axis for such a thing, though I have observed a slight east-west one, at least in North America. Here, the prevailing winds generally blow from west to east, meaning that, all things being equal, you'd prefer to have your industry towards the east and your residential areas to the west. However, as laws about pollution tighten up and cities conglomerate, the effect is probably less and less each year. Matt Deres (talk) 14:09, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

[1]. Interestingly, the upwind side of Manhattan had all the meatpacking and the downwind side is filthy rich, and west Chicago, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Albany metro, Baltimore (I only know near downtown) are poor sides. Not that those refute the correlation. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:19, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually the stockyards in Chicago were in the west part of the south side, which, according to Jim Croce, is the "baddest part of town". Mike Royko once commented that the reason White Sox fans had such a bad attitude was from the smell of the stockyards pervading the air for generations. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:07, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I never said that was the worst of Chicago's sides. I was aware that South Chicago is worse. I saw an empty bottle of bum "wine" on the bridge between Greyhound stop and downtown though, and I've read that Cicero is bad. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:21, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's what they say about Cicero, although it's a separate city. It was also the home of Al Capone, and where he had a famous vault, whose apparent purpose was to store soil. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:01, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In traditional northern hemisphere cities that are built in a east-west (or west-east) flowing river valley, the northern side of the valley gets more light, so (all else being equal) is more desirable, and so tends to develop first and may continue to be the more popular, better developed and therefore more expensive side as the city develops. The opposite is true in the southern hemisphere. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:49, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That is really good thinking, it can certainly have an influence on the average over a large number of cities. Also there can be a preference for the upstream section of the city, as the water is most likely less polluted upstream than downstream.--Lgriot (talk) 16:28, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is also a trend apparent in the history of a number of older cities. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:45, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I still think that in any riverine city, docks and industry would be located on the downstream section of the river because water borne access is easier from the sea. With industry, you also get the slums where the workers live. Alansplodge (talk) 17:34, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If the river is economically important (as it often is), then in a small settlement, everyone will want to be close to the river because that's where all the economic activity happens. As the settlement gets bigger and you start getting a more diversified economy, or more social stratification, then the part of the population - and economic activity - that's less to do with fish or coal (or whatever the river is carrying) will move further away from the port area, and/or the port will move away from the city. Moving upriver means you still have access to the river but it will be cleaner / less crowded, but there are so many other factors at play here. If the city is fairly far from the sea, then it might get as much traffic coming from upstream as downstream. If you are in Salzburg, you'd be less worried about pollution downstream than if you are in London. In pre-industrial London, placing your palace at Greenwich might have made a lot of sense, but after the industrial revolution perhaps you would prefer to be further upriver, or, if you are in Paris, perhaps you'd rather be away from the Seine altogether. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 18:50, 11 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]