Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 75

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Archive 73

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Silver infused water question

I started a new section for this thread. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:03, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Is this the 'Complain about ChemicalInterest' thread? Because if so I'd like to mention that I'm unhappy with his posts in the discussion about silver infused water.[1] APL (talk) 20:13, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

No that is not this thread but you are welcome to start a new thread. Then we might discuss whether this post (lower part) was constructive or merely incivil. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:56, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Since I have been mentioned for stating dogmatic statements without several million references to back them up, I wrote "In my opinion". I know that some miss the little external links, but I do not tend to place them in refdesk posts. My response was a conclusion I came to when looking at the silver situation, which I have had experiences with. It is just simply too weak to make a noticeable difference compared to the extremely powerful antibiotics on the market. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 18:07, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

The issue is only that you are making unsourced statements. I don't think anyone doubts your honest intentions in answering, but I think, given the type of question, a source is required. That was a "reference" desk is for. Looking for "references". Sometimes, of course, like a book recommendation, that's not really needed, but for the antibiotic properties of silver, it is. Of course, I don't see the problem as clear cut: as you mention, you yourself mention that it is too weak to make any noticeable difference, so there's that. Aaronite (talk) 19:21, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

At the silver water question Chemicalinterest was the first responder to cite a Wikipedia article. Later in the discussion about the effect on the body of silver, Chemicalinterest posted: "My opinion is that the disinfectant in colloidal silver is too weak to be of any use in vivo."[2]. I think that might have been misread as "My opinion is that colloidal silver is too weak to be any danger in the body" because that would explain if not condone APL's reaction[3]. (That reaction was actually two posts at different indents, both with criticisms of Chemicalinterest that add no information, and no edit summary.) APL may have felt their own post[4]containing blockquotes from another article was being overlooked. We cannot seem to imply that any controversial medication is safe since that would constitute medical advice. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:03, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

What I would state for danger: It may be dangerous because the small size of the silver particles allows them to be oxidized easily, leading to toxic Ag⁺ which is reactive. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 00:28, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I certainly agree that if one does not have any good reason or citation to cite before saying something is "safe" or "dangerous" or not, one should be responsible enough to keep one's mouth shut. It is very easy to read ChemicalInterest's comments as being along the lines that ingesting silver is a "safe" thing to do. It is not, if you considering turning blue/gray something worth avoiding. Given that this is actually something that has suckered a lot of people in the past and present, I think it is worth being unambiguous about this. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:51, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm doomed

Good lord. I have dreamed about an RD thread. It would have been trouble, too: The dream querent posted a link to a Bing bird's eye map showing a lake with a few boats on it, a ~10 story hotel at the water's edge, and several 1 story structures, wrote that a tornado was approaching, and asked where he or she should obtain shelter. I didn't stick around in the dream to read the subsequent argument about offering safety advice on the Reference Desk. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:03, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I dream about the internet all the time. 82.43.88.151 (talk) 15:14, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Yep, you've just gained fifty points on the Wikipediholic test. Doomed. ---Sluzzelin talk 15:20, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

You've missed the real question: was that you dreaming about the internet, or is this the internet dreaming about you? --Ludwigs2 15:24, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

In the future, please refer to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a place to dream about. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:46, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't exist, sorry. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 01:06, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

If you have the dream again, whatever you do, don't suggest that the best solution is to take shelter in the conscious thoughts of someone dreaming about Wikipedia. You might end up with some long-term guests. In fact, never think about this again. ;) Franamax (talk) 01:26, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Is it just my innate radar settings?

...or does there seem to be an exceptionally high number of queries lately about those always popular topics, Jews and Judaism, on the Humanities RD? I'm reminded of an old Peanuts cartoon in which Linus keeps track of how many days it's been since his sister Lucy was last crabby. I actually welcome the opportunity afforded by queries on these topics (and on Israel, about which I'm far more knowledgeable and endeavor to cite the local press rather than OR), particularly when there's some debunking to be done. My belief that the RDs have a wide readership is partly why I'm devoted to contributing here, but let me take this opportunity to thank all of you who pitch in... especially the non-Jews whose responses are (IMO) tantamount to an overt ecumenical/humanistic statement that this is knowledge worth knowing and disseminating. Lest it not go without saying — there, I've said it! -- Deborahjay (talk) 09:08, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Probably, but what does ...tantamount to an overt ecumenical/humanistic statement that this is knowledge worth knowing and disseminating mean, I've read it about 20 times and I still can't figure out what you meant.. ? 77.86.94.177 (talk) 13:26, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

It means everyone wants to think they are an expert on the Jews (or Israel), because not being able to answer such questions is like a reverse anti-Semitism. Adam Bishop (talk) 23:23, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Adam, that strikes me as a doubtful interpretation. I think Deborah was thanking non-Jews for taking the time to legitimize questions about Jews as meaningful.

and is reverse anti-Semitism simple good-old-fashioned Semitism? --Ludwigs2 23:37, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's possible that I'm way too cynical about everything :) Adam Bishop (talk) 23:27, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Automatic archiving interrupted

The normal automatic archiving of the Reference Desks by scsbot will not be working for the next week. It will be best if a few volunteers can archive at least the high-volume desks manually, at least every couple of days. See this message from a year or so ago for instructions (and for a hint as to the reason for the interruption :-) ). —Steve Summit (talk) 03:38, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

During that period, editors can help to reduce the volume by refraining from asking and answering questions, or by making their contributions few and short and simple and uncontroversial.—Wavelength (talk) 20:12, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Editors can do that, but I would advise against it. We shouldn't allow the need for manual archiving (which isn't really that difficult) to stop us providing the best service we can. --Tango (talk) 14:46, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll take care of doing the archiving manually. I think I'm aware of the method of doing that, but if I ever blunder somehow, please tell me what I've done wrong. --Theurgist (talk) 18:47, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I suggest we don't. there's no real technical problem involved with letting the pages get a bit long for a few days - on slow connections they might take a while to load, and it makes navigating the page slightly more annoying - and when the bot returns it will archive everything quickly and correctly without the risk of human error. my two cents... --Ludwigs2 00:16, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Is this what needs to be done? If it's just that, it's not hard at all (though it's a bit time-consuming). --Theurgist (talk) 01:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Normal archiving resumes

I'm back from the briny; the bot is catching up now. Thanks, Theurgist, for your efforts in the interim. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:49, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Posts removed

I removed this particularly useless reply, and the replies to it. The latter just because they are, for all of their good intent, just feeding him. I assume nobody will mind much, but thought I should make a record of it here. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:55, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

That's ok with me. I confess my response was not all that helpful.

--Ludwigs2 20:00, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the removal and am sorry I didn't remove it myself. I think the fact that there were replies was what pushed me away from considering removing it. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:42, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Good removal. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree Good move! - 220.101(talk)^\Contribs 03:18, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Archive page missing August links

On the Reference Desk Archives page, in the "Answered questions, January 2010 – present" table, the August 2010 links are missing.... --Bavi H (talk) 04:39, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe related to #Automatic archiving interrupted? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:00, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

No, unrelated. I turned on August and September. (CiaPan had helpfully left the rest of the year there, commented out.) —Steve Summit (talk) 00:21, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Jetsons Guy

204.112.104.172 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

204.112.104.172 seems to be just messing with us. All the recent questions are obviously ignoring the responses given. Suggestions? Aaronite (talk) 05:26, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Send them to the phantom zone. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:31, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

He's not "messing with us", he's just really dense. Start deleting new questions. Vimescarrot (talk) 11:35, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I think you can start deleting questions. A number of editors (including me) have tried engaging them on their talk page and there's also an ANI thread about them. Basically, they're claiming that all the bad stuff was done by someone else that they know the name of but have no way of contacting and who makes the same spelling mistakes they do. Yeah. Here is the talk page; make of it what you will. Matt Deres (talk) 15:00, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Every time a disruptive user blames someone else for "identity theft", they think they're the first disruptive user that ever thought of that ploy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:45, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

So? Vimescarrot (talk) 16:58, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

So it's funny. :) "No! No! It was my evil roommate/cousin/mother/daughter/sister/brother! I swear on a stack of Windows 95 manuals!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:24, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I assumed that it was just some kid (they do say the darnedest things, after all) who was really into The Jetsons and the idea of a new movie based thereon. He's blocked for a month, in any event, so the problem is over for now. Deor (talk) 17:34, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

He should team up with Ericthebrainiac and see what kind of script they could produce. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:39, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I would say this one is funnier the most because it isn't an account which was used but an IP and they don't seem to be saying it's someone like a family member or flatmate who should be sharing an internet connection with them. So this 'identity' thief is allegedly somehow using the 'victim' 's internet connection as a way of stealing their 'identity'. P.S. On the off chance they were serious, I recommended they contact the police and get their internet connection and computer checked out Nil Einne (talk) 19:59, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Delete per disruption and waste of resources, warn then eventually block for disruptive editing. If they can't or won't control their own (static) address, then they're blockable per policy as an open proxy. If it's shared and being abused, block as shared disruptive account. Nobody cares why the problem is occurring...blocks prevent the problem from continuing and it's up to the source to solve it. Always and only. DMacks (talk) 20:49, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

He's on ice for the next month. Should that "Annika" stuff stay on his talk page? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:18, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I've addressed this with my typical level of finesse, akin to dropping a brick onto a kittycat. I took out the userpage bit about criminal identity theft. I kinda skipped over the bit about how it's really the IANA's number and just suggested creating an account. Pace to our IP regulars here, but this is one of those areas where we can't fix the problem but the person at the other end of the wire can. Franamax (talk) 03:42, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

That brick would qualify as a "catsquisher", yes? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

To no one's surprise, 'Annika' had a change of heart and promised never to be evil again. Nil Einne (talk) 12:46, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion page (this) - technical question

When I click "discussion" tab on the science desk I get taken to this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk/Science

which contains some but not all of the content at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk

this has been bugging me for years, what's going on, and specifically why is some content there but not all? (it seems to be the same content at the moment, but I'm sure it isn't always)

Also linking from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous gives a different TOC than the link from the science desk - Am I going nuts?

It doesn't always do it - but it happened today - a ref desk with no posts after 5th August..Sf5xeplus (talk) 19:48, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

It happens too on the Computer desk, however in all the cases you're actually being redirected to the correct page (Wikipedia talk:Reference desk). The problem is that when being redirected you're somehow shown an older version of the page from the server cache instead of the current version. You can clear this by going to en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk&action=purge 82.43.88.151 (talk) 20:13, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's a bug... editing a page should refresh the cache of redirects too. I'll report it on the bug tracker. --Tango (talk) 20:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I've reported it: [5]. --Tango (talk) 20:29, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, it does seem to be an old version. Not clear why what appears to be a bog standard redirect would have issues.87.102.35.46 (talk) 21:08, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Funnily enough, I do often visit WT:RD from links from the various desks but because I'm always logged in never normally encounter this. Earlier today I happened to be visiting from a different computer and didn't bother to log in. I saw an old talk page which confused me refreshed but didn't think of purging, looked thorough the history to see if someone had accidentally deleted part of the contents and then read about this bug... Of course if I hadn't read about it I probably would have just forgot it happened by now until I read about it Nil Einne (talk) 13:24, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I see old versions of this page daily and have become accustomed to shift-Refreshing. I only do so when I notice, though, so I only definitely see the newest version of the page when there's an obvious problem. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:16, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Should I be offended?

Should I be offended by this? [6] I'm having difficultly believing I'm interpreting it correctly, but I can't think of anything else he could mean... --Tango (talk) 23:18, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I keep getting "page cannot be displayed". Is that what offended you? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:49, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Here's a link that works: [7]. It seems Fly By Night was getting a bit hot under the collar about a miscommunication. I doubt he intended personal offence. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 23:56, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

It's the "I very much doubt you'll be able to..." bit which, in light of the comment in the edit I linked to, seems be intended to refer specifically to me rather than, as I'd originally interpreted it, referring to the ref desk in general, that I find offensive. --Tango (talk) 00:06, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, that's my incompetence at changing secure URLs to normal URLs. The "https" needs to be changed to "http". --Tango (talk) 00:06, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you should be offended. I too interpreted it as a generic "you". It is clear that FBN reacted somewhat snippily to his/her unfulfilled expectations, but he/she also apologized for getting annoyed so easily. I don't think it was personal. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:12, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

He might have been a little quick about his response, but I would just forget about it. Maybe notify him about this thread. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 00:39, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

He makes it clear it wasn't intended as a generic you, though. --Tango (talk) 04:01, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Tango, the question is, were you actually offended? Did you actually feel offence? If so, then you have a right to express that; then you can let it go and move on. If you had no such feelings, then ... you didn't - and it doesn't serve you to be trying to manufacture such a feeling. Nobody outside of yourself can tell you what you should or should not feel in any given circumstance. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 10:14, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Mostly, I felt disbelief that anyone would say that. I was hoping someone here would be able to clarify whether he really did mean what he seems to mean. If he did, then it would offensive. --Tango (talk) 10:41, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

But that's tackling offence in a less than useful way. It starts with you feeling offence; then, and only then, might* you be justified in saying that the other party was being offensive. You don't first decide whether they were being offensive, and only then choose to feel offence. That's what I was referring to by "manufacture such a feeling". (* "I felt offended" doesn't necessarily equate to "he was being offensive", at least not intentionally so.) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 10:55, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm not trying to directly decide if he was being offensive. I'm trying to determine what he meant and then whether or not its offensive will follow naturally. --Tango (talk) 10:58, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I still disagree. Whether or not it's offensive is a completely subjective thing. In this case he and you were the only people in the conversation; but imagine a scenario where one person was talking to 5 others, and 2 of them felt offended by something he said, but the other 3 didn't bat an eyelid about it. Was he being "offensive"? The 2 who were offended might say yes, but the other 3 would say no. So who's right? No-one's right, because we're asking the wrong question. The right question is "Did you, personally, feel offended by what he said?" The answer in each case is either yes or no. And that's all that needs to be said. If you, as an offendee, wish to tell him that what he said caused you offence, that is your right, and I hope he would listen and take heed. But getting all wrapped up in the issue of whether or not he was being offensive, is a complete waste of time. Because all that does is project blame onto him for the feelings you're having (assuming you've actually had such feelings, which you haven't acknowledged), and that's kiddy territory. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:14, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I am a rational enough person to be offended by meaning rather than choice of words. Of course it is subjective, but it is subjective based on information I don't reliably have: his intended meaning. That is what I'm looking for clarification on. I don't have any particular feelings regarding it at the moment beyond confusion but I do like to know when I'm being insulted. --Tango (talk) 11:33, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Right. So you don't feel offended (= no offence has been experienced = no offence has been caused), but you're looking for a justification to start to feel that way. Is that what you're saying? I still reckon you're approaching the whole issue from completely the wrong angle, but I've had my say so I'll retire now. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:57, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

You are bordering on being offensive by not even trying to interpret me correctly. I have made it perfectly clear that I am looking for information, not a justification. They are two completely different things. --Tango (talk) 12:42, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok, here's my interpretation. When FbN first wrote 'I very much doubt that you will be able to "identify the group".' I interpreted as a normal generic you. Later, the response to your pointing out that Algebraist had identified the group was: 'Exactly: Algebraist has identified the group. You were talking about finite groups when I had general topologies in mind. That's why I got a frustrated.' I still interpret it as a generic you as in 'you (who are using this approach which I wasn't looking for) won't be able to identify the group'. I understand how, in that context, emphasizing how Algebraist found it and not you could seem offensive, but I still don't think FbN meant "I doubt that someone with your limited capacity could identify the group, Tango". Perhaps you should ask FbN directly. No one else can read his mind. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:01, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what the question is about so I have no idea if any of the answers are correct or not, but they quite clearly apologies for getting frustrated and goes on to thank everyone who offered answers. What exactly is the issue here? 82.43.88.151 (talk) 13:25, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Evolutionary_adaption_queuing_problem

I've collapsed a large portion of this. Discussion seemed not only to derail slightly (although still turning up interesting points), but mainly I did so because a couple of editors started personal attacks, which is a shame. My intention was to allow the exchange between these editors to cool off. I won't be surprised if there are some strong views on this, so please put them below and I'll learn for the next time something like this crops up. Brammers (talk/c) 17:38, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. We were getting far to absorbed in creationist trolling. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:12, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I would hesitate to say it was trolling: the supporters of the creationist viewpoint did not seem to be acting maliciously (rather, what they said was sincere, at least from my view). But as you said, this is a science reference desk; views that are contradicted (or not supported) by suitable evidence can be safely dismissed from considerations. Brammers (talk/c) 18:55, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps — 'soapboxing' would have been a better word than 'trolling'. When an advocate of creationism attempts to use a simple analogy to refute the theory of evolution, one may reach one of two conclusions: (a) the theory of evolution is faulty, and a century of science has somehow mysteriously overlooked a straightforward, conspicuous error; or (b) the analogy is faulty in some subtle or not-so-subtle way. As usual, xkcd offers an insightful comment on this sort of thinking. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:06, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

We do actually have guidelines about this kind of thing in Wikipedia - and perhaps if this abuse continues, we should clamp down on infringement of those guidelines.

