Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 3

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Reference desk. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

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Archive 10

Removal of Old Q&A

I hadn't seen the above talk, thought that the policy was to archive removed questions & answers, and created Wikipedia:Reference Desk archive January 2004-2. But since it is felt that a deletion log is enough, I've created an entry in Wikipedia:Reference_desk_archive about the last major deletion. All deletions could be similarly logged in that page instead of archiving all the questions & answers. -- Paddu 19:58, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

IMHO a message must be added to the page asking those who are removing old questions & answers to note it in the deletion log at Wikipedia:Reference_desk_archive (probably it could be moved to Wikipedia:Reference_desk_deletion_log, or a separate page created for the log). -- Paddu 20:04, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Someone has again archived some questions & answers at Wikipedia:Reference Desk archive March 2004. IMHO we should have a single policy to be followed while cleaning old stuff from the Reference desk. Either archive all deletions (of old stuff), or note the deletions in a Changelog, or do nothing about any such deletions. As of now each deletion has been treated differently. -- Paddu 12:56, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

One line non-questions

Several people have asked why we appear to get quite a few, one liner, title only, none questions on the Reference desk. My guess is that it must imply there is something less than perfect with the instructions at the head of the Reference desk, or on the question editing page. I imagine most of the questions come from users who have never editted on Wikipedia before. If you click on the 'Add a new question by clicking here' link, you go to a standard page editing box. Not only can you no longer see the instructions on the Reference desk page, the form labeling is confusing.

I don't know whether it would be feasible to change the wording just for editing the reference desk. If it were I would suggest

Title -> 'Adding a new question'
Subject/headline -> 'Give your question a short title here'
Above the main text box -> 'Ask your question here. When you are finnished click the show preview button, and if you are happy with how your question looks, click the submit question button'
Save page button -> 'Submit question'
At the bottom -> any other instructions ... you can use wiki markup like [[link]].... etc.

-- Solipsist 17:37, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the labeling is completely opaque. I might skip instructions about "show preview" to make it really simple, e.g., "Ask your question here; click Submit Question when you are done." However, it looks like many of these headings are of the form that people would use when doing a site search, so it might behoove us to make it clear that this is not an automated search but rather a question for actual people to respond to. e.g., "Ask your question here. This is not a search; it is a question that actual people will read and respond to. Click Submit Question when you are done." Elf | Talk 19:08, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been making light of the way questions are submitted and it seems that people are assuming they can only ask the question in the title bit and they may be assuming the larger edit box is for people's answers ;o) So, it would be nice if some more guidance could be given --bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly) 16:16, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

How about having the 4 tildes automatically placed in lower right corner of the text box ... the poster can remove if adding to earlier text by same person. This would help a lot with newbies who not know about that AlMac|^(talk) 01:16, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Could we use an inputbox? That way the instructions remain visible, and we can control the default text. Bovlb 05:57:06, 2005-07-22 (UTC)

You will always get dodgy non-questions/headings-only because sometimes people just don't feel like reading instructions. --Ballchef 14:46, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Time for cleanup

The TOC is now one page long :(. 'd do it myself, but it's like 1 AM here...and I'm off to bed. 'll do it tomorrow if nobody has yet. like not using the word 'I' :D — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 06:02, 16 Aug 2004

It's better than VfD! Seriously, though, all the entries on the page are less than a month old. Turnaround time seems to be up to three weeks in some cases. What should the policy be? Should questions be removed two weeks after the last reply? --Eequor 12:10, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good to me... — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 15:26, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Instruction bloat

The current count is one italicised section at the top; nine bulleted guidelines for questioners; three for responders; and four more pointers to other places. There's a lot of bold text about. These guidelines, on the other hand, are not being followed - presumably because people aren't reading them. For example, there have been lots of unclear subject-only questions, some all-caps, and from the lack of followups I imagine that plenty of questioners are expecting emailed replies.

I think that the instructions need to be rewritten and shortened to make them easier for people to follow. My suggestion is to replace the bulleted lists with "How to ask a question" and "How to answer a question", featuring example screenshots (say one each, showing filled-in edit boxes). Stuff like the child-safe warning can be split off into a different section, as it applies to everyone. I think that having example edit boxes to look at will help people understand what the process actually is.

Quick sketch: (not a fully-formed proposal)

How to ask a question

(Image of the perfect question being composed.)

[Follow this link to ask a question.] Write your question in the large box, and give it a brief, descriptive title. When you press "Save page" the question will appear at the bottom of this page. Other readers will try to answer it by adding to this page - you will not receive replies by email.

How to answer a question

(Image of the perfect answer to the perfect question.)

If you can help answer a question, select the "edit" link to the right of the question title. Add your answer to the text already there, and press "Save page" to make your reply appear.

Useful tips

You can sign your posts by writing ~~~~ in the edit box, but you need to [get an account] if you want to appear as a name, not a number.
Please link to any relevant Wikipedia articles. You can do this by putting [[ and ]] around the article title in your message.
Remember that readers of all ages visit this page.

Comments welcome, as always. --AlexG 21:31, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Three cheers! m:Instruction creep is a terrible thing, and this page's instructions definitely need a haircut. Let's use Template talk:RD header to work on the new slim-and-trim version? • Benc • 21:51, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This discussion continues at Template_talk:RD header. AlexG 19:05, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hee. The complaint used to be that there weren't enough instructions, or that they were unclear somehow. It's only been one month since I created Template:RD header! The instructions aren't creeping, really; nobody's touched them in weeks, and I have nothing more to add to them.

