Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 79

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WordGirl/Justin Bieber

Is anyone else suspicious of the guy who keeps asking questions about voice actors on Word Girl (and other cartoons)? If it was just that I would assume he's simply an annoying kid, but he also occasionally asks questions about Justin Bieber which seem more obviously troll-ish. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:53, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Could you provide some diff links? I searched Entertainment, Miscellaneous, even Science and I can't find any questions about those two subjects, nor do I see how asking about those subjects is trollish. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 14:11, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It's annoying, but I don't see anything wrong otherwise. If you follow the edit history, that person has made legit edits to the wordgirl page. Aaronite (talk) 14:21, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is an example of a Bieber question. I don't find it annoying at all, I actually find it rather endearing. We should be reaching out to this kind of questioner – who is not exactly the RD's core constituency, I suspect – not stamping down on them. --Viennese Waltz 14:31, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Seems like we've had problems with that user before [1] Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 75#Jetsons Guy. At least they've moved on from their fascination with the Jetsons and pretending someone else is controlling their 'account'. Are they at least taking on board what's been told them this time (which I understand was the primary problem last time)? I don't really check out RDE much so can't comment on their questions otherwise. Edit: Actually may be not [2]. Edit2: BTW the user says they are blind, this may explain their fascination with voice actors. Nil Einne (talk) 17:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Bieber death rumors are common. It's entirely reasonable to ask about confirming them. It's not trolling to ask if a hoax is real. APL (talk) 20:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I've had a bit of interaction with them and the person says that they are blind and also that their screen reader doesn't work so well with certain pages. As mentioned, they've made a few legit edits to various pages. Although there are a lot of mis-spellings to them. Dismas|^(talk) 20:42, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

As bizarre as it may be, I believe it's a complete charade. Look at the history of the IP's talk page, especially when the IP was blocked where user was coming up crazy explanation to strange edits [3]. Another thing is the user made crazy edits about some sort of voice character to members of Canadian Indie Rock Band Broken Social Scene. Jason Collett, Emily Haines, Kevin Drew. This isn't Justin Bieber, it's an indie rock band. This doesn't seem like something a kid who can barely spell and obsessed about Wordgirl/Cyberchase would like or know about. Also if you look at those edits and others, you see that the spelling isn't consistent. Example: [4] --CutOffTies (talk) 13:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Building on the inconsistency that leads me to believe this is a troll, just used "curmudgeon", and spelled it right. [5] --CutOffTies (talk) 15:18, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, the questions aren't generally disruptive or rude, and if they weren't so frequent, I don't think they'd be questioned at all. This seems like some of the regulars we get at my library: Singled-minded and focused on one thing, asking again and again. We don't like them, but we don't kick them out either. Maybe a few too many questions sometimes, but there is no rule against that. I note that the questions often go unanswered. I believe this is a non-issue. Aaronite (talk) 16:11, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, but this message on my talk page (in response to this message to the IP) seems unnecessarily problematic. I'm starting to get the impression of just plain trouble-making behavior on this one myself. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 00:40, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

So just to review then, you apparently subst:ed a graphical warning template onto the talk page of an editor who professes to be blind and using a screen-reader that has problems rendering complex items, and the editor told you they were blind and using a problematic screen-reader, and you are finding a problem with that - does that sum it up? Franamax (talk) 01:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) LOL, Franamax – I think you really got me on this one! It was a snap judgment, heavily biased by the "suspicion" of others (above) and a quick scan of the IPs previous edits, and then after having only glanced at the diff of the message on my talk page in a state of distraction and pre-occupation. You are completely right, though: it does not seem to be "unnecessarily problematic" at all, and I retract my comment.

The truth is, I usually tend to err in the other direction concerning any sort of "questionable" behavioral cases. And right now (unless further developments indicate otherwise) I am in complete agreement with Viennese Waltz's comment above, "We should be reaching out to this kind of questioner – who is not exactly the RD's core constituency, I suspect – not stamping down on them."

Thank you for calling me out on this one, Franamax. My fault completely. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 02:12, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that the user never claimed to be blind until his attempts to be difficult backed him into a corner where his only excuse left was "Oh - didn't I mention that I'm blind?" So, there is little reason to accept his claim. -- kainaw ™ 01:51, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh sure, my own eyes are wide open here (just to be offensive all by myself) - but no goddamn way are we going to comdemn a disabled user for being disabled, so long as I draw unblocked breath. I'm familiar with one blind, and one deaf, editor in good standing, so I will be looking for extraordinary evidence. I never said I don't see problems here... Franamax (talk) 02:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I am in complete agreement with that sentiment, Franamax. And, sincerely, thank you for catching my own hasty "judgment" here before I directed it at the editor. I said (above) that I trusted you to correct me when I'm wrong, and I'm glad I did. :) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 02:49, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

My judgement of him has nothing to do with his claim of disability. It is purely based on his own inability to keep his story straight - which indicates that he is just trolling. -- kainaw ™ 03:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Yep, I'm aware of that possibility. Nope, not seen the conclusive or persuasive evidence thereof. Insofar as keeping who edits what straight, the solution is to register an account and log in and log out on a consistent basis, which I previously suggested to this editor I think. Are you at the point where you will demand that and enforce it with blocks? Alternatively, do you have evidence where this editor's questions are enticing RD responders to somehow go overboard? Note that I don't necessarily count "too many questions" as a valid response, unless you can show me some pretty compelling evidence. Franamax (talk) 03:41, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I should emphasise what I said above, we have clear evidence this user has acted in bad faith in the past. Unless anyone really believes the Annika hacked in to my 'account' story. This doesn't of course mean this user is acting in bad faith now, although I would note only about 12 days ago, they still appeared to be claiming Annika really existed [6]. BTW this user first claimed they were blind [7] which was after they were warned for some article related stuff but before their first edit to the RD. Looking in to this more, I would actually accept their claim at face value. The fascination with voice actors is great (which as me an Aaronite mentioned wouldn't be surprising for someone who is blind) and they seem to be saying they identified people by voice a lot. Nil Einne (talk) 06:30, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Why would a blind person be specifically interested in identifying voice actors? It's not as though screen actors would be more recognizable to them. APL (talk) 14:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps because voice actors aren't always credited in the same way screen actors are. It's easy to find out what actor was in a certain film. It's not so easy to find out who voiced the postman or whoeever in some random cartoon. In addition, voice actors usually provide a variety of different character voices which complicates matters further. 24.130.69.54 (talk) 14:59, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

This whole discussion over whether they are blind or not is irrelevant. They say they're blind, so lets just take it as true. There's no way to prove it one way or the other, and we're not going to treat an editor differently because of whatever real life issues they might have. So the issue here is; are their questions disruptive and problematic? No, imo they are not. Questions about a cartoon and a singer, whatever the intention behind asking them, are not in any way disrupting the reference desk. Answer them, don't answer them, whatever. This whole debate is a waste of time. 86.73.128.17 (talk) 14:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Apparently the IP doesn't agree with the "answer them, don't answer them, whatever" [8], [9], [10] --CutOffTies (talk) 15:04, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree he or she seems a little to "enthusiastic". In terms of the questions on the RD, as I don't frequent RDE I can't comment on the issues there my current impression is some people find them annoying some don't so it's probably not yet reached the level where we should do anything about it. If they ask the same or very similar questions over and over again (rather then different questions) and ignore any answers given then this is definitely an issue, we've dealt with this before particularly Bowei Huang, that global warming/Al Gore/Penn/Teller person, and that interracial marriage guy but if I'm not mistaken this isn't an issue any more. In any case our normal practice is to start removing such questions until they get the idea. If they continually pester people off RD for answers, we've also had that before e.g. planet colour person and again it could be something we may have to deal with. However those responses aren't that recent and in any case I would leave it up to the person particularly if they're experienced users. If they've told 204 to stop and they don't then they can take it up in appropriate places. It's not truly an RD issue per se. If it doesn't bother them, then it's not my business. The fact they seem to think they deserve an answer is annoying but provided they aren't being disruptive because of it, well ultimately not my concern. Nil Einne (talk) 04:04, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

But the voices would. Plenty of their comments mention how they think they recognise X is Y voice actor. Remember for someone who is blind voices would be a key thing they notice so it's not that unlikely they'll start to recognise them (in fact I would presume it's not uncommon the voice is a key part of who someone they don't know is) and the difference between voice actors and actors is not likely to be that clear cut. This would also somewhat explain why they may know voice actors who seem relatively obscure people. They may find out who that voice was from various sources (asking people to read the credits, finding out online, recognising them) and then go online to find out more about them. The fact that this person also plays in an independent band is not related to why they know them not that different for example from the fact many people know what the current governor of California looks like, even some people who don't know he's the governor of California perhaps even a few who don't even know what California is. Obviously many blind people are not going to care, but a fascination with voice actors is not that different from a fascination with actors and many sighted people may say hey isn't that actor who plays Z in show A or want to know who is going to play B in C. I've also seen some stuff from the same IP on wikia and I'm seeing a similar thing. In particular, I see some comments like recognising the music in the background and other stuff which wouldn't be surprising for someone who is blind. While it may be an elaborate hoax, from all I've seen I suspect it's true. This doesn't excuse any other misbehaviour of course nor prove they haven't acted in bad faith in other cases. Nil Einne (talk) 03:54, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

If he claims to be blind, the obsession with voice actors seems pretty good evidence of that, even it wasn't said earlier. Aaronite (talk) 04:51, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

To answer Adam Bishop's initial question: No, I'm not "suspicious", and it doesn't matter if I'm "suspicious" as long as this person is not disrupting the Reference Desk, which is not occurring. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:53, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not blind, and even to me the voices of actors can be rather striking. For example, Don S. Davis has a voice so distinctive that if you're not watching some film that you would never expect him to be in due to his usual restriction to sci-fi (i.e. Cliffhanger (film)) he is still instantly recognizable from all the other actors in the world. So I think such an interest is understandable, especially for the blind. Wnt (talk) 06:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

No date headers

Why isn't the RD/S making date headers since October 22? --Chemicalinterest (talk) 11:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Its working fine for me... Mattopaedia ^{Say G'Day!} 15:03, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually it's not. The current headers were manually added by User:Deor up to 3 days later [11] Nil Einne (talk) 15:10, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

My guess would be something in the page is confusing User:Scsbot. You can wait a few days and see if the issue resolves itself or ask User talk:Ummit (I believe he monitors this page anyway) Nil Einne (talk) 15:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The bot occasionally fails to add the header on other desks as well when there is heavy editing at about the time it is supposed to add them (i.e., midnight UTC). I don't know whether that's because of an actual edit conflict or whether it is designed that way to play safe. Note that the same bot edited RD/S meanwhile because of archiving[12], without any obvious problems.—Emil J. 15:30, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Interestingly enough, now that I check the logs, I see that both Nil Einne and Emil are correct. The bot hit an honest-to-goodness edit conflict (which it isn't smart enough to retry) on the Science desk on October 23. Then, for the next few days, something kept confusing it, and one of its double-check safeties caused it to abort its botched edit before submitting.

As of today, it looks like it's fine on the Science desk, although it seems to have hit some other little glitch on Mathematics...

—Steve Summit (talk) 04:48, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Section removed

Here, I removed a personal attack. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree with the removal. A block would probably be warranted as well, though I don't have time at the moment to prepare all the details for a report. Matt Deres (talk) 18:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec)No. A block must be properly earned. I worked hard for my two blocks and object to that effort being devalued. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 07:08, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

That'll be Jetsons guy attacking himself, then? Shenanigans. 213.122.66.235 (talk) 07:05, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Difficult to say. They do both geolocate to the same area of Canada but with different ISPs. Both IPs appear to be resonably unchanging. The Jetson's person has claimed his or her friends sometimes edit from their computer, presuming we AGF that this is really true it may be one of their friends. Nil Einne (talk) 07:55, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Just a note that the IP (coming from the University of Manitoba) has been schoolblocked by NawlinWiki for a range of vandalism. It could easily have been the same editor, using a university computer instead of his home computer. Looie496 (talk) 17:05, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Didn't notice it was a university IP. 'Both' seem to 'know' a Wendal [13] [14] Nil Einne (talk) 20:24, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

another removal

Here, I removed a new section: (diff). While we all love and respect Ellen Page, this is not a science question, and I'm feeling less WP:AGF-y after our above debate. Nimur (talk) 16:22, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree it should be removed, and have done so again, inviting the poster to discuss it here before re-posting. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 20:00, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

But there seems to be some insistence that it remain. Different IPs keep restoring it to the desk: 99.251.211.225 and then 109.91.187.162. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 20:10, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Note that those are blocked as tor exit nodes, so it's essentially just some vandal abusing open proxies at this point. WP:RBI. DMacks (talk) 20:26, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I semi'ed for a bit and pinged a checkuser to see if there's a coherent underlying problem here. DMacks (talk) 20:38, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Note: I have no objection to other admins unprotecting without consulting me, though they take responsibility for any new SPI that arise to edit-war here. DMacks (talk) 21:00, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I was about to restore it myself, and I've been registered (with over 7,000 edits, the usual couple of —ahem— barnstars and, so far, no blocks or starring appearances at WP:ANI) for over two years. Although the question may be trollish, at least one of the answers was non-trivial. Throw out not the baby with the bathwater. [Ellen Page (of whom I had never heard) wouldn't.] —— Shakescene (talk) 20:54, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Fruit of the poisoned tree. Besides, letting obvious troll nonsense stand simply tells the trolls that they can do whatever they want. For obvious reasons, this is a poor precedent to set. → ROUX ₪ 20:57, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Usually I would have left something like this completely alone. My involvement this time was impulsive. Now I regret having done little more than further complicate things on this one; should have just stayed out of it. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 21:02, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

A non-invasive question about the actress Ellen Page might be acceptable at the Entertainment Ref. Desk. But the invitation to speculate about this living person being gratuitously used in a riddle question is rightly deleted because "material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion" (quoted from WP:BLP policy). @Shakescene, this would not be a reason to object if you want to restore the question in a person-neutral form. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:29, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Restoring this question, in any form, would be asinine. "Is there anything that Person X can't do?" is a stupid non-question; the list of answers is infinitely long. → ROUX ₪ 21:37, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

But that wasn't what the question was; that was just the title. The question itself restricts the capabilities in question to things that some other people actually can do, and points out that the choice of person to be used as an example is random (arbitrary). In other words, it's not really a question asking whether a specific individual has unlimited capabilities, but merely a question as to whether people in general are unequal as far as what they are capable of, which is a much more reasonable question. And while it may be obvious to you and me that the answer to that question is "yes", that isn't necessarily clearly obvious to everybody. For example, the New Age article describes adherents of the Human Potential Movement as believing that "the human mind has much greater potential than that ascribed to it and is even capable of overriding physical reality." For people who take such a belief system as axiomatic, it's not a stretch to think that, for example, a 5'1" actress might be capable of breaking the men's pole vault record. Furthermore, from a rigorous scientific perspective, it's nontrivial to prove otherwise. Although the question may not have been asked in good faith, it's a nontrivial question that's capable of being addressed scientifically. And as the thread has been recently modified (by someone other than me), only nontrivial responses to that question currently remain. It's my hope that ref desk editors will allow the current version of the thread to be kept. Red Act (talk) 08:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.200.79.122 (talk) 10:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

It's started at the Hum desk too, now. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 21:54, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Problem with Science RefDesk?