Notably: WP:FRINGE says that fringe theories and pseudo-science are not allowed to be presented as fact in the context of science-related articles. It says: "Pseudoscience usually relies on attacking mainstream scientific theories and methodology (as is common among Biblical creationists), or relies on weak evidence, such as anecdotal evidence or weak statistical evidence, as for example in parapsychology and homeopathy.". It specifically states that "...the Book of Genesis itself should be primarily covered as a work of ancient literature, as part of the Hebrew or Christian Bible, or for its theological significance, rather than as a cosmological theory."

It is therefore no stretch to say that we should delete creationism claims from the science reference desk on sight on the grounds that any such answer cannot ever be a valid one in the context of a request on the science ref desk. We are normally tolerant of such lunacy - but there is no reason why we should continue to be tolerant if people abuse the system. There is no guarantee of free speech on Wikipedia.

To be within Wikipedia's oft-stated guidelines, a question relating to evolution cannot ever be correctly answered with any kind of creationist perspective. Simply put, if someone asks "Where did giraffes come from?" and you say "God created the giraffes on the sixth day and they were saved by Noah and his ark" - rather than "Giraffes evolved from Climacoceras (a deer-like animal) in the early Miocene"...then you are just plain wrong. Not because it's our opinion that you're wrong - but because Wikipedia itself has rules that state very clearly that your view is not considered acceptable to the encyclopedia as fact.

So we could choose to simply erase those responses without further consideration without having to be too concerned about repercussions.

It is a little more difficult if the question is specifically about creationism or some similar topic - but even then, we are not supposed to assert that creationism is true - only that it is a belief that is indeed held by some people. So, I suppose, if we were asked "Did God create Giraffes?", we could say that "Creationists believe that to be true - but in fact, the giraffe evolved from Climacoceras.".

Doing this would be a more contentious issue on the other reference desks (although the exact same Wikipedia rules apply) - but on the science desk, I see no problem with adopting this stance. It is actually what the rules require us to do.

SteveBaker (talk) 22:41, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't forget about WP:NOTCENSORED. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 10:46, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

You really need to start reading the things you link to. That document says "Obviously inappropriate content (such as an irrelevant link to a shock site, or clear vandalism) is usually removed quickly. Content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy, or that violates other Wikipedia policies (especially neutral point of view) or the laws of the U.S. state of Florida where Wikipedia's servers are hosted, will also be removed." - since posting pseudo-science as truth is contrary to WP:FRINGE, the WP:NOTCENSORED guideline says that we're OK to remove it. SteveBaker (talk) 02:06, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Chemicalinterest[8] and Horseluv10 are self-declared young earth creationists. The former says they are "fighting against all of the other evolutionists" and the latter declares[9]herself a female who "has studied the Bible a lot more than you, and does believe it is the word of God". Understanding that these people have deeply held minority viewpoints puts the onus on editors to WP:AGF. I support Brammers' collapsing of the exchanges when such unconstructive comments arose as these: "bad Creationism", "ignorant trolling". "your bullshit", "Your analogy is silly", "whatever creationist (or crypto-creationist 'intelligent design') website you're getting your material from ", "your god enjoyed making parasitic intestinal worms". It is those believing themselves to represent the majority that produced this abusive rhetoric. I do not support the prejudice inherent in "we should delete creationism claims from the science reference desk on sight". IMO a good starting point for discussion with creationists is the article Deep time. One can probably reach agreement on features of the Earth's geologic history without disputing the existence of God. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:31, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion to delete creationism claims from the science desk has nothing to do with prejudice - and all to do with the guidelines set out for Wikipedians under WP:FRINGE. You are the one who is not following WP:AGF here. You assume my prejudice when in fact my position derives from our community guidelines - that doesn't square with assuming my good faith! SteveBaker (talk) 03:57, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, the very name "Young Earth Creationism" belies your last point, Cuddlyable3. I've resolved not to even try to argue with creationists any more, because they're almost always immune to reason, frequently have access to libraries of preprepared pseudo-arguments, and have far more emotional commitment to pushing their viewpoint. I do agree that such unscientific interjections on the Science Ref Desk need to be curbed somehow (I'd been thinking about bringing up the recently burgeoning problem here for some days), and that incivility is not the way to go, but straight deletion might only whip up protests of POV, censorship etc, and outright banning seems excessive. Since a blog tactic like disemvowelling can't operate in a re-editable environment (even if it were agreed to be appropriate), I'm afraid I can't come up with any constructive suggestions. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 00:24, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Though I'm not a fan of little boxes, perhaps collapsing it would work. No actual censorship, but less danger of getting sidetracked by fringe issues that aren't relevant to a question seeking an answer within the framework of science. I basically agree with most of what has been posted in this thread, but would like to add that, though (or maybe because) I'm an atheist myself, I similarly don't see the relevance of posts ridiculing religious belief when a question seeks an answer within a theological framework (for example questions of exegesis don't really need people poopooing others who believe in God). Just like we shouldn't preach our favourite computer operating system when the question is about Linux, and so on. There is enough of this sniping at divergent world views going on at the desks, and I wish it stopped. Stick to the question. Think about what kind of an answer the querent is seeking. No one is interested in your credo or non-credo, for the most part. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:35, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm more than happy to assume good faith with these people - I'm quite sure that they believe what they say and do so with the best possible intentions - they don't mean to cause harm. However, WP:FRINGE applies no matter whether you believe in this stuff or not.

Even if someone doesn't believe in evolution - that doesn't give them the right to answer questions from an ID/Creationist viewpoint. That's because those beliefs are classified by Wikipedia as pseudo-science and to answer that way would breach an important Wikipedia guideline. I know that seems unfair because we're brought up to believe in the value of free speech - but free speech isn't something that Wikipedia guarantees. So, for questions of a scientific nature, we may (where appropriate) briefly acknowledge that there are other viewpoints than mainstream science - but we may not give those views undue weight in our answers - and we most certainly must not imply that these views are true - no matter what we may personally believe. So if Chemicalinterest et-al are unable to give a more or less mainstream scientific answer (albeit in opposition to their personally held views) - then they shouldn't answer at all because to promote pseudo-science (and therefore Creationism/ID) as truth is most certainly not allowed here. If they continue to violate our community guidelines - then we should issue a stern warning - and if that fails, then perhaps we should remove their posts just as we do with other people who routinely break the rules. SteveBaker (talk) 03:57, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Science is soo hostile... Why? It's something they are trying not to let people find...--Chemicalinterest (talk) 10:52, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

No, they're just worried people will go there and not find any science. 213.122.69.41 (talk) 11:30, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, "science" is entirely open. The methods, observations, and interpretation of data are made available for all to evaluate; the consensus on this topic is quite strong and can be found by anyone with the desire to look for it. I would argue that those who keep themselves willfully ignorant of the evidence that is clearly there, yet argue scientific questions from a non-scientific basis, are the ones who are being "hostile". --- Medical geneticist (talk) 11:40, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Please do not conflate "unconvinced" with "hostile". Please do not assume SteveBaker represents an omniscient Science, because there is no such thing. Chemicalinterest, you dropped an apostrophe on "It's something". Peace out. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 16:17, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 17:11, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

No need to be too repentant, Chemicalinterest. Cuddlyable3 left out some essential commas in his/her own thread. "Please do not assume SteveBaker represents an omniscient Science because there is no such thing" requires a comma, absolutely, between 'Science' and 'because'. "Chemicalinterest you dropped an apostrophe ..." requires one, absolutely, between 'Chemicalinterest' and 'you'. I have no doubt he/she knows that. Seems Cuddlyable3's rigorous standards apply only to others. There's a word for that, I think. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:06, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Enlightening
posts are upright pole-like structures with which streetwalkers are familiar. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:46, 31 July 2010 (UTC) They are also answers on wikipedia, if you want the real meaning. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 20:01, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you JackofOz for your suggested improvements. It is always a pleasure to see your enlightening posts. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:49, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not conflating anything. In order to be "convinced" or "unconvinced" regarding something in science, one must weigh the evidence in an honest, rational manner. There are plenty of things in my field of investigation that I am not "convinced" by, after having read the literature and considered all points of view. However, if someone demonstrates clear ignorance of basic facts but yet continues to argue based on non-scientific observations/opinions/beliefs/whatever, they show a lack of respect, and indeed hostility, toward the scientific process. This has nothing to do with whether or not SteveBaker is omniscient. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 16:40, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Unlike seemingly a lot of other people here, I generally don't mind your corrections but hasn't SB self declared that they don't want to differentiate between it's and its anymore? If so it seems redundant to point it out. Well unless they're not following what they said they would do, as I can't really remember what it was Nil Einne (talk) 16:52, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure which of these is smaller: the number of mentions of "giraffe" in the Bible or the level of English in this post: "it's blood pressure is twice that of other mammals". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 01:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

@ Medical geneticist, ignorance is not a guilty thing. You and I were born as ignorant babies. Without ignorance, teachers and Wikipedia would have little to do. However you argue about "those who keep themselves willfully ignorant" which is an extraordinary accusation that needs some extraordinary evidence. How do they keep themselves ignorant of something without knowing what it is one shall not know? Do you say the scientific process means being receptive to all questioning or only special respectful questions? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:49, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

@ Cuddlyable3, I don't know why you are (apparently) trying to pick a fight right now, since I have said nothing about you. I only stepped in to this abominable conversation to correct what I thought was an unfair criticism of "science" by ChemicalInterest and the IP. Ignorance is certainly not a sin -- there are plenty of subjects about which I am woefully ignorant. In fact, there are plenty of subjects about which I am willfully ignorant -- what is so extraordinary about that? I love to read the posts about physics and black holes, but I remain willfully (and blissfully) ignorant about the mysteries of the Schwartzchild radius, about which I could never hope to fully understand. But the difference is that you don't see me spouting off about things I don't understand. I don't care if someone is ignorant -- willfully or otherwise -- it is only when they persist in arguing points "based on non-scientific observations/opinions/beliefs/whatever" that I find them to be hostile. Do you see the difference? Chill out. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 20:02, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I understand that you commented about the Scientific method (see article). Some successes of that process have been: the disprovals of Phlogiston theory of burning and Luminiferous aether theory of light propagation, and of early painters' visualisation of the horse's gallop. I expect you can add Superseded scientific theories close to your field of expertise. I suggest that the key criterion for a hypothesis in science is whether it is falsifiable. I want to point out that expressions of personal hostility have no place in legitimate scientific discussion, that they played no constructive part in any of the aforementioned successes, and they are the reason Brammers started this section. The particular "difference" that you ask whether I see looks like an argumentum ad hominem or attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise. That is a classic logical fallacy. It seems you assign hostility to Chemicalinterest and Horseluv10 on the basis of their questioning. If that is right (if not I can be corrected) then I comment that I see no intolerable bahaviour on their part. The Science Ref. Desk is not a laboratory tasked with ruling what is Truth nor is it a Wikipedia article page where policies for articles are enforced. SteveBaker may believe that would be desirable but to me that looks impractical because there is no way the responses to every question can be given up to years of attention by up to hundreds of editors like some articles get. IMO there is no barrier to civil contact here if we acknowledge that not everyone depends on the same Reliable Sources. A large number of respected scientists are also christian which generally means that they rely on a part of the Bible as reliable. Most do not reject evolution as incompatible with their christianity. However within their fold are the minority of young earth creationists who understandably find an incompatibility between the proposed time scales for evolution and their literal acceptance of the Genesis creation narrative. In this, just as in that mysterious Schwartzchild radius or Renal medullary carcinoma, there is scope for calm discussion and study that you should encourage. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:36, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I think I have made my statement perfectly clear and I am not going to continue this discussion. Most of your post makes no sense and I honestly do not know what you are trying to accomplish through vague references or goading me with insinuations about an "ad hominem" attack. I am sure you are a perfectly wonderful human being, but your argumentative behavior here (and in many other threads) causes me to have absolutely no desire to interact with you. Take it how you will, I have better things to do. Peace. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 18:05, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

@ Medical geneticist, please do not flatter me that I am perfectly wonderful because neither you nor I believe that (though my dear mother might be persuaded). I offer to clarify whatever you find hard to understand in my post and that includes my attempt to answer your question. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:32, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

That, however, also asks us to accept the other creation myths on equal footing, including Egyptian, Inuit, and many others. That's just goofy. 24.83.104.67 (talk) 17:33, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

@24.83.104.67 your indent leaves me unsure who you are addressing (me?) or what "that" you refer to. You have no Talk page on which to enquire so I ask you to clarify here. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:38, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

That was me at a different IP. Apologies. I am addressing you , though on re-reading, I meay have misunderstood your last couple paragraphs. What I meant by that was that to accept a Biblical standard as a valid scientific viewpoint should be to accept any strongly held mythology or religion. Don't take this to mean that I'm not religious; I am Catholic. It just means that to take myth and stories as fact instead of symbol is goofy, be it popular and accepted like Christian, Jewish, Islamic, or archaic like Greek or Nordic myth or whatever. What it isn't is valid science, so it isn't worth supporting in scientific discussion. Having said all this, I don't see the point of the whole "should we delete it" thing. As with any other post with wrong or misleading info, post a properly referenced correction. The OP can make their judgement based on (hopefully) well-reasoned factual discussion. Aaronite (talk) 01:59, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your conclusion. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:38, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

I should add, I recognize that what I said here is highly inflammatory, so if anyone (I am not suggesting Cuddyable3 in particular here) should disagree with me, you of course are free to say so, but I won't bother to argue further simply because I recognize that we will not agree or convince each other otherwise. I'm fine with that. Aaronite (talk) 02:06, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

No, Chemicalinterest; this is just a lot like insisting that editors like Taxa, or the planet colours guy, stop answering cosmological questions on the Science desk with their unreferenced, incorrect answers. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:14, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

We do not need to debate whether creationism or 'intelligent design' should or should not be treated as "scientific" - that has already been decided and firmly established in Wikipedia policy. Both are pseudo-science (under Wikipedia guidelines) and are therefore most certainly do not provide valid answers to science questions. If your beliefs are otherwise - then you must either cease to answer these kinds of question. If you have a problem with that - then it's something you need to take up on the discussion page of WP:FRINGE in order to get the policy changed. However, I should warn you that this debate has raged there for years and the present view is unlikely to change since it has board approval and Jimbo's backing.

The question is - what should we do when someone violates the guideline? IMHO, we should do what we do when other guidelines are violated...delete the post.

SteveBaker (talk) 11:56, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I offer a counter-example. A debate has raged over not years but centuries over whether an executed body could have been resurrected by act of God. That is the central tenet of christians and there is no scientific hypothesis for that datum. It would be indefensible bigotry to delete posts by christians. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:41, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

"Can God raise the dead?" is a question for philosophers and theologians, not scientists — it has no place on the Science Reference Desk. (Phrased that way, it is also an invitation to debate bordering on trolling, and probably doesn't belong on any other Desk either.) More nuanced questions along that line are almost certainly going to be addressed at Humanities, not Science.

