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Time to get back to work.

I have generally never bothered with this side of wikipedia, all the policy debates and so forth. I have always, in my apathy, considered it none of my business. Recent events have conspired to make me take an interest, but this was with the hope that something constructive could be achieved. I knew the risks, but couldn't quite foretell the futility of the whole exercise; now we are in danger of wasting further time. All that seems to have happened is that we have made our divisions more apparent, so it's time to get back to just staffing the desks, and hoping that things here will one day take care of themselves.

To this end, I'm trying to think up questions that, whilst still suitable for the ref desk, give as many people as possible a chance to contribute. This will inevitably entail some debate, not as a primary end, but as part of clarifying and discussing certain aspects of a question. The point is that the devil will find work for idle hands, so we need to all get as busy as possible. Without stuff to interest us all, we will get idle, and lost in argument and debate. With questions to motivate us, we will get busy again, and avoid the politics and contention.

I've got a few questions in the pipeline, but I don't think I'm as good at this as some of you. So if you can think up really tricky questions for us, deliberately, that would be great. I've posted one on the Humanities desk, hope it is to your liking. If not, ok, come up with your own ones instead, and get us thinking. IBE (talk) 15:57, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Of course we are all welcome to post questions here, but I would also urge everyone to keep WP:POINTY in mind. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:03, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

While I would never suggest less questions, especially if they are good ones, I fail to see the utility of this - I'm willing to bet that most of the people here have busy schedules, in general -- I know that, personally, I should be doing actual work the vast majority of time I am on here (...this is, sadly, my Facebook...well, at least lurking-wise, I'm reticent to answer, generally, unless I have something unique or very well sourced to say - and I usually don't). Anyway, my general point being, the number of questions on the desk, probably, does not impact the amount of argument on the talk page - indeed, most people have other things to do, anyways; but more questions may inspire more debate as there would be more points of contention...again, nothing against questions, the more the better, but I don't think quality questions will suddenly bring harmony. (not a criticism, just my two cents)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 18:20, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Phoenixia1177 and SemanticMantis. I saw this before but was lazy to reply so the only thing I did was to largely ignore the question. Reading it now, it sounds like you are genuinely interested in the answer. In that case abd if it's an appropriate question I would encourage you to ask it the same with anyone else who has a suitable question they are interested in which they couldn't find a satisfactory answer for. But I'm not sure we should be encouraging people to come up with questions to challenge the RD due to the risk that they will take it the wrong way and the question will become more important than the answer. (And many have taken it poorly in the past when people seem to be just asking questions, for the sake of asking questions.) Or to put it a different way, it's fine to ask appropriate questions if you want the answer to the question. But asking questions because you think the RD needs more questions/it will stop arguments here/whatever is not a good idea. At most it should be a tiny consideration, or probably none at all. Nil Einne (talk) 18:45, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

• Assuming I understand this thread, I agree we should get back to work, and I am not sure there is a general problem. So far as I can tell by a general count in February and March we normally have more than 150 live questions at any one time. That seems good and healthy to me. I think focusing on those questions is fine, and that it is only here on this talk page that molehills grow into mountains. Anything seriously problematic should be taken higher, to ANI, or wherever appropriate. This page should solely be for technical issues. Again, I am being entirely sincere, so I apologize if I have misunderstood the premise. μηδείς (talk) 04:27, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure people have understood me. I meant nothing about putting questions here, on the talk page. I only mean the challenge is now to put your thinking hats on, and try to come up with the best questions for the appropriate question pages. I don't mean just for the sake of asking questions, but I do mean trying to think of what you might find interesting. It seems I'm usually misunderstood here, for some reason. I mentioned it here because this seemed the appropriate place to put in a call for interesting questions. Like Phoenixia, I was expecting people would already be busy, and yes, this is my Facebook, but there's a difference between networking on Facebook and arguing with people on Facebook. So I think I'm not out of line suggesting the approach, but obviously, folks, it's take it or leave it, okay? IBE (talk) 17:16, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I do often ask questions here when I know I don't have the knowledge or resources on hand, or a worldwide view, or a personal expert I can ask. I have never generated questions just for the sake of generating them. But a lot of regular users do post questions here when they have a relevant one. I fear that worrying about regulars posting more questions than they already do spontaneously would be like squeezing the goose that lays the golden eggs. μηδείς (talk) 19:06, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

What is wrong with this?

Recently an OP asked a question about Viagra that neither asked for diagnosis, prognosis, not treatment advice. @Jayron32: deleted it. But because it could be answered with references and without advice I answered it [https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous&diff=653357152&oldid=653355582 diff:

i am women

Can I take Viagra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.37.98.87 (talk) 19:24, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Women are indeed prescribed viagra off-label Johns Hopkins for sexual disfunction, and the active ingredient, Sildenafil is prescribed in other formulations for pulmonary hypertension. This article may not be reliable but it mentions other uses. As to yourself, see a physician. It is a prescription medication with serious side-effects and counter-indications. μηδείς (talk) 20:18, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Nothing in my response said anything about whether she can, should, or needs to take Viagra personally.

But Jayron deleted it again, and at the very same time made a rather bizarre and obscene comment on a thread about ideas and the subconscious. He said that my reference to a writing course on fiction that mentions the very phenomenon the OP was asking about, was a bullshit ploy because the author's political views had been invalidated. That's simply irrelevant POV that belongs noweher on that thread. The consensus above is that we hat or delete advice, not questions that can be answered without advice. I am restoring the OP's question on viagra. I'll add "we cannot give medical advice" after the wrd "pysician." μηδείς (talk) 03:03, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

No comment on the Viagra issue, but if you persist in abusing the reference desks by bringing a third-rate amateur philosopher and sociopath up in every thread you can shoehorn her into, don't be surprised that people react. Ayn Rand is dead. That is about the only positive thing that can be said about her. Get over it. Or start a forum somewhere... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:09, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

She was ugly, too. EEng (talk) 12:57, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Andy, please answer the Viagra question. I know there would have been a hullaballoo had I done such a thing, and I have provided various links. When I get reverted then attacked on another desk for a "ploy" I wondered about the reason for the revert. How does the Misc Desk question violate User:Kainaw/Kainaw's criterion? μηδείς (talk) 03:24, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

A question asking 'can I take medication only legitimately available on prescription' is one that only a qualified medical practitioner can properly answer. After finding out why the questioner wants to take it. Had the question been 'Are women ever prescribed Viagra', your answer regarding sexual disfunction, hypertension etc might have been appropriate - but that wasn't the question asked. The question was explicitly worded as a request for advice regarding prescribed medication. We don't answer such questions, because we aren't qualified to do so. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:50, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Answering the OP's question literally, yes, she "can" take Viagra". Whether she ought to is another question, which only her doctor can answer. The OP "can" take anything they bloody well feel like. Not on our advice, though. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:20, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

the fact that one can rationalize an unambiguous violation of a long agreed upon rule does not then mean one can ignore the rule as though it didn't exist. The issue is not either we can provide random tangentially related answers to blatantly inappropriate questions. Under the standard Medeis is proposing we adhere to here, there is no question that could ever be Ahmed that we should ever not answer. That's plainly wrong. We don't answer questions where people ask what medical treatments they can or cannot take, even if we rephrase the answer so we can pretend our answer is not advice. Whether the question unambiguously asks for medical advice, any possible answer is that advice, no matter how it is phrased. That's why such questions should be removed, as has been done uncontroversially for years, until some people decided to run breaching experiments to see how far they could push the limits of long accepted norms. Jayron32 03:43, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm with Jayron32 here. Nil Einne (talk) 12:47, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

There was a previous discussion about this, @Jayron32:. If you want to check through the archives at [1], please go ahead. I looked through, and found no real consensus. Hence I edited the medical page, after a protracted discussion which you may remember. Your repeated ignorance of this is getting tiresome. There is disagreement among editors about the best policy here. You continually ignore this, or make flippant comments about it. I find this irksome. Please desist. IBE (talk) 15:21, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Repeated is a funny word to use for one question I removed. I have no intention of doing this a second time. --Jayron32 16:17, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

In that case, my apologies, @Jayron32:. The impression came from this and other earlier comments. However, I respect your process. I do rather think we did it to death here [2] and I rather tentatively made the changes, and stated that there was a "reasonable" consensus, which does not mean outright. But you are well within your rights, so thankyou for taking it to an RFC. IBE (talk) 17:30, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

(e/c) I saw nothing wrong with Medeis's response.

But please, Medeis, keep these questions to the topic at hand. The ostensible topic was whether we should or not respond to the question about a woman taking Viagra. You've gone way beyond that, to make it about Jayron's bona fides, which you're questioning based on his responses on irrelevant threads that aren't even on the same ref desk. If you want to start a thread about Jayron's or anyone else's behaviour, please introduce it appropriately and we can deal with it appropriately. But this thread is not the place for that, because it's about how our policy on the answering of medical questions should be interpreted. (Also, are you so precious that you consider "bullshit" an obscenity? Really?) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:47, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

What were the chances that in the middle of this particular discussion someone named Jackof would reference someone's bona? The mind boggles. EEng (talk) 12:57, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

For reference, the second comment referred to by Medeis, Andy, and Jack is this one. --Steve Summit (talk) 05:17, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Even if a question is directly asking for advice, not every answer is advice (and I'm not agreeing that this question was asking for advice in the first place). I don't see any problem with the answer, the information is, clearly, factual and sourced, and it is specified that, as pertains the questioner, in specific, they ought consult a physician - I would say that the information is sufficiently segregated so as to not be "advice" for the person, or any person, asking. As for the question, it may be asking if they, the questioner, can take Viagra; it may also be, "can a woman take Viagra", in general; it may just be bad English; etc. I don't think one can definitively label it as seeking advice (and since advice wasn't given, anyway, I'm not seeing a reason it ought be removed).Phoenixia1177 (talk) 05:10, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

It should be made clear that it is a general answer to the related question "Can women take Viagra?", since literally answering "can I take Viagra?" as a standalone question is a treatment recommendation of sorts. But the ongoing obsequiousness here toward the medical profession's prerogatives goes far beyond what is scientifically or even legally explainable, and seems to have a religious or ritualistic basis. Wnt (talk) 13:04, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree the question should not have been phrased this way, but I totally support Medeis' approach as not constituting medical advice, hence there is no problem, and it should stand. IBE (talk) 15:23, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

• Pursuant to this discussion, it is clear that there is no consensus to support the existing policies. I have started an RFC at here to formally gauge community consensus and hopefully make policy reflect practice so we don't have any further confusion, and people like myself are not misled as to proper procedures, where there is no consensus to support those procedures. I'm willing to follow any rules or procedures or policies the community sets on this matter; I just don't like being told one thing, and then getting reprimanded for doing it the way I was told. If the written policy doesn't have consensus, we need to make it clear, so people no longer get reprimanded for trying to follow it. --Jayron32 16:37, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

The responses (as they stand now) are perfect, and should be considered an exemplar for handling these sorts of questions. Because the question can be interpreted as requesting medical advice, IBE provided a warning that we cannot give such advice (and that no response given should be interpreted as medical advice), and Medeis interpreted the question charitably, providing what referenced information we are able to give. Good job you two! -- ToE 17:02, 25 March 2015 (UTC) And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