Should the last two guidelines for questioners be removed? Users seem to mostly ignore the request against all-caps, and the other may just be wishful thinking. --ηυωρ 00:20, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Automatic archiving using templates for discussions?

This is a question aimed at RD maintainers.

User:Kate has recently implemented some code that allows the [edit] links to work for subsections of included templates. See this discussion of VfD talk for a full explanation of how this feature works on VfD. This feature has other applications, too. It's already in use at Wikipedia:Village pump, and I've used it here for the "Squirrelled" discussion. The actual discussion resides at Talk:List of the longest English words with one syllable/Squirrelled, but it's included (and editable via the [edit] link) here on WP:RD. In a nutshell (heh): this new feature allows for a more seamless integration of subpages into other pages.

My question is this: is what I did for the "Squirrelled" discussion acceptable to apply to some of the other questions? I was think that this could make archiving answered questions a lot easier, since they'd already be part of the relevant article talk page. All maintainers have to do is remove the {{Talk:ArticleName/QuestionSubPage}} from RD.

WikiJanitors like myself could summarily move discussions (even if they were in progress; this is a background change) to article talk subpages. This would only be done for questions that are relevant to a particular article and can't be answered with a simple "go read our article on X".

This would result in far fewer edits to the RD itself, and as an added bonus, the answered question would be listed on the relevant article's talk page, resulting in more input from knowledgeable editors with the article on their watchlists. New users would, of course, be encouraged to post new questions using the standard old way. Finding a relevant talk page and moving the discussion is a job for WikiJanitors or experienced question askers.

Good idea? Bad idea? • Benc • 06:18, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Kate's tremendous feature has been used cunningly on VP; couldn't we do something like that? We make RD redirect to reference desk October 2004, and Transclude in Reference desk September etc. When the month ends, the transclusions are moved to a new page (reference desk November 2004), dropping the last one adding the latest month. Does this work in practice? ✏ Sverdrup 17:40, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Quick demo at User:Sverdrup/Reference desk, October 2004 ✏ Sverdrup 17:46, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I had envisioned transcluding individual questions from article talk subpages onto the RD. What you said could work too, though. • Benc • 19:36, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Medical Questions

I notice that every week or so we get a question regarding some sort of medical condition or something of that nature. Most Wikipedians are usually pretty good about telling the askers to seek the advice of a doctor before taking any advice that they may be given here, but it always makes me nervous to see questions like that. I don't like the idea of turning away people with genuine questions, but I also don't like the idea of people getting medical advice here. Any suggestions, or am I being overly paranoid? --Cvaneg 00:13, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Every page has a link to Wikipedia:General disclaimer, which itself links to Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:31, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Cvaneg, I can't respond to your query as to whether you are paranoid without giving you medical advice. alteripse 13:12, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ah, I had missed that. Thank you. Alteripse, now that I have read the disclaimer, feel free to diagnose and treat me to your heart's content. --Cvaneg 17:32, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Summarized disclaimer for this discussion: Wikipedia makes no guarantee to the accuracy of our diagnosis of your paranoia. The content of our advice may include profanity, objectionable images, and misleading info, or may cause post-tramatic stress disorder. Take our advice at your own risk: it may serve to only increase your paranoia. However, we can not be held responsible for your said paranoia because we are not legally bound to give you good advice. Nor are we able to convey this legality of our advice because we are not licensed legal professionals.

:) Mike 01:08, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

Basically, advice here is worth what we charge for it. After you, doctor. alteripse 01:50, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Is this a serious discussion, or can we move this to BJAODN? :) --HappyCamper 14:29, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why the Duplication?

How did this page wind up with the contents repeated multiple times so that there are nominally 700 questions? Have I come across someone archiving it? PedanticallySpeaking 21:06, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

I think this has to do with browser glitches and the submission not going through the first time. It happens periodically and it's a royal pain to fix. -Aranel ("Sarah") 22:37, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This seems to be a bug in the Mediawiki software. ‣ᓛᖁ

ᑐ 18:20, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Split up in subpages?

Problem

This page experiences a lot of edits. Which means that if someone posted a question they may easily miss the answer.

Example: David asks how to handle a sling. Solomon replies, but then Rehoboam asks a new question about taxation. Now David's watchlist doesn't show Solomon's reply.

Solution 1: Replace text with link to subpage

I would therefore propose that we keep this page as an overview only. When David clicks on the link to enter his question, it will

create a new subpage [[Reference_desk/how_to_use_a_sling]] for his question
insert a link to that subpage at the bottom of the main page (maybe with David's name and date)
add the subpage to David's watchlist (and tell him about it, if this isn't his default setting)

Advantages

David is made aware of Solomon's reply
the page itself will be much smaller, which itself has several advantages:
- It is easier to navigate
- We won't have to archive so often
- the location of the question itself doesn't change — people will always be able to find their questions.
it would allow sorting the Reference_desk page by topic;
it would allow defining categories for questions (if that works for subpages), so that other users interested in a topic are more likely to find the question. (We could even add a dropdown for categories in the question dialog so David could select a category already.)