Anyone know why the [edit] links have vanished from all the Science RefDesk queries? All the other RefDesks seem to be OK. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 21:32, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

The page has been protected due to editwarring. → ROUX ₪ 21:36, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

It is semi-protected. Registered editors can ask and answer questions. IP users cannot. We have a lot of helpful and knowledgable IP contibutors, not to mention a lot of IP querents. Please stop edit-warring over this, including those of you who keep reverting to the right version. There are instances where immediate removal is necessary. I do not see that necessity here. (Nor do I see it for restoring the thread). The point is: stop edit-warring so IPs can edit the Science Desk again. Thank you. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:50, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

No. → ROUX ₪ 21:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Then unprotect it and block. Or live with the lame edit war, but the desks really should be open for everyone, IPs and registered users alike. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:54, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Please direct your ire where it should be placed: the block-evading troll with the Ellen Page obsession. → ROUX ₪ 21:56, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

No ire involved. But keeping a large percentage of querents from asking questions sort of defies the purpose of the desks. Better to ignore what you see as trolling. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:58, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

The same argument holds for any trolling, and is equally invalid. → ROUX ₪ 22:08, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protection is an excellent choice for certain articles that are perennial vandalism targets. The burden imposed in that case is not high; all you have to do if you want to contribute is register an account and make a few edits/wait a few days. That seems pretty reasonable for substantive contributions.

On the refdesk, on the other hand, it's truly an extreme measure. The refdesk is for people to ask questions. Its effectiveness is seriously compromised if you have to wait days to do that. Please find another solution. --Trovatore (talk) 22:23, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Solutions include:

Ignoring it - nope, that just enables trolls, and will quickly render the refdesks completely useless
Blocking - nope, coming through Tor nodes apparently
Reverting on sight - tiresome, given this troll's tenacity, therefore
Protecting - is the only option. Sorry for the IPs, but that is not our fault. They can register accounts and ask in a few days.

Unless you have a better suggestion? Thought so. → ROUX ₪ 22:27, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Ignoring is in fact better than semiprotection in this case. And you don't have to be unpleasant. --Trovatore (talk) 23:35, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

No, it's not; ignoring merely enables the trolls. Any perception of unpleasantness is just that: your perception, and was not intended or implied. → ROUX ₪ 23:44, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, things like "Unless you have a better suggestion? Thought so" are not exactly welcoming of others' opinions. Concluding they have nothing else to contribute after giving them ZERO opportunity to do so seems the height of rudeness and closed-mindedness to me. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 00:24, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

There are only four possible solutions. Can you think of a fifth? → ROUX ₪ 00:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I can: revert on sight lazily. 213.122.2.84 (talk) 09:09, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Roux, you're not listening. If you've already pre-determined "there are only 4 possible solutions", it's pointless to ask if anyone can think of a 5th. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:39, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

So propose another solution instead of complaining that I haven't. → ROUX ₪ 23:04, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I just did! That was a serious suggestion. What makes reverting on sight tiresome is the amount of diligence. Be less diligent. Problem solved. 213.122.50.15 (talk) 03:14, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) I've just walked in on this and seen the RD/S is now being targeted by edit-warring sockpuppet accounts. I've semi-protected the desk for 6 hours. If another admin sees it fit to lift this before then, please go right ahead. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:25, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Roux - this has been discussed before. There is clearly no consensus to semiprotect the refdesks in these cases. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 23:09, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:CCC may be of interest to you. You may also wish to talk to the various admins who actually enacted the semiprot, not me. → ROUX ₪ 23:13, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, as I mentioned above, that was me. I came late to this, saw the mass sockpuppetry/disruption on the Science desk and made a judgement call before I was even aware of this thread. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:21, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, consensus can certainly change. In this case, it clearly hasn't. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 00:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that "Consensus Can Change" is not the same as "I'll just do whatever the heck I want because, hey, who knows? Consensus might have changed to support me!" APL (talk) 23:24, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

It is entirely inappropriate to semiprotect the Reference Desk from edits by new users and IPs. They are the primary sources of asking the questions. Block and revert on sight. Eventually the trolls gets bored and do something else. Blocking all new users and IPs is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The infraction in question (wanting to keep a stupid thread) is vastly less disruptive than the protection. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:24, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Per Kurt's "go right ahead" statement and the general sense of this discussion, I'm unprotecting. Nyttend (talk) 23:40, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that semi-protection was such a bad idea, and I'd almost suggest doing it long term. Noting on the ref desk needs immediate answers, the ref desk is prone to abuse, and so restricting questions to registered users would cut down on a whole lot of random crap. just my 2¢. --Ludwigs2 00:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

A huge percentage of the good edits on the desk comes from IPs; the whole point of the RD is that anyone (esp. people who don't use Wikipedia regularly) can ask questions; most of the "random crap" is provided by registered users in my experience. This is a horrible idea. If we want to get rid of random crap, let's create rules that make it impossible to post. Attempting to limit the random crap by limiting participation is completely silly. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:17, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Now Humanities has been semiprotected? Can we knock it off, guys? Honestly a few reverts is not a big deal. A lot worse than shutting down the whole desk to new contributors. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:17, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

A few? More like one every couple of minutes for almost four hours, with well over a dozen (I think closer to two dozen at this point; I'm not even noticing individual names anymore) sockpuppets. → ROUX ₪ 00:20, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The harm seems minimal — he's being annoying, that's all. He's not even being disruptive in a strict sense except for violating the reverts. I really think this is not worth semiprotecting. Revert it. If you miss a reversion for 10 minutes, or decide you've had enough for one night, no one will suffer. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

If the vandal were merely annoying those of us who monitor the Ref Desk pages, then I would agree that protection (half or whole) would be the proverbial "elephant gun to a sparrow". However, Ellen Page is a real person and the vandal is bandying her name about in inappropriate contexts. That's what we need to stop, not just revert. And to preempt the response that the vandal is not saying anything negative about Ms Page, we don't know how countless repetitions of her name and/or silly responses to even sillier fake questions will affect her. Our happiest course is to prevent it from happening at all, as best we can. Bielle (talk) 00:47, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. When we semiprotect, we basically shut off the desks to a significant portion of its users as well as several (regular and non-regular) answerers. For someone who wants to ask a question, this is effectively the same as there not being a refdesk - so the equivalent article space response would be to delete the article (shutting it off from its users). I know that BLP issues are serious but our job here is to ask and answer questions - ~~protecting random young Canadian starlets is secondary~~. I think Ellen Page will get along just fine without the semiprotection - the refdesks will not. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 07:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Sluzzelin, Trovatore, Zain, Mr 98 & co. Don't semi-protect the RDs; it is an over-reaction that does more harm than good. There are enough eyes on the RDs to quickly revert any serious vandalism. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:33, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Well although that Ellen Page question wasn't that terrible, BLP which is policy will always trump any concerns people may have about the importance of the RD. This doesn't mean the semi protection was necessary, but you can't approachs this suggesting or thinking the BLP concerns can come secondary. Nil Einne (talk) 09:36, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Nil - I understand the seriousness of BLP issues but I wasn't clear above. I know that we need to follow the foundation's resolution and all that, but the encyclopedia comes first - ~~the policies are secondary~~. Without the encyclopedia, there will be no need for policies. That's what I meant. Our primary aim here is to have a functioning refdesk which, in the case of Humanities, we currently don't. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 09:50, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Our policies are part and parcel of being a free encylopaedia. They aren't secondary and any argument which claims they are falls flat on its face. So yes, we do hide suspected copyvios (and deleted them if they are confirmed) even if they reduce the utility of the encylopaedia in your eyes, we do remove info from articles if there are BLP concerns while we discuss the concerns even if that reduces the utility of the encyclopaedia in your eyes, we do exclude unfree images even if there are currently no better alternatives if we resonably believe they can be created even if that reduces the utility in your eyes. Importantly here, as I've emphasised the RD is not sovereign, and I'm not even sure if everyone is going to agree it is an essential part of the encyclopaedia so if we start to treat it like it is and damn to everything else we risk destroying the RD. This doesn't mean I'm saying the semi protection was warranted or necessary. Simply that you cannot ignore whatever concerns there may be because you say the RD is too important to be semi-protected. Nil Einne (talk) 10:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)We are not deciding between semiprotection vs BLP violations - we're deciding between semiprotection vs reverting-BLP-violations-manually (perhaps with oversight). The additional BLP exposure from reverting in the latter case is marginal and is not worth closing off the desks to people without autoconfirmation privileges. And no one is talking about "damn to everything else". Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:17, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

My point was, it clearly depends on the specific case. In this specific case, looking in to the situation I agree it wasn't necessary since the BLP issues were minor and the level wasn't extreme and being handled fine via revetrs. This doesn't mean semiprotection would never be justified. For example, if someone starts spamming allegations of rape and murder or some other serious crime of named person, including an address, photo and other identifying info to such an extent even manual reversions are unlikely to prevent people from seeing it, semi protection is likely justified until a solution could be found. You cannot claim the RD would always trump BLP (as you suggested initially), or any other policy. It won't. As I've said, they are part and parcel or what we are. You need therefore to consider the policy, and consider whether semi-protection is necessary under that policy (whatever policy), while also considering the great disruption it would cause to using the RD. What you don't do is say the RD is so important that we don't need to consider it, as you appeared to be suggesting to me. Nil Einne (talk) 10:27, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Okay I shouldn't have suggested that the refdesk is above BLP - that's not true. What I was trying to say was what I said in my previous post and that semiprotection seriously hampers the functioning of the refdesk. So it should only be used as a very short-term last resort. If you check that previous discussion, you'll see that there was consensus to use semiprotection in certain cases (e.g. if the vandal is using some kind of script). I definitely don't think that we should never consider semiprotection - but it should only be used in extreme cases. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 11:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

P.S. I would also be careful about pushing the consensus angle. In the last discussion, there was clearly no concensus that semiprotection was never justified. This is an important thing, because policy has never said that the RD can't be semiprotected. It's clear there is consensus given the unique nature of the RD, protection should be used very sporadically but there's no reason to think it's going to be completely exempted and I don't see why you believe the default option would be to ignore wikipedia protection policy and never protect the RD. In fact the protection policy even says "Wikipedia:Sandbox and other sandboxes should also not ordinarily be protected" which would suggest even the Sandbox is not completely exempted from semi-protection if it ever becomes necessary. Nil Einne (talk) 10:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I was saying above that there is no consensus to semiprotect "in these cases". I.e. cases when manually reverting will also work. In fact, if you look at the bottom of that thread, you'll see that I do agree with semiprotection in some cases. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 11:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Apologies then. As one final point, while semi protection is particularly disruptive on the RD, it's also can be considered fairly disruptive since we aren't just an encylopaedia but an encylopaedia anyone can edit. Many people don't want to edit and that's fine, but of course the more difficult it is for people to edit the less we are fulfilling our goal of being an encylopaedia anyone can edit and we do often get complaints (a common issue on the main page). When the talk page is protected as well, that's even worse of course (I believe the norm in such cases is to open a secondary talk page). Nil Einne (talk) 20:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Am I not even allowed to question the removal of an RD/S section here? -- 124.157.254.112 (talk) 12:04, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

That was a mistake. People do make them. See my talkpage for a reply to your question. → ROUX ₪ 12:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. My question that had been removed was:

Was this removal by Roux really necessary? Am I really the only one who finds Red Act's answer and BenRG's response intriguing?

I understand from your talk page that you, Roux, consider any question that was in any was derived from the original post to be so poisoned that it merits removal. I strongly disagree with that and would like to see the section restored as Red Act's answer raises an extra level of self reference over the classic "the statement on the opposite side of this card it false/true" than I have seen before, and BenRG's response brings up serious questions of including the reasoners themselves in the consistent logical systems under discussion. I will, however, refrain from reverting your removal myself as I don't wish to contribute to this edit war. -- 124.157.218.101 (talk) 05:24, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I do not understand why one troll can tire about about a dozen editors. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 12:58, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

lol - you've obviously never had kids. one 2-year-old can can tire out any number of adults by simply running from one thing to the next and tossing them all on the floor. it takes almost no time or energy to do that, and it takes much more time and energy to clean it up; the first is fun, the second a drag. 2-year-olds are the basic functional model for internet trolls, compounded by the fact that you can't effectively spank them. --Ludwigs2 16:13, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

And now Humanities

Someone has now semi-protected the Humanities desk. As an unregistered user, I grumble. --208.76.104.133 (talk) 04:10, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I see that was mentioned above already. I'd delete my comment but I guess that's against the rules here. --208.76.104.133 (talk) 04:11, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

The Humanities desk is now semiprotected for nearly 8 hours! Guys, this is not an acceptable way to deal with excessive sockpuppetry on the desks. Please lift the semiprotection. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:02, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Done -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 09:58, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Yay! 213.122.2.84 (talk) 10:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

(EC) FWIW I agree with this and asked for it to be unprotected myself as there is clearly no problem at the current time, the sockpuppet's last account was Illbebacktomorrow and they haven't vandalised the RDS in a few hours. It's probably better to make a request somewhere else since I doubt the RD talk page is as watched by generic admins as say RFPP Nil Einne (talk) 10:08, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Archive question

Is it ok to replace the question in archived form, whilst I don't like it, it might solve the problem - worked here Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#Sarah_Palin. ? Sf5xeplus (talk) 14:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I categorically oppose any measure that enables trolls, makes a mockery of the point of this page, and enables block evasion. There is absolutely no reason why blocked editors should be allowed to have their edits stand; doing so ensures that blocking becomes of even less use than it currently is. → ROUX ₪ 14:37, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know they weren't blocked until after the question was removed (and the question itself was not the cause of the block - it's harmless if dumb) - whilst I'm not defending the question as 'good' - I don't see the need to remove all posts of a blocked editor. And I'm fairly hopeful it might solve the disruption problem.Sf5xeplus (talk) 14:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

They were blocked for editwarring and using multiple accounts to do so. They are continuing to editwar and use multiple accounts. You are suggesting that we should reward this behaviour by allowing the editwarred content to stay in? → ROUX ₪ 14:49, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not a reward, but it would be an ackowledgement that "they win". Which, as humilating as that may be, might at least end the disturbance. (That's what I would do if it were just me here, but it's not so I won't push it; I would be in favor of a "negotiated settlement" of this issue though if such a thing were supported in some form by others). I guess the hope now is that, since we are many and the "disruptor" is (presumably) just one, he or she will get bored and move on before we get tired of reverting this now otherwise perfectly acceptable question-and-answer. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 14:57, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that it's not 'perfectly acceptable' (for one thing, the socker has already gotten multiple answers), allowing the question to stand sets a poor precedent for future socking; it is explicitly telling sockpuppeteers that as long as they hammer long enough they will get their way. This more or less renders the entire blocking and socking policies completely obsolete. → ROUX ₪ 15:00, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Could you let it be tried?Sf5xeplus (talk) 15:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

No, for the reasons outlined above. → ROUX ₪ 15:07, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

ok leave it with you.Sf5xeplus (talk) 15:11, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Here is my opinion on the entire thing. Stupid questions are not disruptive. Disruptions are disruptive. When we respond to stupid questions with overbearing actions and week-long debates, we create disruption (... out of a stupid question, no less). Let's not play in to this - let's just ignore the stupid question, or answer it accurately (a correct, concise, scientific answer will bore the OP, and they will decide to leave anyway). Nimur (talk) 15:11, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

They've already gotten answers. They are just trolling and playing games. → ROUX ₪ 15:17, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Agree with what Nimur said. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 15:19, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

So you are saying that we should just allow serial sockpuppetry to stand? Well, that's good. I guess we can delete WP:SPI then. And since clearly we are okay with rewarding socking to get around blocks, I guess there's no point in blocking anymore either, so we can just remove that userright from the sysop flag. Anything I missed? → ROUX ₪ 15:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think you forgot your sarcasm tags. Hasn't this question in all its forms been deleted? If so, then they don't have their answers. Vimescarrot (talk) 15:38, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