This is kind of a borderline case. Had the OP asked "Is Viagra ever prescribed to women?" there's a good chance this brouhaha could have been avoided. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:29, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree that it's a borderline case, and I agree that the hidden premise was the question, "can women take viagra", (the OP used the term women) which I answered without giving medical advice, and saying we could not give medical advice. (The rest is water under the bridge so far as I am concerned.) I also think the IP was a deliberate troll trying to push our buttons. So I did what has seemed to be the majority advice above, to answer the fact and ignore the advice. μηδείς (talk) 04:13, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

The OP could have helped the situation by coming back and explaining or elaborating. Some users here like to equate the ref desk to a library ref desk. In this case, the analogy is someone coming by, asking a vague question, and never returning, just leaving it to the various librarians to try to figure out what the questioner was asking. I wonder how much time real-life librarians would spend on such an exercise? I expect not very. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:31, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

To be fair, when you ask a question to a real-life library desk, you have real-time face-to-face interaction with another person, and things such as unclear questions and confusing phrasing can be handled within minutes of being posed, without having an hours-long drawn out back-and-forth about it. It would be exceedingly odd to use a real-life reference desk by walking up to it, shouting your question to the entire library, then waiting several hours for someone to come by, announce the answer or a clarifying question to the entire library and walk away, followed by some other person coming up several hours later and shouting their contribution to the conversation - even if everyone involved were to regularly come back to the reference desk from whatever else they were doing to announce a new contribution. - Secondly, in this particular case there wasn't really any official request for clarification, or necessarily any reason to. Medeis gave an answer which covered both major reasons for asking (general and personal), and Jayron deleted the question without needing or requesting a clarification. If the given answer sufficiently answered the question, what need for explaining or elaborating would there be? And if you weren't trying to disrupt the reference desk, why attempt to explain or elaborate on what is apparently a forbidden question? Just hang your head in shame and feel suitably chastised. -- 160.129.138.186 (talk) 19:00, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

• PS My thanks to all, Jayron32 included. μηδείς (talk) 04:30, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Proper Handling of Request for Legal Advice

I would like to call attention to the following question, which was probably for legal advice: https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AReference_desk%2FMiscellaneous&diff=653499217&oldid=653494539

My comment is that the question was handled properly, with a statement that we do not provide legal advice (not by hatting it or deleting it).

Robert McClenon (talk) 16:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, technically we should get in the habit of linking to WP:Legal disclaimer. Apart from that I agree. Maybe the regulars could start doing this more - it is from the Wikimedia Foundation itself (I think) so we should probably use it more. I've added it now, to this question. IBE (talk) 18:52, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Is there also a medical disclaimer? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:09, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

See WP:MEDICAL. Tevildo (talk) 21:40, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Which Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice does suggest we link to. BTW, AFAIK the disclaimers aren't from the WMF. They may have had some limited involvement in composing them and they are linked (via the general disclaimer) from every page but that's about it. If you look at the talk pages or edit-protected message, there's nothing about asking the WMF if you want to make edits, nor have they said anything about most edit requests. My impression from previous discussions is the WMF in particular their legal team are normally reluctant to get involved with stuff like only providing very broad guidelines and leaving it up to the community, possibly because they don't want such things to be seen as in any way official. The WMF does have their own legal disclaimer, but it only relates to their work, Meta:Wikimedia Legal Disclaimer. The Terms of Use does come from the WMF (albeit with community involvement in their drafting, as per the most recent revision) and does mention something about not providing professional advice. I presume in so much as the WMF feel they need anything to protect them (and my impression is that they probably take the view they don't really), the TOU is sufficient. The WMF is of course ultimately only directly concerned about themselves, and although they may offer limited support for contributors in some cases, they take the view that contributors have responsibility for their own legal matters Nil Einne (talk) 02:31, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Romance advice

What's the best way to handle this? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:24, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Answer the question about a Wikipedia article, which is probably "no". Then refer the OP to the statement at the top of the page: We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate. It would help if that were actually true, but you have to start somewhere. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:28, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Did you actually read the question? What part of it is asking for advice? I see none. See my longer comment below. OP is asking about a practice that was a rather common in some cultures/places and times. Sure, I think it sounds weird to swap sisters, but anyone who doesn't want to think about it is free to ignore. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:23, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Bugs and Marnette have already objected, I deleted the material and replaced it with "This is a reference desk, we don't give personal advice, please see the guidelines at the top of the page." μηδείς (talk) 19:30, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't see that, sorry. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:32, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

We overlapped, please don't apologize. μηδείς (talk) 19:34, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, stricken. :) ―Mandruss ☎ 19:35, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

See If Identical Twin Sisters Married Identical Twin Brothers and "double cousin".

—Wavelength (talk) 19:43, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I handled it in my own way before seeing this. I think Medeis' removal was way off base. I spent a few minutes and found several relevant references. The OP did not, in any way, ask for personal advice. This is a good example of why many people wanted to ban Medeis from deleting things. Understanding the question only requires very simple English language comprehension.

This - " So is such a thing common, and is there an article about it on wikipedia?" is two clear questions that can be addressed with references. The bits about the OP being attracted to a friends sister is an unnecessary aside, but it is not a question, nor a request for any sort of advice. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:19, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

More of the same proof of the need for concrete consensus-supported guidelines, proving the need for one or more concrete proposals for said guidelines, proving the need for a subcommittee to develop and present said proposals. More handwringing about the current situation while failing to get behind the one thing that stands a chance of improving it. More banging of heads against the wall and complaining of a headache. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:30, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

This isn't even a problem of how to handle things, it's a problem of how to classify things. And if people delete things because they don't like them, that's just bad form. I remain skeptical that we can ever codify a classification of all question types, such that disagreements will never happen. In this case, nobody has yet given me any good reason why this should have been deleted. I suppose you're right, though, If we could get everyone to agree not to delete things, and instead add a template or something, this may not have been a problem, because then I could just add my references after, and not have to worry about restoring/reverting etc. BTW, I made a conscious decision to not undo, delete or revert anyone's edits, I merely posted my own, hoping that that would be less offensive. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:15, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

• If your concept of "way off base" means you disagree with four editors; me, Mandruss, Marnette and Bugs, then I think you may be missing something. We don't have an article on any of these people, assuming they exist, and we are not licened counselors, at least I am not. μηδείς (talk) 21:34, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Please, tell me what portion of that question asks for advice. Use direct quotes. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:39, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Additionally, I would be happy if you deleted responses that gave advice. As you can see, I did not. I gave references. Just allow me to post refs to questions that I'd like to, and we won't have any problems between us. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:19, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

No part of the question requested advice. My most charitable interpretation of what happened is that the other editors mistook the question's preamble as a request for advice. This question should be restored. -- ToE 23:08, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Medeis, which part of "So is such a thing common, and is there an article about it on wikipedia?" requires the services of a counselor? -- ToE 23:12, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Medesis, thank you for restoring the question. Now let's hope that editors abstain from providing advice. -- ToE 23:52, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

No problem, ToE. I found it odd the editor who reopened it chose not to do so; he should have simply undone my edit rather than turn the reopened thread into a discussion of my closure after three others had expressed their similar opinion. If anyone wants to delete the hatted section entirely, they should feel free to do so. μηδείς (talk) 00:28, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

There is nothing super-duper problematic about anything posted in that thread therefore I question the need to "hat" or "delete". If you feel the OP is asking for "personal advice" I think you should articulate that. This could involve asking a followup question addressed to the OP or to another Reference desk participant or simply articulating your objection to the question posed. Hatting or deleting is heavy-handed. Its use should be reserved for input that is seriously problematic. Bus stop (talk) 20:10, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

The section, without any response from the OP, has been archived at WP:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2015_March_20#Swapping_sisters. -- ToE 15:01, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

WickWack is back

Not the best of times for this to happen, but still. I've deleted a question from WickWack and some associated responses (diff). Please feel free to revert or make any other appropriate changes. A link to the decision to ban WickWack is (fortunately) available above. Tevildo (talk) 10:54, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Not trying to start something here, but can I just politely ask how we know? If it's just his MO, is it fair to ask people to state this in future? I've been dismissing stuff about WickWack for a long time, but always wondered what's the rationale. IBE (talk) 16:37, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, the necessary conditions are:

• Anonymous posting from Telstra Internet that geolocates to the Perth area.
• No postings from this IP address other than the original question and responses.
• No links, internal or external.
• Subject matter is electronic engineering (in general) and thermionic valves (in particular).

There are other distinctive aspects of WickWack's writing style which are difficult to express quantitavely - "arrogance" is a close one-word approximation - but which are all present in his recent posting. I am entirely confident that the poster is WickWack. However, I accept that I do not have any greater authority to make this assertion than any other reference desk contributor, and will not object if anyone wants to restore the posting. It _is_ WickWack and WickWack _is_ banned, though. And he can unban himself in an instant by registering an account - the content of his postings is generally reasonable. Tevildo (talk) 17:02, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

How did he get himself banned in the first place? And by the way, if he's banned, registering an account is not a valid way around it. It's the person who's banned, not their ID as such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:26, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs is absolutely correct on that point. If a user is banned, then any alternate account and any IP address are sockpuppets. However, why was it necessary to delete a question about scandium? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:04, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

There is something scandalous about scandium. Bus stop (talk) 20:12, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

No reason needs to be given for the deletion, per WP:BANREVERT, and "the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert." In addition, from the banning policy page: "While all editors are expected to respect the enforcement of policies by not undermining or sabotaging them, no editor is personally obligated to help enforce any ban." -Modocc (talk) 19:38, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive249#WP:GAME violations at Ref Desks using multiple identities from multiple IP addresses. -Modocc (talk) 19:38, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I was under the impression that WickWack's ban was conditional upon his editing anonymously (and many contributors to the ban discussion held that view), but it doesn't appear to have been included in the final ruling. However, this is academic, as I'm sure WickWack has no intention of registering an account. Tevildo (talk) 19:48, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

It wasn't explicitly stated at the time, but many people at the time and since have suggested it would be fine if they did so and some have even mentioned it to WickWack IIRC. I don't actually recall anyone suggesting they ban should be enforced if they did register one account and stick with it. Still Wickwack would be free to seek clarification if they felt there was a risk. Ultimately, you're right, it's a moot point since Wickwack hasn't shown any apparent desire to register. Nil Einne (talk) 01:35, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I have to say I am quite disappointed because I remember wickwack posting a lot of useful information and many interesting questions. But also being a bit hostile at points. I am not at all sure how we know the current p is ww, given the question seemed reasonable. In any case, the user should register if he wants to contribute without summary blocking. μηδείς (talk) 02:13, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm totally with you here. The question itself is fine. WW himself was mostly fine. He was at times hostile, but not really any more so than most of us on our worst days. But he (apparently) broke a cardinal rule by committing sock puppetry. I for one, would welcome him to register and contribute here again, provided that he keeps civil and doesn't play with sock puppets. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:16, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm of the same opinion as SemanticMantis, and the general consensus back in the day was exactly that: If WickWack would stick to a single identity, and commit to it, and stop with all the shenanigans, there was little objection to his other behavior. It was the multiple identities that was the problem. --Jayron32 16:27, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Thankyou, @Tevildo:.