Comments

Please let me know what you think. — Sebastian (talk) 05:21, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

An excellent idea for all the reasons that Sebastian gives. In fact, I can see no significant down side. --Theo (Talk) 13:23, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
I think such minute subpaging will create an extreme amount of housekeeping work for at best limited results. Remember that
- many Reference desk questions are submitted by anons who we cannot assume have any idea how to format their text,
- many questions receive only one or two replies,
- creating subpages and listing them is more work even for those knowledgeable about how to do it, and
- an interested user would have to subpage every question; the actual reference desk page would then contain almost no activity, making it more difficult for users to observe replies outside of pages they go to the trouble to watch. 119 16:15, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't like the idea, either - it would greatly reduce the scannability of the WP:RD page. I suspect most people answer alot of queries by looking quickly over the page, and finding questions that have not recieved a great many answers, etc. With subpages, it would be harder to assess the state of what needs to be done. The best solution to this problem is to allow users to put sections, not articles on watchlists, or to use some sort of template based embedding scheme.--Fangz 16:28, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Reply to Fangz

allow users to put sections [...] on watchlists: This is a good idea - see "Solution 4" below.
template based embedding scheme: Another good idea - see "Solution 2" below.
it would greatly reduce the scannability of the WP:RD page: Granted. It is desirable that some people perform the scanning you describe. We could fix this elegantly by combining (my) Solution 1 and (your) Solution 2 – into Solution 3 (below).

AlMac|^(talk) question, regarding With subpages, it would be harder to assess the state of what needs to be done, can a sub-page be coded so that on the main page there is one line of statistics: Date of original post, date of last edit (if different), number of edits overall, number of people who have edited there. This way, someone scanning the main page would see those with only one person and one date, and how long ago that question has gone with no response. Perhaps there could then be a sort based on those with lowest response. AlMac|^(talk) 01:08, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Reply to 119

many Reference desk questions are submitted by anons who we cannot assume have any idea how to format their text: I don't see how this relates to the proposed solution.
many questions receive only one or two replies,: I assume you want to point out that this will create some short pages. What's the problem with that?
creating subpages and listing them is [a lot of] work.: No, it isn't. As proposed, this would be automatic — for the user it remains a simple click on a button.
an interested user would have to subpage every question: Not sure what you mean by "to subpage".
the actual reference desk page would [...] contain almost no activity: It would contain less activity, which is good. But "almost no" is a gross exaggeration. On average we have 15 questions and 21 replies per day (see below). Every question will create activity on the reference desk page. Even if we assume that none of the replies edits the reference desk page the activity will drop from 36 to 15 per day. Certainly not "almost no activity".
[less activity on the reference desk page] mak[es] it more difficult for users to observe replies outside of pages they go to the trouble to watch: I don't know about you, but information overkill is way more trouble for me than clicking "watch" on an article i'm interested in. The proposed solution allows you to choose exactly the information you desire. But to make it easier, we can add a special link next to each entry to add it to the watchlist (as I've done on Wikipedia:Templates for deletion).

Sebastian (talk) 03:48, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

Solution 2: template based embedding scheme

(Proposed by Fangz, who is encouraged to edit it)

This is a great idea. For advanced users it even can be implemented without any programmatic change. I am trying it out on Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/history (I hope people there know how to deal with templates ;-) — Sebastian (talk) 03:48, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

Solution 3: Combine Solution 1 and 2

(Proposed by SebastianHelm; anyone is encouraged to edit it)

Users can choose "skins". The concise skin will show only the links to questions and maybe a reply count, as proposed in Solution 1. The verbose skin, will display the whole text, as in Solution 2.

Are "skins" supposed to be understandable to newbies, who may be here in greater numbers than old hands. AlMac|^(talk) 01:02, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Solution 4: allow users to put sections on watchlists

(Proposed by Fangz, who is encouraged to edit it)

Benefit:

It could also be applied to other pages, such as long talk pages or the vandalism page.

People would then need option of putting 100% of an article, its talk page, main sections, on a watch list, or individual sections. Then someone might want all the primary links, or just some of them, that way. AlMac|^(talk) 01:00, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Appendix: Statistics

This page currently has 107 questions, added in 14 days. This is 15 questions/day. From May 4 (at about this time of day) till May 10 it experienced 215 edits. If we assume all were full contributions (whole questions or whole replies) then we have 36 contributions / day or 1.4 replies / question. This seems a bit low; maybe i made an error. But i don't think it is much above 2.

Page has been doubled

The content on the page has been doubled. I don't have time to look through it all to find out when it happened, but it was a while ago apparently. CryptoDerk 21:47, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

Is there a recommended way for fixing page duplications? --HappyCamper 17:07, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

There isn't a simple way afaik, what I do is either

revert to the last good version then add in anythign from the last doubled version that isn't in the version reverted to (using diffs and making use of tabbed browsing to have more than one copy of the article open.
delete the duplicated sections. Normally on pages like this any subsequent edits will have been made to the section nearest the bottom of the page so I tend to delete the one(s) nearest the top.

both methods are labour intensive and there is a high chance of mistakes being made and contributions missed. Thryduulf 17:15, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I tried the first method today (see the history), and I found it to be rather difficult. I was hoping for a better method, but I guess it would suffice! Maybe more practising would be better. I might try writing a little Perl script just to weed out duplications. --HappyCamper 18:38, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Better yet, help code up a Mediawiki solution. The problem arises when a new section is created by one editor and another editor edits the old version and saves the edit. I don't know if there is a good solution, but that's part of why I'm not a developer. - Taxman ^Talk 19:21, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Beware of Unicode problems. Whenever I have tried to use technology to assist in removing duplicate sections, I usually end up corrupting non-ASCII characters, and going back to doing it by hand. Bovlb 19:20:56, 2005-07-20 (UTC)

Is the code for MediaWiki in the public domain? Where can you go to read the code in MediaWiki? --HappyCamper 21:48, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

You didn't know the code that Wikipedia runs is GPL'd? Anyway, follow the link grasshoppa. - Taxman ^Talk 22:34, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

It's GPL-licensed. The stable version is here. There are instructions for obtaining the development version here. The developers seem to hang out here. —Ghakko 22:32, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Technical Computing Questions

I've noticed there has been an increase recently in the number of questions basicly 'how do I do this on my computer'. Do we think these are appropriate? DJ Clayworth 13:54, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm new to it, but I think they are. If that's what people need information on, and there are people willing to answer them, then why not? I guess if it got out of hand we may want a Computer reference desk to separate them from others, but it doesn't seem too bad yet! !!!!