At least a few of the socks have reposted answers that were provided. And I wasn't being all that sarcastic; what I was saying is very much the logical conclusion of what people are suggesting. → ROUX ₪ 15:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Nimur. A question about Ellan Paige, even if stupid, is not disruptive. Semi-protecting a couple of reference desks and spawning a huge talk page section is disruptive. Buddy431 (talk) 16:13, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

It was the editwarring and sockpuppetry that were disruptive. The question itself was just a waste of space. The user in question knows this, obviously; the whole thing is pure trolling and I am frankly astonished that people are defending it. → ROUX ₪ 16:16, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is defending trolling and sockpuppetry. We are just objecting to your disproportionate way of dealing with it. And your sarcasm and misrepresentation of othere editors' positions does not help your case either. Gandalf61 (talk) 18:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we need to be realistic here. Regardless of what mistakes were made in the way this was handled, the OP in this case was clearly intending to be disruptive. They asked a question they probably knew was borderline BLP. When it was removed, as they likely haad been hoping it was, they launched a mass sockpuppetry war. They didn't just suddenly happen to learn how to use these after their question was removed. This was surely the intention all along. You may say the question shouldn't have been removed in the first place but the question was the borderline BLP one who's removal it's difficult to contest (and which Nimur was the first to remove it). So it's difficult to say the removal itself was improper and it seemed to have consensus here anyway. It's ultimately not possible for us to know whether the OP is just someone with an infactuation with some random star who isn't aware of BLP, or a troll. But if we AGF it's the former then there's no reason not to remove the question explaining to the OP why. And if it is a troll, we have no way of knowing precisely how they're going to respond, many just give up. Once it has been removed and the OP comes back to edit war, AGF becomes harder although we do sometimes get people who appear to genuinely believe we aren't entitled to remove their questions in accordance to policy. In any case the default way of dealing with edit wars whether a troll or a clueless user is always going to be warn, revert and eventually ask for a block. After the block and the OP comes back with more edit warring, the default way of dealing with that sort of behaviour would be more reverts and blocks. When it starts to be come clear the OP isn't giving up any time soon, and a range block isn't feasible then we can begin to ask whether it would have been better to deal with it in a different way but by that it's a bit late and the way we got there was by following a perfectly resonable and normal course of action.

What to do after then is not I would say clear cut. Since this question wasn't terrible, we could just let the original question stand (perhaps removing it later), and hope they give up. It would be great if they do, but that's difficult to say. The psychology of trolls is complicated, I think Avril and LC have shown that. They may see it as a victory and a good sign they should repeat it in the future since eventually they will win. If they are like most trolls and can't help but give their identity e.g. by mentioning Ellen Page then great we know who we are dealing with in the future so can try to respond to it appropriately. If not, we can easily end up with the same situation. We can try to stop them this time around, hoping they give up and decide it's not worth it, they can't win. That would be great but of course the risk there is they may see the more reverts, discussion etc as an even bigger victory. Then there's also the issue of how these disruptions are seen by the outside world and others who may want to follow in their footsteps (considering the similarities, Avril does come to mind).

In other words, while I'm not saying continuing to quickly revert after it's become clear the OP is a troll with a set up enabling them to mass disrupt the RD is the best course of action, I think it's also difficult to say it's the wrong one (except for the semi protection). Unless we have a psychological assessement of this specific troll, it's difficult to know how they will react to things so it's difficult to know what would be the best way to respond. I agree the large discussions are unwise, but I don't know if they are avoidable in cases like this.

Nil Einne (talk) 20:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

My favorite source of entertainment

This place is hilarious. I read the ref desks as much for comedy as information. Thanks everyone! Aaronite (talk) 02:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

It's like an interactive sitcom 92.243.189.2 (talk) 10:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Beware the tale of the little boy who when asked why he never went out to play answered "Because all my friends are on TV". WP:HOLICs should take a WP:WB sometimes. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:15, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a great irony for a regular editor to recommend this. Aaronite (talk) 19:31, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, you're probably right about that; one should be careful about being a wiki wonk. on the other hand, anyone who tunes to this place as a form of entertainment really needs to get out of the house and get laid. Once they do (and realize how much more fun that is than this), they'll use that for entertainment and come back here whenever they feel like wonking with the rest of us. --Ludwigs2 16:06, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

See my comment above to Cuddlyable3. Plus once your married, it's game over. My wife wouldn't appreciate my going out on the prowl. Aaronite (talk) 19:31, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

That's because ~~yore~~ ~~your~~ you're not paying HER attention.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:01, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

errrr... pardon me for phrasing it quite this way, but even spousal sex is more fun than watching people squabble on wikipedia. Of course, you don't need to get out of the house for that (unless you're feeling adventurous, or trying to rekindle that 'spark'), but the point still holds. --Ludwigs2 20:18, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

"O, wad some Power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as others see us!

It wad frae monie a blunder free us,

An' foolish notion."

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Burns

—Wavelength (talk) 19:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Not everyone can get out of the house. Vimescarrot (talk) 21:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

An example of the problem. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:09, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Clever, took me longer than I'd care to admit to get that one. (There's also an off button you can press on most computers, if that's stopped working, a brown paper bag over the head makes the problem seem to go away, don't forget airholes though, or the effect may be permanent).Sf5xeplus (talk) 05:49, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Curious phenomenon - Medical Advice?

This question on the Science Desk is almost certainly a request for diagnosis. Before I remove it, I'd like some feedback from some other regulars, since there are already responses. Nimur (talk) 02:02, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The visitor claims to have carefully considered the "no medical advice" policy, but still phrases the question in personal terms. It would be a simple matter to make it "acceptable" by simply removing all reference to personal experience, so it seems perhaps a bit disingenuous to so blatantly not to have done so if as they say they understand the policy. My inclination would be to move the question-and-responses as they are now to the person's talk page, along with a note saying basically this. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 02:37, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't seriousness, or lack of it, have some bearing on the definition of "medical"? Would a question which asked us to identify something which turned out to be a hangnail be medical advice? 213.122.50.15 (talk) 03:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Who judges that it's a hangnail and not some horrible disease that looks like a hangnail to our untrained eyes? APL (talk) 03:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The same people who judge that a question about, say, boating, or spaghetti, is not a request for medical advice: us. Just because a question pertains to the body doesn't mean that only doctors can ethically offer an answer. We can know some things about bodies without fear of being wrong. Otherwise, as I say, we'd have to be afraid to answer all questions just in case they were medical; we'd have to refrain from hazarding guesses even about what the body is. It might be a boat, or some spaghetti. Who knows? Better ask a doctor. 213.122.50.15 (talk) 04:01, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd vote for removing the question. Regardless of what the OP has concluded, to me it looks very clearly like the question is asking for a diagnosis. In fact, I probably would have already removed it, except that it looks like the proffered diagnosis of geographic tongue might actually be correct, and three years ago I had a longish argument with Kainaw, who argued that calling something "geographic tongue" didn't constitute a diagnosis, and I don't want to mess with the possibility of having a rehash of the same argument. Red Act (talk) 04:30, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm amused and pleased that Kainaw of Kainaw's criterion fame would take that side of the argument. I expect the reality will be that we come down on the side of avoiding answering all questions about bodily conditions, regardless of how stupid it gets, on the grounds that it's worth it to save the lives of questioners, threatened by obscure fatal diseases which manifest as inflamed taste buds. Excuse my passive aggression, but fine then. The argument for common sense has no clearly defined parameters, so it's unlikely to win. 213.122.50.15 (talk) 05:06, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, it looks like my argument with Kainaw occurred before Kainaw's criterion was created, at least in its current form, so I wouldn't necessarily assume that Kainaw's opinion about calling something geographic tongue was the same at the time of my argument with him as it would have been as of when Kainaw's criterion was formed. People's opinions do change. Red Act (talk) 05:51, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I've decided to repeat one paragraph of my argument with Kainaw here, since it is very relevant to the current question: "According to our article on geographic tongue, geographic tongue is a synonym for benign migratory glossitis. How can you, with no medical degree, and without having looked in the guy's mouth, distinguish between benign migratory glossitis and less benign forms of glossitis? According to the glossitis article, some of the possible causes of glossitis are bacterial infections such as syphilis, viral infections such as herpes simplex, iron deficiency anemia, pernicious anemia, oral lichen planus, erythema multiforme, aphthous ulcer, or pemphigus vulgaris. Do you really think you can tell that his condition isn't one of those disorders from his [brief] description of his symptoms?" Red Act (talk) 06:04, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand how this could possibly not be medical advice. The article on geographic tongue indicates it's an "inflammatory condition"; telling him that's what it is is definitely a diagnosis...Not sure why this question merits more discussion than any other med-advice question. Vimescarrot (talk) 07:33, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Quite a lot of us will have had one of these inflamed taste buds at some point (I used to get them when I was younger, which is probably related to pigging on chocolate, something I do less of now). It's as minor as, say, a sore eyelash or a zit. Geographic tongue is an exaggeration of the condition, and syphilis it isn't. How can I tell that a zit isn't bubonic plague? I'm not qualified to distinguish the two. Nevertheless it's not unethical for me to diagnose a zit (as I have done for my girlfriend on a couple of occasions when she's asked "what's this thing on my back, omigod do I have cancer?"). This is, though, the argument for common sense, which I have already huffily proclaimed to be doomed, so I'm going to return to my huff now, I can't sulk properly if I keep replying. 213.122.55.156 (talk) 08:06, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

The OP seeks "possible explanations" for a sickness phenomenon. [15]. We cannot fulfill that request, least of all by giving answers like [16] "I have had this too". The right action is to delete or box off the question with the message "The reference desk will not answer (and will usually remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or request medical opinions". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:24, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but how do you know they don't have syphilis? Vimescarrot (talk) 15:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Again, unless I am mistaken, a question only qualifies as "asking for medical advice" if it makes specific reference to something the questioner or someone the questioner knows has, some symptoms or condition about which the questioner says, "I have this - what could it be?" All it takes to make a question answerable is not doing that. If they ask "what are bumps on the tongue that so-on-and-so-forth", that's fine. That way we are not diagnosing anyone but just providing answers as an online encyclopedia reference desk. And that also makes some of the fears expressed above ("then we can't answer anything") irrelevant. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 09:59, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

We can't answer any question that asks "what are <these symptoms>?" because we are not able, qualified or permitted to give an exhaustive list of causes. Red Act named[17]some causes above, and if a doctor were consulted they would probably ask "Have you had any oral sexual contact recently?". We can answer a question like "What are common diseases of the human tongue?". Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:04, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Yep, it's a clear request for medical advice, under our usual standards. The OP is asking us to diagnose his condition based on a description of his symptoms. This isn't even borderline; I've removed it. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:14, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

an attempt to use the review function

It's listed as indefinite but another sysop should feel free to unprotect it when it feels appropriate. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 17:00, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a great case for the use of that function. Some RD regulars may need to get "reviewer" status but from what I understand that's not too difficult. That may do the trick though! :) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Get your Reviewer status here: WP:PERM/RW. And btw Happy Halloween all! :) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:08, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Impossible! There are only four possible solutions to trolling and this was not one of them!

Seriously, I suspect that most ref-desk regulars already have reviewer status, I think there was a bot that went around giving it to everyone who was qualified for it a couple of weeks before the feature went live.

I'm not 100% clear on how it works, however, this is actually the first time I've seen it used. APL (talk) 23:32, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Wait, why does a non-article page need latest-reviewed-version? 86.164.145.242 (talk) 11:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Look at the page history--it should tell you. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 12:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

It won't. Admins have revdeleted the sockpuppetry nonsense. → ROUX ₪ 12:52, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Is this really an appropriate use of Revision Deletion? I thought that was supposed to take out copyright infringement or personal information, not run-of-the-mill trolling. Deleting the revisions just leaves someone like Mr. 86.164 in the dark about why things are the way they are. Buddy431 (talk) 18:21, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Revision deletion. Considering the trolling concerns (or at least did at one stage) a living person and this was one of the reasons we got here, even if what's being trolled isn't likely to be offensive to that person I would say revdeletion is appropriate. Looking at the logs still tells you there's a problem, even if it doesn't tell you precisely what the problem is. Nil Einne (talk) 13:33, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Never mind, I see some discussion above. Wow, you step away for a few days... I'm still a bit puzzled, because I didn't think that was the point of this tool at all, and this isn't an article page. But I can see that if some users were unable to cope with the standard de-excalation techniques (and they do need nerves of steel, or powerful WP:Don't give a fuckism), this might seem sensible. But I did think this was the sort of thing we were assured the tool wouldn't be used for. 86.166.42.171 (talk) 15:23, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

It's a weird use of the tool, but it's considered better than semi-protection because the whole point of a reference desk is to help visitors. APL (talk) 16:03, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm guessing it gives the sockpuppeteer nothing to revert to which helps (I doubt Ellen doesn't get worse stuff in her fan mail - seriously don't tell me WP:BLP was the reason).

For the benefit of User:86.164.145.242 - you can read the original offending post here User talk:88.166.161.41 or here diff - it's removal resulted in a long winded edit war with someone creating many scores of sockpupperts. Read it quick before the admins zap it.. 87.102.115.141 (talk) 14:20, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

We aim for a far higer standard then what people get in their fan mail. Nil Einne (talk) 03:14, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Regarding links to Search Engine results

In recent days, I have seen many responses on various desks that are merely Google Results for the OP's question. This is not our purpose.

In general, search queries are external links to be avoided - because the results are not deterministic, and change from minute to minute. Furthermore, on the Reference Desk in particular, we try to do better than Google or Bing - we are humans and have brains and we know our source-references because we have prior expertise in certain subject areas. If our responses are simply "type the question into Google and post the link" - then we aren't serving any useful function.

An open request to the Reference Desk Community: Please consider whether your responses are a "value-add" to the search query. For example, you might perform the query and use your own expertise in the subject-matter to select the best response - and directly link to a useful resource. Even better - how about actually knowing your resources - whether they are websites, textbooks, or news sources! You can use a search-engine for "machine-assisted recollection" - but no search engine has yet beat the power of the human brain at gauging context and relevance.

Answer with search-engine results as rarely as possible.
If you must post web-search links, strip the URL of any location-based or session-based metadata, and verify that the results are as you expect
Consider whether your search-query actually provided meaningful assistance to the OP:
- Did you add a natural-language or subject-matter keyword that they didn't know to use?
- Did you use a technical feature of a search engine that the OP was unaware of?
- Did your response help to train the OP in better web search tactics?

Did you check our article to see if the External Links section already had good external links?
- Did you add the best results of your search-query to our External Links section?
- ... and would the results stand up to our quality-standards in article space?

This strategy keeps our service at the reference desk at a higher quality than any automated search-engine algorithm can ever be. Nimur (talk) 16:49, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

irrelevant stuff with me getting very tetchy in the wrong place - deleteable Sf5xeplus (talk) 20:56, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes but where? I only found 2 at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#ADHD_meds_are_a_scam - which I added - the purpose of which was to encourage the poster to do their own research (rather than asking for opinions).Sf5xeplus (talk) 17:39, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Also whilst we're on the subject of references and articles - when you ask another responder "do you have any references for that claim", as you did to me here Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Aviation_Thermobaric_Bomb_of_Increased_Power you could have followed your own advice and read the article BLU-82 which I clearly linked - so yes. Please be more careful - we all can do that. Sf5xeplus (talk) 17:43, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I notice you posted a follow up - whilst definitions of what is "ANFO like" may vary - I meant Ammonium Nitrate + hydrocarbon source - which both fuel oil and polystrene are - you have a different definition. However you should note that neither fuel oil nor polystyrene contain oxygen, unlike hamsters which do indeed contain oxygen, and a lot of water. Again something you could have found out by googling or reading the articles.. Your ignorance on this approaches astounding for someone who writes with such certainty and superiority. Pick it up a bit, it is insulting to me. Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:55, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

If you have issues with unrelated comments I have made on the desks, please address them on my talk-page. This section is intended to discuss external links to search-engines. Nimur (talk) 19:22, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

ok done - I do however have a relevant question.