I don't dispute any of this as being accurate, but I've always been curious, how is WickWack identified? Just looking at the question and responses, there's nothing that seemingly idiosyncratic that I, personally, would feel justified attributing to someone - what about it identifies it as WickWack positively enough to justify removing what, otherwise, would be a good question? (Again, I'm not being round about critical and doubting, I just don't understand how the identification process works and would like to know).Phoenixia1177 (talk) 05:13, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

The main thing that identifies it as WickWack is the Telstra Internet source. We have no other regular anonymous posters who use that ISP. The lack of references and the subject matter are decidedly secondary, although an anonymous poster from Telstra Internet who included links, who had any contributions outside the Reference Desk, and who asked (or, indeed, answered) a question which wasn't about electronics is very unlikely to be WickWack, and I would not delete such a posting. Tevildo (talk) 15:21, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I didn't see this at the time, but this was not an appropriate deletion. Look at all the good answers by real RD participants that you would destroy, based on some kind of amateur NSA wannabe logic. If it is Wickwack and if he is messing with us then he did mess with us already by getting them to answer... except, they produced useful content that we should keep for our archives, so it wasn't really a loss. Forget the spy antics. Wnt (talk) 13:00, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, the "spy antics" consist of two clicks within Wikipedia, and WickWack's aim is not to "mess with us", it's to "screw The Man" (by getting his pearls of wisdom into the Reference Desk archives). A policy of not deleting WickWack's postings would effectively be unbanning him, and (as I understand it) it's up to him to request his ban to be lifted, not for us to unilateraly make the decision. But if we can unban him, and if we want to unban him, I won't raise any objection - I agree that the content of his posts is much better than some of our most frequent legitimate contributors. Tevildo (talk) 15:21, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

And again - diff. Tevildo (talk) 23:00, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

We can also unilaterally suspend enforcing the ban for, say, two months, during which time postings by him are treated just like they would if they were made by anyone else. So, he could still be blocked or banned for bad behavior just like anyone else could be, but he would not be revered like he is now. After the two months are up, the ban comes back into force automatically, unless his behavior during the two months was good enough to justify lifting the ban. If we are not sure (e.g. if he has just posted a few times during the two months), we just extend the trial period. Extending the trial period or unbanning should require a large enough consensus so that he doesn't get off just because only a few people were engaged dealing with him. Count Iblis (talk) 15:22, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

And again diff. I would recommend against this proposed course of action, as he seems to be engaging in his previous behaviour even more enthusiastically than before. Tevildo (talk) 20:11, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Good Work on Possibly Medical Query

This question to the Science Desk appeared to be partly a request for medical diagnosis, although it said that it was not: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science#Could pore cleanser have been an adjuvant?

I would like to note that it was handled correctly. The parts of the question that could be answered without giving medical advice were answered, and the statement was repeated that we cannot give medical advice. We should follow this example more often. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:12, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, it's always good to call out when things go right :) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:27, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

A Recommended Decision-Making Flowchart & Guide to Answering Questions

Hello fellow reference desk regulars. It seems that there has been much banter about how we do things. I decided that the most productive way I could contribute would be to provide my own insights into how I personally decide when and what to post on the reference desk. I am not a perfect contributor, and I occasionally err; but here is a flow-chart that I feel expresses the general spirit of how we ought to do things.

A Recommendation for Decision-Making and a Guide To Answering Questions on the Wikipedia Reference Desk

Evidently, a lot of Reference Desk editors have much free time to spend thinking about this problem. If you have spare time, I implore you to please spend that time cosmetically improving this flow-chart, as I am not an expert SVG artist. Although I make no assurance that my Inkscape program produces SVG code that is compatible with your favorite renderer or utility, the SVG source is also available at File:WikipediaReferenceDesk GuideToAnswering Flowchart.svg.

If I may make one summary observation, it is that there are many paths down this flow-chart that will not lead to an editor posting any response at all.

Nimur (talk) 19:19, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

In the second pink box, I would change "the discussion" to "any answers posted by other editors". --Steve Summit (talk) 19:50, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

This does look like best practice (that long arrow illustrates a need for some cleanup, but the content/concept is excellent overall). If it were followed consistently, the RefDesk would be vastly improved. Many questions would be diverted elsewhere, which would frustrate some but people would learn the scope of the RefDesk (and frustration is really just a mismatch between expectation and reality). -- Scray (talk) 14:31, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

The idea that every question can be answered with a reference is exceedingly naive. We get questions like "Where was this photo taken?" - which simply cannot be answered that way...it takes something like: "There is a wooble-blarf tree in the foreground, and those only grow in these three places..." and then someone will come along with "And that car in the photo isn't sold in two of those three places...so it must be the third one"...and someone else "I did a tin-eye search and came up with more photos of that kind of tree - and this one seems to have that same mountain in the background". I've seen several responses that did LITERALLY that.

What about a recent one: "How can I buy a picture postcard of (some obscure village in Greece) on the Internet?" - sure, we have reference to postcards and another one for the village. That's no use. To answer it, I actually opened Google streetview for that town and did a virtual drive through it to establish that there was only one place that looked like it might sell postcards...it didn't have any kind of web presence - so then I looked around and found that there was a major tourist destination just a few miles down the road - with a museum and gift-shop...and was able to direct our OP to their website. That was a useful answer - but it did not help to provide any references whatever. Under your process, we should tell the OP to go away because we're not going to answer their question? I don't think so.

Go look at the answers to question that don't have references - many, MANY of them provide excellent answers to the OP's question. Not every questioner fails to try a simple web search for an answer - and those that don't will often need answers that are informed by things in our encyclopedia - but actually put together from logic, synthesis and other things that are not generally welcome in wikipedia articles.

We're not just a human-powered search engine...although there are times when we might do that. That undermines the entire premise of your flowchart - so while I'm very much in favor of reducing what we do to a process like that - this ain't it.

SteveBaker (talk) 18:29, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

What you're describing is actually Wikipedia at its best - collaboration and building toward what I once heard Wikipedia simply described as: "Collective knownledge." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:36, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Nimur's chart is obviously focused mostly on questions of scientific facts. In your example of the postcard thing, I would say that giving a link to a place that sells a specific type of postcards is providing a reference. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:27, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

In fact, Steve described exactly following the flowchart! He used an auxiliary source (in this case, a digitized street-view service) to direct his efforts toward a reliable source. Not every reliable source will be a journal article or text-book: if the question domain calls for a different kind of source, please use it, but please please cite it and explain how you got to it! Nimur (talk) 21:02, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

@Nimur:: You're a very good participant here, but I don't think the flowchart is useful. The problem is, well, you thought the flowchart up on your own, and so you could think on your own how to answer a question without using it. But the difference is that you attempt to generalize steps in your thought process in words, whereas when simply responding to the question as you see fit, you don't have to generalize but can choose whichever response seems most appropriate. For example, "Is the question a request for reference to a reliable source" could be interpreted in many different ways. Of course, the habitual prosecutors among us would throw out content they don't like to see talked about without exactly using their creativity to see if there's a way to interpret it as such a request, but that's not even what I mean; even you yourself would probably redefine your procedure for evaluating whether that text is true or false based on each new question you encountered. We all have different opinions; we all would draw slightly different flowcharts; we all could refine them more and more to match what we think... in the end though, we just do what makes sense to us at the time, and that is superior to any AI algorithm we could write for ourselves to carry out. Wnt (talk) 01:02, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

That's a fair assessment. Nimur (talk) 18:25, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

So, when can we welcome NimurBot as our new regular here? :) Count Iblis (talk) 15:26, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

One of my friends, who is a hobbyist and professionally employed programmer, once wrote a stochastic natural language model and fed it the contents of both those emails that I had sent to him and a screen-scrape of my Wikipedia contributions for all time.

He then used it to send emails back to me, and CCed several of my friends.

After three or four rounds of communication, we all decided that the uncanny behavior was very unsettling, and he deleted the database and the source-code. Apparently the bot was able to mimic my tone and style in a particularly recognizable fashion. We opted not to try to improve it.

Nimur (talk) 23:46, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

A Stray Question at the Help Desk

This is an example of a stray question at the WP:Help Desk: WP:Help Desk# what is the pick nos for the new cape verde 200 escudos polymer notes 2014

We don't usually get questions that are as completely afield as this one was. It illustrates that the Help Desk also does get weird inquiries, and that maybe we should develop a few templates or stock text for questions that we just can't address. The question wasn't deleted, and wasn't hatted, and didn't provoke any conflict between regulars. (Usually the Help Desk editors don't bother to box the question, but that is a detail.) We can sometimes learn from the Help Desk. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:15, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

The same sort of questions seems to be handled more or less exactly the same way on the RD. I've never really seen any conflict over how to handle that sort of question. BTW, don't you already have templates for such purposes? E.g. Template:Astray seems to be intended for use at the help desk, at least based on the docs. There is even a Template:Astray astray, as well as the templates for directing people to the RD. Mind you, I'm not sure whether this is an astray question or a RD question, but I guess it doesn't really matter since the astray template does direct people to the RD. Nil Einne (talk) 02:02, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Consider the following examples of clearly misplaced questions:

• [ Wikipedia:Help desk#Incorrect information regardinghttp://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Roddy_Radalj ]
• [ Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing#One article redirecting to another one! ]

Note the different way they were handled. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:00, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Also consider this example of how to handle a reference desk question where the answer is

[A] Factually wrong,

[B] A good-faith effort to answer from personal knowledge that ends up repeating a common misconception, and

[C] contains no references to any Wikipedia pages or external sources:

The question is at [ Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing#Computing ].

Note that I simply provided the correct answer without making any personal comments of any kind, the way we usually do things at the help desk. Also note that I am discussing it here as an example without making any comment about any specific individual's behavior. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:01, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

• Stray questions have been going on for a long time. We even get questions obviously meant for other websites entirely. Standing policy here is if it's a really obvious in-RD issue, like a computer programming question at the entertainment desk, simply to move the thread with the existing responses (with a note at the new location advising the thread was at another desk previously,) and to leave a link to the new location at the old desk, so the OP and others can find it.

We do also normally refer people either to the help desk or an article's talk page, but those questions will sometimes gather a few responses anyway, and often be left in place. In any case, while I see no problem, I don't think anyone would mind having a template that says the question would be better asked at talk or help.

The question Robert linked to is archived, so I am not sure if there was something especially egregious with it or how it was handled. The two posts Guy mentions were both civil, and equally valid ways of dealing with the issue so far as I can see, as long as the OP understands followup should go elsewhere. μηδείς (talk) 02:59, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Not seeing the problem here is part of the problem. In the Help Desk example, someone posted a misplaced question, someone replied telling them where the right place is, and the thread ended there. In the Reference Desk example, multiple regulars attempted to answer the question even though it was clearly a misplaced question about editing Wikipedia and belonged at the help desk. It should have received a single reply telling the poster where the right place is and the thread should have ended at that point. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:02, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, yes, I do agree that ideally the user should have been told the proper place to look either now or in the future. He should have been made aware of the venue. (That doesn't mean that he wouldn't have gotten the same three answers by the same three people at the other venue, since there is a lot of overlap.) Sometimes asking a question around here i like asking an old man at a shopping mall which floor the liquor store is on only to be given a reminiscence of the Prohibition Era. As his daughter leads him off, she point out that the liquor store is right behind you.