Create different "reference desks" for every topic

I don't know if this had been suggested before, but an anonymous user has posted this idea into the Village Pump:

Speaking of reference, I think there should be more "reference desks", each one for a different topic. That way we would create division of labor, and the answers of the "reference desks" would get answered more easily. 2004-12-29T22:45Z July 9, 2005 17:51 (UTC)

I found this idea great because dividing the reference desk by topic has a lot of advantages:

It directs the user who wants to offer help to his area of expertise
It decreases the page size and diminish the load time
It let questions to be kept a longer time displayed and thus it gets more answers

I'm open for suggestions.500LL 12:51, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

people can't manage to put their requests into the reference desk to begin with. Do you expect people to correctly categorize their question? I find this unlikely. This link is Broken 12:56, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. WP:HD and WP:RD aren't clearly distinguished now, much less RD #1 through #5 (or whatever). It'd just lead to confusion. As it stands, scanning all new questions is fairly trivial, there's rarely that many of them... Shimgray 13:28, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I think this would actually mostly just be a hassle for people that cruise RD to help. ¦ Reisio 13:39, 2005 July 10 (UTC)

I agree with 2004 and 500, it would also make it much easier for people on dial-up. — Jeandré, 13:46, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

What qualifies as a "topic" (as in, "for every topic")? -- Essjay · Talk 14:03, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

I like reading the variety of questions and answers and I answer questions in lots of categories. The ref desk is better than the random article function as a way to waste time, and if we can't get people to understand the difference between the Help dek and the Ref desk, few of them will categorize their own questions.

What might be worth doing is sorting them into "current ref desk questions" by topic a week after answers stop (or after 2 weeks of no answer), and then archiving in those categories as the 40k limit is exceeded in each category. #The person to do the initial categorization and move could be one of the answering editors for each question. In other words, if you answer a question, and the discussion stops for a week, you should move the whole thing to a category article, like Recent medical/psychology/body questions. It would make searching for past questions easier and would reduce the size of the current page.
Those of us who ordinarily do janitorial and organizational tasks could occasionally archive the category articles as they exceeded some limit. The archive would be Past medical/psychology/body questions.
As for what qualifies as a topic, I would keep it to no more than 10 large categories. Maybe

These are off the top of my head, so as we divide up the questions we might modify the list. My major message: please keep the new, active questions together at a single Ref desk. Thanks. alteripse 14:31, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I could see the point of having archives if people actually took the time to look through them before asking their questions, but experience of on-line help forums is that people rarely take the time to find out if their question has been answered, even if the site has an easy way of searching through past questions. I think people would be even less likely to search through the archives if it meant going by hand through ten or twelve pages or archives. Unless we were to develop a dedicated search button for the reference desk (which isn't a bad idea), I'm not sure what the point of the categorization and archives would be. — Asbestos | Talk 16:30, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Point of having archives. I have searched old archived questions for 3 reasons. First, some of the questions are repetitive, and we can dig out and paste a past answer. Second, some of the questions suggest we need an article and I have on one or two occasions written an article based on ref desk question and answer (e.g., look at my answer to the question today about assessing the hypothalamus-- is that the kernel of an article?). Third, sometimes people post useful links that I didn't save and later when I need it I have a vague memory of the question. For all three purposes it would be easier to search archives by topic than by date. As long as the system is kept simple, like I suggested above, it would me easy to maintain and use. Believe me, I have no illusion that our question posters would ever search an archive for an answer, but I think I may not be the only editor who ever looked back to find an answer again. alteripse 16:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Won't work worth a damn. People will post their questions in random locations just as they always do. -- Cyrius|✎ 00:17, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Why bother to post if you don't bother to read? All of us agree with you and have each said the same thing. I was proposing that the answerers (us) move them to a category article a few days after the questions have been answered and discussed. alteripse 00:25, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm just reiterating the point. As far as sorting the answers, ideally they should be made part of relevant articles, no? -- Cyrius|✎ 05:04, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking about how I would go about looking for a past question, and I think it would be easier to look for it in a general topical file of questions than wondering what article it went to. More importantly, filing in articles would be a whole lotta more work than just deciding between a the ten or so bins above. That's the gap between ideally and really. alteripse 11:15, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Instant problem: I've just asked a question about Monopoly (as in the boardgame), where's that gonna go? Maybe add a "misc" or "other" to that list? Other than that, by-subject instead of by-date archiving sounds very good. Plus makes old answers much easier to find. Garrett^Talk 07:30, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I would immediately think popular culture for Monopoly, but you are right, some questions would need a misc. alteripse 11:10, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I think its better to have one page. It saves our users the trouble of figuring out which category their question goes into and the possibility it will be overlooked if sent to the wrong section. And I prefer one page that everyone looks at and taps everyone's expertise. It's like with scientific journals. A geologist will take a number of specialized works, say the Journal of Clay Mineralogy, but he and scientists everywhere will look at Science and Nature. The RD should be Science, aiming for everyone, not Clay Mineralogy. PedanticallySpeaking 17:04, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