Bigotry doesn't enter into the matter. Editors who insist on making irrelevant, distracting, and otherwise inappropriate posts (Christian or not) on any Desk will eventually exhaust the patience of the community, at which point they will be asked to stop their disruptive posting. If they do not, then the community will take further steps. I don't see why this should be a particularly difficult or confusing issue. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:29, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

This thread was started about the permissibility of answers not of questions. Responses should not be judged disruptive until after they have been posted and read by the community. It can then express its patience by consensus and not by the Autocracy implicit in SteveBaker's wish to delete responses on sight[10].

However there is no reason why a scientist may not be allowed to respond to the question "Can God raise the dead?" and to give appropriate references. FWIW my response is Agreement about the Existence of God (see article) is not universal. In Christian beliefs the God of the New Testament has resurrected the dead and can do so again. Your question may be handled better at the Humanities desk because there is no scientific theory to answer it. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 16:36, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course we may respond to that question...but not by saying "Yes, it says so in the Bible" - because that's not a true statement per WP:FRINGE. We might well say exactly what you suggested. What we can't do is assert that pseudo-science is true...that's a "No-no". We also can't give it undue weight - so if someone asks a question such as "Did dinosaurs evolve into birds?" that does not ask about any particular kind of pseudo-science then to reply that "Some people believe that Intelligent Design produced the birds." would be to give undue weight to a false hypothesis - and is not allowed per WP:FRINGE. It's important that we work that way or we'll run the risk of people who believe in perpetual motion answering thermodynamic questions, people who believe in the Time Cube answering questions about cosmology and so forth. Wikipedia has to draw the line somewhere - and it draws it on the side of putting religious creation stories on the pseudo-science side of the line.

Bet we are indeed talking about answers, not questions. We give our OP's considerably more laxity than we do our respondents. But this isn't a matter of us "judging the answers" and correcting them. We can do that - but the whole idea is to encourage our respondents not to post incorrect answers in the first place.

It's just like any other policy - we can't let our contributors repeatedly call our OP "an ignorant moron" and simply have someone repeatedly tell them that this in violation of WP:NPA. After one warning, we'd call in the admins, delete their responses, etc. If someone's answer entails proclaiming that some aspect of pseudo-science is true - then we must ask that they should refrain from posting about it because that's contrary to WP:FRINGE - and if they disobey this kind of warning - then we should treat them accordingly.

We do not operate by people firing off random incorrect answers and then having our experts filter out the good ones! We expect every answer to be essentially correct and within Wikipedia's guidelines. So, when we tell our respondents "You are not allowed to claim that pseudo-science (such as biblical creation stories) are true" - and then they violate that rule - we should delete any subsequent posts of that nature and seek to have them blocked from editing - just as we would if they repeatedly violated our guidelines on giving medical advice or if they simply insulted everyone.

SteveBaker (talk) 23:16, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

The guideline WP:FRINGE includes "Claims derived from fringe theories should be carefully attributed to an appropriate source and located within a context". That serves the policy WP:NPOV that viewpoints shall be weighted in proportion to their prominence. Nothing in that justifies a preemptive excommunication of a volunteer from a Ref. Desk. You do better to reference the article Creation-evolution controversy than to try to suppress minority responders such as Chemicalinterest. Your example response "Yes, it says so in the Bible" could legitimately come from a believer in Biblical inerrancy. You can always point out that mainstream thought identifies scientific sources that supersede biblical content. However it is irresponsible for you to deliver prolonged supremacist anti-religious rhetoric with few if any references. You are wrong about permissible answers to "Did dinosaurs evolve into birds?". It is sourced, factual and relevant for anyone to mention that a minority view exists that such evolution did not happen, and that that is a creationist view sometimes represented as belief in Intelligent design. Those article references do not promote or give the view undue weight, nor does providing them do so. On the contrary, to suppress mention of information that is in Wikipedia is to deny it due weight. It contradicts the desks' function of providing references. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:38, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

The problem with that view is that you're giving Undue weight to a minority/non-mainstream view - which WP:NPOV goes to some trouble to explain:

"Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention overall as the majority view. Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views. To give undue weight to the view of a significant minority, or to include that of a tiny minority, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject. This applies not only to article text, but to images, wikilinks, external links, categories, and all other material as well.".

Creationism and ID are prime examples of tiny-minority and non-mainstream views in the scientific realm. It is "misleading" to represent those views when they are not the subject of the discussion. If there is no mention of creationism/ID in the question then to insert that into the discussion is to give undue weight to it - and that's misleading and most certainly not acceptable. SteveBaker (talk) 14:58, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Wrong SteveBaker. Saying that something exists is what a multitude of Wikipedia articles do. Examples: intelligent design, racism, Myth of the Flat Earth, Slavery, Lobotomy, burning at the stake, Medieval medicine, Astrology, Witchcraft, Cold fusion, Orgone and many other articles handle fringe and disputed subjects and adhere to WP:NPOV policy. Though 99% of the world may see something exactly the way you do, still your view is just one of many possible views that might be reasonably held.. SteveBaker the rules that you keep quoting are rules for Wikipedia articles. Questions brought to the Ref. Desks are not articles. The policies do not apply to questions nor to secondary questions that arise from (your?) answers. If someone asks "How does that reconcile with my belief in creationism/IPU/scientology or whatever else that some people take seriously", then either give them a straight answer or let someone less opinionated do so. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:19, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

You misunderstand what WP:FRINGE is saying. It's not saying that we can't write answers (or answer questions) about fringe topics or pseudo-science. It's saying that we should not introduce those subjects when we're writing about mainstream science - and that we shouldn't give them undue weight. If the question (or the article) is about intelligent design - then we should explain that it's a pseudo-science and go on to describe what proponents of intelligent design claim. If the question is about evolution, then we should not generally do so. SteveBaker (talk) 17:26, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

The big debate is whether this is a science reference desk or a science reference desk. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 22:20, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Neither - this is the science reference desk. The only part you can ignore is the 'desk' bit. There is no actual desk! SteveBaker (talk) 14:58, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

No. The word "desk" is not to be ignored. It has meaning. In this context it means a virtual location where someone attends to any individual who approaches to seek help. It should not be confused with podium n. a platform raised above the surrounding level to give prominence to the person on it, or pulpit n. raised structure on which preachers stand. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:40, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Debating the word desk? Time to cut this one off, folks. Aaronite (talk) 20:10, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

you're just figuring that out now? --Ludwigs2 21:27, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I knew it before, sure, but desks! It's hilarious.Aaronite (talk) 05:23, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Medical Question Removed, August 13

Diff. I removed the question per our medical-advice guidelines. Nimur (talk) 16:51, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree. We cannot know how she will react to a medication. -- kainaw ™ 17:20, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Good call. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:35, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Good removal. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:48, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Guilty as charged

Guilty as charged. I try to keep my inner grammar Nazi at bay, and I succeed most of the time. But sometimes he’s goaded beyond endurance, and he’s only human.

All I would say in my defence is this: A taxi driver knows they’re required to take their passenger by the shortest and cheapest route to their destination, unless the passenger specifies some other route. Readers of texts are like taxi passengers: they expect to get to their destination without interruptions, pauses, back tracking or other unexpected developments. If these things do occur, they lessen the value of the ride to the passenger, while increasing the price. And that’s a doubly bad thing.

The above was, in effect, my experience when reading Kainaw’s post. Sure, it didn’t take me long to work out what he meant; and maybe my playing a deliberately straight bat with a deliberately straight face didn’t win me any favours. I was not actually as naïve as I may have appeared, and that was disingenuous, for which I apologise. And there I was the other day, telling Cuddlyable3 to bite his tongue when he saw something he didn't like. How low the mighty have fallen .... but they shall rise again, have no fear.

On a philosophical note: some people take as much care with their language as a surgeon would with a patient’s anaesthetised body, or a chef would with his pièce de résistance, or a painter would with the brush strokes on his canvas, or a conductor would with the symphony he’s presenting, or a mathematician would with his proof of a complex proposition, or the IT people would with making Wikipedia work properly. I am such a person, and I would never apologise for that. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 11:06, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I think there's a strong distinction between beating up on newbies who obviously don't know English well, vs. teasing the regulars for writing something that's unintentionally funny. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, this is entirely the result of another user's highly annoying practice of nitpicking the obvious. When Mr. 98 is editing, it appears that he follows every single post I make with a rather rude demand that I provide some verifiable reference for every single statement. So, I was initially going to state that because Jodie Foster likes Italian so much, she probably has a home in Italy. But, that would result in Mr. 98 demanding a reference. So, I slipped in a disclaimer that it makes me assume she has a home in Italy. If Mr. 98 wasn't being worse than a grammar Nazi, I wouldn't have to slip in disclaimers throughout every post. -- kainaw ™ 16:10, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

So, the next time you get assaulted by a Grammar Nazi, tell him to stick it where the moon don't shine. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I support Mr.98 if he comments civilly about source quality. In this thread he supplemented his opinion with gratuitous abuse which I do not allow on my Talk page. @kainaw, don't worry about what Mr.98 might say when you post. Nothing Mr.98 has done justifies your connecting him with those perpetrators of "the ultimate blasphemy" (Michael Bentine speaking about Belsen), the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei 1920 - 1945. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 17:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The point is that he is not civil. However, I do not see where I attempted to connect him with anything other than his hostile requests for references. -- kainaw ™ 18:08, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to be clear, "Grammar Nazi" in this case is less like Hitler and more like the "Soup Nazi". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:19, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The term Soup Nazi was made up by an american TV comedian in 1995 and was protested as a damaging slander on restauranteur Al Yeganeh. The comedian seems to have apologised, as he should. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:43, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Where in the TV show was the actual guy's name given? If he recognized himself in the character, the problem is of his own making, and no apology is called for. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:41, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs, Wikipedia has an article on what you are doing to restauranteur Al Yeganeh. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:32, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

To placate Cuddlyable3 you might want to use the less exciting term "grammar police", although the grammar police don't have such a neat logo. 81.131.25.84 (talk) 18:57, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, if everyone is picking their word to be offended by, can I pick one also? I think I will opt for "moist". Instead, use a less exciting term like "wet" or "damp". -- kainaw ™ 19:09, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Good call. I also suggest using "grammar extortionist" instead of "grammar blackmailer", should the need arise. 81.131.25.84 (talk) 19:24, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

What, those are somehow better than "Nazi"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:49, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I just mean because blackmail is such an ugly word. 81.131.25.84 (talk) 20:01, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I may have just the term: Tongue-Clucking Grammarian, from the song by MC Frontalot, who probably lurks right here. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

How about "nanny"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:59, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The "G" in KGB stands for Grammar. Aaronite (talk) 02:41, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

How this ended up on me, I'm not sure. But in any case, I only get a little rude when people are very egregious about their either incorrect information or wild generalizations. I don't follow anyone in particular on that. When people make a habit of saying nonsense or citing horrible sources, I certainly do try to be direct in pointing that out. If they appear to be ignorant about the purpose of this desk, I do sometimes suggest they either shape up or take their work elsewhere. I don't beat up on newbies or people who I think are in good faith just incorrect at times. I don't think I've called anyone a Nazi, but I might be wrong. But I don't hold personal grudges. I spend 99% of my time on here actually trying to answer questions, and have honestly no interest in trying to police other answers unless they are really bad or are actually disruptive to what we are trying to do on here. I see nothing wrong with putting disclaimers in one's posts about what one does not know — I do it all the time with my own posts. It is a good habit in a place where we are trying to provide answers, to acknowledge where one is just guessing. To present guesses as facts is exactly what we are trying to get away from on here. This is not a chat room. But I am not wedded to my take on things; if people whom I generally trust as having good sense disagree, I will happily defer. (For anyone who cares, the two comments above stem, I believe, from a criticism I gave Cuddlyable3 regarding his use of Yahoo! Answers as a reference, and presumably when I asked Kainaw to justify his blind assertion that generic drugs were manufactured with cheaper quality by the same companies who made the brand-names in order to convince patients that they should shell out more money for the brand name. Or maybe when I reacted in an admittedly testy manner to what I thought was some bad advice he gave someone on database architecture. Whichever. I think my general points on these are fairly clearly correct, though my means of delivering the messages in question probably could have been more sugar coated.) --Mr.98 (talk) 14:06, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec)It is obvious to Mr.98 that both I and kainaw have had unsatisfactory contacts with him. Mr.98's first sentence "...I'm not sure" above shows the same kind of insincerity as this comment on the desk. There is nothing to complain about in the rest of what he says above. It is unjust to connect Mr.98 with grammar corrections because AFAIK he has not posted any. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:40, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I see no insincerity in "I'm not sure". This thread here was prompted by several off-topic replies to an off-topic grammar correction. Mr. 98 was not involved in the distraction, and I too am not quite sure how it ended up on him, despite kainaw's explanation "Actually, this is entirely the result of another user's highly annoying practice of nitpicking the obvious ...". Questioning the factual content of a reply or asking for references is actually helpful to the reader and on topic, unlike grammar corrections. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:51, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I feel that it is easy to see how this all relates. I posted an answer. I edited the post because Mr. 98 repeatedly makes very rude demands for references. The edit created grammar ambiguity. The grammar ambiguity resulted in a nit-picking comment about the bad grammar from an IP. Bugs claimed that the IP was actually a well-known user. That well-known user came here and stated it was him. I explained that this was not created by a grammar issue. It was created by an edit I made as a result of Mr. 98's rudeness. The side-comments about use of the word "Nazi" have nothing do to with what caused all of this. So, claiming that it is hard to see how it ends up on Mr. 98 doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

As for what I mean by rudeness: Mr 98 used two examples of his rudeness towards me, so I will explain those further.

In the first one, I explained that while the acting drug in a medication is the same from generic to brandname, the effectiveness is not always the same. I gave an example of a long-acting drug that, in brandname form, releases a little every 2 hours. In generic form, it releases a lot every 6 hours. Depending on the person, the brandname may be more effective. Then, unrelated, I mentioned that the same manufacturers of brandname medications also manufacture generic medications in order to reinforce that the acting ingredient is the same, but the way it is packaged in a pill changes. His response, as I read it, was that I was claiming that drug companies purposely make crappy generic meds so they won't compete with the brandname meds. That is not remotely close to what I posted.

In the second instance he stated, a person wanted to know how to set up a many-to-many relationship in a database using a single field. I explained that if it was a many-to-one relationship, you could use an enum field. Instead, I suggested a separate table to map many values from one table to many values of another table. I pointed out that using a bitfield where each bit relates to a value is something that should only be done by experienced programmers. Mr 98's response, as I read it, was a very rude assertion that I was telling the user to use a bitfield and that I knew nothing about databases at all for making such a ridiculous suggestion. His suggestion to the questioner was to use a separate table to map the values from one table to another (identical to my suggestion).