Templates won't stop that, but a template would be a lot more convenient for an editor than having to find the link and type the boilerplate. Maybe such templates could be put in a tools section on the talk page. μηδείς (talk) 17:33, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

• Talking about stray posts, this thread seems to be an intentional provocation. It's the first post ever by a supposedly accomplished writer signed in allcaps and haranguing the desk about the use of smartquotes. I think the entire thread should be moved to MOS talk, where they can deal with it. In the meantime, the registered user has published the name of an actual (and unique) person with a publicly listed phone number, so rather than have people calling someone who may be getting hoaxed I have removed the name and address so he won't get phone calls on his land line regarding the little speech. μηδείς (talk) 01:23, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I believe User:Hoary's response to the question is quite perfect: politely telling the OP the parts he can fix himself; informing him that that issues of style-preference cannot be debated (at least on the ref-desk); and pointing him to the appropriate venues to propose changes to the MOS. Covers all bases as far as I can see. The thread will become problematic only if other responders either start debating the style-preferences, or berating the OP for asking the question. So far that is not the case.

Btw, I don't believe there is any guideline preventing editors from revealing their name and location (except for minors, of course). So this redaction may have been over-cautious. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 02:07, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

It's Guy above who argued that templating is better than answering, and I don't necessarily disagree. The user should also know and have it made known to him that next time he has a suggestion for MOS or elsewhere to take it to that talk page. As for removing the personal information, it's standing and stated policy to remove it, it is irrelevant to the question, we have no way of verifying if it is his (one could easily prank someone this way), and a quick google search of the name gives the user's street address and home phone number. I consider that part uncontroversial, and only mentioned it in case someone who looked at this wondered why there was a redaction. μηδείς (talk) 03:01, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

It has been standard practice as long as I've been here, to remove personal info such as e-mail address and phone number. Whether it's a "rule" or not, it's a good idea. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:14, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the flattering comment, Abecedare. Yes, there were various aspects about the post that didn't appeal to me. But it didn't strike me as something I'd call an intentional provocation. I thought it quite likely that the poster was as experienced as he claimed, retired (and thus with time to spare), and of a didactic inclination. If these guesses were correct, he's potentially a valuable contributor (of content, not only instructions and complaints); and so the shoulder given him should be at least lukewarm. More generally, a brusque "You're in the wrong place; go instead to XYZ" gives the impression of bureaucratism. If this is the best response (and yes, sometimes I too think it is), then I think it's usually better to delete the question and write the (non-)response on the questioner's talk page. -- Hoary (talk) 03:44, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

The comment by another user that the question is "clearly out of place on this page" is over-aggressive. It's sufficient to gently send him elsewhere, as per the initial response to the question. Or better yet, move the question there and provide a link. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:58, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Geolocation

Geolocation is being discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 118#Geo-locate Function on all user pages (version of 23:31, 30 March 2015).
—Wavelength (talk) 23:51, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

And being shot down, if all goes well. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:55, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

The proposal has been closed as unsupported. μηδείς (talk) 17:55, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Which is a nice way of saying "singularly worst idea ever." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:18, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, maybe not singularly. On a dare, my brother once guzzled in quick succession: pickle juice, milk, hot sauce, and some unidentifiable tan liquid in a mason jar in our fridge. That was probably on par with the proposal in terms of quality of idea. --Jayron32 19:24, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

And I'm guessing it was likewise rejected by consensus. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:27, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

YAP: Yet Another Proposal

This section is titled "YAP: Yet Another Proposal" because i am a Peguinista and because I am sure that to some it will no doubt seem to be the equivalent of a tiny dog yapping -- but less effective. :)

I propose the following rule. to be placed in the red box at the top of this talk page:

• This page is for discussions about how to improve the Reference Desks and for good-faith requests for help addressing various questions that are asked on the Reference Desks. It is not for reporting or complaining about any Wikipedia editor's behavior. This included editors who ask questions, editors who answer questions, or editors who comment on this talk page. If you believe that an editor has misbehaved, discuss it on that editor's talk page or go to WP:DRR, pick an appropriate venue, and report it. If someone else starts discussing user behavior, do not reply or acknowledge the comment in any way.

I intend to carefully consider any objections or corrections to the above (in particular, I would like to see something shorter that sends the same message) and then create a proper RfC with an improved version. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:12, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure it belongs in the page notice, but it's excellent advice, so I've taken a shot at trimming it down:

This page is for discussions about improving the Reference Desks and for good-faith requests for help addressing Reference Desk questions. It is not for discussing any individual editor's behavior. If you believe that an editor has misbehaved (either on the desks or this talk page), please discuss it on that editor's talk page or proceed to WP:DRR. If someone starts discussing user behavior here, please ignore it or take it elsewhere.

--Steve Summit (talk) 20:24, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support - ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:42, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support but consider a separate box, as the target audiences are quite different groups. Maybe a smaller font than the existing box, too, to de-emphasize what could be seen as something contentious. If a non-regular missed it upon entry and violated it, they could easily be referred to it (and some would violate it even after reading it, anyway). The important thing is to have something in writing (implying group consensus) to refer to. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:01, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

• OpposeSupport - WP:BRD would not really be possible. Especially in the common case of "X deleted this question/answer, I restored, they revert, now I'm here to check with the group." - I can't even frame the discussion without referring to the behavior of the user. How can we do BRD if we can't use this talk page? SemanticMantis (talk) 21:28, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

• You simply say "This question/answer was deleted, I restored, I was reverted, now I'm here to check with the group." No need to discuss or even name the editor. On this page you should only discuss the content of the edit and whether it should be kept. If someone violates BRD by reverting too often, discuss it on their talk page or go to WP:DRR. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:40, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I guess that fits the letter of the your proposed guideline - I've changed my !vote. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:45, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

You do realize that by leaving "discussing user behavior" nebulous, you're setting things up for a giant argy-bargy six months hence where we all disagree on what "discussing user behavior" means, right? Your response to SemanticMantis sounds very reasonable, but I doubt that people here will necessarily all come to the same conclusion in the future. Case in point, SemanticMantis didn't think that was the obvious interpretation of the rule. Imagine the blow-up if he was trying to enforce the rule as he interpreted it, rather than dispute it. -- 160.129.138.186 (talk) 19:31, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Support Sounds healthy. Can we allow people to post a note here advising people that such a process is going on, and maybe add this to the wording of Guy's text? IBE (talk) 21:52, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe I am wrong, but I fear that allowing any response at all to comments about user behavior will lead to a response to the response, and then to a huge thread -- a variation of what we are doing now. I am wide open to any rewording of my text, I like Steve Summit's version better than mine, but perhaps we can make it even better. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:01, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Disallowing even reference to other places/discussions seems problematic to me. I get and support your intention to make this talk page less hostile/toxic/he-said-she-said. But at the same time, this is still WP, and one of the primary purposes of a talk page (as I see it) is to solicit and enlist help from the community on things that are going on on a different page. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:09, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from, but the obvious question is "how is soliciting and enlisting help from the community on user behavior issues on the Reference Desk talk page working out for us?" I would answer "really, really poorly" and suggest that the same discussions would have far more success on user talk pages and noticeboards. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:32, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Depends on the nature of the outside discussion. It would be silly to see, There is a discussion concerning Guy Macon's cartoon about Bugs at User talk:Guy Macon, your comments are welcome. That's personal and should stay personal in a place designed for personal things. Anyone who can't resist jumping into a good personal squabble could put all regulars' talk pages on their watchlist. Discussion at formal noticeboards, etc., is a different matter. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:21, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Good point. A neutrally worded pointer to a noticeboard discussion should be allowed. I await suggestions on what wording best incorporates that point into the wording of the notice. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:32, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually I'm having trouble getting my head around this, so pardon me if I seem wishy-washy on it. If a noticeboard discussion stands a chance of changing the way the refdesks operate, then it probably needs wide exposure. But I can't imagine what kind of discussion that would be, or how it might come about. I think any refdesk-related noticeboard discussion is likely to be along the lines of a disruptive editing (ANI) or edit-warring (ANEW) complaint. Involved parties can be pinged or notified on their talk pages (from the noticeboard), but other participation from the refdesks isn't critical. Others may see it on their watchlists if they watch those pages, or not, and often a lot of participation serves only to raise the volume level. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:56, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

• Not opposed in principle, but the command should start with "please don't" and be way shorter than three lines. μηδείς (talk) 00:30, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Comment - The instructions say to go to WP:DRR if not satisfied, but that doesn't include WP:ANI, which is the last step for editor abuse here. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:50, 21 March 2015 (UTC) It does refer to WP:ANI, except that it incorrectly says Intervention, which I took to mean WP:AIV. The guide sheet lists the right forums, but a wrong acronym. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:52, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Fixed it. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:45, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose any rule that prevents this talk page from being used to discuss Reference Desk behavior. We have enough questionable Reference Desk behavior, such as the unjustified deleting both of answers and of questions, that using this talk page to discuss such behavior is a middle ground between having to tolerate disruption of the Reference Desk by well-meaning but unwise maintenance and having to report that behavior at WP:ANI. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:28, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose This talk page is the only sensible place to air problems. If that occasionally require us to name names, it's stupid to force people into circumlocutions. What we need is a way to curtail the problems that are at the core of our issues here - not a way to prevent people from talking about them. SteveBaker (talk) 18:32, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

• Circumlocutions would violate the rule. I am proposing not talking about user behavior here, not making a minor change in the manner in which we talk about user behavior.