I think the sub-desks suggestion makes sense. Perhaps we could even put them on the main village pump page, like so:

Village pump sections

News	Policy	Technical	Proposals	Assistance	Miscellaneous
File:Nuvola 64 apps knewsletter.png
post	post	post	post	post	post
To make announcements that do not fit into Announcements or Goings-on	To discuss existing and proposed policies	To discuss technical issues	To discuss new ideas and proposals that are not policy related	To post requests for assistance not covered by the Help desk or the Reference desk	To post messages that do not fit into any other category

Reference desk

The reference desk is a place to ask for specific facts.
Please check back a day or two after posting your question.

Current events	Pop culture	History	Humanities	Music	Medicine	Science	Technology	Other
		File:P literature.png
post	post	post	post	post	post	post	post	post
To ask questions about news or current events	To ask questions about fashion and popular culture	To ask questions about history and genealogy	To ask questions about arts, literature and the humanities	To ask questions about music	To ask questions about health and medical topics	To ask questions about mathematics, physics, biololgy and the natural sciences	To ask questions about electronics, computing and for general technical how-tos	To ask questions which don't fit in any of the other categories

General help and assistance

Help desk	Peer review	Requests for comment	Talk pages
For help using Wikipedia	For constructive criticism from others for a specific article	For help resolving an edit dispute or making a complaint about a user	To comment on a specific article

MediaZilla	Perennial proposals	Wikimedia Meta-wiki	Citing Wikipedia	Mirrors and forks

To make wiki software bug reports and feature requests	To check if an idea has already been proposed/discussed	To view other Wikimedia projects	To cite Wikipedia in a bibliography	To report sites that copy Wikipedia content

—Ghakko 09:14, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Alternative: Move each question in its subpage

Basically, this works already in WP:CfD (with days as units). Since these question are often by new users, it would have to be easier to use, so I'm thinking of one functionality change: When the user clicks on "Ask a new question by clicking here", it creates the subpage automatically and inserts a transclusion into WP:CfD. Then we can go from there: Link or transclude at our hearts content from or into other topical pages. The burden of sorting would shift from first time users to those of us who don't mind a bit of categorization. — Sebastian (talk) 05:54, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings on this ... I know when I go to an off-line public library, the sections are clearly marked, so that I can navigate myself to where the reference materials are relevant to what I am interested in. But I also have been involved in Computer "Help Desk." A person with a problem often does not have the right terminology to describe the symptoms of what the problem is. Further, they have a partial theory what is going on, which could be totally off base, but they often couch their call for help, within the context of their theory of what is going on.

Using sub-pages which are linked to the main reference page might accomplish several goals:

Those topics that get excellent responses, are now in a form that could be moved to a new stub article.
When the sub-page is started, the editor setup with the watch this topic box checked, to help whoever posted the question find it again after many others have been added to the collection.
People who look at the table of contents can still see all the sub-page topics that are out there, and connect to those that interest them, but this might be more cumbersome, and thus less get answered quickly. AlMac|^(talk) 00:51, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

There's one obvious problem here. VfD and the like tend to, by their nature, have unique titles - articles which go up for VfD tend to only do so once. However, a lot of RD and HD queries tend to have repeated titles - at the moment, for example, we have thirteen or so one-word topic titles. A lot of these are liable to be repeated - "Reference", for example, or "Quote". This sounds like it might well cause problems... Shimgray 00:58, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Rate of question growth on Reference Desk increasing...

I have been doing most of the archiving of the reference desk during the last month. The heuristic I was using was as follows:

Archive threads that are about 6 days old since the last response;
Archive threads which have not been answered for "a long time" near the top;
Archive whenever the reference desk exceeds 100 questions;

This heuristic seems a bit inadequate for the rate at which the questions are being asked. It has steadily increased over time, and I think sooner or later questions will need to be archived much earlier just to keep the page smaller and more organized. Does anyone have a better heuristic to use? --HappyCamper 08:10, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps it's a good idea to suggest in the "How to ask a question" section that people who check back leave a little note if their question is answered to their satisfaction. Then the discussion can be archived quickly, after keeping it 2 days or so for others who might be interested. I don't know if such a suggestion would have any effect, but it could be worth a try. David Sneek 17:17, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Reference desk archiving

Why not try this?

Archive the questions just like we've been doing.
Supplementary to this, simply make another set of archives based on the existing archives which have questions sorted by topic?

These next set of archives can be updated whenever a Wikipedian comes along and feels like "question sorting", much like "stub sorting" I suppose.