In both cases, Mr. 98 completely misread my post. He then rudely demanded that I back up what he somehow thought I suggested. When I explained that he misread my post, he responded with another rude statement. In the end, the insertion of a disclaimer in the post that started this particular thread was the result of not wanting to deal with Mr. 98's rude requests. -- kainaw ™ 15:12, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Sigh... we really don't need to have this conversation on here. It seems to be derailing things. I've posted to both of your talk pages with explanations and apologies for being rude. Perhaps we can resolve this amicably. I doubt anybody else cares about the few, recent squabbles I have had with the two of you, to be honest. Let's not clog up this talk page unless you are really trying to make some kind of broader action against me. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:28, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay by me. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 03:03, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Me also. -- kainaw ™ 13:38, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Me too. -- Alpha and Omega, aka Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 00:04, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

It's the same deal as last time. We have to ask why there is benefit in complaining about or correcting grammar/spelling/punctuation/whatever. I can imagine three reasons - none of which seem acceptable to me:

To make the person doing the correcting feel somehow superior because of their grasp of the language. I hope we can all agree that this is a bad thing...but I strongly suspect this to be the most common motive here.
To try to teach the OP better English. This is (IMHO) a terrible reason. Our questioners don't come here for language lessons (well, they might - but they'll go to the language ref desk for that). If they ask why there is foam in their fishpond, we don't also toss in un-asked-for advice about improving their sex lives or their personal finances...so why should we correct their grammar? It's like if you went to a real library reference desk and the librarian berated you because your tie didn't go well with the color of your shirt instead of answering your question! It's really rude and entirely off-topic to do that - I wince every time I see it happen. Worse still is that this almost always derails the thread. Look at that thread about the fishpond. The poor OP had to re-ask the question further down the page in a desperate effort to get an actual answer - and the answer was derailed AGAIN! That's unacceptable behavior - those involved should be ashamed of themselves. We're here to answer people's questions - nothing else. Saving the planet from the evils of misplaced apostrophes is not the role of the Wikipedia reference desk.
To try to "fix" a question that's somehow hard for subsequent respondents to understand. That's a more laudable goal than (1) and (2) - and it's possibly even justifiable in some cases. But there is a serious problem: If the question is somehow ambiguous without this correction - then the person doing the correcting is just as likely to be misinterpreting what the OP is asking as anyone else reading the question (unless you think you're god's gift to linguistics...in which case, see (1) above). Worse still, you are imposing your best guess on which of the possible interpretations of the question is the one the OP intended. If you are wrong, you may well derail the entire thread. I recommend that if the question is truly ambiguous - with two or more reasonable interpretations - then you should refrain from correcting anything and simply (politely) ask the OP which he meant - without snarky grammar comments - and if possible, save time by answering the question both ways: "Did you mean <interpretation A> or <interpretation B>? If <A> then the answer is <this> if you meant <B> then <that>." Doing it like that allows subsequent respondents understand the source of the possible confusion. But if the grammar/spelling/punctuation is incorrect - but still comprehensible without serious ambiguity - then this is in no way a valid reason for correcting it. That's the case in maybe 99% of the cases where people try to correct our OP's.

SteveBaker (talk) 02:24, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

No SteveBaker it is not the "same deal". This section was triggered by the ambiguity of a post by kainaw that included "Being fluent in Italian and having shown a lot of interest in Italy in the past, I strongly suspect that she has a home in Italy." That was an error in word order (the sentence could better have been constructed as "I strongly suspect that she being fluent in Italian and having shown a lot of interest in Italy in the past has a home in Italy."). The OP's question was not involved yet that is what you keep addressing. Your rhetoric above is a succession of strawman attacks starting with "We have to ask why there is benefit in complaining..." (no, we don't) and continues with your WP:AGF-failing psychobabble about "feeling superior". The rest of the rant displays your own intolerance of any interaction with others concerning language errors so obviously that little comment is needed. If it was painful for you that your misspelling of it's/its was seen by me and others here, then that is something you will have to get over. Don't pout with nonsense examples about improving sex lives, shirt color, saving the planet from evils, god's gift and allegedly snarky comments. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:06, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually SteveBaker is correct, and I didn't even notice the alleged word order problem of Kainaw's Italian comment. Just stop the grammar corrections, please. You tongue-clucking grammarian. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:24, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Kainaw's response in that case was mildly ambiguous.

Did Kainaw mean that the OP had fluency in Italian - or that Kainaw has fluency in Italian? If you squint a bit and tilt your head 10 degrees to the right, the words could maybe read either way. So it might be that either of these two possibilities could be the reason why Kainaw suspects that the OP has a home in Italy. I don't think it's really ambiguous though, and it certainly didn't make any difference to the answer given. I can't imagine why Kainaw would mention a personal interest in Italy as a reason for providing that answer - so anyone with a modicum of common sense could figure out which was intended. Indeed, by correcting that sentence in the way you did, you picked just one of the two possible interpretations and thereby made it clear that you weren't confused by the possible ambiguity either. So if none of us were confused, the communication fulfilled its task and no correction was needed.

So I have to ask: What were your motives for correcting Kainaw?

In the absence of further information, I suspect it's just that you're addicted to some supposed superiority you feel over Kainaw (and others) that drives you to point out how much cleverer you think you are...well, trust me, I've been on the receiving end of your petty nonsense and I do not feel for one moment that your command of the language is devastatingly impressive. That's just not the way you make people feel. In 'Article Space', we need people to come in and improve our use of the language - but outside of that limited realm, language lawyers are just annoying. So, please stop doing it. WP:DBAD applies here.

Having said that, I'm not so much concerned with people correcting our answers. We ref desk regulars are thick-skinned and have mostly learned to simply ignore the petty complaints of self-appointed language-lawyers and to get on with answering the questions in the best way we know how. My main complaint is with people who complain/correct the OP's original question. That's just rude - and too often derails the thread unnecessarily. We should all just refrain from doing that.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:58, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Here we go. Kainaw posts an ambiguous sentence. [11]. IP 202.142.129.66 shows how the ambiguity can mislead. [12]. Comet Tuttle is rude about 202.142's post. [13]. BUT then here Comet Tuttle says [14] "I didn't even notice the alleged word order problem". HELLO ?

SteveBaker thinks Kainaw was talking about the OP! Please go back SteveBaker and read the [15] question. It would also be helpful if you provided diffs now and then. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:30, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was incomplete. I meant to write: "On first reading, I didn't even notice the alleged word order problem of Kainaw's Italian comment." I didn't notice the harmless "error" until the IP decided to start this whole thing by correcting Kainaw's allegedly incorrect grammar, which defies what I am pretty sure is a consensus on this talk page that correcting other people's spelling and grammar on the Reference Desk is a dick move unless it's truly necessary to prompt the errant editor to clarify a totally unclear post. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

@Comet Tuttle, thank you for clarifying that you belatedly noticed the ambiguity, thanks to the IP 202.142.129.66. It would have been better if you had expressed your displeasure to the IP on its home page. The IP never corrected Kainaw's post and only based their comment on what was in it. This rude post[16] showed no concern for the OP's question. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Did I handle this correctly?

This looked a lot like like the first bad example in our guidelines for medical advice only in reverse order, and was screwing up an otherwise acceptable question. I figured I'd remove it and post here so that any discussion of our medical-advice guidelines wouldn't clog up the desk. Should I have left a notice of its removal in the post? Please feel free to revert if I've overstepped my boundaries or I'm coming off as an anti-Wikipedia, pro-censorship ninny. :) Regards--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 04:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The best approach would have been to say that we're not supposed to address specific medical issues. Simply removing part of the question without notice is probably among the worst approaches, I'm afraid. Looie496 (talk) 05:37, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Just removing part of the question doesn't change anything as far as whether or not the OP is asking for medical advice. I don't think the question is asking for medical advice. It's asking us to look in a crystal ball, though. --Tango (talk) 09:22, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the OP meant to ask for medical advice, either, but I was afraid that what he/she mentioned about their specific case might draw speculation ("That dog bite is probably pretty deep, so...") about the OP's injuries, which, since there's no way to know how grave they are or the likelihood they can be ameliorated, would only raise false hope or misdirect the OP. In the end, the details of the OP's scars didn't add anything to the question except slightly hint for medical advice, so I've added notice about the removal to the post with a summary of the above why we can't consider such details.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 18:41, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

side question: I've been seeing these 'secure.wikimedia.org' links (like the one at the top of this thread) popping up here and there for no particularly identifiable reason. Why is that, and what are they for? --Ludwigs2 19:00, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

When you log in to any of the Wikimedia projects, you're offered the option of logging in on their secure server. While data transfer from the secure server can be slightly slower than the default unencrypted version, it offers better protection from password snoopers. While its good practice to use the secure login, in most situations for non-admins it's not really necessary unless someone tech-savvy is out to get you and steal your Wikipedia identity. You can read more about the specifics at HTTPS. As for the links themselves, they're "side-effects" of people posting links to pages on Wikipedia while they're logged in over the secure server.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 19:14, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I think you mean "it's good practice". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:19, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

oh, cudds, you're sooooo cute when you do that.

--Ludwigs2 22:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I think you mean "Oh Cuddlyable3". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think you're wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.154.56.3 (talk) 01:21, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Please explain why you think that. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Because I'm sure Ludwigs did mean it when he used a nonce nickname for you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.154.245.29 (talk) 10:40, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

deleted a question

I deleted this question as a matter of core policy: software piracy is illegal in the US, and hence in the State of Florida. --Ludwigs2 18:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Good move. It's unethical for the Reference Desk to answer such questions.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 19:22, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The question wasn't asking for help committing software piracy, the question was about how to get an already downloaded game working. People assumed the OP had downloaded the game via illegal means, but you can legally download "The Sims 2" from http://eastore.ea.com 82.44.54.4 (talk) 19:35, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

legally downloading and legally using are different concepts. a lot of software is available for download that still requires a valid user license to operate legally; that's what cracking is all about. if the OP has a technical problem with software he legally owns, he'll get better and faster help from Nintendo, and wp:NOTHOWTO applies. if he is trying to circumvent software licensing restrictions then he is breaking the law, and we can't help with that either. looks like a nono either way to me. --Ludwigs2 20:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

He/she mentioned using a crack in the title, but the question itself "setup isn't starting... what could be the problem?" isn't asking for help circumventing any laws, it's asking for help on why a program isn't starting when he/she tried to run it. Simple answers like "check if it's a 64bit version and you've got a 32but OS" or "are you trying to run the windows version on a mac" or "if you downloaded it from an unreputable source, it might be a virus" etc could solve the problem. Also, I don't think wp:NOTHOWTO really applies to the reference desk. 82.44.54.4 (talk) 20:23, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

<shrug> I'll leave it up to others to judge the issue; I think what I did was the correct move. --Ludwigs2 20:30, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

If I'm operating some software which the license says I'm not allowed to, that's an illegal act in the sense that I could be sued, right? It's civil rather than statute law. Does it make a difference that, since the game is available for free (or in my case, £1 from a charity shop), EA/Maxis wouldn't sue me? It would be breach of contract, with zero damages. And questions like "am I allowed by the contract to use a crack on this software" and "does this contract actually apply to me anyway" remain to be decided in court, so it's not definitively illegal. Also, if the purpose of the crack is to make the software work, that's rather different from a crack designed to circumvent copy protection; and even if the crack is intended for circumvention, the fact that the distributors themselves are also circumventing copy protection by offering the game for free rather undermines the case for the crack being illegal. Sure, we can say that the distributors want people to be attracted to their site rather than obtaining the software via file-sharing, but there's a limit to how controlling the law can reasonably aid a company in being in the cause of their business model. Contracts that bind you to outrageous things ("you must henceforth only shop at Wal-mart") don't stand up. Edit: I see the game is not actually being offered for free, but for £20. Even so, that's a silly price for a 10-year-old game which many people would happily give away second-hand. The OP is welcome to my one... 81.131.69.70 (talk) 19:43, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

We've had previous consensuses about not deleting questions seeking assistance for suicide. It was deemed they're fair game as Ref Desk questions, but whether any particular respondent wants to respond is a matter for them. Suicide is illegal in many jurisdictions; but whether that's true or not, many respondents have ethical problems with assisting suicide. So, how come they're ok but video piracy is not? If we decide to remove questions because of individual respondents' personal ethics, we wouldn't have many questions left to answer. There has to be a more constructive and workable basis than that. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:46, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The right answer could have been, as Ludwig suggested, "Call the manufacturers of the game." Then if he owns up to it being an illegal copy, we're done. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Wait on. We often redirect questioners to better places for their answers. Just because WP is not the best place to get an answer to a certain question does NOT mean the question should never have been asked in the first place, and does NOT mean the question gets deleted. How could it be deleted? That way, we could never tell them where else to look. That is certainly NOT the "nono" Ludwigs refers to. The issue is whether or not the particular question should have been deleted because of the ethics of appearing to be giving sustenance to people involved in video piracy, so let's stick to that. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:22, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

When he says "not even with crack", maybe he's merely talking about drugs he uses while playing video games. Not that that's any improvement. I understand why Ludwig deleted it, but I think it would be better to leave it there along with a proper response as discussed here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:34, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) oddly, the moral justifications for suicide are better than the moral justifications for software piracy, so it's easier to rationalize playing fast and loose with the legality of it. regardless, however, if he is admitting to cracking the software, then Wikipedia could potentially be liable in any lawsuit if we assist him, and possibly even if we merely allow the question to remain. I doubt that the wikipedia lawyers would be entirely sanguine with that prospect - shall we send the foundation an email and ask? --Ludwigs2 22:36, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Ignore the "even with crack" part of the question because no law-abiding Wikipedian could possibly even know what that means. Let the question stand and answer it as Ludwig + Baseball Bugs agree. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:39, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

(after multiple edit conflicts, since I type so slow :) ) For the record, it's hard to assume good faith with this question. The EA Sports website linked to by the IP user above mentions in its terms of use that online authentication is required to play (legally) digitally downloaded games. I'm sure many other digital-download sites are the same (cf. DRM for legally downloaded music). These services are engineered to work seamlessly so that little effort is required from the client side; otherwise people willing to stay within their legal boundaries would only buy music and games on CDs to avoid the hassle. Even assuming good faith, I find it too hard to believe software for legal digital download would still include confusing messages like " 'please insert disc 1' ", with the solution in the "instructions" being to download some executable file and paste it in some directory. It's much more likely and credible that this executable is a hack to trick the game into thinking a legal copy of its game disc is inserted. I've heard of websites that legally provide these executables to people who have legally purchased software and have lost the disc, but they do not contain any kind of online-authentication scheme that legal digital-download websites require. Therefore, the OP could not have both downloaded the software legally and made use of one of these executable hacks, so it is clear at least in my mind we're talking about illegally-obtained software, and our discussion should focus on "whether or not the particular question should have been deleted because of the ethics of appearing to be giving sustenance to people involved in video piracy," as Jack of Oz said so well.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 23:01, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Cuddlyable3: in the same way that no law-abiding Wikipedian will know what a bong is, or a Millwall brick, or a blue box? I have neither smoked pot, been involved in football hooliganism nor phreaked. Just because an activity is illegal doesn't mean that law-abiding citizens shouldn't know about the paraphernalia involved. The crack mention does suggest that the Florida-based OP is circumventing copy-protection, for which I support the removal of the question. Firstly, it's illegal in the US (as far as I can remember). Secondly, if they are going to freeload off the strenuous work of developers and publishers, they can bally well do the last smidgeon of work (getting the ill-gotten game working) themselves. Brammers (talk/c) 23:44, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

So, we're back to individual ref desk respondents' personal ethics deciding these issues on a case-by-case basis, are we? Is it a free for all? We need some rules for these sorts of issues, if they don't already exist. We already say we'll remove requests for medical or legal advice. This wasn't in that category: it was a request for assistance in carrying out an illegal activity, a completely different matter. If we think we need a rule saying "Requests for assistance in carrying out illegal activities will be removed", then let's discuss that rationally. But let's not do this in a piecemeal, kneejerk fashion. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 23:59, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Is that kind of discussion beyond the scope of this talk page? Seems like the question of whether or not we want this comunity to become generalised accessories to various crimes would go higher up in the project than a few volunteers on a help desk. Vimescarrot (talk) 00:22, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