Robert, Steve, I respect your opinions, but do you really think that discussing user behavior here has been working out for us? Can you name any recent cases where it had a positive outcome? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:09, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Guy Macon asks whether discussion of user behavior has had a positive outcome. I agree that the answer is no, but I think that his question is too restrictive. The discussion of user behavior on this page has had a mostly neutral effect except for annoying those who are in the discussions on this page. What are the alternatives, if we forbid discussion on this talk page of user behavior on the reference desks proper? There are two alternatives. The first is to accept the user behavior, such as questionable deletions and questionable hatting, without comment. The discussion of questionable behavior on this talk page does appear to minimize questionable behavior. That may not be a positive outcome, but it is a neutral outcome, and merely accepting the disruption is a negative outcome. The alternative would be to take the discussions of user behavior to WP:ANI. That is never a positive outcome. It will in most cases be closed without administrative action, resulting in more hard feelings than the discussion here. It is not likely to result in sanctions, and sanctions are not so much a positive outcome as a reduction of negative outcome. I agree that discussion here is annoying and otherwise neutral, but do we really think that the discussion here is so harmful that it would be better to ignore disruptive deletions and hattings or that it is necessary to take them straight to ANI? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:14, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

As long as we have strong conflicting feelings about this Reference Desk, and as long as some editors have not learned from the Help Desk (see my comments below), discussing editor conduct here is less disruptive than either having questionable conduct continue without comment or taking it to ANI. User:Guy Macon: Are you suggesting that questionable deletions and hattings be ignored, or that they be immediately reported at ANI? Robert McClenon (talk) 14:44, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I would again ask regular editors here to learn from the example of the Help Desk, where there is very little worrying about how to answer questions. Either questions are answered directly, or angry posts are responded to gently, or questions are directed elsewhere (e.g., here) or not answered (e.g., requests for legal advice) or answered with a response that they cannot be answered. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:44, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Re: "Are you suggesting that questionable deletions and hattings be ignored, or that they be immediately reported at ANI?", Neither. I am suggesting that they be discussed on the talk page of the user in question, per WP:TPYES ("Comment on content, not on the contributor: Keep the discussions focused upon the topic of the talk page, rather than on the personalities of the editors contributing to the talk page.") and WP:OWNTALK ("The purpose of user talk pages is to draw the attention or discuss the edits of a user."). ANI is for situations that cannot be resolved by talking to the user. That remains true whether you first discuss them here (bad choice) or on the user's talk page (good choice). --Guy Macon (talk) 15:09, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree that discussion here is not ideal, but neither is discussion on user talk pages. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:25, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

How often does the Help Desk get asked questions about medical or legal advice? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:46, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Not as often as the Reference Desks, but not that infrequently. Sometimes at the Help Desk we get questions that are almost incomprehensible, but on analysis may have to do with some legal situation somewhere that we assume English is a second or third language. We don't hat or delete them. We reply that we do not provide legal advice. I see no reason why questions asking for medical or legal advice should be deleted or hatted. It is better to state explicitly what we may not do than just to hide the question. Answers providing medical or legal advice are a different matter. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:25, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

That sounds good in theory. How do you handle questions where there is dispute over whether it actually is a request for professional advice and/or whether a proper answer would require given professional advice? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:29, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest that the preferred approach is both to state that we do not give professional advice, and to ask for clarification as to what the question actually is. (That isn't based on the Help Desk, because there, when the question is clarified, if it isn't for legal advice, it is a Reference Desk question.) That approach, state what we don't do, but request clarification, seems the most consistent with both the policy not to give professional advice and the policy to assume good faith by the original poster. That is my thought for now. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:54, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

That suggests a change to the template, to automatically ask for clarification. And until or if the OP responds, NO ONE should try to answer the question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:38, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Solely commenting on that matter mentioned by Bugs, OP's far to often lay a cuckoo's egg and never return to attend it, while a squabble ensues first on the page and then here. I am not sure there's any workable solution, but I agree t's worth discussing, maybe in a separate section so as not to interrupt Guy's proposal. μηδείς (talk) 20:44, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support particularly if it prevents the frequent IP-hating edits. No-one needs an account to edit Wikipedia, the Reference Desk should never suggest otherwise under any circumstances, and claiming otherwise should be discouraged. Commenting on IP editing behaviour should be taken elsewhere, even if it's deemed as "trolling" which is all too commonly used as an excuse here to remove discussion. Take the discussion to an appropriate location as indicated in the suggested text. And stop hating on the IPs. And, perhaps, just perhaps, stop pretending things here are governed by local policies. They simply aren't. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:16, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

• Note - The one example recently where an IP was advised to create a user was when the user wanted to create an article. IP's are not allowed to create articles, so the IP had to create a registered user account in order to create the article he wanted. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:14, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. If I add this to the box on the top of this page we will still have to deal with issues such as good-faith questions as to whether question X was answered according to Wikipedia policy, but we can still do that if we concentrate on the content of the question and the answer without referring in any way to who asked and who answered. And of course if anyone is of the opinion that someone answered a question the wrong way, then by definition it is not a good-faith question as to whether question X was answered according to Wikipedia policy but rather a complaint about a user's behavior. I think we are all cooperative enough to work such situations out. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:32, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose – Sorry for coming in to this so late. While I agree with the idea of trying to make a page like this less toxic, I feel that making this into a rule will simply not work – either in reducing toxicity (it'll only increase tensions). I would rather see it set as a guideline that we should guide editor behaviour, rather than attack it or an editor. In particular, "If someone starts discussing user behavior here, do not respond in any way" seems counterproductive; we need to be able to indicate that there is a problem, but need a better way to approach it when it is mentioned. I could support a guideline that suggests limiting discussion about specific editor behaviours, especially if it escalates. —Quondum 15:03, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose - By forbidding discussion of problems, it allows the de facto policy to be set not by consensus, but by the most persistently editor. If an editor is acting in a way that he already knows he doesn't have 100% unanimous consensus for, then putting a complain on his talk page is about as useful as writing it on the sidewalk in chalk.

Imagine Medias does something most of us think is wrong, and Steve Baker is the one that notices. Will Medias change their ways because Steve Baker says so? If SteveBaker does something wrong, will he change his ways because Medias says so? It's not impossible, but probably not.

Remember this is not a normal article while we can wait some period of time for lots of editors to notice the problem and react. Often times the 'problem' is a revert that only shows up in the History, so anyone who didn't notice when it happened probably never will. This rule would have the effect of making reverts almost entirely immune from any sort of accountability.

While I appreciate the goal of reducing drama and trolling on and off this talk page, I think this would be counter-productive. APL (talk) 21:15, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Wrapping it up

That's 6 support !votes and 2 oppose !votes after 6 days of discussion. More importantly, I have seen no real argument making the case that discussing user behavior here is better than discussing user behavior on the user's talk page.

Would anyone like to reconsider their position and change their !vote at this time? It would be nice if we could all come to an agreement on this. Are there any compromises anyone might want to ask the other side to accept that would change their !vote? Perhaps a modified statement will be acceptable to more people.

Here is the version I am considering:

First, the existing "To ask a question.." box remains the same, with a somewhat smaller font. Everyone will get a chance to comment on the font size before any changes are made.

A new red box with matching font size below the current box will say:

This page is discussing improvements to the Reference Desks and good-faith requests for help addressing Reference Desk questions. Please don't discuss any individual editor's behavior here. If you believe that an editor has misbehaved (either on the desks or this talk page), discuss it on that editor's talk page or proceed to WP:DRR. If someone starts discussing user behavior here, do not respond in any way.

(Of course they can respond elsewhere, but I didn't think I needed to specify that, because the statement clearly say "this page", and tells you where to respond. The above is already long enough.)

I am open to any suggestion for final tweaks to the wording.

Comments? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:32, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Making a problem "go away" by not talking about it seems kinda like the ostrich putting his head in the sand. The problem isn't that we're talking about editor behavior - it's that we have bad editor behavior to talk about. So, no, I have no intention of reversing my "oppose" !vote. Sorry...it's a bad idea. SteveBaker (talk) 05:37, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Bona fides - Areas of expertise Interest?

I know that many of our regulars have demonstrated expertise in many diverse fields. For example many of us are academics of some sort, some are working engineers, some know tons of TV history, or music theory, etc., etc. I also know that most of us know that appeal to authority is bad form on the ref desks, so I'm left with context clues to figure out who is actually qualified in the real world. So my question is - is there any interest in compiling a an informal, opt-in list of people's areas of expertise?

This is not in any way intended to devalue or discourage anyone's contributions: a good ref is a good ref no matter who posts it. I see a potential benefit though, along the lines of letting us know who knows what. This post is just to feel out the idea, to see if anyone agrees that it could improve our reference desks. For example, a few months ago there was a geology question. I knew we had a regular user who I suspect is a professional geologist, but it took me a while to figure out who it was. If we had such a list, we could use it to ping specific users to ask for their help on specific questions that might otherwise be missed. Thoughts? SemanticMantis (talk) 14:33, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

(after posting, I couldn't help but think of The_Areas_of_My_Expertise - which is a great and hilarious book. I highly recommend it as an example of what we shouldn't be doing here, i.e. making things up :) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:47, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I like 'Areas of Interest' as a title instead of Expertise. Some sort of opt-in list that would make it easier to find and ping users who know about or like to research certain types of questions. --Onorem (talk) 14:50, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to this, though I like Onerem's suggested title best. --Jayron32 14:53, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I like the idea, if we're calling it areas of interest, instead of expertise - I went to college for a semester, that's my education background, so I would feel disingenuous saying I'm an expert, but I can answer, and source, a lot of complicated math and science questions without any difficulty.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 14:58, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Point taken, expertise is relative, and interest is often more important anyway. E.g. there's a lot of math questions I could answer but don't, because they aren't that interesting to me or would take too much time :) I didn't mean to restrict to formal education, so let's just go with interest. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

• Noted, let's go with Areas of interest for the rest of the discussion. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:07, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Annotations can be added to entries at Wikipedia:RD regulars.—Wavelength (talk) 15:13, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Agree with the whole thing. I even thought of it myself once, for more or less the same reason. I like the wording, areas of interest, although somehow I feel it should still aim for more than just listing "interests" (eg. I can contribute really basic stuff on Latin, but someone is always around who knows more, so I would put Latin down, but that might be a waste of time). So people could put down "areas of interest" along with noting specifically any professional experience. So Semantic could add some detail about his areas of mathematical knowledge, I could say I've worked in a telco (for what it's worth) and others could add professional experience, and draw attention to it. Otherwise, the merest declaration of "interest" wouldn't go very far. IBE (talk) 19:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I followed Wavelength's suggestion and entered in some stuff at my entry on the RD regulars page. This way, we don't even have to call it anything. Presumably we won't have people writing down topic areas in which they have very little knowledge or experience. I encourage everyone else to put in a few words of description by their names on that page as well, seems easier than managing a separate document. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:42, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

• I have considered the issue, and don't oppose it in general. In favor, there are people like Soman and JackofOz, or AnoonMoos, Ljoboslov, or KageTora and others whom I will ping on occasion if I suspect they may know the answer but be unaware of the question, and people do also ping me. But I do also have concerns.

The first is the essjay scandal. The second is that many of those editors listed stopped editing long before I began contributing at the RD myself, (see SPUTNIKCCCP, for example.) And lastly, I prefer not to be too self-revelatory on talk pages, hence no userboxen on my own talk page. It's an odd day that I don't check the desks at lunch and before bed, so I am not to worried anything that needs my expertise (like the recent question on Siberian river name etymologies) will go wanting. As I said, I never mind being pinged on a topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Medeis (talk • contribs) 17:33, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not so sure how much practical benefit would really develop out of such listings, but I also see no real downside. I think such a tool should probably steer well clear of focusing on formal credentials, since those users who may wish to remain anonymous may avoid it altogether for privacy concerns -- and furthermore, I find that the inability to make assertions from a position of authority keeps discussion cleaner and based more on what can be asserted via the support of sources. That being said, I have occasionally noted when I am speaking on a topic that falls withing a field that I have a formal background in, and my user page features a compact overview of the areas in which I usually contribute, both with regard to the Ref Desks and Wikipedia broadly. Snow ^{let's rap} 22:52, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

On Wikiversity, formal courses in most of the subject matters could be given, exams can be organized. You can then link to your Wikiversity profile which will then contain the subjects you graduated in. Count Iblis (talk) 15:41, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Research for refdesk regulars

Searching the Internet Creates an Illusion of Knowledge (full paper)

Of course, as Oscar Wilde said: "Illusion is the first of all pleasures". :-) Abecedare (talk) 18:15, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

How very true! I strongly recommend that our regulars refrain entirely from the use of a general-purpose internet search engine when providing references.