I think one good page to make is an "identify this XYZ" page. Such queries come on the reference desk every now and then, and make it quite interesting. It would be worthwhile to collect all of these requests together and archive them I think. --HappyCamper 08:17, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Categories and interwiki links

I moved all categories and interwiki links (now in Unicode) to Template:RD header in the hope people will be less likely to duplicate this section by mistake in the future. Is it OK? Will it cause any confusion to the software? -- Toytoy 10:06, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Splitting the reference desk into departments

What do people think of this? As it turns out, it's quite difficult for those of us who have expertise in a particular area to see relevant questions that we might be able to answer. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:17, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Dunno..I just browse around and like the VP it's hard to keep track of 5 or more different pages at once on the same topic. But it does need major splitting and removal of old [answered] topics. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 05:30, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Aren't we already discussing this like four headings up? -- Cyrius|✎ 05:42, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I think its better to have one page. It saves our users the trouble of figuring out which category their question goes into and the possibility it will be overlooked if sent to the wrong section. And I prefer one page that everyone looks at and taps everyone's expertise. It's like with scientific journals. A geologist will take a number of specialized works, say the Journal of Clay Mineralogy, but he and scientists everywhere will look at Science and Nature. The RD should be Science, aiming for everyone, not Clay Mineralogy. PedanticallySpeaking 17:04, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Let's keep it on one page. You never really know who's going to have an answer to some random very specific query anyway.--Pharos 18:28, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

It works. Don't fix it. --jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ 18:33, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

"it's quite difficult for those of us who have expertise in a particular area to see relevant questions that we might be able to answer" - Yes, looking at the TOC can be really difficult. Seriously, most questions here can be answered just by someone with access to Wikipedia's search or Google's (and often just someone that completed the 5th grade); multiple sections would mean more work for both the askers and the answerers. ¦ Reisio 11:55, 2005 July 27 (UTC)

We've discussed this issue above. But why everybody is having a problem with it? Isn't every forum on the net divided into topics? Cedar-Guardian 06:32, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Your first question is basically what Ta bu has asked, but in response to your second - Every forum on the net is not Wikipedia:Reference_desk. ¦ Reisio 11:55, 2005 July 27 (UTC)

29th July archival

As far as I could tell, the threads which were archived were inactive; please feel free to restore them back to the reference desk if necessary. (About 100 questions were removed!) --HappyCamper 01:33, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Questions in ALL CAPS

Could we add a note that you should not ask your question in ALL CAPS? In all my life, I have not understood what makes people write in ALL CAPS. As it takes more effort than writing in all lowercase (and possibly a bit more effort than writing in mixed case), it must be a conscious decision. "Hey, I'm going to ignore lowercase letters altogether, even though every single language written with the Latin alphabet not only allows, but recommends their use!" Is this a throwback to days before the 1960s, when all people had were telegraphs? Or a misguided way of sounding more "urgent" or "important"? — JIP | Talk 06:03, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

The friendly reminder is already at the top of the page. I usually just change all the caps to lowercase myself when I feel like it. Sometimes, it's just simpler for people to place their question at the bottom by editing the last question (say after pressing Ctrl-End) without reading the header. --HappyCamper 06:41, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Also, I have found that some computer users tend to use all caps because it avoids having to think about capitalization. Not everybody's first language is English. --HappyCamper 06:43, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Granted, not everyone's first language is English but then why wouldn't they just put everything in lower case? Dismas 07:29, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Because it would be impossible to spell the name of the Deity correctly? =) — JIP | Talk 07:30, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

IMHO, on the Internet, writing all-lower-case makes you look sleek and wannabe-postmodern, while writing ALLCAPS makes you look like a lumberjack or a 12-year-old. I prefer all-lower-case when lazy, but of course if you want to make a good impression, especially an encyclopedic impression, it is of course recommendable to use coRRECt capitalization. However, I am grateful already if ppl forgo the plz, u, r, 4 etc. AOLese.... dab (ᛏ) 07:37, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

IMHO, using all lowercase (especially with cutesy abbreviations) makes you look like a spotty-faced 12-year-old who can spend hours arguing about the statistics of an obscure RPG character. Using ALL CAPS, OTOH, makes you look like a corporate worker who thinks that the more your message stands out, the more people will read it and answer it, and that his question is naturally far more important than anyone else's. — JIP | Talk 07:49, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I've known more than a handful of professional programmers that, unless they really consciously think about it, use all lowercase and not one of them is 12 years old with an RPG fetish. :) They've just gotten used to typing in lowercase unless they need a special character like + or #. Dismas 10:07, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Seen on IRC:

<snerk> why do i type in lowercase? because when the revolution comes, the capitalists will be up against the wall!!!!

-- Nailbiter 11:07, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

lowercase is one thing, 'the crude truncation of the lower classes' are another. I find 'imho', 'afaik', 'afaics', 'fwiiw' and the like useful, because they expand to good english and save you quite some typing. I even use *lol* occasionally. but u, r, 4, plz and the like just make me shudder. I mean, 'afaics' saves me about four seconds, but 'u' hardly saves any time at all, and you will indeed just look like a 12 year old (I have noted that, here on WP, such abbreviations are often used by young non-native speakers, wishing to emphasize their casual familiarity with English slang). Also, I have noted that ALLCAPS is frequently used by non-internet-savvy females for some reason. Also in text messaging, where capitalization is apita (I just made that one up) -- if people have to choose between all-lowercase and allcaps, I note that novices to textmessaging often use allcaps, while habitués prefer lowercase. Again, I noted that it is not rare for females to use allcaps (I'm in Europe). I take this to be still reflect that a larger portion of the female population has little experience with chatrooms and what not, where an inhibition to SHOUTING is typically acquired rather quickly dab (ᛏ) 11:51, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

On Usenet, I have also seen many foreigners (particularly people from Asia, such as India) use u, r, 4, plz and so on, even so much that they use them more than native English speakers. I tend to agree with you that it is a sign of desperately trying to sound "casual" to give a better impression of English skills. However, what they might not realise is that it is backfiring horribly. Rather than giving a "casual" impression, use of u, r, 4, plz and so on makes one stand out as a foreigner concerned about his image. — JIP | Talk 15:03, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen examples from India, on WP, and recently, Greece. As I sidenote, apita above was generated spontaneously, but I note that pita is the current form, with some 13,000 google hits. dab (ᛏ) 16:42, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Page Title

Does anyone else think the title of the page(i.e. "Reference Desk") might be contributing to our woe of people constantly asking for help citing Wikipedia? I just had the thought that they might be going to the page thinking it will tell them how to list Wikipedia as a reference. Obviously, that still means they're not reading anything at the top, but so be it. What do people think about moving the page to a name that makes it extremely explicit what the page is about?