That's fair comment. But on the other hand, "a few volunteers" managed to nut out the Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines. What's the prob with at least talking about including the handling of this sort of issue there? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 00:35, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I am reminded of a question I received at an airport check-in shortly after 911 when security was heightened. "Are you carrying a weapon?" I answered "Anything can be a weapon if you try." Wikipedia has helpful articles for every criminal activity. AFAIK we are not employed to be detectives. Our mission is to give correct answers where we can give them. Our responsibility starts and ends with giving warning if receiving the answer places a significant new responsibility on the user. Copyright owners must protect their rights or lose them. We are not paid to substitute for the effective copy protection that a software marketer should have paid for but didn't.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 00:58, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Except that's not the issue. criminal activity is explicitly prohibited because the wikimedia foundation does not want to be the target of lawsuits or criminal investigation. if it were just about protecting copyrights, I wouldn't care much, but do you want some corporation trying to recover its pound of flesh from the encyclopedia? and don't tell me that that's unlikely to happen - I know it's unlikely, but lawyers don't run statistics, they work angels. --Ludwigs2 01:38, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, could you provide a link to that "core Wikimedia policy" you refer to? That still doesn't explain why we decided it's ok to help people kill themselves. Why is this less "off limits" than video piracy? But the core issue for me is that Ludwigs2 might choose to remove this question, but others might not think it's a big deal, and leave it. What happens when the Ludwigs2s of the world aren't around anymore? Where's the general guidance to help all of us decide how to handle such questions? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 02:44, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

JoOz - it's listed in a few places, but see Founding Principles at meta; exception to the first point in the second section. --Ludwigs2 20:42, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Ludwigs2. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 06:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

What if someone posted asking how to make a bomb? I can't find anything in the Ref Desk guidelines that would deem this an unacceptable question, like queries for legal or medical advice. However, I think most Wikipedians would agree that answering that question is inappropriate, and the question should be removed. What about "How to rape a girl"? Those are extreme cases, but they show that perhaps we should consider sensible content-based guidelines. By consider I mean just talk about it; maybe we really don't need guidelines if our only problem is questions so blatantly inappropriate anyone could remove them under WP:IAR, if they needed that for a reason. Maybe we should have guidelines if answering the question may enable injury to others. Perhaps that's the subconscious reasoning for why the consensus was to allow suicide questions (only hurting oneself). It doesn't hurt to throw around ideas, and since the Ref Desk has a different kind of atmosphere and more face-to-face interaction (well, as close as you can get with a computer in the way) than the rest of Wikipedia, it would make sense for us to decide on issues like this for ourselves.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 03:04, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Hard telling why (or if) we would answer a question on how to commit suicide. Not only is it typically an illegal act, it's arguably a request for medical advice, which is against the rules. You could give a smart-aleck answer, though: "If you're in a hurry, jump off the highest object you can get to the top of; if you're not in a hurry, take up smoking." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:07, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe before your time, Bugs, but we do and we have answered questions that sought help with killing themselves. There was a spate of them for a while there. It generated a lot of heat, but as I recall, the consensus was that they are legitimate questions, and anyone who felt disposed to provide their "helpful" advice was free to do so. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 03:17, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not recall this as a plain consensus. What I vaguely remembered and dug up is this thread on of the guidelines' archived talk pages. One has to distinguish between an author seeking a plausible suicide for a plot and possible suicidal OPs and trolls, and it always depends on context at the desks. Likewise, in my view, questions in the greyer zones should be handled with good imaginative and realistic sense, not by written instructions. I don't see Ludwigs removing questions by the gallon (in fact this is the only one I recall). I myself understand nothing about games and copyright, so I tend to trust others here. My point: While I don't wish to encourage removals at all and even lean towards restoring this particular one (though I basically have no clue), I don't think we need to codify every possible instance of inappropriateness. I'd like to see this handled on a case by case basis, with invitation for feedback, as Ludwigs has done here. ---Sluzzelin talk 03:29, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Per Brammers, I support removal of the question, or perhaps leaving the question there with only scolding for answers. Answers assisting criminal activity should certainly be removed. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:21, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

That's the ticket. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:13, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree, because applying a crack to The Sims 2 (specifically that game, or any other old game which is on the verge of being abandonware) is only illegal activity in the same way that trespassing on a farmer's field in order to camp overnight is - if you get caught, and damaged no crops, you'll only be chased away. It's neither morally wrong nor penalized. 81.131.69.70 (talk) 20:28, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not the same. Violating copyright is theft, which is morally wrong as well as being punishable by law. Trespassing is not right either, and may also be punishable by law, but it's mostly harmless if you don't damage the property. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:56, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Violating copyright isn't theft; all you've done is not give them your money. 82.44.54.4 (talk) 22:24, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Exactly. Violating copyright is NOT theft for the simple reason that nothing actually gets stolen. If I go to a house, break in and steal their TV, then I have gained one TV and they have lost one TV. A zero sum game. However, if I borrow a friend's DVD and make a copy, my friend is not denied the use of his copy, I have simply created another. It is not a zero sum game. Much like it wouldn't be stealing on Star Trek to have the replicator machine create you some rubies. Googlemeister (talk) 18:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Regardless, even if it is theft, I don't think it's a very serious form of theft. For example, armed robbery is much more serious than shoplifiting, and shoplifting is much more serious than piracy. To simply refer to piracy as "theft" makes it seem more serious than it is. I don't think it's worth reacting to such questions in the same manner as if someone asked how to commit suicide, as someone suggested above. And, to be honest, I'm not even sure if piracy is immoral, given the financial status of the people who pirate software.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 22:45, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

What's the financial status of the perpetrators got to do with anything? Hard to know what you're saying: either, it's ok to steal from rich people, or it's ok for non-rich people to steal, or maybe both. Well, you can stick those "morals" where they belong. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:52, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Again, you're trying to make piracy seem much more serious than it is by referring to it as "steal[ing] from rich people." I don't think it's right to break into a rich person's house and steal their possesions. So, don't group software piracy with such acts. Your "morals" are primitive. You're grouping software pirates with other types of thieves and treating them like trash. Perhaps they need the software for school? Perhaps they simply don't have the money? Where does compassion fit into your simplistic moral code?--Best Dog Ever (talk) 23:01, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I have endless compassion with the plight of people who are so poor they're tempted to steal. I live in a country that was founded by English convicts who in many cases were guilty of nothing worse than stealing a load of bread to feed their family. Many of them were executed for these sorts of acts; the ones sent halfway around the world to a god-forsaken wilderness for 7 years were the lucky ones. So, compassion is in my blood, mate. But that doesn't mean I condone for one second the act of theft. Would you like it if someone stole something from you, and would their plea "I needed it for school" make it all OK, please come again and steal from me whenever you have the need, make yourself a nice meal while you're here, and hey, you can take my car too, here's the key. Well? Hardly. There is a question of degree, certainly; making a single illegal copy of one CD on one occasion is not in the same league as robbing a bank at gunpoint, and does not merit the same punishment. But at its core, it's still the same act, theft. It's still subject to the same basic principle - do not take other people's property without their permission. Semanticise it any way you like, you know it's wrong. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 23:32, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

You're 100 percent right. Stealing might be somehow "justifiable" in some narrow circumstances, but it's still morally wrong. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:38, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

believe it or not, I happen to appreciate the philosophical claims about the morality of software theft. The world is currently in the throws of a major redefinition of the concept of property, and the way we look at these issues in 50 years (assuming we haven't driven ourselves into extinction) will be radically different than the way we look at them now. I'm already working on my "When I was a young man we had this thing called 'personal property', youngling!" diatribes. but regardless, wikipedia is not here to fight that battle. --Ludwigs2 00:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think you mean "in the throes of a major redefinition". Also WP:CBALL. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I bet you're right. Yet I somehow understood it without someone having to correct it for him. :) This idea that property is going to go away is utopian fantasy, promoted by those who don't want to work for a living. It will only happen if the concept of money goes away, which I wouldn't count on. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:27, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Aiding and abetting illegal acts is not appropriate for wikipedians to do, and if a wikipedian does do so on the ref desk or elsewhere, their comment should be zapped. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Stop saying zapped you sound like that gay guy from the Simpsons 96.246.40.129 (talk) 11:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

That term has been around for a couple of generations at least. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:22, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes. The etymology of zap[17]: 1929 (sound effect), 1942 (v.), comic strip word (especially from "Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century"), of imitative origin. Meaning "to erase electronically" is 1982. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:59, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think removing that question is an example of biting newbies. If they're on the wrong site, just tell them that. Treating the visitor like a vandal will not fix the issue. If you want to make sure that they leave (and not just get angry), explain to them why this is the wrong site. I just left a message on their talk page telling them that Warez-bb and The Pirate Bay's forum are better venues to ask.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 20:40, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Above, Best Dog said that piracy wasn't major. Well, tell that to my brother-in-law who works at EA, where they've laid off hundreds of employees, and he himself is not rich. Regular people work for the rich folks who own the companies. Aaronite (talk) 03:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Though that's an excellent idea to spread around, it's not germane to the question of whether companies should make money by exploiting copyright law. Just because there exists a way to make money for lots of ordinary folks (and don't forget the rich folks, who also deserve to make money), doesn't mean it's a good thing. And the morality of that is itself largely irrelevant to the question in hand, which is whether the ref desk should encourage (or should sometimes encourage, or should somewhat help with, or should be impartial on) circumventing copyright law - since our acting as moral arbitrators doesn't seem to be appeal to us so much as protecting Wikipedia from legal threats of the kind that affect, say, the Pirate Bay. 81.131.32.185 (talk) 21:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Umm, if the OP is asking how to circumvent access-control software, then isn't it the case that people who answer the question are committing a criminal act under the DMCA? Unless ir's covered under an exemption because floppy disks are now obsolete. In any case, I think the WMF would be protected under safe-harbour provisions. I'm wary about removing questions because "you're trying to do something wrong". What if someone asks why their passenger van engine stumbles when they go over 80 mph? "mph" will suggest an American and there's nowhere you can do 80 legally on a US road. Does that question get removed too? It's a passenger van, so likely not on a ractetrack Franamax (talk) 06:38, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

You know there are roads in Texas with a speed limit of 80 mph? Googlemeister (talk) 18:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

One could ask the OP to clarify or give more information. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:32, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Foundation would be better protected if the warning text "Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted." under the edit window were reworded "You declare that this contribution is not connected with any copyright violation." Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Nah, WMF is fully protected anyway, first by the safe harbour provisions of DMCA; second, because we deal with copyvio swiftly and brutally when we find it. If anything, it should say "if you violate copyright here, someone will notice, and you will find your every edit checked and be extremely embarrassed". Franamax (talk) 08:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually as we've established before, mph for road speeds is still the norm in the UK. Whether you can legally go at 80 mph in the UK I don't know. In any case, I would presume some race tracks would allow you to try driving a passenger van at 80mph. Nil Einne (talk) 14:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't really want to get into the discussions surrounding this except to point out offering support to people who are likely trying to infringe copyright does carry legal risks, as established in the MGM vs Grokster case [18]. From my experience, most P2P software sites and similar will remove such questions without hesitation. Personally I've always believed there's another good reason not to help such people. Anyone who frankly speaking lacks the basic common sense necessary to know it's not appropriate to ask here for help infringing copyrights poses a high risk of doing stupid things which may result in them being a part of a botnet or whatever, and while you may say haha for them, the harm they cause to the internet is not so funny, so they shouldn't even try. Nil Einne (talk) 14:41, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm late to this discussion, but I'd like to strongly dispute User:El_aprendelenguas's contention that if a question on how to make a bomb showed up that "most wikipedians" would agree that it should be removed and not answered.

Making bombs, weapons, dangerous chemicals, questionable motor vehicles, insane power-tools, and other items likely to cause extreme danger to life and limb, can nevertheless be fascinating and intriguing subjects of study. I would have absolutely zero problem giving someone a reference to existing sources on those topics, and I would reinstate any such question that I happened to notice was deleted.

(As for your second example, It's difficult to imagine that question not being asked as an outright troll, but if it were asked seriously, and someone found an actual reference on that topic, I have to imagine it would at least be an interesting read.) APL (talk) 15:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Just a thought, I'm guessing the legal advice thing on the main ref pages don't count here, because this whole discussion is about exactly that... Aaronite (talk) 16:55, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I think everyone commenting here could be classed as "knowledgable and willing participant" so there's no problem. One key test is whether the person being offered the advice relies on the offerers presumed expertise. I don't see anyone in this discussion who is in the habit of taking random legal advice from strangers on the Internet. Franamax (talk) 08:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The question should not have been removed. It should have been answered appropriately - informing the OP that we do not condone software piracy; and we should have referred the user to the best resources - e.g. the manufacturer of the game. Nimur (talk) 00:50, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Aye. How about this? "You are trying to install software from media it wasn't originally distributed on and it is asking you for a disk you don't have. We are not going to help you crack software that you don't have a license for. If you have downloaded free software, let us know what it is or check at the website you downloaded it from for FAQ's, help tips, installation instructions, user forums etc. If it is copyrighted software, contact the manufacturer or the distributor or check their websites for support information." Franamax (talk) 08:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Good suggestion. It can be compacted to: If you have downloaded free software, check at the website you downloaded it from for FAQ's, help tips, installation instructions, user forums etc. If it is copyrighted software, contact the manufacturer or the distributor or check their websites for support information. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that's a great answer except that it seems to give the Heisman to people who are having trouble installing free software, and there's no particular reason for us to do that. I might change "check at the website you downloaded it from" to "the best information is usually available at the website you downloaded it from". Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

That would be a good blanket response. And if they come back with, "Uh, it's a bootleg copy, dude," then we tell them "See ya!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:24, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I like Best Dog Ever's solution (which he apparently put into action) of offering links to other forums which deal with subjects like software cracking. This three main advantages:

It's providing reference.
It's impartial and not censorious.
It won't get us into trouble. Those sites may well get into trouble, but that's their problem.

81.131.32.185 (talk) 22:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

No. We shouldn't be doing anything to knowingly aid and abet illegal activity. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:53, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. We shouldn't answer (or refer to other websites, or do anything other than post a polite message that our lips are shut) questions that are unmistakably asking for assistance in a criminal act ("Is it possible to trick a program into thinking its CD is inserted?" is okay, but "I illegally downloaded a game. How can I trick it when it prompts to 'insert disc 1'?" is not). For crying out loud, we refuse to do people's homework; why should we assist them in crimes?--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 03:16, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe we should assume that all requests for advice on illegal activity are in fact homework assignments? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:45, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Mafia U, now offering degrees in Regional Illegal Beverage Distribution, Introduction to Gambling, Protection Racket Management, Advanced Bribery and Practical Car Theft. Googlemeister (talk) 19:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, all of those are offered at San Quentin. Not officially, of course. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:19, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

How should we handle questions about Fagin's school for pickpockets in Oliver Twist? Do we Assume Good Faith and treat it as a simple literary or historico-sociological question? Tell the enquirer that we can't do his or her Homework? Decline to give Illegal Advice? Are we confined to Reliable Sources (what came into the head of some Eng. lit. professor 68 years ago) or is Original Research called for? —— Shakescene (talk) 03:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

What the dickens are those questions about? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:13, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Copyright is a controversial subject and not enforced the same way the world over (consider Spain, for instance). The article copyrighted content on file sharing networks discusses all the legal variations. Notice that as well as linking to various cases and statutes, and linking to articles about pro-copyright efforts, it also links to the article ethics of file sharing and to a number of tools that a person so minded could use to share copyrighted material, leaving it to the reader to make the moral choices. Wikipedia is not the police is a section starkly missing from the list of principles I just linked to there. Maybe Wikipedia is the police :( 81.131.57.69 (talk) 18:52, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

There are tough issues here. It's not clear that helping someone evade copyright in the way requested puts Wikipedia in any specific legal jeopardy. We should resist being reactive just because a potential — even likely — violation of copyright could occur. And comparing violating copyright to building bombs and committing suicide and raping women is really pretty silly. Just to put it into perspective, if someone (from the 1990s, I guess) came on here and said, "I'm trying to make a copy of a CD for my friend, but my cassette recorder keeps getting jammed. What should I do?", I'm not sure we should throw the book at them. If someone comes in an asks, "I'd like to scan the full copy of a book, how should I go about that?", we should not interrogate them on whether or not they (or we) think it falls within the constraints of fair use law before giving assistance. There's a way in which the above conversation is really more of an indication of the way in which computer piracy is a hot-button issue these days than it is about the severity of the crime itself, or how people feel about copyright infringement more generally.