Question/request "strip the URL of any location-based or session-based metadata" I think I need a tutorial on that. eg what do I remove from this http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=adhd+medication+effectiveness , and also - if it's left as it is - does it matter - clearly it shows I'm in the UK and using UTF-8 - does that matter: I'm not bothered about the minor breach of my privacy - but will the link still work for other users in different countries using different browsers ?Sf5xeplus (talk) 20:56, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Replace your URL with

http://www.google.com/search?q=adhd+medication+effectiveness

... which Google will expand or convert to the appropriate country/user/language-encoding/personal settings for any individual user. As I mentioned though, there is no real guarantee that searching for that query in the UK will give the same results as, say, in the Philippines. Google is known to provide different results for different regions, time-of-day, and so on. But at least your URL is shorter and easier to read, and brings it to the minimum number of forced settings. The critical parts of a Google query are /search?q=keyword1+keyword2. Nimur (talk) 21:24, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Of course, a lot of us are compulsive teachers, with an overweening desire to do more for our readers than just giving them nicely-wrapped fish, so to speak. So for a really basic question that really can get a multiplicity of perfectly good answers by doing a really basic google search, it's extremely tempting (and not, I think, completely inappropriate) to teach the OP to fish in this way. —Steve Summit (talk) 01:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Sure - see above, "Did your response help to train the OP in better web search tactics?" Presentation is critical, though - "teaching them how to fish" means explaining what you did to make a web-search useful. Nimur (talk) 01:44, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Colors?

I just found WP:RD/COLORS by accident. What was it for? —Tamfang (talk) 16:33, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

It was a test page to work out the color/style of the reference desk headers. A while back, they were very gaudy with a different color for every desk. -- kainaw ™ 16:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Pending Revisions

Why is this page now requiring edits to be accepted? Beach drifter (talk) 19:41, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

There was a troll adding questions ad nauseum. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 19:45, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

After scanning the rest of the talk page like I should of done in the first place, I see. Beach drifter (talk) 20:00, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Remarks on Pending Revisions

This may be ironic given the thread just above, and I was semi-AFK over the last few days when the latest assault from our troublesome friend occurred (but watched much of the proceedings). To wit:

I've formed an intention that when I check my watchlist and see a pending change on any RefDesk, unless I'm aware of a current problem, I will immediately accept the revision with cursory, or perhaps no, review. I will not apply the standards of diligence which I employ for pending changes in articlespace. This is an open desk where we expect anonymous contributions, of varying quality. It is our own task to interpret and deal with these contributions. As far as I'm concerned, the reviewer function is intended here solely for our pesky mate, everything else goes straight through. Does anyone have an objection to that approach?
And have I missed the discussion on when we remove this form of protection? Like, can I do it right now? I'm not particularly enamoured of just accepting that the troll wins... Franamax (talk) 03:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
- Actually, I have been doing that as well; in general I will approve any question or comment left in good faith from any anon, even if it is technically "against the rules" (soapboxing/medical/legal/etc.), as long as it hasn't been this recent person. I think that eventually, we'll need to lift the pending changes thing, as this person will (presumably) either get bored or change tactics, and the pending changes protection is a bit of a nuisance, and also runs counter to the standard ethos at the refdesks. --Jayron32 04:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Support ending the use of pending changes here, no issues in 24hrs+Sf5xeplus (talk) 12:46, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I have just removed the PC protection. I'll replace it if the need arises again. Looie496 (talk) 17:50, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Cluebot

Anyone know why cluebot has started targetting these pages? I've left a note at User_talk:ClueBot_Commons.Sf5xeplus (talk) 12:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

got an answer here Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/ClueBot_NG#False_positives - it was on this list [18] Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:57, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Me, I'd love to see Cluebot active on the desks, presuming it could be appropriately tuned to keep the false positive rate acceptably low. We do have a vandalism problem here (look at how often we've had to experiment with semiprotection and other protections!), and bots like Cluebot are an important and effective component of Wikipedia's anti-vandalism arsenal. —Steve Summit (talk) 00:34, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I would agree it may be useful, however I'm not sure how well Cluebot works in talk pages or similar pages even less the RD since we're usually fairly lenient on things like soapboxing and stuff of that sort. E.g. I saw it revert when a new user removed a signed comment of theirs and then there's [19] Nil Einne (talk) 08:43, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I didn't link to the relevant section, User_talk:ClueBot_Commons#Cluebot_-too_many_false_positives , I've nothing against cluebot, or bots in general, but every change it made was invalid, and had to be manually reverted. It probably would need some ref desk specific training data.. - as these desks are subtly different from both article space, and talk pages.Sf5xeplus (talk) 10:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I just saw another false positive at the Computer desk (reverted by a regular). ClueBot could have been alarmed by the word "hmmmm" (repetitive characters) or "lol". We have plenty of legitimate posts including colloquialisms, non-words, vulgar words, and so forth. In my opinion, ClueBot should remove the desks entirely from its watchlist. Steve Summit's dream of a ref-desk bot is certainly worth pursuing, but I think ClueBot would have to change its approach radically towards the desks. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:26, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Linking to Google Books

One place I often look for and find references to questions is Google Books. I recently read a discussion on the merits of including links (in article space) to the relevant pages at Google Books. Apparently, the accessability varies from country to country, and there is a good chance that I will be sending my querent on a wild goose chase by linking to a site they cannot see. What are your thoughts? To link or not to link? (I'm only talking about the link, I believe it always desirable to give title, author, publisher, and page reference, if possible). ---Sluzzelin talk 15:47, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Link, but describe what the link is. If the poster can't access it, maybe they'll find another way to it, or will ask for what its contents are, or so on. But there aren't a lot of other alternatives in many cases other than no link at all, and I scarcely see who that helps. If you describe what it is in a little detail before linking to it, it should cut off goose chases, wild or otherwise. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:17, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Structure your link or citation so that a truly interested user could find the book / resource in a real library or bookstore. Nimur (talk) 16:19, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I think you can still tell what book has been linked to, even if you don't have access to the interior pages. But I still think that what's important is describing what it is you are linking to. If you say, "here's a link to a book that talks about it, and has a great table on it that really puts it into perspective," that's maybe going to make it look like something worth tracking down. If you say, "here's a link," and it turns out just to be a small footnote that is barely tangential, well, that's the aforementioned goose chase. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:23, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your insights. ---Sluzzelin talk 03:44, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Getting threatened with a ban for removing a reply

final warning I removed a reply to an editors talk page, diff because I thought the answer was non factual, opinion based, (and borderline soapboxing eg ":I'm saying you can get an idea of the culture there by what caused the problem in the first place.").

I moved the response here User_talk:Nil_Einne#reference_desk_2 mainly because it didn't in my opinion come near to the guidlines for resonding (eg Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Guidelines#Guidelines_for_responding_to_questions). Specifically in terms of verifyability, but also in terms of neutrality - the assumption seemed to be that the computer manufacturers knew the capacitors were no good, and weren't bothered - maybe I've misunderstand that.

I don't really have any problem with NilEinne expressing their opinion and would be more than happy in continuing a discussion with them on the talk page, but don't think their reply was suitable for the reference desk. What I really don't understand is why I have been given a final warning and the threat of an immediate block from User talk:Finlay McWalter. 94.72.205.11 (talk) 16:48, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

You are entitled to ignore it. You're entitled to question it. You're entitled to bring the matter here, or to the talk page of the user concerned, or to reply to the comment inline. But you're not entitled to delete comments you don't like based on a fairly tortured interpretation of guidelines. It's desirable for reference desk comments to be supported by references or links to articles, but reference contributors are purely volunteers who give you their time, in good faith, for free. So the final freedom you have, if you don't like that charity, is to leave. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:54, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

How about a reality check? Why am I not entitle to remove a response such as "Well as you said, they used an incomplete electrolyte formula stolen from elsewhere. Given that happened in the first place, how likely is it they got their ass sued off by people who bought from them?" which reads to me as saying (in contraction) "well what do you think?"94.72.205.11 (talk) 17:11, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

No, you're not entitled to remove it. You disagreeing, or finding it illogical, with it does not make it abusive. The standard for removing comments wholesale is very high, and this isn't remotely close to that. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 17:28, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Concur with Finlay. There was nothing decidedly abusive or med/legal/etc-advice, just some analysis you don't like. Feel free to post your own message disputing the analysis or clarifying your question if you disagree with the given good-faith response. DMacks (talk) 17:34, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I never said it was abusive - I said it was a 'non-answer', opinion, and possibly soap-boxing. I don't wan't to get into a discussion of what they said - because the reference desks are not supposed to be a discussion forum, and I really wanted some facts, with the ultimate aim of updating articles - I can't do that with NilEinne's response. 94.72.205.11 (talk) 17:38, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Abusive posts may be removed; non-abusive posts may not. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 17:40, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

ok I get it, despite the fact I moved it to the editors talk page, with an explanation of why I had done that, (In good faith by the way) the main thing is that what you say is right, and what I say is irrelevant. I think I understand abusive.94.72.205.11 (talk) 17:46, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the warning given was excessive by the way, as I do not see previous discussions or warnings related to 94's behavior. Given that, the removal does not seem malicious or something other than an improper "I don't think this is constructive" type of reaction, and user now recognizes the problem with that reaction. DMacks (talk) 17:53, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I was being incredibly sarcastic (about accepting I was wrong) .. sorry (sarcasm=bad).. I still don't think I did anything particularily wrong. Probably should just keep my mouth shut, as I don't appear to have any negotiating power.. Thanks for saying the warning was excessive anyway.94.72.205.11 (talk) 20:50, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

There are 1763 mopsters and you are incredibly lucky to receive the attention of the only one ever endorsed[20] as "one of the best names i[sic] ever saw. Looks like a detective smoking a pipe." You did nothing wrong by giving here and on Nil Einne's talk page your opinion of Nil Einne's response on the Science Ref. Desk; your only flaw was to edit (remove) another's post on the Ref Desk. A sensible mopster could have just reverted that removal and informed you that Ref. Desk posts are not open to editing in the same way as mainspace articles. That may seem strange when every poster sees before they post the warning "If you do not want your writing to be edited, used, and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here" but then so does the equation 1763 x mopster != 1763 x sensiblemopster. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:35, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

While I do not agree with the OP's assessement I have voluntarily collapsed all my comments including the latest ones (where I attempted to correct at least one apparent misunderstanding by the OP which isn't supported by our very article and also addressed their Nichia bit) as I get the feeling the OP isn't going to like them either even if they are supported by refs (albeit not the kind suitable for articles) Nil Einne (talk) 02:16, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Refdesk question in Hungarian

A user removed a question from the Misc desk just now (dif) with the rationale "del nonsense". It struck me as Hungarian, and sure enough, google translate gives me this (still garbled) H=>E translation for the question:

Dear Wiki!

- I read Révay stay there the family history. I would like a family tree drawn up, but I do not know holkezdjem.

- Beatrice Brown, I am now living in Szeged. Ozd born in the 1970th 12/31 on my mother's name: Catherine Revai. The rest of the family, y, type the name.

- Please help. It would be important to me.

- Sincerely,

- Beatrice Brown

Ignoring for the moment the fact that "Wikipedia" from Hungarian apparently translates into "Wiki", and that the personal name of the OP got translated into English as well for some ungodly reason, what do we normally do with questions like these? TomorrowTime (talk) 18:58, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I saw that too, and put up a note on visitor's talk page recommending they try Hungarian wikipedia. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:02, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

how would we even know

I respectfully disagree with the decision by Ludwigs2 that this topic should be closed. Myself and others provided scientific and verifiable responses to the question. We can choose to ignore the OP, or we can educate them. Nimur (talk) 02:19, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Which topic? Please refile? Wnt (talk) 06:25, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#how_would_we_even_know 82.44.55.25 (talk) 09:50, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

The question was "how would we know if we found a dinosaur fossil that Jesus had wridden (sic) on?" Troll-bait from start to finish. I gave the IP a decent scientific answer and closed the discussion when it started wandering into Christian theocrapy (as he and I both knew it would). --Ludwigs2 16:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Weren't Dinosaurs way before Jesus's time? Just saying. Andrewshousha (talk) 02:00, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

"What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us? Just a stranger on the bront', tryin' to make his way home?" —— Shakescene (talk) 16:51, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

...tryin' to make his way home, on a dinosaur???

--Ludwigs2 17:21, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I see two possibilities. First, the OP was just another kid trolling on the internets; in that case, what he thinks of our responses is irrelevant. The second possibility is that the OP was actually interested in learning about literal interpretations of the bible. I provided links to many articles the OP might find informative - for example, that the answer depends on the theological points of view, which differ even amongst Christians who consider themselves "literalists." We can call such viewpoints unscientific and we can even call them illogical and incorrect; but we should not pretend those various theological points of view do not exist. The existence of these points of view is verifiable and they are relevant. Every creation-myth can be analyzed in the context of implications to world-view. Much theological discourse has been dedicated to ideas that are very scientific - questions about causality and determinism and relativity and coincidence. Though these theological discourses are sometimes framed by largely incorrect mysticism, there is some merit to some of their reasoning and conclusions. By encouraging people, especially religious people, to apply critical thinking, we are encouraging a scientific world-view. Eventually, through enough critical thinking, even a "young-earth-creationist" will come to see that an evidence-based objective reality is a more productive way to see the world. Alternatively, we can call all of them "morons" and pretend their viewpoints are stupid and irrelevant, and block off all discussion about them. This latter approach will not actually help dissuade any of them from their point of view, and will not help any of them learn. Nimur (talk) 18:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I understand some people like a chance to talk about creation v. evolution, but there is a certain risk that if you answer "questions" that are too insubstantial or which people don't really take seriously, you're basically starting an open forum. People aren't actually discussing any specific point of Jesus wridding a dinosaur, but just sounding off in an unfocused way about whatever comes to mind. While a more general Wikipedia forum might be a good idea, I'm not sure we want it here. Wnt (talk) 19:12, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Nimur, common sense please. people seriously interested in biblical creation do not ask questions about Jesus riding dinosaurs (which tends to demean Jesus and the faith), and they certainly don't ask them on the science desk. I applaud your AGF thoughts, but I think you've strayed into GFF (Good Faith Fantasies). --Ludwigs2 19:45, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

No the question, I think, was less unreasonable than that. Let's take the more-reasonable reading of "wridden" as "written": what if there were a dinosaur fossil upon which Jesus had written? Although I don't know why that would pose a bigger epistemological problem than finding a book or wall or will upon which He had written. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:03, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll admit I was rather interested in whether or not Jesus raced ostriches, that one had some legs to it. :) While I wouldn't want to see it as a general habit, I think Ludwigs2 did well by closing the thread. The OP question had been properly answered in best refdesk style, with well-thought comments - and the discussion was veering off into one of those discussions by-deskers/for-deskers. If the OP has further questions, they will most likely follow up; and if the question was a troll, it will become apparent. Franamax (talk) 20:28, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I support removing the "discussion closed" template. I do not like people arbitrary closing questions. The answers to the question were on topic, scientific, and well within the scope of the reference desk. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 20:16, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with what Nimur is saying in general, though don't have much of a preference either way about boxing-or-unboxing in this specific case. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 20:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

If someone genuinely wanted to know if Jesus could have ridden a dinosaur, how would they have to ask the question to satisfy that they were acting in good faith? Vimescarrot (talk) 11:29, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Two different questions might be asked.