Examples:

Wikipedia: Answer Desk

Wikpiedia: Question and Answer

Wikipedia: Expert Assistance(don't like it much myself)

...

open for suggestions

Superm401 | Talk 23:31, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

I do think that the difference between "help desk" and "reference desk" isn't clear enough to new users (clearly not, as so many of them post in the wrong place). Answer Desk and Q&A are no clearer, I think, and EA isn't much different either (is that wikipedia-expert or subject-expert). I can't think of anything better, however. There may be nothhing better ;( -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:41, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

What about Wikipedia:Information desk? Hermione1980 23:47, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, like with "Answer" or "Expert", "information" could be either Wikipedia-information or factual-information - probably part of the problem is that people not used to namespaces see "Wikipedia:Reference" + "desk" rather than "Wikipedia" + "Reference desk". Which rambling has prompted me to make my own suggestion, probably to be shot down in turn, of "Wikipedia:Fact desk" or "Wikipedia:Fact finders" or something else with "Fact" in it - on the grounds that you wouldn't really think about "Wikipedia facts". Hm, or would you... - IMSoP 23:59, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Althernatively we could abandon the distinction and just have "question desk" which does both. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:08, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

No way, that page would be worse than VfD used to be. I like "fact desk", myself. Hermione1980 00:20, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

It's not a fact desk though. It's a desk for people to ask questions, but not always about simple facts. Sometimes valid questions concern opinions and seeking people's advice. Superm401 | Talk 00:31, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

How about a Question Desk fork (disambig) page. We often do this to point a user in the right direction where there may be confusion. I don't think that merging both desks will serve us well. hydnjo talk 00:23, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

That would work especially well if we discourage people from linking directly to WP:RD or WP:HD but instead ask that they link to Wikipedia:Question desk. When people get to WP:QD, they will be able to choose the one they want, and are less likely to ask at the wrong one just because they wandered there. Do people understand what I'm saying? Superm401 | Talk 02:27, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Sort of like a disambiguation page for the two "desks"? Sounds good. "This way for questions about how Wikipedia works... This way for questions about factual material which doesn't necessarily include Wikipedia" or some such. Dismas 03:06, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I like the idea too. --HappyCamper 03:20, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I'll leave this up for about a week. If I don't get a significant number of objections, I'll phase it in. Superm401 | Talk 04:01, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. I just discovered that Wikipedia help desk redirects to Wikipedia:Reference desk. Surely that explains some of the Wikipedia questions. Well, that page is about to be fixed. Superm401 | Talk 04:05, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

I wonder if it might be better to move the "reference desk" to the new "question desk", and use the "reference desk" page as the "disambiguation page" for the "question desk" and the "help desk"? A lot of welcoming messages to new Wikipedians link to the "reference desk" at the moment it seems. But I guess this might cause a lot of confusion...Just an idea. --HappyCamper 05:28, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd rather not change the role of existing pages. It seems to me that would worsen the problem. I undertand your idea, but don't think it's the best way to go. Superm401 | Talk 06:10, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm curious then, how are you planning to phase in the changes? Can I help out? --HappyCamper 06:19, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Simple. Create Wikipedia:Question desk with a brilliant disambiguation that sparkles with clarity(I might need some help with the sparkling). Go through the links to WP:RD and WP:HD using the "What links here" tool. For any links that are not clearly referencing one of the pages uniquely, change it to a link to Wikipedia:Question desk. I.E. If someone says the people at Wikipedia:Reference Desk are very good at answering electronics questions, I'll leave it. If it says, Wikipedia:Reference Desk can respond to all sorts of inquiries you might have, I'll change it to a link to the question desk. Obviously, not all will be that simple, but there's the rule. Some help going through the links would be welcome. There are 500-1000 links to WP:RD and over 10000 to WP:HD. Hence, a bot would probably be necessary for the latter. It could be set to do only the ones on User_talk namespace, which should all be converted to WP:QD. Superm401 | Talk 07:41, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Not all instances on User talk: should be changed, e.g. after the first question I asked here was answered, I left a thank you note on the page of the person who answered it. It is quite possible that I phrased it as "thank you for answering my question at the reference desk". Thryduulf 13:56, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Whoa! Why re-link anything to WP:QD (a disambig page)? Most likely those links to WP:RD and WP:HD (most of them anyway) are just fine. I looked at several to verify. While creating WP:QD we should be concentrating on helping future users navigate to the right place with their questions. If there are some erronious links, lets worry about that later. Right now think "brilliant". hydnjo talk 15:30, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Another subject: If the disambig page is adopted I think there should be a link to the Question Desk (disambig page) on the Main Page hydnjo talk 14:39, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Good plan. I'll create the Wikipedia:Question desk. We should edit it a bit before publicizing. Superm401 | Talk 20:27, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Why is it seen as a problem that people come here to ask about citing Wikipedia articles? It's an easy, one-line answer. We refer them to Wikipedia:Cite sources. Creating yet another help page seems utterly out of proportion to such a trivial matter. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:36, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Why does it seem so often that when an incremental change is proposed, there is always a general sentiment of opposition? Why not just give the new page a chance? Say, just one week. Or even one day. If it doesn't work out, it can just be speedily deleted. What ever happened to being "bold", and "trying out new things"? We'd never know if it succeeds or fails if we never try. But I digress; the presence of this comment is enough to scare me away from even trying this out myself. I'm myself now back to editing more articles instead! :) --HappyCamper 19:20, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

