Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 April 21

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April 21

FBI email

I tried to email the FBI earlier. I am in Canada and thus don't wish to phone them. Their HQ site states that they don't have an email but some of their branch websites do. The few branch websites I checked didn't have emails. Does anyone have one handy? It doesn't matter which branch.--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:11, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Many of the choices on the drop-down list on this page have email addresses for the specific field office. This list might work as well. AlexiusHoratius 00:19, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Their main HQ and many of their branch offices don't have email addresses?? Way to keep up with the times guys. I guess they figure the Pony Express is much more secure and adequate to their needs. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:23, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! The main office would probably have far too much trivial mail. I tried the same dropdown above and couldn't find any on the few I checked. The second list is very helpful though. Could admin now memorize this thread and then revdel it, thanks.--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:44, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

How does this section fall under any of the criteria at Wikipedia:Revision deletion? CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 08:46, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm assuming that's a play on spies and secret agents having to memorize messages and then swallow/destroy them to prevent them from being used as evidence. Assuming, of course, that the message does not self destruct. But now I've said too much! Matt Deres (talk) 12:48, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh bugger. It was almost 3:00 am and I should have been asleep and my sense of humour was anyway. So in revenge I will not only delete this section but block all who took part in this discussion. Anybody who read any part of this should go to this page right away and so no one will know anything about my lack of a sense of humour. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 15:55, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, if it makes you feel better, it had me scratching my head as well. The "memorize" thing finally tipped me off, though I admit my first thought was to try to figure out what word they really meant. Finally, the penny dropped. Matt Deres (talk) 20:51, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

LOL --Kevjonesin (talk) 12:50, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

If there was a projection of a person on a wall, would people believe it's a real person? If not, why?

If there was a projection of a person on a wall, would people believe it's a real person? If not, why? Mattdillon87 (talk) 06:39, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

For a moment, if it were real enough, I might believe it is a real person. However, most projections are not three-dimensional so most people can already tell from that. That is, unless you are talking about holograms. I've seen some decent ones that look pretty real. Cheers, ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 06:52, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

An early motion pictures was of a train pulling into a station.; L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat which is said to have terrorised audiences who allegedly thought that an actual train was about to crash through the wall of the theatre (There's a YouTube video here). There is some doubt about whether this is actually true or not, but if it is, it suggests that being able to distinguish real and projected images is a modern skill. Strictly original research, but the creaky 1960s special effects of Dr Who and Lost in Space looked very realistic to me as a child, but look rubbish now, suggesting to me that our perception of what looks realistic is dependant on the media that we've already been exposed to. Alansplodge (talk) 15:10, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I would second that. When I went to an IMAX showing of Terminator in Japan, quite literally everyone on the front few rows jumped off their seats. I've seen IMAX stuff since, and it's just like watching a normal TV. It's just what you're exposed to. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:26, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

There are many subtle problems:

1. A projection can only add to the light already being reflected from the wall (or whatever) that it's being projected onto. That will make whatever is projected seem transparent and ghost-like. The only way to avoid that is to do this in a perfectly dark room...but then you can tell that there is something amiss because you have this bright figure in a dark room.
2. When a real person stands in a room, the light that bounces off of their body undergoes secondary reflections from nearby surfaces. This is almost impossible to manage with a single-source projection...for example if the image of the person is facing the viewer, the projection isn't capturing the light that would be reflected from the clothing on their back - then bounced off of some surface behind them and then into the viewer's eyes.
3. Sub-surface scattering: It's especially noticable that skin scatters light from behind and to the side of the person through the subcutaneous fat layers to emerge elsewhere on the skin. Without that, people look kinda weirdly plastic-ish.
4. The lack of three-dimensional information may be noticable if the viewer is standing close enough to the projection...but from a longer distance, that may not be a problem.
5. Projections are missing surface properties of real objects. For example, if there is something that's shiney, when you move your head, the "highlights" move with you...but when the picture we're using to project is captured with a camera from a single point of view - that shiney spot doesn't move when you move your head. Worse still, if the surface you're projecting onto is even slightly shiney - it adds it's own highlights - which is another dead giveaway.
6. Shadows: A real person casts a shadow onto the ground nearby...or onto the wall that you're projecting onto.
7. Parallax: As you move relative to the projection, it will become evident that where (for example) an arm is occluding the body behind it - you should be able to move your head just a little and see some of that occluded area.

You can "fix" some (perhaps all) of these by making sure that the viewer can't move his or her head at all...and by strictly controlling the lighting conditions and the screen onto which you're projecting to have precisely the right properties...but the more you constrain thing to get everything right - the more obvious it becomes to the viewer that what they're looking at isn't real - just because it's so unnatural to view things like that.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:18, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

To get by the problem of restraining the movements of the viewer, you can can only allow them to view the scene through a hole in a wall, say in a haunted house (then you can have something jump up at the hole, too). You could also do the projection onto a white body form, to make it look more realistic, as long as it doesn't need to move much. I also have one other problem to add to your list:

8. Make sure the projection occurs in a dust-free room. Otherwise, the projected light reflecting off the dust in the air is a dead give-away that you are viewing a projection.