Did Jesus ride a dinosaur?
Could Jesus have ridden a dinosaur?

The first is within the scope of the Ref. Desk. The second should be rejected, not because of any assumption about the OP's good faith but because it asks for theological speculation. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:27, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. The second question may be answerable, if it can be further clarified. e.g.

Is there a religious doctrine which allows for the possibility that Jesus could have ridden a dinosaur? or
According to (religious doctrine X), could Jesus have ridden a dinosaur?

For example if clarified as "According to Roman Catholicism, could Jesus have ridden a dinosaur?", we can provide a clear and acceptable answer: "No, as the Roman Catholic church currently accepts the validity of the scientific timeline, and as such there were no dinosaurs still around by ~ 1 A.D. for Jesus to ride." It's not a Science Ref Desk question, but it would be perfectly valid for the Humanities desk, and probably could be moved there. -- 174.31.221.70 (talk) 16:11, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no religious belief which holds that dinosaurs might have existed at the time of Jesus. Even 'young earth' creationists would have put them thousands of years before the time of Christ. --Ludwigs2 16:54, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Really? WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:09, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The Creationist perspectives on dinosaurs article doesn't seem to conclusively rule it out (apparently some even believe there may still be dinosaurs today in eg. isolated Scottish lochs.) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:34, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs2 please see the article Young Earth creationism which refers to the Genesis narrative about creation of all life no earlier than 10 000 years ago. Also consider mainstream christian belief that Jesus has been co-eternal with the creator God since the creation of all things Jn. 1:1-5 and shares His omnipotence. These beliefs, taken singly or in combination, leave no doubt that Jesus could have ridden a dinosaur any time He wanted. Be prepared for surprises in your systematic belief in categorically claiming to know what no belief system can believe. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 17:42, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

lol - ok, I'll admit that Jesus (as God) could have whipped up a dinosaur out of thin air and ridden it (or written on its bones, which does make a little more sense than a dino joy-ride). but then we'd have a dinosaur dating to the first century AD, which would be confusing scientifically for different reasons. Though of course, Jesus could have whipped up a dinosaur, did his thing, and then projected it back in time so that it was in the appropriate time frame. However, I tend to resist religious theories which only make sense if the god-figures involved habitually act like goofy adolescent delinquents. If indeed we live in a world which is run by a goofy adolescent delinquent God (and I freely admit that would explain a lot of the world's problems) I just don't want to know about it. sorry.

--Ludwigs2 18:06, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs2, no one has asked you to believe anything. You ask to have your posts about other people's beliefs believed. Read Argument from ignorance. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:18, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm... Cudds, If you are questioning my religious belief that God acts like a mature, reasonable adult, I will admit that you are entirely entitled to do so. I just have no idea why you would. so there.

--Ludwigs2 18:45, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Creationists generally don't rely on fantasies about time machines. When embarking on a "my-God-can-lick-your-God" type of dispute it helps to know what the other side is talking about. Projecting oneself in bloated form as one's God is not an insight, it is merely mires one in an illusion that deifies one's shortsightedness. Ironically, a creationist recently explained to me that they reject evolution because it depends on casual randomity, and that is not the way God works. OTOH Ludwigs2's allegedly "mature, reasonable adult" God tells Ludwig2 to declare that to be "Christian theocrapy" that "demean(s) Jesus. I support Nimur's point that it is better to encourage religious people to apply critical thinking than to box them off as moronic untouchables. But when the box-maker is another religious person then I understand better what made Bob Dylan despondent (video). Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:20, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Dude, you are taking this way too seriously. I don't believe creationism, but I don't object to it as a rule (people are allowed to believe what they want). I'm not even particularly religious in the way most people mean the word. but serious religious discussions don't wander off into bizarre mix-and-match 'what if' queries of this sort. If you don't want to distinguish between serious religious questions and adolescent efforts at screwing with peoples' heads, then don't. but don't expect me to take you any more seriously than I take them. --Ludwigs2 15:07, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Who cares about dinosaurs, anyway. What I'd like to know is whether there is some belief system in which Jesus could have ridden a pink invisible unicorn.—Emil J. 18:22, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Ask Bill W.. --Ludwigs2 21:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes there is such a belief system. In fact there is nothing that someone somewhere hasn't believed, except that they are wrong. Any scientific evidence to the contrary is planted by the Flying Spaghetti Monster in an effort to test your faith . Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:29, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I can't tell which side your arguing for with this one... Aaronite (talk) 17:34, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

That's because ~~yore~~ ~~your~~ you're not paying attention. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:48, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I normally don't make these typos... It's hilarious that the one time I do, it's replying to you. Aaronite (talk) 01:15, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Freudian slip - which is maybe what Jesus was wearing as he rode the dinosaur...? --Ludwigs2 02:02, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, right... You should know better. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 11:18, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The Reference_desk/Science#how_would_we_even_know actual question has been derailed by knee-jerk responses to an imagined disputing by the OP of evolution. Ludwig2's first response[21] is an honourable exception, however his closing of the section in order to leave his own response as the only direct response was IMHO precipitous. I am not convinced by Ludwig2's reasoning given here which comprises an incomplete quoting of the question (without the "even"), an appeal to "common sense" and somewhat contradictory religious declarations. @Vimescarrot, the question you present[22] is not the OP's question. The actual question can and should be allowed, not boxed. The "even know" part of it is significant because it implies scepticism by the questioner about whether the claim about Jesus and a dinosaur can be resolved. The OP seems to be questioning about the confrontation between these two types of Reliable Source: 1) Evidence for an evolutionary time scale that is regarded as reliable by mainstream science, and 2) Particular interpretations from allegedly inspired religious texts also regarded as reliable of what are possible acts of God. That issue, and not more tired creationist bashing, should be properly illuminated even if Ludwigs2 won't take it seriously. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 07:39, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Cudds: you are flogging a dead saurian here. let's look at it point by point:

It was a Science Desk question. No amount of philosophical yoga can work the historical figure of Jesus into a time frame where he is co-existent with dinosaurs, so the initial scientific question is utterly specious
As a purely philosophical thought experiment it's extremely bereft. If God (or Jesus as God) had wanted to give the world an en claire statement of his existence, there are a near infinite number of more practical ways of doing so than mucking with the bones of a long-deceased species. He could have (for instance) stamped "Made by God" on all living human femurs, which would quite effectively remove all doubt.
The question is obviously steeped in the creationism/evolution debate (biblical authors had no conception of extinct species or dinosaurs), but is not even close to being decently framed in those terms. It does a disservice to both positions.

You're giving way too much credit to what is self-evidently an effort by some bored 13 year old to stir up pointless debate. I don't have a problem with you defending religious perspectives as a rule, but please exercise some common sense in the discussions you choose to defend, because this is not even close to being credible. --Ludwigs2 14:34, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs2, taken in order your points look like this:

Science means knowledge. Epistemology is the science of knowledge. It addresses the question "How do we know what we know?". That is not a specious question and you may look it up in Wikipedia. Nobody has asked you whether the historical Jesus sat on (or wrote on) a dinosaur and it would be a relief if you got over that idea.
Your various suggestions for how your God could conduct Himself, such as whipping up a dinosaur, transporting it in time, or putting grafitti on bones, and your expressed suspicion that the world's problems are due to Him acting as a "goofy adolescent delinquent" instead of the "mature, reasonable adult" that you believe Him to be, are imaginative. However the Teleological argument on the existence of God doesn't need modern English words on femurs to make its impact.
The concept "Jesus riding a dinosaur" is well known as a taunt directed at creationists. It is a taunt because no one who uses it believes it happened. That does not invalidate the question about its falsifiability, itself a central concept of Scientific method.

Ludwigs2, I think you have acted unwisely here in halting access to the question by volunteers whose responses you want to forestall as "pointless debate", and by disparaging the OP. Clearly there is more that can be said to this question on the Science Ref. Desk. It is not constructive for you to use this page to preach to the choir about evolution, to display ignorance of belief systems that are documented in Wikipedia articles to which the Ref. Desk is supposed to help access, or to cover this with feigned concern about Jesus getting demeaned or whether some religious question seems serious enough for you to allow. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:01, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Cudds: you have devolved to the level of arguing with yourself. Little of what you said above makes any sense, and none of it has any bearing on the original question or our discussion here. I mean seriously - getting from "how would we know if we found a dinosaur fossil that Jesus had wridden (sic) on?" to a philosophical concern about the epistemology of science requires such an extreme form of intellectual gymnastics that I'm surprised you haven't earned a gold medal for it, and I'm not about to attempt to follow the logic out of fear that I'd hurt myself. I suggest that you let it go, but suspect that you never will, so I'm going to stop feeding whatever it is that's driving you to this inanity.

Have a nice day!

--Ludwigs2 23:03, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs2 if you have no further points that you want looked at, that is ok. Points of order: My name is as I sign it and neither "Dude" nor "Cudds". You have twice misquoted the OP's question[23] [24]. Consensus hardly endorses your blocking action so I think the question can be opened again. Thank you. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:48, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm for you two reaching an amicable resolution to this, um, "conflict" already! I'm for opening it up for the sake of peace in our time here - I hope no one has any cusséd contrarian objections to that at this point! On that assumption -- there, done. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 00:00, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry I even raised this issue. I don't like to see debate stifled just because it might be a controversial topic. My original intent in the response was to address the OP, intentionally oblivious to the fact that his/her question might have been nonsense. But I can see that it didn't work as I intended. Let's stop debating this - the OP has moved on, we should move on too. Nimur (talk) 00:32, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you WikiDao. I acknowledge good intentions by all here. To be, or not to be, that was the question raised about further responses at the Science desk. Consensus was eventually right to be bold enough allow free response to the question.. Peace for our time is, notwithstanding prior experiences, a consummation devoutly to be wished. As a practical note, this resolution is reached after the question retreated into the archive where it is unlikely to receive attention. The potential for a responder to isolate their own response as the only response to a question by their subsequent Filibuster worries me. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:28, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Legal advice conundrum

I'm not seeing what Ludwigs2 is seeing in this question. The user has already clarified the general nature of the question. Thoughts? --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

If the OP had prefaced the question with the background that he later provided, it would have been less ambiguous, i.e. that it was just a curiosity question, not a legal question so much. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:25, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I had no issue with the question from the outset. Dismas|^(talk) 21:28, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

The question is a completely unanswerable jurisdictional matter: it would be up to a particular court to decide whether such a matter constituted rape in any particular case. More to the point, idle questions about rape are generally trolling questions, are almost always in bad taste, and have the potential to be quite insulting/disturbing to those who have been victims of rape (given the basic implication that rape is not a crime of violence, but rather some trivial legal question open to casual debate).

That being said, I've dropped the point because it's not a major issue in this particular case, and I am tired of arguing with the coterie of RefDesk editors willing to stand up for any and all questions, no matter how idiotic. I swear, sometimes some of you people piss me off. --Ludwigs2 22:24, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

The question was not idiotic; your archival of it was. Do not do it again. The Hero of This Nation (talk) 22:39, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Spoken like a troll, my friend; is that what you were aiming for? I wouldn't (and didn't) call your question idiotic, but even you have to admit (though obviously you never will) that it's a good SD below the mean. Best you not expect the Ref Desk Emmy for smartest rape-related question. --Ludwigs2 23:00, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

As I said earlier, somewhere in the distant past, if the OP had explained why he was asking the question, this brouhaha could have been avoided. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:17, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

And the correct answer, "It depends on where you are", is something that should be obvious to anyone who has even a smidgen of knowledge of the law. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

8,000 edits since 2004? Bring on the trolls. Seems like a legitimate, if sensitive, question, I'm not seeing a need for removal here. Bugs, the desks are for people who do not have a smidgen of knowledge, that's why people can't leap to the "ask your doctor" conclusion when they ask whether having blood pouring out of them is bad or not. :) Franamax (talk) 00:29, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I was simply trying to come up with a plausible explanation as to why Ludwig referred to the question as "idiotic". I wouldn't call it idiotic, just incomplete. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:40, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

trying to come up with plausible explanations for things I never said is likely to give you headaches. --Ludwigs2 01:58, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

"...any and all questions, no matter how idiotic..." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:00, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

that was a general statement, not a specific one. you and I both know there have been some truly, mind-bendingly idiotic questions asked on the desks that have still had support from regulars. Some people just don't have a clue. --Ludwigs2 06:23, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Ludwigs2, if you have never found the responses to anyone else's question at the Ref. Desks to be educational, or interesting enough to click on a reference given, then it won't be easy to persuade you of the usefulness of our giving good answers to less-than-good questions. One could argue for filtering out mediocre questions if the desks were getting more questions than volunteers can handle, but that is not the case. Unlike you, I see no implication in the question that rape is not a crime of violence. The Rape by deception reference (a Wikipedia article) provided by Sean shows that the issue is real, and it was well posed by the OP as "Can consent [to sex] be revoked retroactively?". That question applied to any particular case would indeed be a legal question on which the Ref. Desk cannot and will not rule, but it is not about a particular case. You should not dismiss the issues that it raises as trivial or tasteless. They can be mentioned responsibly with relevant references, such as this one in the article Rape#Victim blaming: "Rape victims are blamed more when they resist the attack later in the rape encounter rather than earlier (Kopper, 1996)." The OP asks logically enough What if the protest is even further delayed? BTW please don't swear[25] and please don't troll-bash[26] the OP.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:51, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Medical Advice removed

Diff. OP asked about what would happen if he/she stops taking medication. We will not answer this type of question on the Reference Desk. Nimur (talk) 01:27, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Good removal. No question about it. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 02:44, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree WikiDao ☯ (talk) 15:05, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

ADHD meds are a scam

WP:RD/M#ADHD meds are a scam looks like a thinly veiled soapbox rather than really being a question. Also, it's explicitly a result of the request for medical advice about ADHD medication that was just deleted, so it sure looks like essentially an attempt at doing an end-run around the deletion of the earlier question. Should the "ADHD meds are a scam" topic just be deleted? Red Act (talk) 05:18, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty much soap-boxing and should probably be deleted. I'd at least wait for the OP (User:schyler) to respond. I just posted an explanation for them, including a link to the med-advice policy; maybe this belongs on the user's talk-page and not on the desk. Nimur (talk) 05:21, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I disagree - as suggested by this post [27] if the OP had said "please can someone help me find information on whether or not ADHD medications are effective, or how much so" that would have been a perfectly reasonably request. Effectively that's what they said.. sure they expressed doubts "are they a scam" - but then if they didn't have doubts they probably wouldn't be asking.

A better result would be if someone answered the question with facts - eg studies on the benefits (or lack of) of such medications. Does that seem reasonable?Sf5xeplus (talk) 06:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

But he didn't ask the question "are ADHD meds a scam?", he makes the assertion "ADHD meds are a scam". He's not expressing doubts, he's expressing an opinion. And in his previous post[28] he makes the assertions that "ADHD is not a disease" and "a sedative is not a solution", so he's clearly already made up his mind, and doesn't have a genuine interest in finding out more about all sides of the issue in order to further his own understanding. Red Act (talk) 07:21, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed that too. And reading the question it appears they are asking for "what the thoughts about the American (and international) pharmaceutical industry in general that are out there" ie opinion not facts. Nevertheless - there still is an option - 1. to ignore (and point out that we can't respond to) the request for opinion 2. to give referenced answers about what real studies show.