All that being said, I'm not sure this kind of function is really what we want the Ref Desk to do. There is something a little sleazy about helping people who are asking for technical assistance with something they got for free by almost certainly illegal means (depending on jurisdiction). I do think that if someone came on here and asked, "Hey, I just stole a bunch of pens, and the ink in them was all dried out. How can I get them working?", we'd probably consider that to be beneath the purposes of the Ref Desk. We have a choice as to what kind of forum we are fostering here, and the kinds of assistance we are willing to give. In some cases we have in the past made judgments on what kinds of information could be given by others, as well — for example, our ban on medical and legal advice, which is not there (contrary to popular opinion) because we are afraid of getting sued, but because it is just a bad idea for us to start doing stuff like that. I similarly think this category of blatant software piracy falls under that sort of category, but I'm aware there are other ways one could feel about it.

Whatever we do, the idea that we can't answer a question that has anything to do with violating laws is silly. There are lots of questions about illegal topics. There is lots of information in the Wikipedia about illegal topics, or about topics that could be used in an illegal fashion. "We don't talk about illegal things" is a clumsy and really unsustainable guideline. But I admit to not being very satisfied with the idea of the Ref Desk helping lazy warez kiddies save $20. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Holy Cows

I disagree with User:HandThatFeeds for characterising the "Stray cow problem in India" question (on the humanities desk) as insulting Hindu beliefs, or at least for giving that in justification of closing it. I agree with closing the question, though, for a different reason: because it was one of those "why are people X so crazy" questions which can't be answered in a satisfying way. I think Jon Ascton was being reasonable, and not trolling about Hindus. Many OPs seem moved to ask questions about this or that due to being honestly baffled by other people's beliefs. Anyway, posters are free to insult religious beliefs if they want to (as criticism of ideas, that is, not in an attempt to cause discord). There are no sacred ideas here on the ref desks. If the question was still open I would have chimed in with "memes" as an answer, but that wouldn't have been particularly helpful (what would?), and closing the question by reason of its futility would have been perfectly fine, and The Hand That Feeds You has been doing great work lately in preventing rubbish. 81.131.63.230 (talk) 22:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

deleted a question (2)

again, I took the liberty simply to remove this. It's a troll question, whose only possible response is to ask why the OP is such an idiot (is that genetic)?)best just to remove it. --Ludwigs2 14:35, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

good removal. Question is simply provocative. -- Scray (talk) 14:41, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, laziness can be fixed, while idiocy is forever. And compare with that IP's posting a couple of days ago:[19] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:43, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I just want to point out that it is not uncommon for employers or enterpreneurs (whether native or foreign) to complain about the work ethos in a certain country. There are also studies on this topic. Psychology in India Revisited discusses the difference between a "Western" ethos that sees work as an "intrinsic motivator", while "there is a general consensus" that work isn't valued the same way in India. Just saying. Yes, the question was phrased without context and in a pejorative form, but the reply suggested by Ludwigs isn't the only possible one. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:55, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree, and I wouldn't have deleted it if it had been phrased in a different way (I actually went through a bunch of studies on cross-cultural work-ethos a while back). however...

--Ludwigs2 17:13, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Reverting IP edit

Hello. I reverted this. What was he trying to do? --Chemicalinterest (talk) 15:45, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

It seems to be related to the question I deleted above - at least, it looks like the IP undid all of the revisions immediately following my deletion of that question. Possibly s/he was trying to do what I did but got confused in the diffs? --Ludwigs2 17:10, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

removed probable medical advice

For a post relating to celiac disease and finding nuts not processed in facility with gluten, the following reply was given:

Are you sure that this matters? I would have imagined that microscopic amounts of gluten would have little efect on you - it is not like an allergy as far as I am aware. You could just buy nuts in their shells and remove the shells yourself. Nuts are not manufactured - they grow. Nuts that are used as an ingredient in manufactured food products are probably something to avoid. 92.29.115.21 (talk) 10:32, 20 August 2010 (U

This looks an awful lot like medical advice to me, and off-the-cuff medical advice at that. I don't know whether it is good or bad advice, but it seems to cross a line beyond the strictly factual, especially since it seems to be rather uncertainly held. (And, just looking into a little bit, it does appear that cross-contamination from processing facilities is an issue.) If it was something like, "the XYZ association says this isn't a problem because of ABC, see here [link]", I think it would be less problematic. Additionally, the "you" there (in "little effect on you") is not synonymous with "one" — it means the OP, who is asking about this because of their own condition, not an abstract question. Anyway, just my take on the guidelines. Any objections? --Mr.98 (talk) 03:03, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Zap it. Wikipedia editors have no business playing doctor with the OP's. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:08, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Possible to prioritise Wikipedia-helping questions?

Is it possible to prioritise questions at the Reference desk (RD) that improve Wikipedia, as opposed to questions that don't benefit Wikipedia?

Example of what to prioritise: a while ago I asked for some CorelDRAW help so I could finish a diagram for a Wikipedia article
Example of what not to prioritise: a question on naming a song from a Youtube video.

I don't have the energy to trawl the entire RD for what I consider "high priority" questions, but maybe on this talk page a list could be kept. Regards --Commander Keane (talk) 02:20, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

What would the list's purpose be? And how would you distinguish what benefits WP and what doesn't? (Unless you mean what directly benefits WP)---Sluzzelin talk 02:25, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The purpose of the list is to single out "high priority" questions, so that people (like me) can use a watchlist or daily check just on those questions. The answers would still go in the usual spot. "High priority" questions would be added to the list in a wiki way, anyone could add or remove an entry. I think I do mean directly benefiting Wikipedia, but I could use some help defining "high priority". For example asking for coordinates of a scuba diving site to add to a Wikipedia article seems "high priority" to me. Asking a question on the wording of an Harry Book between different languages doesn't seem to benefit Wikipedia.--Commander Keane (talk) 02:34, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. I wouldn't oppose such a list per se, as long as it carries no weight outside what you specified. I guess I find it more difficult to gauge a question's priority or potential benefit to WP just from reading it. Sometimes people ask a question because they couldn't find the information in mainspace. This can (and frequently does) result in the expansion or even creation of articles, even when this wasn't the original poster's intention. While doing research for the question on British v American wording of Harry Potter books, someone might happen upon an interesting aspect that might be included in an article (could be a HP article, could also be a linguistic article or an article on publishing). In my opinion, serependity is among the qualities the reference desks thrive on, and I would probably be ignoring such a list. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:48, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

10-15 questions a day, per desk, doesn't seem like that much to "trawl through" to me. 82.44.54.4 (talk) 02:41, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and in theory the ref desks are supposed to benefit the readers, which indirectly benefits wikipedia if the reader comes away feeling good about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:51, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

It is probably 6-8 questions per desk per day (7 desks ~40 questions per day). Yes looking through 40 questions is too much for me, since I am looking for a needle in a haystack. Also I probably visit once per week, so that is ~280 questions to through. I don't see how this proposal harms the benefit to readers. It has just occurred to me that the Help desk could serve these Wikipedia related questions, but I suppose the Help desk doesn't focus on facts etc like the RD does.--Commander Keane (talk) 02:58, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

¶ There might conceivably be some benefit to having a "Wikipedia" category of the Ref. Desk to match Humanities, Language, etc., although that might overlap the Help Desk. Someone asked today about the notability of an unelected state senate (legislative) candidate, and although we often can think of a guideline, WikiProject or help page where we can direct this sort of question (in this case, WP:POLITICIAN), it might not hurt to have a one-stop page rather than directing readers all over the back lots and side roads of Wikimedia/Wikipedia in the hopes that some text or some editor might someday answer their question. —— Shakescene (talk) 03:07, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Not to sound rude, but is this to benefit you or to benefit the users? To do this would be to ask the querent to decide where to put the question, and if we decided for them, how would they know where to look when we moved it? Library ref desks don't filter questions like this (if we did, we'd put the short or easy ones first and save the toughies for later, and they'd end up ignored.) Aaronite (talk) 04:41, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I was trying to think of it from the enquirer's point of view. It's easy enough for us to tell him or her to go to another desk. But (assuming he or she is moved to do so) to how many other places in succession might he or she be sent? Please hold on while we connect you. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:13, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I do not see any need to prioritize questions by any metric. It's not like we get 10,000 questions per day. Comet Tuttle (talk) 04:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

And scanning the tables of contents shouldn't take that long. There will be some false positives and false negatives, but they should still yield 70% or 80% of what you're seeking. And you can see nearly a week's worth of questions on one table of contents. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:16, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

An editor who visits only once a week will probably discover that most of the questions have been addressed in that week. In that case, forget the table of contents, go to the bottom of the page and work backwards. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:34, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll note that there's a helpful "skip to bottom" link in the upper right corner of every RefDesk page, which makes starting at the bottom and working backwards that much easier. -- 174.21.233.249 (talk) 15:49, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Then there's also the helpful "End" key on the keyboard which does the same thing on any web page.—Emil J. 16:17, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. The last time I looked at the statistics, most questions on the Science desk got their first response within about half an hour, and three quarters received their first response in less than two hours. While I cannot warrant that all of those responses are likely to be complete or accurate, it gives some idea of the speed at which the Desks generally operate. It's very rare for a question to sit around for as long as a day without a response, if it is going to be answered at all. While there's no reason to discourage occasional or once-a-week drop-in volunteers here, expecting any significant fraction of questions to sit around waiting for them is going to lead to disappointment. As well, since the vast majority of questions receive rapid responses, it doesn't seem necessary or constructive to try to sort them by some sort of priority scheme. (As Bugs suggests, just look at the bottom of the page if you want to know which questions are likely to need an answer.) There's no requirement to monitor all of the Desks, either — I'm a 'regular' here, but I generally make most of my contributions to Science and Misc. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:48, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

So ... High priority questions are ones asked by you, or asked on similar topics to the ones you would ask, while low priority questions are ones not asked by you on topics that don't interest you personally?

As an added point of interest, of your two example questions, isn't the second question more of a 'reference' question anyway? APL (talk) 14:24, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I have thought of questions being given tags from a very large set of options, but I do not have any reason to believe that people will do better at tagging questions than they have done at providing concise but informative headings.—Wavelength (talk) 16:14, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

[I am revising my comment.—Wavelength (talk) 16:22, 18 August 2010 (UTC)]

Sure would make this page longer though. hydnjo (talk) 22:09, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. We can't even agree on whether certain questions are ethically acceptable or not. Can you imagine the debates over the "priority" a given question should have? The mind boggles! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:32, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we should generalize the discussion: "What would the reference desk of the future look like"? And how could it help us sort, organize, and prioritize all questions? I think it would have an "auto-categorization" system. Questions would still be posted to the desks, as they are now; but each question would be manually/automatically tagged and categorized. You could then use an ATOM/RSS feed to trawl for your favorite categories and keywords. This provides out of band signal or "metadata" for every question - so those who prefer to ignore such categories may continue browsing without being distracted by the additional complexity. This mechanism also solves the problem of "cross-posting", because questions can be posted to the one desk that is most appropriate; but interested readers can set up their RSS feed to scan all desks for certain keyword/category questions. At present, MediaWiki does not support categorization on this fine-granularity (entire pages, yes; sub-headings - no). And there would have to be some user-interface addons to assist in dynamic-tagging - a checkbox of common topics/categories, and a text-input for new keywords. OPs could tag their questions as they see fit; and respondents could further add and remove categories, in order to help organize. One such checkbox could include a "Relevant to the Encyclopedia" category; and Commander Keane could "subscribe" to only those questions, in the same way that he might also subscribe to questions about science (or specific keywords/topics like seagulls). Nimur (talk) 01:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

With LiquidThreads on the way perhaps the RD of the future is close. Does anyone know if LiquidThreads can do tagging like Nimur suggests? If not I will ask the programmer about it (it could also be used on the Help desk to mark things resolved). The way this discussion has gone I do wonder if I am the only one that would subscribe to the "Relevant to the Encyclopedia" category, this seems like the wrong place to find out. The word "priority" isn't well liked here, "tagging" is perhaps better. And I am not trying to customise the RD for me, I am just trying to make it better serve the encyclopedia.--Commander Keane (talk) 01:50, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Let me ask another question: why must the RD serve the encyclopedia? It's a Reference Desk, not an improve-the-article session. This is where you go when the article isn't enough. If, when an editor sees an obvious shortcoming in an article, they feel the need to fix the relevant article, they may do so. Otherwise, let it be. Tagging may well be useful, and I have no objection if it isn't disruptive, but otherwise, let the questions come as they may. Aaronite (talk) 03:07, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

The Reference Desk must somehow serve the encyclopedia (and that can be pretty broadly interpreted) because it is being hosted as part of the Wikipedia project – an encyclopedia project – by the Wikimedia Foundation. The Foundation accepts donations on our behalf which keep the lights on and the servers running; we owe it to everyone who has written us a cheque to actually use their money the way that we said we would. If the Ref Desk cannot fit itself within the scope of the Wikipedia project, it has three options. We can move to another Wikimedia project within whose mandate we do fit; we can try to modify Wikipedia's official goals to include the provision of independent reference services as well as an encyclopedia; or we can shut down. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:29, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

The ref desks DO serve the encyclopedia, but from the other direction from most users. Lots of people are asking why the ref desks aren't as directly involved in article writing, but from my perspective, insofar as the ref desks help readers find information in articles, they serve a very important purpose. After all, what good is an encyclopedia no one uses? If the ref desks do nothing except helping lost readers find article which serve their needs, they have done their job. --Jayron32 03:43, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh please Commander, let it be. hydnjo (talk) 03:34, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Bravo Nimur, you should cross-post to Bugzilla, they'll get right on that. :) Right after "finish MediaWiki" I hear they're considering "enhance and extend"... Dream as we will, software will not solve the problem, whatever the problem is. We've sufficient brainpower here to categroize and rate every question. Two questions of my own: who wants to take the time to rate and categorize each OP rather than research and answer them? And how many more servers should we buy for the discussions here about how to properly rate the questions? I agree it would be great if we could get to auto-rating, but ya know, reality and all that. Franamax (talk) 04:54, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

You're right, it would be outright impossible to properly design an automated computer-system to organize information by keyword : ) I'm still convinced that human-based categorization is far more efficient... for now. Nimur (talk) 17:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I like the idea of tagging questions after a week to aid searches of the archives. I'm worried vandals will destroy the system, though, as vandal patrol of tags sounds one-tenth as fun as the already-thankless job of vandal patrol of articles. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:31, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

not AGF

From Wikipedia:Reference Desk/Humanities#Is_it_harder_to_get_laid_if_you_have_few_friends.3F:

Hsardoft username and the post look like a troll joke so I reported your name here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Usernames_for_administrator_attention and then moved it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism on their instructions. I hope you did not mean it that way. : 70.31.58.221 (talk) 15:31, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

This is silly enough that the admins at both places thoroughly vetoed the complaint immediately — it clearly does not AGF, and there is nothing wrong with the name or the post in question. I've moved this here because I think it is just going to derail the thread for no reason. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:03, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Even if it was a troll (and I do see how the name could be read as such; it's an anagram of Hardsoft, if anyone hasn't noticed), the question is reasonable and I'm willing to bet there has been research about it. 24.83.104.67 (talk) 19:16, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

It looks the typical kind of username and question LC would create and post. We should have a special barnstar (probably one with a cow in it, or maybe a cowpie) for those who continue to feed her. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:43, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Whether to award such an udderly admonitory bovine barnstar would constitute further nourishment is a moot question. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:45, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Yup. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:49, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Penn Jillette global warming guy

I suppose it doesn't matter from a what-to-do-about-it point of view, but what do you folks think about this guy? He seems less like a troll and more like someone who is mentally ill. Just curious if anyone else got that vibe. --Sean 14:23, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I dunno — WP:NOTTHERAPY and all that. I hatted the most recent re-asking. If it comes back again, we might try removing it completely. A block is unlikely to provide long-term relief, as I suspect he is on a floating Australian IP. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