If you do not already know where to look, you are probably not qualified to validate the reference as as reliable source. Nimur (talk) 18:19, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I thought April Fool's Day was yesterday. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:32, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't go as far as Nimur's "refrain entirely" rule, since one desired benefit of formal education is learning how to research and how to evaluate sources, although there are limits of course (even if we don't realize it ourselves) and refdesks regulars would do well to keep that in mind as an advice. Btw, there is an Easter Egg hidden in my original post for anyone interested in "wasting" some more time. Abecedare (talk) 18:37, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I try to avoid going to unknown websites. And if you take Nimur's April 1 joke as being serious, then most questions would go unanswered and the ref desk would fail. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

On the contrary: we would receive recommendations for reference books, websites, and other content exclusively from people who have already actually read these reference books, websites and other content. Nimur (talk) 18:58, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Which is why most of the questions would go unanswered. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:28, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree that Nimur's suggestion goes too far. To give a recent example, I was answering a question about the electrical properties of scandium, something which I have no particular knowledge of. After looking in a specialized reference source, and finding that it didn't answer the question, I turned to Google. That led me (indirectly) to a paper published in Science. Without searching, I never would have known that paper existed, but I don't think it is unreasonable to cite the Science paper as a reliable source on the topic. Google searching is a tool. It can be used well or poorly depending on the execution, but saying that one should never use it as an aid in finding information is not practical and likely to leave many questions with no answer at all even when good answers could be constructed fairly easily. Dragons flight (talk) 19:20, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Nimur's idea definitely goes far. The ruling analogy here is of a library reference desk. The librarian in a brick and mortar library doesn't know all the books he helps people find; he just knows how to find them.

The conclusion that I'd take from this is that a good Refdesk answerer should have a set of skills that include the judicious use of the right search engines - which includes general purpose searches, image and video searches, photo sharing sites, and of course above all specialized sources like PubMed -- Seriously, I feel like about 25% of biology questions could be adequately, though not satisfyingly, answered by wikilinking that one word. :) So if we want to train better Refdesk answerers, our agenda should be above all to compile these lists of search tools and how to use them. Of course, there are other forms of resource sharing at Wikipedia that should also be detailed. I think setting up a "boot camp" for the successful answerer may be a useful activity, but telling people they can only answer what they already know would definitely make the task impossible. (Besides, we're at our most dangerous when we think we know something and we're wrong...) Wnt (talk) 20:04, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

References in a section

Am I imagining things or is there a template that will show the references used in a section within that section? It would come in handy on the Science and Miscellaneous pages right now. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 04:05, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

{{reflist-talk}} Abecedare (talk) 04:33, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 04:43, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Semiprotection, anyone?

In the last seven hours at the science desk, we have the following question:

• Are lesbian women more or less likely, statistically speaking, to be virgins after the age of 30 than their straight counterparts? Please provide citations to back up your data

• Jet aerodynamics of sound is it been save on the speed of light?

• How many 1.5L kettles of boiling water would be needed to make a 80L bath of cold water the right temperature for bathing?

• Would warming a bath with this product actually work and would it be safe? How long might it take to warm an 80L bath to 40c?

• How come my skin regrows when it gets cut and my bones regrow when they break, but my chopped off finger won't grow back?

Wikipedia has an article titled Regeneration in humans. I suggest you read that article....

• That's a bit beyond my mental abilities. Can you just tell me? Thanks!

• Where on the head and with how much force is required to knock an average man out with one strike?

Not a single one of these questioners is autoconfirmed. Perhaps a brief semiprotection is called for? μηδείς (talk) 02:50, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

On a quick glance share concern. Also note activities by Trivle, Lriverauk22, Lami229, Kelticone, Ravossman, CypherPunkyBrewster etc. Any CU around, or anyone want to start a formal WP:SPI? Abecedare (talk) 05:18, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

CypherPunkyBrewester claims to be a legitimate alternate account for another (unnamed) user. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:50, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Semiprotection sounds reasonable to me here, although I don't personally care either way. The reply "That's a bit beyond my mental abilities" is patently absurd. Now if we sometimes choose to answer odd questions, using the logic that a real library ref desk would do the same thing, how would a real life ref desk react if someone said this to them? As in "well your books are way over my head, how about you just tell me?". It implies frivolous use of the ref desk, although it is short of being vexatious. IBE (talk) 08:31, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

According to Reference desk, a real refdesk does not answer any but the simplest, most straightforward questions directly; in most cases they direct the customer to the appropriate resources and the customer does most of the work. This bears little resemblance to what we do here, and in fact many of our questioners are here precisely because they have no research skills (even decent Googling skills) and they want us to do their research for them. Or, they're hoping we have someone knowledgeable enough in the subject area to provide a direct answer, which is also different from a real refdesk. So our use of the term appears to be a misnomer, and I'm puzzled by any suggestion that we would be anything like a real refdesk. If we like things the way they are, and we apparently do, something like Answer desk would be more descriptive. I don't think I have ever used a real refdesk, so I'm going solely by what our article says. I would be surprised if the article is that far wrong. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:04, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Are these questions (which I agree are clearly trolling), or the efforts spent removing them, causing more disruption than semiprotection would? --Steve Summit (talk) 12:07, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Ah. I see. None have been removed, perhaps because all have received answers of one sort or another. --Steve Summit (talk) 12:14, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

I've removed one. I'm tempted to remove one or two more. For most of these questions, though, although they're clearly somewhere in the realm of bored teenagers / outright trolling, they're inoffensive and the answers can be quite educational, so I don't see any urgency for preventive action. --Steve Summit (talk) 12:19, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

There is still no agreement here on how to deal with them. Your removal is logical, though. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:21, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Just say no to amateur intelligence bureaus. (And professional ones also, but we have to start somewhere!) There is no reason at all to suppress a question about whether lesbians remain virgins longer, which is serious sociology with public health implications. Nor should we begrudge someone a clear, straightforward explanation of why regeneration doesn't work for fingers -- that is, if we can manage it! The question with the kettles is a teachable moment for heat capacity. Just leave these questions alone and people can do a decent job with them. The one about aerodynamics of sound is unintelligible - rather than asking whether it is a troll, we should ask the OP whether he can repost it in his own language. Wnt (talk) 13:19, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

A good followup question to the OP (who has likely moved on anyway) is how to define a "virgin" where Lesbians are concerned. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:42, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, the questions are mostly fine, and answerable with references. The comment of "just tell me" is a bit rude, but whatever, lots of rudeness happens here, and can also be ignored. If anyone doesn't like these questions, they are free to ignore. Semiprotection would cause more disruption, IMO. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:03, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

What desk is best

Where should I stick legal questions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by B3773RC4LL54UL (talk • contribs) 02:37, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Where the moon don't shine. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:39, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL, please. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:06, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Do you have any idea how old that joke is? And when someone tosses you a softball, it's your civic duty to knock it out of the park. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:18, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Baseball is that way. There's a question regarding legal interpretation of strikes in Archive 2. Been unanswered for over five years. So yeah, I guess you're right. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:58, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Very tempting, but I'll pass. (Oh, I see Bugs didn't. Wutever.) ―Mandruss ☎ 02:40, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

We cannot give legal advice, but we can provide references that give legal information. If you aren't sure where to post, post to miscellaneous, or anywhere, really. If someone thinks it should be on a different desk, it can be moved. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:06, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

In the List of Dewey Decimal classes, "Law" (340) is under "Social sciences", which is basically the same as "Humanities".

—Wavelength (talk) 16:13, 6 April 2015 (UTC) and 17:13, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Under "Humanities" at the top of "Wikipedia:Reference desk" (version of 01:06, 28 March 2015), we find "History, politics, literature, religion, philosophy, law, finance, economics, art, and society".

—Wavelength (talk) 17:13, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Note that there are many legal questions that are not the "legal advice" some want to avoid here, and someone whose username evokes Better Call Saul may have little need to ask a professional about them. But by now he's probably figured the site is full of nuts and moved on anyway. (hmmm, then again there's some interesting conversation at User talk:Kainaw - it appears that our best known advisor on advice is in some kind of Twilight Zone and this new editor knows more about it than I do) Wnt (talk) 13:00, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Hatting of Medical Advice Question

[For reference:

• the thread
• the hatting
• the expansion of the hatting, and again
• the unhatting

]
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.174.183.91 (talk) 11:45, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Within the past 24 hours, User:Jayron32 hatted a question that appeared to him and to me to be a direct request for medical advice. It now appears that the question may not have been such a request. I have in the past said that questions should not be hatted, but I am willing to rethink, because hatting a question with the statement that it is a request for medical advice does seem reasonable. I hadn't previously seen hatting done effectively. Thank you, Jayron32. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:30, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

It was more an issue of personal diagnosis than treatment. Given the way it was worded it violated Kainaw's Criterion as a request for personal diagnosis. μηδείς (talk) 04:00, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you as well Robert. I am trying anything to put us in compliance with community feelings towards this. I started an RFC, which was overwhelmingly in support of retaining Wikipedia's prohibition against giving medical advice. Given that, we need to have some response. We've tried deleting, and I get yelled at. We've tried removing responses. I get yelled at. Hatting seemed like a reasonable attempt at trying to do what the community wants us to do, which is to not respond to requests for medical advice. Not a single person was in support of removing that prohibition. So given that, we should be doing something, rather than ignoring the community consensus. --Jayron32 16:35, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

You most certainly did not "start an RFC, which was overwhelmingly in support of retaining Wikipedia's prohibition against giving medical advice". Instead, you started an RFC which was overwhelmingly in support of retaining Wikipedia's medical advice disclaimer -- a disclaimer that does not prohibit anyone from doing anything. Please don't imply otherwise. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:15, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

That template tells the user not to ask professional advice questions. The statement "it does not prohibit..." is not on the mark. The template soft-pedals it a little bit, but to anyone reading it, it is clear enough that medical advice is not to be asked or given. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:25, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Which template are you referring to? --Steve Summit (talk) 21:29, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm talking about this. Which one is Macon talking about? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:34, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

That's indeed the RFC that Guy is talking abut. But Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer is not a template, nor does it say anything about medical advice being asked for or given. What template are you talking about that does? --Steve Summit (talk) 21:44, 6 April 2015 (UTC) [amended 13:30, 7 April 2015 (UTC)]

It says "WIKIPEDIA DOES NOT GIVE MEDICAL ADVICE". I don't see how much clearer that could be. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:52, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Classic. Biggest words on the page, and I didn't even see 'em. --Steve Summit (talk) 13:30, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I have extended your hat to include the additional responses. If that's unacceptable, I or someone else can un-hat. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:31, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree entirely with the actions of Jayron32 and Baseball Bugs and was about to extend Jayron's hating to cover the post-hoc responses when I edit conflicted and saw BBB had already done so. μηδείς (talk) 03:57, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

In an ideal world we would just reply, "Sorry, per the instructions at the top of this page, we cannot respond to requests for medical advice" and move on. But, since many responders would ignore that, hatting seems the best alternative. Most, if not all, will respect the hat more than the bare comment. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:20, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me, Jayron, but I think you've conflated several issues here:

• That RFC demonstrated unanimous support for retaining Wikipedia's medical disclaimer. But what the disclaimer says is that nothing you read on Wikipedia should be construed as medical advice; it does not (in and of itself) prohibit Wikipedia editors from giving medical advice.
• For other reasons, of course, Wikipedia editors are not supposed to try to give medical advice, either. But nowhere is there any mandate to, as you boldly said, not respond to requests for medical advice. We can perfectly validly respond to requests for medical advice by stating that we cannot provide medical advice. In some cases (including, I believe, this one) we can perfectly validly respond to ambiguous questions (which might or might not be requesting medical advice) by providing well-sourced medical information.