I wouldn't expect anyone to go to the second step unless they really want to. But it seems reasonable to expect answerers to contact the questioner and explain what the problem is. This didn't happen with the first example and should have - the poster (as far as I know) isn't a repeat spamming troll, but just someone who asked a malformed question.

(more from me) We could try to work with the questioneers, even when they're like this - eg "we can give you opinions (as it says at the top of the page), but we can tell you what conclusions researchers have come to - if you're interested in that - otherwise they question has to go" - anyway - as I say below - I think whoever has an issue should be talking to the questioneer primarily - and as a first resort- that's my point. Maybe they're a reasonable guy - looks friendly enough on their user page.Sf5xeplus (talk) 07:40, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Also mentioning the issue to the OP before starting "delete proceedures" would also be a good example of etiquette and politeness. Perhaps you could express the concerns that the question is worded in a way that suggests bias towards one set of answers (eg SOAPY), - it's possible that they might make amends to that end. Also remember that not everyone who asked is an expert in the field, and not everyone who asks is an impartial outsider - not fitting into both of those groups is no reason to delete a question that can be answered with referenced examples.Sf5xeplus (talk) 06:43, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

No. It is neither polite nor good etiquette to send the OP away with the impression that the same question only needs to be reworded in a tricky way to get attention, because our answer is unchangeable. We can direct the OP to a Wikipedia article that notes using WP:NPOV that the controversy exists, and that's all. I have posted the same at the Ref. Desk. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I realize that's a sensitive point here, Cuddlyable3, so won't further argue here that there is a perhaps subtle distinction that could be made between what you are describing and something that would be both more helpful and acceptable (at least according to the letter of the relevant wiki-law). I guess I just do not feel strongly enough about that distinction to push any further dispute about it; I just want to register again that I think it exists.

I agree with the removal of the original question; schyler's soap-boxesque follow-up is a tougher call, but I have gone ahead and responded to it anyway myself. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 15:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

OP, there is a good wiki article on dopamine that explains how stimulant medications can help dpamine nuerotransmission in th brain. Also, I dislike the way some people have to point out to OPs that they're questions are not able to be answered due to liability reasons. Some OPs don't understand that. Not everyone is going to take the word of mouth advice given from the wikipedia reference desk. I understand the policy is supposed to protect both OP and the wikipedia reference desk, but it hurts my feelings, because sometimes people innocently and earnestly don't know. :( AdbMonkey (talk) 21:01, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

References on the reference desk

On the recent discussion Wikipedia:Rd/h#Scandinavian_flags I responded with some prudent information about the history of the cross. I used my reference I keep on my desk in front of my computer Thayer's Greek English Lexicon of The New Testament to point out the word translated as "cross" in some circles, purely as a Nota bene. My problem arises at the response to, not even the OP's question, but to my response by User:AnonMoos, who said that the idea of a torture stake is "conspicuously unsupported by the consensus of Classical scholarship." This response "conspicuously" is absent of a reference but ambiguously refers to "classical scholarship." I have a serious problem, not with the objection, but with the lack of a reference. I see this as a bad road for the RD and everyone should try to cite their source. Besides, it is in the guidelines. schyler (talk) 20:42, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

well, 'traditionally' the Ref Desk has been a bit more free-spirited - it's one of the few places on wikipedia where a little bit of original research is not frowned-upon, so long as it's in the interest of helping people. but yeah, there are limits. the AGF assumption here would be that you and AnonMoos are having an intellectual disagreement about the 'literalness' of the cross qua instrument of crucifixion. It was that, but it's become a good bit more than that, but literal-minded people can and do still take issue with it. C'est la vie, non? --Ludwigs2 05:23, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I just find it troublesome that a cited reference was countered with an ambiguous claim. Perhaps it's because the references idea has been drilled in my head this semester. schyler (talk) 20:34, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

It's always good to have references, Schyler. References (WP:RS) always win against opinion and speculation (WP:NOR). The Ref desk seems a little less strict about that than in article-space, but it's still The Law around here. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 20:41, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

If AnonMoos had, in their comment, linked to the article Wavelength linked, I don't think we'd have had a problem. The 'stake' thing is a Jehovah's Witness thing, rather than a classical scholarship thing. Did you not know that, schyler? If I were referring to something that I knew was a particularly or exclusively Catholic interpretation, I would always point that out. I wouldn't, for example, say "Jesus didn't have any literal brothers", even with a link to a Catholic reference work: I would say, "The Catholic teaching is that Jesus didn't have any literal brothers", and offer a link to a Catholic reference. If the question hadn't been about only the Catholic point of view, I would include references for other views where I could. And a question about the Nordic cross is not a question only about the Jehovah's Witness view. 86.164.144.120 (talk) 20:50, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

It may very well be that Jehovah's Witnesses care more about the etymology of stauros more than other religions, yes. I was merely pointing out that very fact, though, the etymology. I'm merely pointing out the rules, and hoping my grievance is filed under concordia discors. schyler (talk) 04:15, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Rude (?) answer

The following exchange just took place on the Humanities Desk:

In countries with both a president and a prime minister - which has more power? Are there counterexamples? Is there a list of either case? TheFutureAwaits (talk) 09:52, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

It varies from country to country. Look in Semi-presidential system, Parliamentary republic and List of countries by system of government. Let me point out that you could have found the answers for yourself in 5 minutes. Flamarande (talk) 10:25, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

That was followed by a discussion of whether Flamarande's response was rude, which really should take place on this page if it is to take place at all.
I'd like to point out that your average person would not likely know to look at any of the articles in question to find the answer to that question. While it's possible someone would be able to find his way to those articles in five minutes by starting in places like president or prime minister, it's hardly assured.
I think people who answer questions on the reference desks should remember to keep in mind these rules:

One fallacy is that things that are trivial or easy for us are not necessarily trivial for the original poster. We do not know the OP's situation. They may be non-native speakers of English; they may be very young; they may have very limited technical or computer skills; they may have physical or other handicaps that make it difficult to search; they might not be using the same kind of computer as you (maybe they have no keyboard; maybe they have limited internet connectivity). For any given question, we can not assume that just because we can easily find answers, that everybody can easily find answers. So, there's no need for snide or rude responses faulting the OP for being "lazy" or "dumb." The purpose of the reference desk is to help people who can not find references on their own - anyone who doesn't want to participate in that service does not have to answer. Nimur (talk) 23:46, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

This thread should have been started by giving the reference to the question. I agree with the posts by Mwalcoff and Nimur except the WP:JERK reference which returns rudeness for rudeness. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:41, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

You know, I have to say that the Ref Desks (on the answerer's side) suffers from a lack of... something. My model for a good ref desk is a cross between a university reference librarian and a thesis advisor: someone knowledgable who can help you sift though an overwhelming amount of information and point you in the right directions. But a librarian or a thesis advisor has no bones about telling you that you've asked a bad question and need to go away and think about it. A ref desk where the answerers put more thought into questions than the questioners will always devolve to idiocy (e.g. Yahoo Answers), because the helpful people spend inordinate amounts of time thinking for people who can't be bothered to do it themselves.

This 'question', for instance, might actually have a question buried in it it somewhere, but mostly it's just a ramble by someone too lazy to work out the details of what they want to know, and is counting on the rest of us to do their mental work for them. A decent reference librarian would have looked him straight in the eye and said essentially what Flam said: go read a primer and come back when you have a decent question. rather than criticize here. you might want to emulate a bit. --Ludwigs2 16:02, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree, for the most part, with all of the above. As I pointed out on-desk, though, there is the possibility that User:TheFutureAwaits is a very young child; see this archived question. If so, those of us who are at the RDs regularly should try to keep that in mind. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:06, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

An answer like that sounds a bit like if Dogbert were running the ref desks. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:24, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I am not familiar with the reference, Bugs, so am confused by it. If it is either constructive criticism or humor, please make it clearer to me, eg. how does it relate to keeping in mind the possibility that User:TheFutureAwaits may be a very young child? WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:34, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

There was a Dilbert series some years ago in which Dogbert was running a "help desk" and was belittling every caller. The one I recall is where he told a guy to stand up on a chair in his cube so he could be seen, and shout in his loudest voice, "Does anybody know how to read a manual?"[29] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:00, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, you were responding to the OP, right? It was the indentation that confused me, then. :S WikiDao ☯ (talk) 20:16, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I was referring to the answer that was questioned here. Sorry for the confusion. I'll send you the manual. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:17, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I keep misplacing the one they gave me at indoctrination... :) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

'misplacing' your manual is not an excuse. It would be in your best interest to approach random passersby and ask them (a) if they are wikipedia editors, and if so (b) if they could loan you their manual to photocopy. There will be an exam when you reach 8000 edits, and again at 12500 edits; you'd best be prepared before then. --Ludwigs2 05:28, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:22, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps something else made this person irritable, and then next little irritating thing sent them over the edge, and hence the tactless reply to your question. If this person had won a million dollars, or found the fountain of youth, I imagine their response would've been a 180 and more cheery. Whatever the case, I would not take this personal. Though it was a tactless response to your question, I also would not try to exact revenge on them either, because if they do it enough times other users will notice their hostility and deal with them accordingly. We all have bad moods and make mistakes sometimes, so let's be thankful the wiki is forgiving and not so quick to judge. AdbMonkey (talk) 03:20, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Inappropriate enquiry closed

[30] Just so people are aware. Specifically, the section clearly violates the basic principle that "the Wikipedia reference desk works like a library reference desk: in a library, users consult the professional staff at the reference desk for help in finding information." ╟─Treasury Tag►duumvirate─╢ 21:08, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought the comments contributed by 86.201.213.217 were ok, and close-enough to the spirit of that Basic Principle, though. It is not a very "serious" question for a Reference desk, I agree. How would a real-life librarian handle that? I can see such a person saying "sorry, we just don't deal with that sort of thing here" but I could also see such a person saying something like "well, let's see, here's the campus hotline number for questions that may be of a personal nature, why don't you try asking there?" How 'bout we just {{hat}} it, with those comments included, and hope to leave it at that? WikiDao ☯ (talk) 21:27, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

True, the material left was decent-ish. But the question should not have been asked, and the initial archival should have been respected. ╟─Treasury Tag►estoppel─╢ 21:40, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with the removal of the two helpful answers. The question, although obviously not the type of question for the reference desk, was answered well giving the OP some links where they can ask their question elsewhere. Your removal of those answers serves no purpose. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 21:36, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

It served the purpose of not legitimising fools who come to the RefDesk, ignore the clear guidelines at the top of the page, and leave a query which they must surely know would be better directed to an agony-aunt. ╟─Treasury Tag►estoppel─╢ 21:40, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:BITE and/or WP:INSULT, please, TT. Let's keep it WP:CIVIL. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 21:43, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Some people just need a little extra help in finding their way to a more appropriate site. I do not consider those people "fools" and I don't see how helping them negatively affects Wikipedia in any way. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 21:45, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

No, not WP:BITE. More like WP:CIR – anybody who reads the RefDesk header and then fails to abide by it is either a fool (unintentionally messing up) or a troll (deliberately messing up). I like to think that it is the former. ╟─Treasury Tag►directorate─╢ 22:00, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

One can be an "incompetent" newb without being a "fool" – we all are/were still/once. Civility is a Pillar; "competence" is not. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 22:06, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Newb-ness is completely irrelevant here. If one reads an instruction saying not to do something, and then does it anyway, it doesn't matter how much of a newcomer one is. It is simply stupid and thoughtless at best. I do not intend on discussing this further, but stand by my description and suggest you open a wider discussion if you feel that one is necessary. ╟─Treasury Tag►without portfolio─╢ 22:14, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

LOL, I'll keep that in mind, TT. :) More interested now though in what other folks here have to say. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 22:25, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

To be fair, there is nothing in the top-of-page instructions which directly prohibits advice/opinion seeking. Under "Is there any way I can get a faster answer" (emph. added) there is the directive "Yes, if you need advice or opinions, it's better to ask elsewhere." (emph. added). A reasonable interpretation could be that if one wishes for a faster, better answer, one should ask elsewhere, but one can ask here anyway if one doesn't mind a slow, so-so answer. The only prohibited questions I see listed are those asking for medical/legal advice, asking for (opinions or predictions) on future events (parenthesis added for clarity on a perfectly valid parsing), and those intending to start debates. It's hardly nice to call someone a fool for following the directions as-written, as opposed to what you *think* the directions are. -- 174.21.243.119 (talk) 00:28, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I would have left 86.201's comments; he did actually provide helpful references. I won't revert TT, but he really should have dropped 86 a note, even if it is just an IP, that his good faith answer was removed. I have done so: User_talk:86.201.213.217. Buddy431 (talk) 23:06, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit: I left user:Nil Einne a note too: User_talk:Nil_Einne#Reference_Desk_Contribution. Please notify editors when you remove their comments. Buddy431 (talk) 23:10, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

The criterion should be consistency. We get this sort of question here on a fairly regular basis, and mostly the OPs don't get bitten for them. They attract a few answers, some of which may contain helpful references, and perhaps a kindly good wish, which won't do any harm to a distressed or worried person. A few random examples: 1, 2, 3, 4. If we're going to slap every such question down summarily on the grounds that this isn't a suitable venue, or that the OP didn't read the (nonexistent) instructions telling him/her that we're not agony aunts, then fine: but we need to do so consistently, in which case why are we not doing the same to all medical and legal questions, all those where personal contact details are revealed, and all those that lead to a debate? It does not say anywhere at WP:RD that we won't answer questions about relationships, and anyone who monitors these pages will know that we frequently do. Until we have consensus that we don't, and a clear notice to that effect, I cannot see any justification for archiving them with a curt put-down and deleting any good-faith responses to them without notice. What it does say is "Many questioners will be newcomers, and the reference desk should be a friendly and welcoming place". Summary archiving on the grounds that you think the OP a fool does not seem to fit the spirit of this statement. Ka renjc 16:31, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

It does not say anywhere at WP:RD that we won't answer questions about relationships, and anyone who monitors these pages will know that we frequently do. Well, WP:RD/G is very clear that the RefDesk deals in information and that it is to be treated like the real-life equivalent in a library. And I can't envisage a library humouring a request like the one this thread concerns. ╟─Treasury Tag►assemblyman─╢ 16:36, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Regarding people not reading the header, welcome to the real world. In my library, no one reads any of our signs. It just doesn't happen, and it never will. People have a question and they will ask it, regardless. Our job is to deal with it with tact, answering the ones we can and redirecting to the appropriate resources when we can't. Example: "My son just ate a mushroom and is getting sick, what kind of mushroom is it?" "Call 911, get him healthy and come back later." We don't ignore them or push them away, and we certainly don't mock them (to their faces, anyway). Aaronite (talk) 16:41, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. In mine, provided we felt the query was genuine, we could have pointed out a book, or the section containing self-help books; we might have shown the customer the displays and leaflets for local advice services or phone lines, and said: "Sorry, that's all the information we have; hope it works out for you". We certainly wouldn't have snatched back any information they'd already been given, said "This isn't the right place", and slammed the door in their face. I'm not disputing the fact that we get questions that we probably shouldn't answer (because the answers are likely to be personal opinion rather than referenced to a reliable source), as well as those we definitely mustn't answer (because they require professional advice). My concern is how we deal with the former, and whether we can do so consistently and within the spirit of WP:RD/G. Which, if we are quoting it, also says "We should in all cases strive to exceed the minimum standard of civility" and "In all cases, use common sense rather than some literally-minded interpretation of the guidelines". Ka renjc 18:31, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

"Real library don't answer this kind of question"

Work enough time on a real reference desk, and you'll find we answer everything, even the stupid "trolling" questions, which we do indeed get. As I said above, we might not answer it directly, but we'll find some service or another the can help. Read lovetheliberry.blogspot.com/ to find out what I mean. If we pretend to be online reference librarians, let's act like it and just do the job rather than finding excuses not to. Aaronite (talk) 16:48, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

A key difference is the format: this is an online service. Nobody can come up to your real-world library reference desk and replace it with "XJSDFKFDSJDF!!!@". We have to deal a little bit differently because of the unique online format of Wikipedia. There is a very fine line between "vandalism" and "disruptive editing;" but there is a point at which we can no longer assume the questioner is sincere.