I've probably already yammered enough about the help desk name. I really like the idea of the question desk, although, of course,you will be getting a lot more questions about the Wikipedia maze with this title. But then, again, I still think the Wikipedia help desk needs to be renamed. Argh. I'm probably not winning points here on either side. Let's see - Question Desk, and Wikipedia Problem Desk. ? --Mothperson cocoon 20:56, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Question desk has become Wikipedia:Ask a question, out of a desire to distinguish the new page from the existing ones. "Ask a question" implies the page will help the user to ask a question, which is accurate. However, it does not claim to be a place that answers questions, which is inaccurate. Therefore, please link to Wikipedia:Ask a question or WP:AQ. Superm401 | Talk 23:44, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

Many people go to FAQ when in fact they are looking for IFAQ (Infrequently) AlMac|^(talk) 16:35, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

The point of this page?

A lot of the questions asked here are quite interesting, but many are answered within the pages of Wikipedia. For example, a couple of sections above mine is a question on the next season of 24. Typing '24' in the search box, clicking on 24 (television) and then clicking on Future seasons in the contents menu gives the answer. Ideally, questions easily answered like these should be summarised with just a link to the article/section with the relevant info - maybe remove the body of the section and add the link at the end of the heading?

After a question here (not already answered in Wikipedia) is answered, the answer should be copied to the relevant articles, if appropriate. (Maybe this is already done?) -- Chuq 03:21, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Many of the questions here are asked by new users. Thus, this page gives us a good opportunity to show our spirit of helpfulness. I'm not promoting a condescending approach to answering questions but rather a genuine spirit of helping out and promoting our agenda of providing the best information possible. hydnjo talk 03:43, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree, many of these questions can be answered just by providing a link. But sometimes, it's really nice to get an answer with a human quality to it. For me, Wikipedia is in some sense alive, and that's one reason why it's such a rewarding project to work on! --HappyCamper 03:52, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I also agree. Every once in a while I read Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers rembembering how I felt back then. For some, jumping in is no big deal, but for others it can be intimidating. That's why we should give the benefit of doubt here (unless of course, it is a blatantly contrived bait) and show our best congeniality. I was there once and am fortunate to have gotten some sympathetic response which provided encouragement rather than discouragement. hydnjo talk 04:16, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

(Discussion moved from project page by James 05:15, August 9, 2005 (UTC))

I see the point of many of the above answers, specifically about a human answer - but people wrote the articles here too, and spent quite a bit of time doing so in order to help others. Although, there are many good examples of questions which can not be answered in an encyclopedia. Not biting the newcomers is a good point, though I wonder how many post a question here, leave, and never return to read the answer, and how much effort in answering questions is wasted.

I also don't understand how someone, googling (or otherwise searching) for the answer to a question, manages to find Wikipedia's Reference desk page while completely missing the Wikipedia article on the exact subject!

I guess most of this is just me dribbling - but the most important part is that answers get transferred to the relevant article(s) when the RD page is archived! -- Chuq 07:37, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I know what you mean. In an ideal world, every single fact dug up for the RD would be immediately transferred to the appropriate articles. Instead, they are being archived. I think the reason is that it takes a fair bit of effort to translate the answers into a suitable form for an article. The other day, wouldn't it be really neat if the RD produced a featured article every month or so? However, I guess hydnjo is right about this too. The RD functions more as a welcoming front end for Wikipedia, rather than a place where articles are being generated. So, a lot of focus is placed on well thought out, welcoming answers. I've met maybe 10 to 20 new Wikipedians through the RD, and many of them decided to join the project after having received a good answer here. --HappyCamper 14:49, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Archiving questions far too quickly

Yesterday I posed several questions to the page and today when I checked to see if they had been answered found some had already been removed to the archive--in under twenty-four hours. This is far too fast, even if the replies actually answered the questions, which they did not. Yes, this page does get long but removing material in under twenty-four hours is overzealous. I have reposted the two questions. PedanticallySpeaking 15:31, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Usually the questions are there for more than that. I asked questions and they were still there after a day. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 15:39, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I've been doing the archiving for the last two months or so, and recently a new Wikipedian is just trying to learn the ropes and get a feel for the archiving. Just give the user a chance. I'll restore more of the archived questions today. --HappyCamper 16:02, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Archiving tips for next time

I did the most recent archiving, and User talk:Jamesmusik was nice to point out that I should try and minimize the number of edits to the page while doing so to avoid cluttering up the page history. I think I'll add this little tip to the reference desk archive page. --HappyCamper 10:08, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

On another note, the number of questions is growing very, very rapidly. Archiving week-old questions is not enough to keep up with the pace at the moment. I'm archiving 3-4 day old questions as well, trying to keep the number of questions to around 100. --HappyCamper 10:08, 17 August 2005 (UTC)