It was dehatted by an IP under the (rather shaky, IMO) reasoning that the question would eventually be archived anyway. I think we should just warn the OP that if they keep posting the same question over and over, their stuff will be deleted. And then start deleting. Vimescarrot (talk) 16:33, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

FisherQueen already deleted one of their questions. I think the only reason the last one survived is because they at least stopped asking what Lomborg et al think. Since we've already told them, it doesn't matter who you ask about and they seem to have returned to Lomborg et al anyway, I seem no harm in completely removing this latest question Nil Einne (talk) 17:36, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I assume coincidence, but our "WT:RD#Abusive IP" (above section) also hails from New South Wales (population 7 million). -- 1.47.203.216 (talk) 00:48, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes I noticed that. But the global warming IP seems to have been constant for a few days and was different from the other IP in the same timeframe Nil Einne (talk) 06:18, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Abusive IP

The abusive IP on the math desk has gone from annoyance to simple troll. In the past, trolls have been effectively dealt with by completely removing their comments without any notice or warning. The trolls recognize that no matter how much effort they put into trying cause trouble, their work vanishes and nearly nobody sees it. They give up and go elsewhere. I suggest doing the same here. Instead of giving this troll a huge ego boost by pasting [vulgar attack removed] all over the math desk, I suggest quietly reverting any and all posts from this IP. It isn't a single IP address, but obviously a single user. His posts are very easy to recognize as they always contain a vulgar personal attack on the questioner. -- kainaw ™ 19:29, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

The only debatable word I've ever used is "Bulltwang". In Aussie culture, "Bulltwang" is a friendly word and it isn't insulting. I don't know about other cultures but if you don't like it I can stop. Just tell me. Now you've told me, I'll stop. Sorry. If I continue, you have every right to belive that I'm a troll so I'm putting my word I won't used "bulltwang" anymore (if they're posts of mine that already have "bulltwang", ignore or delete them, you can't use them as afact that I'm not putting my word since from NOW ON I won't use bulltwang). Are there any other rules I've to follows? You should tell me so I can improve. But if you see any other misbehaviour of mine, ignore me. Just please give me one last chance? Obviously, I still don't believe I've insulted anyone, but I won't repeat my past behaviour since you find it isnulting. Sorry again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.72.244.210 (talk) 02:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

That apology doesn't seem ~~genuine~~sincere to me considering you're claiming 'the only debatable word' but even for me, someone who doen't check out the RD/M a quick look easily finds posts with plenty more words then bulltwang [20]. People have also pointed out WP:NPA to you many times [21] [22] and other violations [23]. Unless you have anything meaningful to add, don't be surprised if any furthers posts of yours to this talk page are ignored or removed as well. Nil Einne (talk) 10:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Also, when told to stop insulting people by calling them stupid and uneducated, this IP's response was: "Saying someone is uneducated isn't a personal attack. It's a warning that the guy needs to get his act together. I can understand why some people think that stupid is a personal attack. But uneducated? No, kanaw, I have every right to call someone uneducated. I'll stop using stupid, but uneducated I won't stop using." This IP either cannot understand the concept of "no personal attack" or is purposely refusing to refrain from personal attacks. I do not know of any condition that will allow a person to be able to provide partially constructive answers on the math desk and, at the same time, be completely incapable of comprehending what a personal attack is. Therefore, I believe that this IP knows full well what a personal attack is and is simply acting as a troll. So, as is done with trolls, just delete his posts on sight. -- kainaw ™ 11:59, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I should've been clear. The only debatable word I've used since I was LAST BLOCKED was bulltwang. I've learnt my lesson since my last block. And if you don't wanna belive me, see [24]. I asked this question. My IP changes cause not because I change it myself but cause my IP is dynamic. It's not my fault. I can't help it. I'm sorry for any inconvineinces but there's simply nothing I can do about it.

And Kanaw, yes you're right dude, I said that. But I've learnt. As I said, I've learnt my lesson since I've last been blocked. What a personal attack is? I thought Wiki was an informal place like other webforums. In other places on the interent people attack each other. If you donna wanna belive me that's fine dude but just remember I've promised not to attack anyone here from NOW ON. Yes I've attacked in the past but if I do it again delete my posts. Just take my last word for it and I'll be very gratefull.

Also, you can't delete my posts if they're not rude. I've promised to not attack, but just because I've attacked people earlier according to you guys, doesn't mean you can delete perfectly legal posts of mine NOW. And don't call me a troll. I've an honors degree in math and trolls are people who are uneducated. Sorry and please take my word. My apology's sincere and bumble. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.72.197.241 (talk) 02:12, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia, including the Reference Desk, is an encyclopedia. We have standards for the content we include on these pages.

Do the contributions cite references from reliable sources?
Are the contributions phrased in encyclopedic tone?

If not, delete them. Nimur (talk) 02:50, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

You qualifications impress no one. There are plenty of trolls who have qualifications, some even better then yours. (And plenty of people on RD/M who agree you're unwelcome, including probably some you have called uneducated/stupid/whatever have better qualifications then yours.)

Also the wikipedia community is perfectly entitled to delete whatever we want. In particular if we come to a consensus that a certain contributor is unwelcome to wikipedia and we have made it clear to that contributor, we will delete any contributions in defiance of that community ban.

And your apology again comes of as insincere given that you said "I've attacked people earlier according to you guys" in the very same post suggesting you are still refusing to accept that calling someone uneducated and whatever else you have said is a personal attack.

BTW, I have been a part of many webforums. While many are more lenient then wikipedia, most do have rules and quite a lot of forums do not allow personal attacks, particularly continual personal attacks from one person on experienced contributors in seemingly every post. This is particularly true of forums dedicated to more serious subjects and serious discussions. And if you really thought us like a webforum, you would think we have moderators (we don't) or admins performing that function (we do but they don't perform a moderation role), any in nearly every forum if the moderators tell you to stop, you stop and don't debate it any further or continue your poor behaviour, particularly reposting anything that was deleted. And if plenty of experienced contributors tell you to stop, it's usually a good idea to stop and at least check out the rules they're telling you about. In fact I would say anyone showing your behaviour on a webforum would have long since been banned and any attempts to post further, even with lame fake apologies would result in those posted being deleted on sight. If you have really had any experience with the 'interent' and webforums in other words, all your excuses sound hollow.

Nil Einne (talk) 04:53, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

OK dude. But have I done anything wrong since Kanaw posted here? No! I immediately removed bulltwang from my post (see history) I posted a question and apologised and now I apologise here. Not meaning to sound rude but your lecturing to me is hollow because I've agreed to stop and have stopped! If ya wanna discuss with me more go ahead dued but the point of a ban is to prevent dudes from trolling. And I've stopped trolling. So no ban is necessary. If I'm not making sense to you guys then you need to ask what your motivation is. Your motivation is to stop me trolling. I've stopped. So??? There shouldn't be need for my to give excuse anymore. I've stopped vandalising. Now you understand? Maybe in diagram. I vandalise => You ban me and lecture me. I don't vandalise => You stop talking about the past and don't ban me. If this isn't word enough I don't know what is: if I make one more mistake just one more it doesn't matter whether it's small or big => ban me forever. that's how sincere I am to not troll anymore. OK? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.72.216.125 (talk) 06:42, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Dude: no one is swayed by your bumbling, arrogant, not-very-sincere apology.

The only thing that counts here (especially when you're an anonymous IP, incapable of sustaining any real reputation) is behavior. So you should concentrate on that, not on these strained arguments here. —Steve Summit (talk) 14:58, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

It's sad to see a contributor resisting the point that those above try to make clear. Let us not exaggerate: a short ban is not a punishment. It is just a good move for Wikipedia when we hope that the problem contributor will come back later, with past history laid to rest. You would have to be very naughty to earn a permanent ban. (Saying Bullshit or bulltwang won't earn that but personal attacks can get you there.) If you are sincere you will accept the consensus here without protest. If instead you push things so far that you get WP:BLOCKED, that is bad for everyone: Wikipedia, yourself and the innocents affected by the IP range block applied to your dynamic IP addresses. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:49, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Instruction on character limits

A comment in the section "#Feed of new sections" (up from this section by two sections) indicates that the section links do not always work, because of excessively long section titles and because of special characters. I propose that the instructions at the top of each desk have an instruction specifying a meximum number of characters for a section title and also specifying (perhaps displaying) which characters can be used in a section title.—Wavelength (talk) 15:50, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Section links work fine, you just have to write them properly (try the links from TOC to the offending sections). The problem above is caused by the implementation of the feed, not by anything done by Wikipedia.—Emil J. 15:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec)I'm not sure that we should further expand or complicate the top-of-page instructions in order to ensure compatibility with a third party's tool. (Is this a problem which also breaks internal wikilinks to section anchors? If it is, then it might be something that the Mediawiki developers could be persuaded to look at.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:01, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Internal links to sections can always be made, but you might have to escape special characters and add a number at the end if several sections of the same name exist. Templates in section titles also complicated things. There is a problem that the code that makes section links in edit summaries doesn't make all these changes, and so sometimes fails to work, but the developers know that already. Algebraist 16:09, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

In regard to internal wikilinks, please see Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 63#Dysfunctional links in archived section headings.

It's clear from the discussion that these are obsolete problems that have already been fixed.—Emil J. 16:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

—Wavelength (talk) 16:20, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

According to User:Wavelength/About Wikipedia/Link test page one and User:Wavelength/About Wikipedia/Link test page two, the following five characters are problematic for links to section headings: [ ] { | } .—Wavelength (talk) 16:25, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Those are syntax errors on your part.—Emil J. 16:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Feed of new sections

I've made a feed of new sections across all the Reference Desks. (validate) It works by reading the feed for each desk every ten minutes and removing everything that isn't a new section. (There are ways of fooling it, e.g. if you don't keep the default "new section" in your edit summary, and if you rename a section.) I made it to scratch an itch of my own, because I've been thinking recently that watchlists, while they're ideal for Wikipedia articles in general, don't really work well for the Reference Desks. Feel free to subscribe to it. Feedback and suggestions are very welcome. Marnanel (talk) 23:14, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

That's very useful, but note that your section links don't always work due to overly long section titles or special characters. -- ToE^T 15:13, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not just special characters, the software also needs to mangle id's when two or more sections happen to have the same title, and there may be other cases. It's fundamentally flawed to try to use a section title as a link anchor, the proper way is to extract the id attribute of the section from the HTML source.—Emil J. 16:12, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting I should screen-scrape the HTML of each page, rather than processing the feeds? Marnanel (talk) 01:33, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "screen-scrape". I'm suggesting that you process the feeds as you do now, except that you do not second-guess id's to link to from approximate section names extracted from edit summaries, but process the HTML page to look up the actual id. No screen is involved.—Emil J. 11:11, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Bother, I thought I'd got all the special characters. I forgot about question marks. Thanks. Marnanel (talk) 01:33, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

NEW COMMENT: Is the maximum heading length determined by the number of characters (counting a space as a character), or by considering characters of variable width? Either way, when an editor starts a new section, there can be a marker and a message that says "The feed will truncate the heading here."—Wavelength (talk) 18:53, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

When the feed is ready, a link to it can be added to each reference desk, including the main reference desk. Also, editors might wish to add that link to their user space.—Wavelength (talk) 15:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

(unindent) I think it would be intrusive of me to ask for the RD to work in a certain way to accomodate me, rather than me having to code around any oddities in the way the RD works. I'll look into scraping the HTML (probably at the weekend). Marnanel (talk) 18:55, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

ugh.

I've deleted this thread - malicious virus needed - from the computer forums. This is a tad debatable, but doesn't really strike me as what the computer reference desk was designed to do. --Ludwigs2 15:39, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I was going to suggest letting one of my coworkers use it. Give him a couple days and it will have every adware/spyware piece of crap imaginable installed. The harddrive will be overflowing with porn. Toss in the computer owner's email account and it will be signed up on every spam list. Toss in the owner's bank account or credit card info and it will all be in the hands of multiple phishers. Best of all, pure stupidity is not illegal. So, having the computer's owner let him borrow the computer, knowing his idiocy will destroy anything useful on it, isn't illegal. -- kainaw ™ 15:56, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Well the computer reference desk was designed to provide references for computer related topics, and viruses are as legitimate as any topic. OP doesn't say what they want the virus for, perhaps they wish to run it in a virtual machine or old computer and see what happens, for fun or whatever. I don't really see a problem with the question, although I can certainly see how linking to viruses is problematic and possible even illegal in some cases. The best thing to do would probably be to explain that there is no "super virus" like they described, and then point them in the direction of the computer virus article for further reading. Removal seems a bit extreme 82.44.54.25 (talk) 16:05, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

well, anyone can feel free to revert if they like - I'm not attached to this outcome. --Ludwigs2 16:33, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I support the removal. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

And I just removed the section again after the original poster restored it. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:24, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Why? The OP explained it was for a educational purposes only, with no malicious intent. While I don't support linking to viruses, removing the question is unnecessary. 82.44.54.25 (talk) 18:01, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Guys I'm really geting tired of this, could you guys just allow me to restore it. Please, I want to know WHY it was pulled down. This is just not fair. Wikiholicforever (talk) 19:57, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

The ref desk does not aid and abet potentially illegal or unethical activity. You want a virus? Just remove your virus checker and your firewall from your PC. That should fix it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I've gone ahead and put it back. The person seemed to be legitimately asking a question and not intentionally trolling us. It's a stupid question that suggests a train of thought likely to get the poster, or the people around him in trouble, but we're not the coppers. (And besides, deleting a thread does not call down cosmic justice from the heavens, he's going to continue to try to do whatever he's decided to do.)

I seriously doubt that he's really asking "For research purposes only", but who knows, anything's possible. Viruses are an interesting topic. I don't know why he needs a "Malicious" one, but maybe he's got an old washing machine of a computer he wants to throw a brick into.

I've answered it with a link to an existing Wikipedia article. If an answer is in the encyclopedia we shouldn't be picky-choosy about who we direct to it.

(I won't revert-war over this, of course. If it gets taken off again I'll leave it be.) APL (talk) 14:57, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe by "educational purposes" he means "to teach someone a lesson". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:19, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I see you've collapsed it. I won't revert that, but I will change the hat note to something less dismissive. Please try to be polite, even to people who you've ascertained are inferior to you. APL (talk) 19:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Sarcasm is polite, right? I said 'Please'! APL (talk) 19:38, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Your change was fine. I hid the heading in part because there's no such word as "malicous". (Where's Cuddly when we need him?) :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Question removed

I think this question should not have been removed, since it was not in any way asking for medical advice, per User:Kainaw/Kainaw's_criterion. Orgasms are not a medical issue. 93.125.165.43 (talk) 23:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree and have reinstated the paragraph. This is perhaps one of those "borderline cases" mentioned in User:Kainaw/Kainaw's_criterion, but if it's borderline, we need to discuss it before deletion. Marnanel (talk) 00:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

The question reinstated by Marnanel was not the first instance of that question from IP address 95.78.69.25. The first time it was asked I deleted it with the edit summary DNFT. The same question was immediately posted a second time by 95.78.69.25. I deleted it a second time and then posted a message on the Talk page for this IP address. See diff 1. Note that my primary argument was NOT that it was a medical question. My argument was, and still is, that this is not an appropriate question for Wikipedia, and certainly not for the Science Reference Desk.

Note that the text posted by 95.78.69.25 is not a question about the science of orgasm, or anything else of a scientific nature. Initially, the text asks for references or articles which might be relevant. (Wikipedia is full of references and articles!) Finally, there is the question … would I have had an orgasm? In between, there is a lengthy but irrelevant explanation of the User’s recent attempts at masturbation. This is not a question that science can answer in any satisfactory way because, among other reasons, it requires speculation and science is not based on speculation.

IP address 95.78.69.25 did not respond by accepting the situation and looking elsewhere, or refining his question. He continually restored the same question, despite it being deleted by me then Exploding Boy then TenOfAllTrades, and despite a number of good-faith edits on the IP Talk page. This IP address eventually posted essentially the same question six times until he was finally blocked for 31 hours by TenOfAllTrades. I suggest this is not the behaviour of a person genuinely seeking information. This is more likely the behaviour of someone intent on trolling. It is easy to take advantage of Wikipedia’s generosity and reluctance to censor, and in my view this IP address was intent on taking advantage.