In the real-world, a questioner may bug you with a few dumb few dumb questions, and you will probably tolerate them. Eventually, you might ask the person to stop. If, in response, they escalate the situation by asking all new questions in the format of "jumping up on a table shouting it towards the reference desk," you'd have the questioner escorted out of your library by the police. Here on Wikipedia, we follow the same general course: repeat-offenders of dubious questions are gently informed to stop; and if they escalate, we simply escort them out of our encyclopedia. Nimur (talk) 16:58, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem I see is that we are very quickly moving on to suspect questions. They may appear stupid (and in some cases are) and yet have intelligent and useful answers. We seem to be presuming that no one but the OP is reading the answers, leaving other readers (and I suspect many are non-posting lurkers) to miss these intelligent answers to stupid questions.

I object to these quick accusations of trolling and "fools" on those grounds. There is a glimmer that the question could be serious, they should be taken as such. If it's a troll, too bad. It might not be. We waste plenty of time on opinion and speculative questions even though time and again it's pointed out that that is beyond the scope of this project, but straight answers are often not given because it might be a troll, despite the fact that the answer could be found in seconds.

People don't, or can't, always ask questions to our lofty standards. Anyone who has actually done library work (or other free public service) will recognize that there is a clear language/intelligence/laziness spectrum, and we have to deal with all of them.

As for the real-world situation, what about the customer we've got who has come in for the past 25 years to ask the same question over and over and over again? He gets served. Maybe tersely, but he is served. He is exactly like our trolls here.

Let's all eat some humble pie and just do the jobs we have volunteered to do. Aaronite (talk) 19:28, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The point is, Wikipedia is all about reliability and verifiability. We go to enormous lengths to make sure that our encyclopedia pages are free of cruft, trivia, disorganised miscellany and personal opinion. And it is utterly beyond me why we would choose to blow these high standards on the RefDesk by providing agony-aunt responses to relationship queries, moral conundra and general hair-salon chit-chat. This is an encyclopedia – and our reference desks should be a place to provide factual information and to help visitors find relevant sources and material.
If that poster had asked, "Where could I find relationship advice? By the way, I live in Nottingham," then it would be completely appropriate to direct him to Connexions or the Samaritans or whatever. But he was asking us to provide our own opinions, and that is a service which no encyclopedia should provide, entertain or humour. ╟─Treasury Tag►Tellers' wands─╢ 22:55, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

No one was "providing agony-aunt responses to relationship queries". The reference desk maintained the "high standards" of Wikipedia and provided factual information and references on more appropriate places for the OP to ask their question. That was the best possible response to the question, and exactly what a real life reference desk would do. You reverted those answers, but left the apparently unacceptable question where it was, boxed in a template like it's a toxic contamination. I seriously do not understand the logic behind that. Why revert good, factual, answers people had taken the time to write? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 23:11, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Because the question should not have been asked, and whoever wrote the answers should not have co-operated with it. My complaint of agony-aunt responses is a more general issue with the RefDesk, in that when people make inappropriate enquires, nine times out of ten they receive specific answers with specific advice, rather than mere referrals as happened in this case.
If you think that the effect of the {{archive top}} template is to humiliate the threads it is used on, then by all means complain at its talkpage. But at the moment, it is the standard way of closing threads which have passed their prime – and the thread we are discussing passed its prime several minutes before it was posted, I'm afraid to say. ╟─Treasury Tag►senator─╢ 23:16, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Whether or not the question should have been asked, it's sitting there on the desk and a factual referenced answer to it will not have any detrimental effect on Wikipedia or the Reference Desk. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 23:33, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Exactly the point. We don't get to choose who asks questions, but we do get to direct them to the most appropriate resource. I work in a real library. This is what we do when we get this kind of question in a real library, and it's what we should be expected to be doing here. And if you personally don't like it, here's how to deal with it: ignore the question. Aaronite (talk) 00:33, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

A factual referenced answer to it will not have any detrimental effect on Wikipedia or the Reference Desk. Well, I beg to differ. I think it would be wrong – and worse, unwise – of the RefDesk volunteers to create a climate where people feel free to turn up and make nail-boutique chit-chat about their relationship woes and ask for advice.
You folks seem to take the view that if people are unwittingly breaking the rules, the solution is to abolish those rules. However, as anybody who can translate ignorantia juris non excusat from Latin will tell you, if people are unwittingly breaking the rules, the solution is to enforce those rules, and then people will quickly learn then.
It is obvious to me that if we stopped humouring inappropriate questions from nutcases who ignore the guidelines, then people would quickly stop asking them. And surely, if people stop asking dumb, inappropriate questions on the RefDesk (=people start following the rules) then that is a net benefit for Wikipedia?
So that is how a factual referenced answer to stupid talk-show requests has a detrimental effect on Wikipedia. ╟─Treasury Tag►high seas─╢ 09:10, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

" . . . if we stopped humouring inappropriate questions from nutcases who ignore the guidelines, then people would quickly stop asking them." - I fear, TT, that there is an effectively infinite supply of new nutcases :-).

"And surely, if people stop asking dumb, inappropriate questions on the RefDesk (=people start following the rules) then that is a net benefit for Wikipedia?" - People will never stop, because a proportion of naïve (in the technical sense) questioners will continually show up (due to people being born, growing up and getting internet access) and ask such questions. I'd agree that they should be politely discouraged, educated and where appropriate redirected, but the Wikipedia RefDesks exist to benefit people, not vice versa, and the Guidelines are an aid to the process, but over-rigid enforcement of any set of rules is, in my experience, counter-productive; if nothing else one is liable to spend more and more time elaborating and enforcing more and more rules, and less and less time on the originally intended activity. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 10:34, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, so answer me this – what is the point of having a rule if we are openly agreeing here that it should not be enforced? ╟─Treasury Tag►quaestor─╢ 10:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Which rule, specifically, are you talking about? Because I can't see any rule prohibiting helping someone by providing them with references, regardless of how they worded their original question. Obviously the desks are only supposed to give referenced and verifiable answers to questions, but that is exactly what happened in this case. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 11:11, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

This is not complicated. The general, recognised rule is that the RefDesk is not for relationship advice, moral conundra and hair-salon chit-chat. The obvious way to enforce this rule is to delete – or at least completely ignore – violations. So now, perhaps you could answer my question: what is the point of having this rule if we are openly agreeing here that it should not be enforced? ╟─Treasury Tag►international waters─╢ 11:47, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Again, what rule are you talking about? The guidelines prohibit legal and medical advice, requests for opinions or predictions about future events, and debates. There is no rule about relationship advice. Answering a question about relationship advice with links to relationship websites and forums where the OP can get information on their problem is well within the reference desk scope. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 12:06, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Originally, you asked, "Which rule, specifically, are you talking about?" My answer began with the phrase, "The general, recognised rule is that..." which clearly indicated that the next few words were going to contain the answer to your question. However, having (presumably) read that reply, you again asked precisely the same question, from which I gather that you are not interested in constructive discussion, so I will not be engaging further with you. ╟─Treasury Tag►most serene─╢ 12:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm asking for you to point to the guidelines and show me where it actually says relationship questions aren't allowed. I've read the guidelines and it doesn't prohibit them; there is no rule against them as far as I can see. I asked you to clarify and you talked about an unwritten "rule" a few people seem to have mutually agreed upon on their own. That doesn't really count as a rule, and shouldn't be used a justification for removing an editors good, referenced answer to a question which isn't technically disallowed. I think from this discussion there is consensus among the other editors here to reinstate the answer but leave the question and its answer in the "discussion closed" box to dissuade additional relationship type questions; we can help the OP and make it clear this type of question isn't really for the reference desk at the same time. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 13:57, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Last reply to you... The guidelines state that the RefDesk is for requesting information and/or pointers to relevant sources. "What do i do my girlfreind livs in nottingam and her ex and i dont get on what do i do," is neither a request for information and/or pointers to relevant sources (if it was, it would have said, "Where would you recommend I go for relationship counselling? I live in Nottingham,"). ╟─Treasury Tag►Africa, Asia and the UN─╢ 14:08, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I understand that the question (which you've grossly misquoted above and paraphrased with spelling errors and incoherence which is not present in the actual question) shouldn't really have been asked. My point is that helping the OP find a better place to ask their question is not a bad thing, and is in keeping with the spirit of the reference desk. Withholding helpful information just because they didn't phrase their question in the correct way does nobody any good. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 14:27, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I would have to agree with those upthread - customers don't read (or don't understand) the instructions and they don't think about whether the question they are asking is stupid or inappropriate. This can be seen also on the help desk. It is beyond understanding that anyone who had taken even a couple of seconds to read the instructions would ask some of the questions that turn up there. And yet they do. And this will never change. There will always be some people like this and there is no way to "train" the behaviour out of them, because they are always new people. There is no learning curve because they never come back - perhaps not even to see the responses to their question. So we can't prevent the problematic behaviour, only deal with it. People do stupid things, but we should still provide them with the best customer service we can, and in my view that means answering their questions when possible. Yes, we do end up answering questions that are not strictly within our remit, but if the customer goes away better informed, I don't see the harm in that. On the reference desk, I don't think this problem is significant enough to worry about - the occasional questioner every now and then, furnished with links and perhaps directed somewhere more appropriate isn't concerning. If someone decided to use this place as their regular Marjorie Proops, then we may need to consider matters further. --Kateshortforbob _talk 13:55, 15 November 2010 (UTC) Excuse my radical generalisation - some people of course do read the instructions, and one day I hope I will meet them.

The problem is that TT's "general, recognised rule" about this particular question is not only not unambiguously stated, but is far from generally recognised by questioners and RD respondents. I happen to agree that this is a problem we should address. If that means improvements for consistency and clarity, then fine. As it stands, these guidelines don't tell us "this question should not have been asked"; RD/G exists only to help respondents "clarify appropriate responses". Furthermore, RD/G requires us to be civil to RD questioners, including presumably those dismissed above as "fools" and "nutters" who may misguidedly post "hair salon chit-chat". The OP expressed himself civilly enough, yet the response and above discussion ooze disdain for him and the people whose answers got nixed. Even requests for medical/legal advice, potentially far more damaging to Wikipedia, are rarely dealt with as this was. They are either excised completely or, more commonly, given a brief "sorry but no" and a link to the legal or medical disclaimer, and left live until archived regularly. Archiving is an acceptable way to prevent further debate on an exhausted thread, but in that case it's commonly archived whole with a closing comment, unless the answers themselves are dangerously outside policy. TT's actions were a combination of two approaches, the net effect of which was to leave some with the impression that a questioner and his respondents had been treated with unusual and unnecessary contempt. What the OP's question actually breached was the instruction: "if you need advice or opinions, it's better to ask elsewhere ... the reference desk does not answer requests for opinions". Instead of arguing back and forth about interpretations of general principles, wouldn't it be more helpful to consider why the RD deals inconsistently and often very poorly with opinion-seeking questions, and how we can improve this? People are much clearer on medical/legal ones, which have had consensus via lengthy discussion, and although debate still goes on they seem to be handled much more professionally on the RD as a result. Ka renjc 14:29, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

FWIW I'm lazy to get involved in this big discussion hence why I haven't responded sooner (but thanks to Buddy431 for letting me know). However I agree that removing 86's response in particular seems unnecessary. I don't feel my response was that bad but I'm not going to contest its removal as it wasn't really RD material. I wasn't BTW aware that the question had been archived. (While I don't know if the archiving was necessary I doubt I would have removed it not even to give an 86 style response.) Nil Einne (talk) 16:01, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, my only problem with relationship questions is that they make it much more likely that answerers won't provide factual references like we're supposed to at the Reference Desk. But that's on the answerers. I don't think these questions should be removed or boxed up, though I don't have a problem with tagging them with the recent warning template somebody wrote saying: Watch it, everyone, don't veer off into opinion-land please. I don't agree with TreasuryTag's premise that these questions are inherently and automatically out of bounds. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:36, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I am in disagreement with TT's position on this one. There was no getting up on the desk and shouting inappropriately in the library in this case. When that does happen, one politely pushes the button that opens the trap-door that drops the disruptant as quickly and quietly out of sight as possible. We weren't there yet this time.

It's a tough call sometimes, and may require finding the right balance of sometimes "opposing" principles. I'd bet even those here who are most experienced don't get it right every time.

The bottom line is that I think we should all make the effort to be as civil as possible in addition to whatever else we feel is required of us to make WP a better collaboratively-written encyclopedia and online resource. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 20:22, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Cross-wiki vandal also very active on our reference desk pages

See this thread:

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive646#Cross-wiki vandal flying under the radar 22 months: 280+ bogus page creations, 40+ IPs

The anonymous German editor that creates these bogus talk page redirects is also quite busy on the reference desk pages, asking what appear to be interesting questions. If these German IPs are constructively editing here but not otherwise disrupting our project, I recommend leaving them alone. I do request, however, that you check their contribution histories for bogus page creations or obvious trolling on other projects. On their user contribution pages, you can use these links at the bottom of the page

"WHOIS" -- gives the IP's country of origin
"Geolocate" -- gives the IP's approximate location
"Global contributions" -- lists the account's contributions on other projects as well as any current blocks

If you see a German IP that fits this pattern and they're misbehaving, please request an administrator block it immediately. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 03:03, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up A.B. and at least some of us will keep an eye on this - however I'm not sure it's the best use of volunteer time to have everyone checking IP history and location, given the volume of anonymous questions that arrive here. Do you have a list of address prefixes in particular that should be watched for? You mention 84.153 (possibly a /27 range) at the AN/I report, can you pin it down a bit? We don't want questions for the sake of asking interesting questions, rather we want questions raised from genuine curiosity, and g-d knows we have enough problems of our own just now. Any specifics you can provide would help. Franamax (talk) 03:34, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I've left a note at:

meta:Talk:Steward requests/Global#Cross-wiki vandal flying under the radar 22 months: 280+ bogus page creations, 40+ IPs (permanent link)

Request future IP global blocks at:

meta:Steward requests/Global#Requests for global (un)block

4-week blocks of individual IP addresses should be sufficient.

As for what to look for: intelligent questions from an 84.xxx.xxx.xxx or 88.xxx.xxx.xxx IP. The questions may be challenging but (based on spot checks) I wouldn't call them trolling; I think they're legitimate. Do a quick look at the IPs' local edit history (for new page creations) and their x-wiki edit histories. This should take < 30 seconds. The x-wiki check will usually list the ISP on the results page, sparing you running a WHOIS check. German IPs will originate from domains ending in ".de". You'll probably get about one new IP a day from these general IP ranges which cover multiple European countries. Note that you have at least one unrelated, anonymous editor in the UK in this range who also frequently asks challenging questions but does not disruptively add new pages.