StuRat (talk) 17:32, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• If perspective is carefully constrained, one could use techniques of Trompe-l'œil to make such projection appear realistic, but it would need to be in a situation where the viewer's perspective is properly constrained. Trompe-l'œil images can appear quite unrealistic unless viewed from the proper angle. --Jayron32 16:50, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Proposed Immigration Law

Wish to find a summary of details in the proposed new immigration law. 71.54.246.184 (talk) 18:10, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

In the US? Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:18, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

The IP address is in Florida so I assume it's in the US (I actually assumed that before checking but let's not get into that discussion here). Try http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/16/the-senate-immigration-bill-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ PrimeHunter (talk) 21:08, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia vandalism

Are there any recorded cases of vandalism done by admins? Th4n3r (talk) 18:59, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm 100% sure there is. There have been a few admins who have been later found to be up to some shenanigans, and have had their admin status revoked because of that. I distinctly remember one admin account that was being operated by someone who used it to unblock other accounts he was running that were blocked for vandalism or trolling. I can't find that specific case right now, nor any others, but remember that there are something like 1700 or so administrator accounts at Wikipedia. While ideally all of those would be the best and most upstanding Wikipedia citizens, that's still a pretty large number to effectively police, and a few trouble makers have slipped through in the past. A determined troll can, with a little technical know how and effective social engineering, maintain multiple "personalities" at Wikipedia and it has happened on a very rare occasion that such a person gets one of their accounts up to Admin status. It's very rare, but not unheard of. --Jayron32 20:05, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Found it. User:Archtransit was promoted to Adminship in January of 2008, and later found to be a well-managed account run by known troll User:Dereks1x. There's links on Archtransit's user page which you can follow to read all of the details of the case as it unfolded. --Jayron32 20:10, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Th4n3r (talk) 20:55, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

There have been other cases, too. Arguably, any admin who's been "defrocked" or de-sysoped is guilty of "vandalism" in a broad sense, i.e. damaging Wikipedia. But there was kind of a scandal a couple of years ago involving some admin (not the one Jayron mentioned, but I forget just who) who was not only using a bad-hand sock account but that another admin knew about it and took no action. Something like that, anyway. Memories fade a bit in two years. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:18, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that was me. That is, I was one of the admins who knew about the second account and said nothing. It was an admin who had been desysopped and then abandoned that account started a new account and got that one promoted to Admin. There was no vandalism, just some unpleasant nastiness by the first account: personal attacks and unpleasant fighting and stuff like that. The problem wasn't anything in the article space (as above with Archtransit), so no real vandalism. There were three admins total who were cited by ArbCom, though there were several dozen who knew about it: it was something of an open secret. I was reprimanded. A few other admins resigned, though anyone who kept their mouth shut had no action taken against them. Thanks for bringing that up. You can read the details here. Water under the bridge now, as it were. Been 3 1/2 years. --Jayron32 23:23, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

That case struck me as particularly strange, as I thought it had been long-standing practice (if not policy) on Wikipedia to encourage previously bad users to return incognito as good users, with nobody looking too hard, on the basis that if it ever came up it would be because they returned to their old habits. That isn't anything like sockpuppetry. Is it that the culture has shifted so far from the early years, that most users no longer agree with this? I think most Wikipedia users in the early days started by "vandalising" in some sense, before realising what it could be and becoming good contributors. 86.161.209.128 (talk) 20:52, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

It happens every April 1st. --Onorem♠Dil 23:40, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Well a read through WP:ANI will give the impression that most admins are worse than vandals but have a look at Wikipedia:Former administrators/reason/for cause. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 06:43, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Pastor Theo is actually the one I was thinking of. It's interesting to see several names there who had voted "Nay" on my one attempt at adminship. The process of adminship is bizarre. It's a popularity contest, and if you survive that gauntlet, you're almost impossible to get rid of. It ought to be easier to become an admin, and easier to have it taken away for misbehavior. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:25, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-04-23/Robdurbar. Someone created an account and got it all the way up to being an admin so that he could vandalize the main page. 2001:18E8:2:1020:8CEA:C571:286B:2680 (talk) 13:26, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

A very telling tale. The handful of "oppose" and "neutral" comments showed a lot more sense than the avalanche of "supports". That was about 7 years ago, so hopefully the voters are a bit more astute now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm always amazed by the people who come here and immediately try to become admins, before they've written a single stub and almost before they've edited anything at all. Their interest seems to be in controlling others, rather than contributing to the encyclopedia per se. There ought to be a mandatory period of at least 1 year's service, during which time a significant positive contribution to the encyclopedia must be demonstrated, before an application for adminship should be even considered. Imo. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:19, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I know of one that was here 4 months and 4 days before he got nominated and promoted 8 days later. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 06:48, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Pastor Theo is I think the obviously remembered one for all the regulars here... it wasn't all that long ago. There have been some arguably more notable ones since then (not saying they vandalized, but were desysoped or resigned for other reasons) but they're not as loud about it. That Former admin link is telling... this community eats its own as quick as it makes favorites. I'm [loudly] on record that adminship needs a much easier removal procedure, but thus far that hasn't happened. I don't say that cause i want to debate it here, just pointing it out. Shadowjams (talk) 11:17, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I was only here for about 7 or 8 months before I became an admin, but that was 10 years ago, and like 4 people voted on it. Ah, those were the days. Adam Bishop (talk) 00:31, 24 April 2013 (UTC)