Marnanel might be surprised at some of the other questions on the Science Reference Desk that have been deleted promptly in the interests of not feeding trolls. For example, see this deletion: diff 2. The consensus around Wikipedia seems to be that trolling should be deleted promptly. I am not in favour of Marnanel’s suggestion of discussing trolling before deletion. If a User has his post deleted because it looks like trolling it is not difficult for that User to re-post his request in such a way that it no longer looks like trolling.

If we are to debate this deletion, let’s debate whether the question was a genuine attempt to obtain information of an objective, scientific nature, or something else. Dolphin (t) 02:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of Kainaw's criterion, I use Jayron32's criterion. It has one part, rather than three, so for the sake of efficiency, it must be better: "Would responses to this question lead a reasonable person to take any course of action regarding their own bodies or health?" If the answer is yes, the question is for medical advice, and should not be answered. A question that asks "is my experience normal..." with regard to biological processes should not be answered. What should be said is "If you are concerned that your <insert biological process here> is not normal, see a qualified professional." End of story. If someone is asking if their orgasm experience is normal, responses are clearly in the realm of medical advice because they indicate a course of action regarding ones own body. Its that simple. If we give an answer one way or another, and he acts on that answer, and we are wrong, that is morally reprehensible. The best way to answer is to vaguely refer to a reference on the topic, and then tell them to take any individual concerns to a doctor. --Jayron32 04:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Jayron32, I think I've mentioned before that your criterion is ridiculous, because it would prevent us from saying that smoking causes cancer, emphysema, or any other disease. It's ridiculous to claim that stating this about smoking constitutes medical advice. Your ridiculous criterion is not why the medical advice policy exists. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:22, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I think telling people not to smoke is a good idea. Answering questions about whether or not their orgasm experience is "normal" is not... --Jayron32 03:49, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

(EC) Was it "a genuine attempt to obtain information of an objective, scientific nature"? I don't know, and there was certainly something trollish about the original wording of the question, but presumably to get past Kainaw it was re-worded for the Misc desk like this:

"Pre-orgasm feeling

"I'm looking for references regarding the feeling just before a person experiences an orgasm, how intense this feeling normally is, and how long it normally lasts. Please note, this is purely a question asking for references; it is in no way medical advice, since the question is not asking for diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment advice. Thank you for your time. 137.30.164.176 (talk) 23:40, 25 August 2010 (UTC)"

This was met there with the response:

"The book Human Sexual Response by Masters and Johnson is a classic reference that describes the phases of the Human sexual response cycle. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:48, 25 August 2010 (UTC)"

That's plenty "scientific" enough for me for this purpose. Truth is, I think the deleting/blocking editors were a maybe just a bit quick drawn here. Wikiscient (talk) 05:19, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

That was posted by the user on a different reference desk in a different form from the original question and, it should be noted, after the user was blocked. Exploding Boy (talk) 05:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

My point is in response to Dolphin's comment above that if a [non-trolling] "User has his post deleted because it looks like trolling it is not difficult for that User to re-post his request in such a way that it no longer looks like trolling."

Well, that's what this user did (albeit from a different IP from somewhere else in the world entirely). Was this user not, therefore, trolling? Tough call, especially with all the IPs and all, but in the end the user did get his/her question answered and seemed content enough with that! If that is not "not trolling" then what exactly would "not trolling" be...? Wikiscient (talk) 05:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

My larger concern at this point is the poster's use of multiple IPs to evade his block. Exploding Boy (talk) 05:14, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:ANI is thataway, though I should note that, reviewing the IPs in question, there may not be much that can be done, except WP:RBI, without the "B". --Jayron32 05:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikiscient has made three very good points:

1. The question as originally worded was trollish.

2. The person asking the question substantially re-worded his question and posted it on the Miscellaneous Reference Desk.

3. The re-worded question has been satisfactorily answered at the Miscellaneous Reference Desk.

Therefore the person asking the question has received the information he was looking for, and there will be no objection if the question, as originally worded, is deleted from the Science Reference Desk. Dolphin (t) 07:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

No objection here!

Wikiscient (talk) 09:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey, Bugs seems to have summarily deleted (as a top-level "minor" edit with no edit summary) the agreed-upon, consensus-as-per-the-talk-page-above approved version of the question-and-response at the Misc. desk. Could someone do something about that? I did not not object to that! Wikiscient (talk) 19:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I did an "undo" on the edit. Out of curiosity, why didn't you just do an undo yourself? Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I meant more "could someone talk to bugs, please?" Rather than spread the contention needlessly on this one myself. I've just been around this desk for a couple of days recently, but I get the impression that bugs can be problematic but handle-ably so. Thanks, anyway! Cheers, Wikiscient (talk) 20:10, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

That might have been the one where the OP is under suspension for block evasion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:43, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

We probably can't delete the question on the grounds of medical advice - but we certainly can delete it on the grounds that we don't accept posts of any kind from blocked users who are circumventing their block. We have deleted questions from blocked users many times in the past - and that's what should happen here. SteveBaker (talk) 20:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

¡Ay, caramba! Do I have to re-post it myself (as a non-blocked user) at the Sci desk in its form at the Misc desk...? This was in the end a good faith question that got some good responses of use to just about everyone, I should think. Why is there still this inclination to de-facto censorship in this case? Wikiscient (talk) 03:30, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

The question as asked at the Miscellaneous Desk might have been in the form of a good-faith question, but the question as asked at the Science Desk most definitely was not. It was trolling, pure and simple. The question was deleted and re-posted six times until the IP address was blocked. The person purported to be a young man beginning to experiment with masturbation but the repetitive posting of his message, and the assertive post on my User talk page showed this was anything but a young man genuinely seeking information. This is/was a person who took a delight in posting a lengthy and irrelevant account about his recent attempts at masturbation. This is trolling, and the consensus at Wikipedia is that trolling should be deleted promptly. The troll is currently blocked and we should do as much as possible to emphasise that his trolling won't be tolerated. Dolphin (t) 03:40, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Good grief, are we still beating this... dead horse? Exploding Boy (talk) 03:41, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

lol :)

I agree with your case as you argue it, Dolphin, and that the initial responses to the post were justifiable. It could have been -- and, in the event, it was -- handled differently, though. And I certainly saw some good faith from the start with this question, as full of unnecessary detail as it was.

BTW: why do you think the OP was a "young man"? There was nothing in the original post to suggest this, and in fact I would rather more expect this to be a question a young woman might ask, don't you think? Wikiscient (talk) 04:29, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I concede we have no knowledge of the OP's gender. I was influenced to assume I was dealing with a male, primarily because of the assertive way in which the OP kept re-posting the question in spite of good-faith requests to stop by myself and Exploding Boy; the assertive messages to myself and Exploding Boy on our User talk pages; and the fact that this person purported to be young and a first-time contributor despite the tell-tale way in which he or she confidently quoted WP:NOTCENSORED and Kainaw's criteria regarding medical advice. Dolphin (t) 05:34, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, all very trollish. And I would not be arguing this issue at all if it weren't for the acceptable re-wording and response to it at the Misc desk, and then that that had been removed by Bugs after everything had died down. Everything seems fine now, so let's just proceed from here, ok? Wikiscient (talk) 06:33, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

On orgasms and malicious computer code

I was thinking about these kinds of questions - which are obviously from people trolling for reactions, though I expect they will deny that profusely - and it occurred to me that the appropriate way to respond to such questions is simply to police wikipedia policy. The ref desks are traditionally a bit more loose than the encyclopedia proper, granted: people are less prone to using sourced material and more likely to give informed opinions, and I think that's fine for the ref desk. but when you have a suspicion that someone is only asking a question to get a rise, then the ref desk regulars should carefully police the responses the question gets to make sure that they are only the statements of reliable sources. For example, I don't know of any reliable sources that provide malicious computer code, so pretty much all answers to that question can be removed. Reliable sources on orgasms exist - Masters and Johnson, the Kama Sutra, a few others - so policing the responses to purely factual sources should destroy whatever visceral satisfaction the OP gets from asking leading questions.

I might make up a small template that says something like "This questions may be a hoax, a request for criminal assistance, an attempt generating dispute, or otherwise against Reference Desk guidelines. Please restrict responses to neutral, factual, sourced statements." We could attach the template at the top of any suspicious thread as a notice. what do you think? --Ludwigs2 17:14, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Excellent idea. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:18, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey, I like that idea. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I whipped up the template at {{RD-alert}}. looks like this:

This question may be inappropriate for the Reference Desk, and may precipitate non-productive arguments or disputes. Please restrict responses to neutral, factual, sourced statements.

feel free to tweak it. would it be useful to create a category for problematic questions, to make it easier to find repeat offenders? --Ludwigs2 17:28, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

... this is what we should be doing anyway (and I'm just as guilty for not doing so...) Aaronite (talk) 17:30, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

(but I do think it's a decent idea) Aaronite (talk) 17:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Very good. Should read "an attempt to create disputes". And the last phrase doesn't quite match the rest of the sentence. But it's looking good. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I quite like the idea, though we should be very careful with the wording. We don't want to use a template which will generate silly edit wars over whether or not it should be placed on a particular question, so we need to be cautious about implying that the post is in bad faith (however obvious it may be). After all, creating such meta-disputes would be quite satisfying to many a troll. Reminders to avoid getting sucked into back-and-forth bickering, and to resist the temptation to take the opportunity to crack jokes (at the expense of the OP or anyone else) would not be out of place, either. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Good point. Hence the weasel-word "may". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm...are you sure that big honkin' template won't just draw more attention to the question? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

How about we try it and find out? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:38, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

"May" is not a weasel word, Bugs. Unless, of course, you have incontrovertible proof they do definitely fall into this category. Which you'd be prepared to share with us, no doubt. "I suspect" does not even equal "charged", let alone "guilty as charged". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

A concern would be that we're going to get some editors crying "AGF!" even when it's obvious that it's from a troll or a banned user. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:38, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

As they should. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

~~You're wrong. You know a lot about a lot of things here, but socks ain't one of them.~~ ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, actually; I missed your phrase "even when it's obvious". Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:04, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

10-Roger. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:04, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Is a template available that is less big and honkin', as A Quest For Knowledge put it? It does look like a big klaxon. I don't think we need an icon, for instance. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:40, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I can redesign the template to be smaller - this is just the standard {{ombox}} alert. I guess the main stylistic question would be whether we want to (1) a banner like this, (2) a right-floating quote box, or (3) a flush-left notice like {{resolved}}. what do you all think? --Ludwigs2 17:50, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

P.s. edited the template to reflect some of the comments here. --Ludwigs2 17:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I just think that if you open up a ref desk page, your eyes are going to be naturally drawn to the question with 'alert' template. Not to mention people's natural curiosity towards something controversial. But hey, we can always try it and if it doesn't work, no harm, no foul. There's nothing wrong with experimenting. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:06, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

It wouldn't show at the top, you'd have to scroll down the page. But you might be right that it calls too much attention to itself. The "SPA" template is in small print. Maybe try this one with small print and see how it looks? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:23, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

"a request for criminal assistance" is not strictly against the reference desk guidelines. For good reason. Not only do many jurisdictions have amoral laws, it's also widely open to interpretation. And by interpretation I mean "guessing".

It would be a large mistake to officially sanction the sort of witch-hunt that results from trying to guess what people intend to do with the information referenced at this desk. We're not cops, it's not our job to investigate or interrogate people we think are 'suspicious'. We're not here to question people's motives. In fact AGF policies are there specifically to stop us from going down that unproductive road.

This question [25] should be informative. Would you want this person deleting threads here? APL (talk) 18:27, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh. Re-reading I see that Ludwigs' proposal would still allow us to provide references for such questions, which is good. ... But it might stop people from providing well-meaning warnings and advice, which could be bad. APL (talk) 18:30, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

(Copying from Help Desk) Restricting responses to neutral, factual, sourced statements is exactly what the reference desk should be doing anyway. Is there really any need to tag specific questions with this message, since it's pretty much ref desks ethos? And it kinda gives the impression that any questions not tagged with the message are open for speculation, debates and non-factual guess work. I'd also like to say, neither of the example questions you've given were trolling imo. Someone asking for computer viruses and someone asking if they've had an orgasm, while not really questions for the Reference Desk, I don't see how they are trolling 82.44.54.25 (talk) 18:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

All well and good, but if it's against RefDesk guidelines, then why would we answer it at all? Exploding Boy (talk) 18:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Why, pray tell, did you copy that trolling comment over here??? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing trolling about that post. You just happen to disagree with it. I agree with everything it said 100%.

Your hateful bias against IP editors is showing. You should probably apologies for your last remark. APL (talk) 21:09, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

And when someone does provide well-meaning warnings and advice, other editors will yell at them for being nannies. I wish you all could agree on the rules, but I suspect it's not possible, because many regular editors here have a very fixed idea of exactly what the RD's should be and should not be - and those ideas are often contradictory across users. Hence the endless discussions here about the same topics, with no resolution. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:36, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

"I wish you all could agree on the rules" - Are you somehow outside the community here, Bugs? You're quite vocal for a mere observer. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) because it's the ref desk. There are obvious topic-areas that leave themselves open to abuse; questions on sexuality and sexual preference, religious beliefs, destructive/anti-social activities, medical conditions, and etc can actually be perfectly valid, but they can also be questions designed solely to aggravate/irritate/gross out people with impunity. for instance, if someone were to ask the question: "Is it normal to puke up green slime with little things in it that look like they are alive", it's not exactly medical advice, and while it's possible that someone actually did throw up something like that, I'd myself bet real money that it's just some adolescent trying to get people to answer a stupid question about green slime with wiggly bits. and unfortnately, there's usually someone good-hearted enough on the ref desk to answer it. or maybe if someone asked the question "Are [insert your favorite race] people really [insert your favorite insult] the way that [insert your favorite hate-group] say they are?". Again, good money that that's just some adolescent trying to stir up a stupid debate between respondents, and good money that the effort will work. The alert here is to remind answerers that there grave suspicions about the question, and keep them from feeding the OP with the kind of response the OP may or may not be looking to get. it's just pure wp:DENY, without actually bothering to determine whether or not the OP is trying to cause trouble.

If the RD regulars were all perfect, we wouldn't need reminders like this. since we're not (or at least, the rest of you aren't - <smirk>) the reminder sure can't hurt. --Ludwigs2 18:51, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure anyone's pointed this out explicitly: if giving "requests for criminal assistance" was against the rules of the Reference Desk, it would require editors to make some sort of call on the legality of certain actions, which is something we're not allowed to do. Marnanel (talk) 18:59, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not true. We are not allowed to give legal advice, i.e. advising someone on what they should do. Observing that something is obviously going to cause legal trouble does not constitute giving legal advice. Telling someone not to break the law is not "giving legal advice" Telling some to go ahead, that's giving legal advice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:13, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Telling someone not to break the law in that kind of generic way you mention is one thing, but as soon as you comment on any specific activity, it starts becoming legal advice because you are providing them with your opinion that said activity is illegal. Matt Deres (talk) 19:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I think our past consensus, or near-consensus, has been that we don't give answers to requests for criminal assistance; but neither do we create a list of approved and disapproved topics; we remain ambiguous on what "criminal assistance" means and take it here to the talk page for individual cases. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:07, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Precisely. It's case by case (pardon the legalese). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:41, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, It primarily depends on how imaginative people feel. The harder people work to think up ways you might be a criminal, the more likely your thread might be deleted. Note that bad grammar, teenage slang, or an IP address will greatly increase the chance that we'll try to think up ways you might be a criminal. If you misspell a homonym forget having your question answered, you'll be lucky if we don't call the police!APL (talk) 20:56, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Cool! Support. Wikiscient (talk) 19:25, 26 August 2010 (UTC)