Here are some sample discussions:

Just recently, I have seen German IPs editing the reference desks that are likely (but not definitely) related:

84.153.221.42 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
84.153.222.131 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
84.153.201.252 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
84.153.243.99 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
84.153.179.167 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
84.153.205.126 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
84.153.225.74 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

I think our friend is probably behind these but I have been content to leave these accounts alone as long as they were not disruptively creating bogus pages.

Thanks for any help you can give. I realize your time is limited. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

User talk:85.181.145.78 (Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#if_the_moon_and_moon_landings_are_real) and User:84.153.196.225 diff fit the non-vandalistic editors from germany pattern - I'm not an expert but they appear to have different ISP's one Deutsche Telecom the other 'HanseNet Telekommunikation GmbH' , nothing from either of these I could see that was disruptive.87.102.115.141 (talk) 14:04, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting these. It's hard to say about 84.153.196.225 -- there's just that one edit. I'm guessing that since it edited the same thread as that other IP, 85.181.145.78, they must be related. Overall, the tone just doesn't quite seem the same as previous reference desk edits, but that may just be my imagination. Take a look at some of the other IPs and see what you think. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:28, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't sure about the 85.181.145.78. it is from another service provider (all the others were Deutsche Telecom) - one possibility I thought of is that it's the same person using free wifi somewhere.. the other is that it's a totally different person. Don't know.

Re the list of anon edits : They all look similar, possibly up to 3 people though, could be just 1.

I should ask - has creating talk pages for articles which don't exist by unsigned editors since been stopped/prevented? this seems to be the exploit they're using?

With respect to Red Act who deleted it, I disagree with deleting the "if the moon and moon landings are real" question and have restored it. Although the question may be considered childish it has elicited sensible answers from several editors. It is not obvious to a casual uninformed observer on Earth that the Moon is spherical. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:32, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I tend to agree with putting it back. As far as I know the cloud hanging over the IP range isn't sufficient to justify a deletion - however as C3 says - it's not the best of questions; however RedAct's edit summary [31] suggested the suspicion of association with the talk page vandal was sufficient? or maybe they thought it should have been deleted regardless?77.86.5.157 (talk) 22:10, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I presumed it was the person in question, because the IP was in the right range, and because it seemed very unlikely to me that the question was being asked in good faith instead of just trolling. While there are a lot of moon landing conspiracy theorists out there, I'm not aware of there being a significant number of people who think the moon is flat. Maybe some of the Flat Earth Society people, but there are really very few of those. I really don't have a strong feeling about whether or not the question should be kept, though. If people want to spend their time responding to a ridiculous question that almost certainly wasn't asked in good faith, I really don’t care. Red Act (talk) 17:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

The IP ranges that have been used in the past span a country of >80 million people and include Europe's largest telecom. I strongly suggest treating German IPs that raise questions here as innocent until proven guilty (by "guilty", I mean blatantly disruptive vandalism such as creating redirect pages like Talk:Microshit and Talk:Dortmund Hbf sucks ). Until an IP does that, you really don't know for sure that you haven't got one of the other 80 million Germans just asking a question. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:52, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

77.86.5.157, here's the list of talk page redirects that were created and deleted:

User:A. B./Sandbox20 (permanent link)

We've "protected" those titles so they can't be re-created but I expect our friend will come up with new variations in the future. On this Wikipedia, that's been the main problem. If you look at the edit histories of all those IPs I list, then look at the IPs' user talk pages, I don't think you'll see any complaints from others about the many dozens of reference desk questions the person asked over 2 years. Folks seemed to find them interesting and reasonable so they were apparently happy to answer them.

The IPs have included other ISPs besides Deutsche Telecom, such as Arcor (now part of Vodafone) --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:31, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

"They're here" – 84.153.205.142 just asked this at the Hum desk. Which I am probably about to remove as being unanswerable or whatever the pertinent guideline is for that. (But note that this question, yesterday, at the Comp desk, seems to have gotten answered...). WikiDao ☯ (talk) 13:54, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I suggest just not answering questions you don't want to answer, rather than hassling anonymous editors from Germany. You'll never know for sure if you've gotten the right person unless you see evidence of actual vandalism elsewhere -- either bogus page creation here or some sort of vandalism on another wiki using the same IP (and within the last several weeks -- these IPs recycle quickly). In the many hours of researching our friend's edits, I never once saw anyone complaining about his questions at the reference desk. To the contrary, people seemed to enjoy answering them. The unwelcome disruption came instead from bogus page creations.

If we do see any outright vandalism, then you'll confirm that #1, you've got the vandal, not another person and #2, he's in a vandalizing mood. At that point block him. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:25, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

So far, since originally posting this note, I have seen none of the mystery person's vandalism here or on other wikis. It's possible they've become aware of their newfound visibility on Wikipedia. They may decide they'd rather have access here than cause disruption elsewhere. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:40, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'd prefer to avoid "hassling" even people who "deserve" it, myself, and have limited power to do so anyway.

I thought 84.153.205.142 was a good candidate for your friend, behaviorally speaking, but not so much 84.153.212.109. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 20:43, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

WikiDao, I'm sorry about my choice of words. I didn't mean to say you were inappropriate. I also think this may be our friend but as long as this IP's doing no harm, I'd assume good faith. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:54, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

A bit late in to this discussion. We have had problems from the German user who creates redirects on the RD in the past. They kept asking wacky questions like why can't word A be a word in language B. Eventually the RD/L people decided that he/she wasn't genuinely interested in the answers and wasn't even always reading them (plus a lot of the time the questions didn't make much sense or started off on the wrong premise) so started to delete them on sight (they tried ignoring them but as often happens with this sort of thing, usually someone who doesn't know the history comes along). This was perhaps an early sign of that [32].

At some stage he/she also started asking trollish questions about copyrights, apparently because of a dislike of the Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Flag of Australia with Aboriginal flag replacing Union flag.svg (which was deleted there, but not because of their bizzare intepretation of Australian copyright law forbidding the Union Jack to be replaced and could of course be uploaded to en.wikipedia if desired). They also showed an early interest in this [33]. This in particular has let me to believe they may have a connection to Australia although it's difficult to be sure.

They also asked a bunch of complicated maths questions and other questions asking for detailed lists, IIRC from the same IPs that had asked some of the word A in language B question, while I had no clear evidence, my gut feeling when I looked in to it was that these complicated questions were similarly trollish wanting people to waste their time on stuff they themselves didn't care about the answer.

They had been doing their redirect etc vandalising at the time, one in particular was Mitsu which I got them banned for (this was in February of this yeaar) and they seemed to reduce their efforts on the RD so they semi fall off on my radar. However I have noticed the recent German IP questions. I haven't commented before since although I found some of these questions suspicious particularly given the history, I haven't seen clear evidence the person is related to the previous ones. In particular the previous iterations were using Arcor geolocating to NORDRHEIN-WESTFALEN (occasionally Berlin which is probably a generic location) whereas these IPs have generally been Hansenet. I do agree we have to be careful about linking all German IPs to this person, I myself made a mistake in the past of linking Special:Contributions/84.56.141.252 and [34] to that IP however the geolocation is wrong and the NORDRHEIN-WESTFALEN kept kept their same IP from before and after that question so it is unlikely that person is them.

Nil Einne (talk) 03:39, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Nil Einne, I thanked you on my talk page last week, but I'll repeat it here -- thanks so much for this information. It's very helpful.

A request for everyone: can you let me know if you think you see our mystery editor again? I'm not a regular participant on our reference desk pages. I want to track and make sure they're not creating problems elsewhere. You can just leave a note for me on my talk page (User talk:A. B.) or drop me an email (Special:EmailUser/A. B.).

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:11, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Better yet: I'm tracking this issue at User:A. B./Sandbox20. You can leave me a note on the talk page at User talk:A. B./Sandbox20. Thanks, --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:44, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Fox News/UFO guy

Anyone seen him around lately? I miss his contributions. --Viennese Waltz 12:01, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Did you really expect them to last long after their contribs? Frankly I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did. I think they posted in 2008 I guess the CIA was too worried about the elections to do their job properly Nil Einne (talk) 14:13, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Discussion moved from Science Desk

This was posted on Science Desk as "Where is Steve Baker???". I have moved it here. Nimur (talk) 16:48, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Nothing to do with science (or maybe very much to do?) TY —Preceding unsigned comment added by DSTiamat (talk • contribs) 13:37, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

You could ask him. Contribution history shows he is still active, just not posting much on the Ref. Desks recently. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:48, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I feel it would be more accurate to say that he was run off the Reference Desk by a couple trollish users. It tends to happen to all the truly helpful people around here. I guess that means that I'm in no risk of being run off. -- kainaw ™ 13:51, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

I concur with your assessment on the value of your contributions to the desks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.72.109.103 (talk) 13:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

And only the trolls remained ... --Sean 14:35, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

It's good of you to stay around. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:04, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok, ty, good to know that the valuable people are still around, I dont post much but the world would be empty without some of the intelligent ppl from RD.DST —Preceding unsigned comment added by DSTiamat (talk • contribs) 13:59, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

As this is meta discussion, it should be moved to Wikipedia talk:Reference desk. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

He's still in Texas, I assume; I have missed him, too. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:28, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe he just got burnt out. It happens. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 20:21, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Look guys. There's no reason to speculate. Steve is a real human. You can directly communicate with him on User talk:SteveBaker. There's no reason to continue this conversation here. Nimur (talk) 21:25, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

^{[citation needed]} I have yet to be convinced that any of you are real people. APL (talk) 21:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

For my part, I'm just a (minor) character in a collaboratively-written "novel". :) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:32, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

"Mongo only pawn in Game of Life." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:26, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

From the sanctum of his trophy room[35] the Tutnum[36] of the Encyclopedia has evaluated us the volunteers who make the Ref. Desks work and said: "I took a quick look at Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk last night...geez! Whatever happened to our friendly, mutually supportive & professional team? This may be a L-O-N-G break! Between the wacko's, the trolls, the jokers, the wikilawyers and the grammar nazi's...". Since I can't possibly be all these things, who do you think are the others? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:15, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Good question. The Science Desk is the poorer for Steve's absence. I miss his answers to science questions, and I look forward to seeing him back soon. Dolphin (t) 11:31, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Wait. You folks here used to have a "friendly, mutually supportive & professional team?". Wow. And contributors to the discussion that takes place on this page used to not be "the wacko's, the trolls, the jokers, the wikilawyers and the grammar nazi's"...? I find that hard to believe, is it humor? Anyway, I wish you a long, restful, and apparently well-deserved break, Steve. :) (And you may also be interested, as mentioned above, in our burn out article). WikiDao ☯ (talk) 14:05, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

There have always been trolls, but now there are definitely more unhelpful regulars than in years past. Issues with their posts have been brought up ad nauseam, but they decline to leave or shape up. It's definitely been a factor in my reduced interest in the desks. If I want lame puns I know where to find them. --Sean 18:40, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

If you want to know the context of half the discussion here, there really is no replacement for picking a random archive every so often and reading it. Some of the specific context cannot really be discussed in a non-disruptive way, or without giving oxygen to various unpleasant fires. Sad, but true. 86.164.144.120 (talk) 20:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Presumably WikiDao was being sarcastic, but yes, we used to be much more friendly, supportive, and professional, and the discussion here on this talk page tended to be reasonable. The idiocy/inanity level on this talk page -- both the positions taken, and the stupefying volumes of words spent dissecting them -- is really quite amazing sometimes, and I fear I'm not the only one-time regular who is significantly turned off by it. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:02, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Count me in. This is my first post on anything RD-related for a month (although my regularity pales into insignificance compared with that of other users). The acrimony that often crops up here is really off-putting. Brammers (talk/c) 13:19, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

It (the "esprit de corps" of the RD, the general "character" of it, and so on) probably comes and goes and cycles over time, just one of those things. It seems a little better now than when I first started hanging out here a couple of months ago. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 21:04, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

As a general rule, anything on the Internet that allows the general public to contribute will get far worse in September and rather worse in January. It has been that way since long before the Internet existed. Old BBS systems always had the dreaded September period every year. -- kainaw ™ 00:13, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Which is an excellent excuse to link to our article on the Eternal September. That was actually the time I joined the online community, though I wasn't part of the AOL invasion (does anyone still use AOLosers anymore?), but instead was part of the more normal university September crew. To tell you the truth, I'm often nostalgic for the days of monochrome fixed-width font internet. Oh, how I miss you, efficient little gopher of my heart! No MIDIs or Flash animations ever spoiled your serene beauty... why did Mosaic have to come and ruin it all? And usenet on tin was the best it ever was, as much as I appreciate usenet's ability to function as huge repository for easily accessible porn. But I digress. Matt Deres (talk) 04:20, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm surprised that none of the "grammar nazi's" have stopped by to point out that unfortunate apostrophe... Quietmarc (talk) 15:35, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

It should be said: it has been very (but not completely) quiet on that front since all the hullabaloo about it a while back, QM. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 19:59, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Unsurprising. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:31, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm sure many people noticed it. That, and "wacko's". What I'd really like explained is why "troll", "joker" and "wikilawyer" were not considered worthy of an apostrophe but "wacko" and "nazi" were. Scientific consistency would suggest all or none, not this kind of selective apostrophisation. But maybe there's a rationale. Is it that "wacko" and "nazi" end in vowels and the others end in consonants? That might explain it. But do we write "five encyclopedia's"? No; so it can't be just that. I'm very curious about this. Always have been. Nobody's ever explained this phenomenon to my satisfaction. Here's your chance. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:49, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Removed post by Cuddlyable3 alluding to another editor. Franamax (talk) 21:19, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Franamax has interfered here with a civil exchange in this thread by deleting my post above twice, posting various warnings on talk pages, and may be unaware that we have a guideline about not editing another's post. There will be nothing served by restoring the post now when Franamax is bound to turn bad to worse by a third deletion and a pointless block. Trying to censor a sourced quote is simply silly. An admin tried to obtain an agreement from me that I would neither contact nor comment on an editor while the same editor is free to contact or say anything about me. For the information of Franamax, I have not made any such agreement. I am not a donkey to be led by "carrot and stick" but if that is attempted I can probably suggest where to insert them. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:49, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought the deleted text was okay. I'm not familiar enough with the situation to know: is Cuddlyable3 considered sanctionable ( or even "blockable") for even linking to anything in any way involved with User:SteveBaker? That does seem a bit harsh and unmeritedly so as far as I can see. Unless Cuddlyable3 is under warning not to do that as part of the administrative process involved in the dispute he was blocked for a couple of months ago, in which case that understanding should perhaps be made clearer, and if necessary fairer too, abided by, and appropriately enforced. WikiDao ☯ (talk) 21:09, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I considered doing that removal myself, as it (the edit Franamax removed) was disruptive. It was also near-meaningless to those unfamiliar with the history of prior disruption, thus it did not contribute to the topic at hand. I don't think that this is the best place to discuss it, though. -- Scray (talk) 21:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes WikiDao, it is part of the adminstrative process and yes Scray this is not the place to discuss it. My talk page is open to questions and any editor is free to request a review of my actions as an administrator at the appropriate noticeboard. Franamax (talk) 22:45, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

That should be "abided by, and appropriately enforced" then. Your word is good enough for me, man - thnx for the clarification. :) WikiDao ☯ (talk) 17:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I am hindered by force majeure from uttering my answer supported by a WP:RS to you, JackofOz. English is complicated but I can't think of nobody who would mess it up just to provoke, and nobody is getting carte blanche to abuse no one not here. You must just not have read wrong. Take care. "Progress must go hand-in-hand with accountability." -- Aung San Suu Kyi. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 03:59, 20 November 2010 (UTC)