I don't believe it was wrong to hat the question, because it was, as I say, ambiguous. But I think we need to be clear that it is ambiguous, that we can validly respond to such questions in several ways. —Steve Summit (talk) 16:03, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

• If this is too long, please see my summary at the bottom.

I disagree with the hat, and intend to remove it. There are several problems with the hatting, and the ensuing explanations here. Firstly, the OP has followed up, and told us it happened a long time ago. This makes it particularly likely that the person is curious about the science behind the issue. I am aware that this happened after the hatting by Jayron, but it changes the situation.

Secondly, even without the OP's follow-up post, the "request for medical advice" aspect is debatable. There was no request for a diagnosis, simply an explanation, which can be answered with references.

Thirdly, as always, no one has bothered to link the medical disclaimer. If you are hatting, the OP can still read the posts, so it seems proper to link to Wikipedia's own disclaimer.

Fourthly, there is a lot of spin in Jayron's hat title: "direct request for medical advice. Amateur self-proclaimed doctors will revert this soon, I am sure, but we probably should not answer this." [emphasis added]. I disagree with the bit about "self-proclaimed doctors". Hatting does not invite further debate, so please make the titles neutral.

Fifth, the RFC (I think you mean here; in future please link) had nothing to do with hatting. Only one person commented on hatting, and that person was "Neutral as to regarding deletion/hatting/contumely/OP blocking". The claim "we need to have some response" is what the discussion on this issue has been about, for quite some time. For example here, which I have linked elsewhere on this page. It is perfectly OK to remove replies that constitute medical advice. It seems easy to spot medical advice in replies, and remove it.

Finally, Kainaw's criterion is not policy (it is in user space). So please drop the uncritical references to it, as found in the above discussion.

Summary: please add the medical disclaimer, avoid spin/ opinion in your hat titles, please read the previous discussions on this, or give them a glance, and please don't use Kainaw's criterion as if it were policy. Then you can hat more things, and I will look for reasons not to bother. IBE (talk) 07:35, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Kainaw's criterion represents a de facto truce line about how people interpret the guidelines, and in any case can be worth citing as an argument (rather than as an authority). For example, I still am of the faction that would like to see the medical advice restrictions go away, but since this question is over that line I'm not going to put a lot of effort into arguing it. Not when I know that really, the most I could do is ho-hum and name a few general refs about unconsciousness anyway because WTF knows what makes someone snore or not snore for 30 seconds. Wnt (talk) 12:40, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Very fair comment, but I don't agree that it's much of a truce. More like, people keep saying it over and over. There have been previous discussions about whether we can just answer by giving references, and leave the explicit "medical" bit to the OP. When people say "yes we can/should", they are implicitly disagreeing with Kainaw's criterion, the problematic bit of which is the word "completely". To me, the discussion I linked here shows this implicit disagreement, ref the section "...[it is proposed we should] respond with general, fact-based information as you would if the same question were not framed in terms of advice". On the other hand, I quite agree with your WTF, and I used to want these questions to go away on the grounds that they are a bit silly. That's exactly why I haven't bothered opposing hatting much in the past. I just wish people would try the things I'm requesting, disclaimers, neutral tone esp for your hat titles, general chilling, maybe even glancing over previous discussions on this topic. IBE (talk) 15:54, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Remember, there are two separate issues:

• questioners are not supposed to ask for medical advice
• answerers are not supposed to give medical advice

Now, it's pretty much a given that there will always be ambiguous situations, where it's not obvious whether a given question asks for medical advice or merely information. In these cases, we can do one of two things:

• assume it asks for advice: ban (delete or hat or otherwise refuse to answer) the question
• assume it asks for information: limit our answers to information, not advice

In this case, we've done both (and that's not actually too unusual). What I think is important to remember is that both approaches are acceptable. We don't need to get into big arguments about whether we've chosen the wrong approach, because neither approach is wrong. —Steve Summit (talk) 15:45, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

We've never stipulated that questioners should or must not ask for medical advice. All we talk about is our response to such questions: We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.

Maybe we should make it clearer, such as: Please do not seek medical or legal advice here. We will not answer such questions, and we may remove them. You should direct such queries to an appropriate professional. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:55, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

• We don't offer prognosis, diagnosis, or treatment advice. The question may not be asking for treatment advice, but it is certainly asking for a personal diagnosis, and advising the patient that he was suffering from stertor or something else is beyond our mission, and may falsely assure the victim that he need not seek medical attention. μηδείς (talk) 17:20, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
  • In short, things went down exactly as Jayron predicted. As long as other editors insist on "answering" questions like that one, there will be no resolution to the frequent debates here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:07, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

This seemes to me more like a trollish sort of question, the appropriate response would have been to hat it on the grounds that it is not a serious science question. We can forget about whether or not the medical disclaimer applies here, if for argument's sake we assume that it doesn't, then we still don't want these sort of questions to pollute the ref desk. Count Iblis (talk) 20:04, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

"pollute" is simply your opinion. This is in fact mild by comparison to other questions, and is not apparently part of a pattern by the OP. IBE (talk) 18:09, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Endless meta discussion is becoming disruptive

Meta discussion of meta discussion was disruptive.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Can we all stop horsing around arguing with each other and get back to answering the questions? 120.203.240.191 (talk) 18:51, 8 April 2015 (UTC) Yes, as long as those answering the questions do it in accordance with what is expected of a Ref Desk, and not adding personal opinion, original research, in-jokes etc. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:53, 8 April 2015 (UTC) If it's becoming disruptive it's because there is no agreement on how to handle the issues of hatting and deleting. This is your "first" edit, but if you've got a constructive idea, let's hear it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:13, 8 April 2015 (UTC) Hey, I have a great idea! Let's all work together and post 2,000 comments on whether endless meta discussion is becoming disruptive!! --Guy Macon (talk) 20:05, 8 April 2015 (UTC) Fuck that. Let's debate precisely where endless things become other things, in general. Halfway through, we'll vote. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:01, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

personal info redacted

I missed the first time around that an unregistered user gave his full name and a link to his blog as his signature. Since we can't verify this, and for BLP and his own security ("Don't post personal contact information"), I redacted part of the information here. I believe this is totally uncontroversial, but am noting it here, rather than explain to the contributor on the board. μηδείς (talk) 23:50, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I see the OP's edit as no different from a registered editor using their real name, as some people here do. As far as I am aware, it is perfectly acceptable to link to your own blog, as I have also seen on user pages. I think this is another wildly unrealistic attempt to save Wikipedia from a total non-issue, in this case the use of one's real name, and a blog link. I can't be bothered fixing it, because in this case the attempt to save people ("for BLP and his own security") is non-invasive, but if someone else wants to restore it, I think that is correct. I believe it is totally absurd to cite BLP or security in this case. IBE (talk) 15:53, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Just to correct myself on one point, I just checked WP:BLP and it says "The single exception is that users may make any claim they wish about themselves in their user space, so long as they are not engaged in impersonation". So ok, it's not technically the same, and removal is defensible, although I think rather zealous, and of no real use. I also see no particularly "contentious" claim, which is the point of BLP. But I have no desire to bother with restoring info (real name, blog) that is otherwise useless anyway. IBE (talk) 16:01, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

The concern here is that the post in question was posted by an IP address yes claimed to be a person with a particular name. In most cases, we have no way of knowing whether such a post is by that person or is an impersonation. (I am an exception to this general rule: I am listed at the Wikimedia Identification noticeboard and have proven my identity.[3]).

As for linking to your own web page or blog, you may only do it on your own user page and/or user talk page, and the the applicable rule is "You are also welcome to include a simple link to your personal home page, although you should not surround it with any promotional language." See Wikipedia:User pages#What may I have in my user pages? for details. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:33, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Personally, if it was just the name, I would have agreed it should have been left be. Whether with registered editors or IPs, we usually have no way of knowing if they are who they say they are. Sometimes we may ask people to provide evidence of their claim, e.g. if they are a regular editor and claim to be someone very well known. But most of the time, we just allow it such claims. In this particular case, since they were linking to the blog, and since people shouldn't really be linking to their blogs simply as part of their signature, I'm fine with removing. Nil Einne (talk) 13:51, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Overall, the issues come down to three. BLP: the claim being made is inherently controversial, and would not be allowed in article space without a reliable reference, which a blog whose author we cannot verify is not. Indeed, United States defamation law could apply if this were an impersonation, and again we cannot verify it is not, so minimal precautions are reasonable, and fall within our guidelines. Also, see especially the point on medical claims in the section defamation per se. Third, knowing the IP's name and blog address is not relevant to the courtesy advice given that he should give his thanks at the appropriate article talk pages. He can be encouraged again to do so. There is no concern here that what was done by the poster was at all wrong on face value. But since we can't verify the information we do take minor precautions in case someone is making a hurtful joke at another's expense. It's to be hoped that the man who posted the question understands none of this is meant in criticism, just caution on our part. μηδείς (talk) 19:42, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Poor moderation

What is the point of putting text inside a bright pink box labelled "Completely inappropriate personal attack", with a "Show" button, as here? All it does is create big drama and draw massive attention to that message, practically begging readers to click "Show" and look at it. If a message contains an unacceptable personal attack then silently delete it. Otherwise leave it alone. 109.152.149.197 (talk) 14:08, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

On my screen, it shows up more like a light salmon than pink. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:29, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Should anyone else wish to comment on the color, the box was placed here and removed here. -- ToE 00:52, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Medeis removed their own post. As to the OP's complaint here, there is not necessarily consensus here on hatting vs. deleting. Duh. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:58, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

And the color was the same as for the meta-discussion hat, a section or two above here. If that's pink, it's a rather pale shade. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:59, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

I suggested to the complaining editor that posts viewed as personal attacks are normally simply deleted. The livid banner did seem rather to draw attention. I thought my comment was obviously hyperbolic, but that the underlying point had been made, so saw no reason to further advertise it, and removed it as a good faith gesture. μηδείς (talk) 04:21, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Hatting technicalities

The source code for the "hat" template looks like this:

{| class="navbox collapsible collapsed" style="font-size:100%; margin-top: 0.2em;" |- ! class="navbox-title" style="background-color:#f2dfce;" | {{{1|{{{reason|This discussion has been closed{{{{{|safesubst:}}}#if: {{{closer|}}}| by [[User:{{{closer}}}|{{{closer}}}]]}}. Please do not modify it.}}}}}} |- | style="font-style:italic;" | {{{2|The following discussion has been closed{{{{{|safesubst:}}}#if: {{{closer|}}}| by [[User:{{{closer}}}|{{{closer}}}]]}}. <span style="color:red;">'''Please do not modify it.'''</span>}}} |- | style="border: solid 1px silver; padding: 8px; background-color: #fcf4ef; text-align: left;" | <noinclude> |} <!-- Not a mistake, it is needed to close the table above. --> {{documentation}} <!-- Add categories and interwikis to the /doc subpage, not here! --> </noinclude>

If the salmon color is too attention-getting, someone could create a new template, "hat-plain" or something like that, to set the background color to something less obvious:

There's probably a default for the background color of the page itself, but I don't know what it is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:18, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

It isn't the color that matters. You're rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic if you're thinking that's the issue. The problem is the existence of the hat itself. Hats create a Streisand effect. That's why (see above) many are arguing against their use in situations like this. Either delete the whole thing, or let the whole thing stand and ignore it. Hatting is bad in both directions: it neither removes the disruption, and draws more attention to it than if it was ignored. If it is worth hatting, it is worth deleting. If it shouldn't be deleted, don't hat it, because it would draw more attention to it than just leaving it alone. --Jayron32 04:21, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

According to several comments I've seen here, the color does matter. It's not the only issue, but a frequent complaint is that the color draws attention to it. As for getting consensus on hatting vs. deleting... Good luck! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:34, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

(OP) Jayron is correct. The colour is not the main issue. "Hatting" (if that is the term) is always inappropriate in cases like this for the reasons explained. (It may be appropriate in order to collapse a very long and specialised discussion, very long quote, or similar.) 81.152.230.182 (talk) 12:00, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

There have been various complaints about hatted comments being too obvious, due to their color - including the one at the top of the main section just above this one. A "plain" hat background wouldn't address the hat-vs-delete question, but it would at least take away that complaint. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:05, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Does one answer automatically render any question sacrosanct?

It seems to me that one of the reasons we have difficulty deleting trolling, or otherwise dealing with unacceptable questions, is that if there's been even one editor who's spent time trying to answer the problematic question, they may object to any deletion on the grounds that their hard work is getting deleted, too.

I believe that this is a false objection. Carefully-written text gets deleted from Wikipedia every day, for all sorts of reasons. The site editing notice used to say something like "you understand that anything you contribute to Wikipedia may be mercilessly edited or deleted." I believe that anyone who spends time answering an obvious or borderline troll question, or an obvious or borderline request for medical advice, does so at their own risk. I believe that we should not let "but you're deleting my answer!" be a reason not to delete a thread that there's otherwise good consensus for deleting.

But I don't presume that mine is the only opinion here, so I'd like to gauge consensus on this point with a straw poll. Please indicate your support for one of the following two statements, or you may abstain for one of the other reasons. --Steve Summit (talk) 22:32, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

When there's consensus for deleting a thread, it's fine to delete answers along with it.

• Support, as nom. --Steve Summit (talk) 22:32, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
• support as well. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:35, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
• Support as per the above. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:56, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
• Support - but, unless I've missed something, largely academic at this point, as there is no consensus as to where to draw the line on acceptability. Any consensus reached on this page needs to be enshrined at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines, so it is recognized as consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:56, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

It is not acceptable to delete anyone's signed, researched answer from the Reference Desks.

• I can't accept this as a firm rule. Obviously there will be special cases. In general I don't care about my posts being removed if there is good reason for removing a thread. I don't view my voluntary time spent here as that important. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:35, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
• Support. (You can put the caveat if you want that this is supposing the response follows guidelines i.e. isn't medical advice, but I don't want my comment logged as an "abstention" because I combed the straw man's hair) Assuming a person answering has managed to take a questionable question and turn it into a valid question with a valid answer, we should not drop this question-answer pair from our database. Wnt (talk) 00:47, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Abstain: It's more complicated than that.

• Indeed, see above. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:35, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

[Feel free to explain why you can't support one of the above two positions.]

• What happens when there isn't 'consensus'? How is such consensus arrived at? And who determines what it is? The first option makes unrealistic assumptions, and accordingly fails to actually resolve anything. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:24, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
  • My hope (and my reason for starting this thread) is that consensus exists and, once demonstrated, will make some future actions easier. If not, if my hypothesis is disproved, I'll be sorry to learn it, and I'll hope no one feels I've wasted their time by asking. —Steve Summit (talk) 03:15, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
• Why not just edit the question (and, if needed, modify the answer)? If the OP's question is a problem but it's a borderline issue then since the border isn't far away, just move it over the border. If some were prepared to delete the question, then they can also delete it and simultaneously replace it by one that is acceptable and a good match to the answer that is already given. Count Iblis (talk) 04:12, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
  • That is absolutely not to be allowed. If you know what the OP means, there's no reason to edit it. And if you don't, you're playing guessing games. NO. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:39, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Occasionally, I will type something like "I think you are asking 'Is a [foo] a type of [bar]'? if so, see foobar". - my point being, it is perfectly reasonable to re-cast a question, and answer it, provided that you leave the original question alone.
    • That's the way to handle it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:48, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

• Abstain - I know it's not the topic of this thread, but I think all hatting/removal/deletion/whatever should be done to responses, not to questions. If people want to police, they should police respondents, not askers. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:35, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Your comment illustrates that we're being asked either to support a strawman position, or else have our votes counted as 'abstentions'. Wnt (talk) 00:49, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Abstain: I'm tired of all this metadiscussion, let's go back to answering questions.

• Indeed. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:35, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

• I remain baffled by this argument, as it smacks loudly of ownership and control issues. No one is obligated to participate in discussions on this page, and no one has the right to suppress discussion by others. If the idea is that you're only expressing an opinion, not dictating anything, I'd suggest that the best way to express your opinion is not to participate. If you feel that I'm violating my own principle by attempting to suppress your discussion, I don't feel that your position could possibly solve any problem except for a perceived waste of others' time, which is not your concern. How's that for metadiscussion. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:36, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

  This "position" was given in this survey, and I opted to type "Indeed". I'm certainly not trying to suppress anything, but still feel it's alright to express my fatigue with the metadiscussions of the past month or so. Evidently you don't, so discuss away. ---Sluzzelin talk 09:40, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't mean to imply I was speaking to you directly (I would have indented). Actually I wasn't even clear you were !voting here, since you also !voted Support. These things rarely fail to get me confused, since they're conducted in so many different ways. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:47, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for reacting sensitively then :-), and for putting my name under every section. Probably shouldn't've. Anyway, I agree that no one should be saying "stop discussing things here", but I think it's ok to say "I've lost interest in this talk page because I can't keep up with all the parallel meta-discussions", for example. ---Sluzzelin talk 10:20, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

100% agreement. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:25, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

To explain the presence of this subsection: I thought (though I was clearly wrong) that there was / would be good consensus for the position When there's consensus for deleting a thread, it's fine to delete answers along with it. If that position failed to attract a large number of !votes, I imagined that one reason people might not have registered support was that they felt that the metadiscussion was out of hand, and I wanted to try to gauge that. But it appears that my attempt backfired. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:27, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

@Scs: My initial reaction was no doubt colored by a recent encounter with an experienced editor who commanded us to cease discussion and return to work they felt was more worthwhile. It was knee-jerk to some extent and I apologize for that. You're welcome to hat the diversion with my blessing, if that will help. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:53, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

My reaction was even crappier. Sorry, Steve. Didn't mean to sabotage. As you know, I value your voice and efforts. :-( ---Sluzzelin talk 18:38, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Comments

Asking for consensus while only presenting a limited set of options isn't constructive. Personally I think that many of the discussions that have taken place on this page have missed the point - they are asking for a change in behaviour and/or in the way we handle questions without making any proposal to change policy. I see no reason why such discussions are likely to achieve anything of significance. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:46, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Respect for the effort of other people is a strong reason to prefer closing / hatting questions rather than deleting them out right. There are exceptions, but in general I think that deleting answered questions ought to be very rare. By contrast, closing questions need not be held to the same high standard and would be acceptable in a wider variety of circumstances. Dragons flight (talk) 23:43, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

This is clearly going nowhere, but one final comment from the proposer. Clearly there are plenty of "unacceptable" questions for which there is not consensus for deletion, but equally clearly -- or so I thought -- there are also plenty of questions (obvious trolling, obvious vandalism) for which there is. We used to delete certain kinds of questions all the time, without worrying too much about the occasional collateral damage of an also-deleted answer. But these days, consensus is so fractured that people are afraid to delete anything.

Because trolling and vandalism are and will always be ongoing issues on Wikipedia, I was hoping with this poll to remind us all that it's fine to be bold and delete stuff that obviously needs deleting, without tying ourselves up in knots every single time. But (at least for the issue as I phrased it) there clearly is no such consensus, so I'll drop the issue. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:27, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Need Either a 117.162.*.* Range Block or Semi

Can some admin please either range-block 117.162.*.* against vandalism of multiple Reference Desks or semi-protect them all for 24 hours? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:14, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

The vandalism has already come from 117.162.*, 117.163.*, 117.164.*, and 117.167.*, and I don't think that many maximum sized range blocks is justified based on the severity of the vandalism here. Monty₈₄₅ 22:28, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Not justified? The user blanked all of the ref desks that weren't already semi-protected:

• 17:48, 11 April 2015 (diff | hist) . . (-33,248)‎ . . Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics ‎ (←Replaced content with 'lol')
• 17:48, 11 April 2015 (diff | hist) . . (-78,357)‎ . . Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing ‎ (←Replaced content with 'lol')
• 17:47, 11 April 2015 (diff | hist) . . (-148,276)‎ . . Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities ‎ (←Replaced content with 'lol')
• 17:47, 11 April 2015 (diff | hist) . . (-110,987)‎ . . Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language ‎ (←Replaced content with 'lol')
• 17:47, 11 April 2015 (diff | hist) . . (-41,906)‎ . . Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment ‎ (←Replaced content with 'lol')

with the edit summary "lol" and has wasted this board's and admins' time far too much. μηδείς (talk) 22:35, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

At least two new accounts have now been blocked for block evasion. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:58, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Humanities is still blanked, and I'm not sure how to unblank it?. --TammyMoet (talk) 12:00, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

All you have to do is wait a minute; dedicated volunteers are on the watch! --Steve Summit (talk) 12:05, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

This account asking a rude question about David Cameron on Humanities was not blocked: 117.168.228.228, but I have hatted the question. It could just as well be deleted. μηδείς (talk) 18:27, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Question asker = name of question... What's going on

So, we have an interesting situation over the last few weeks. There's been a string of questions at the reference desks that consists of basically innocuous, unoffensive, and entirely appropriate questions, where the person who asks the question has created a user account specifically with their user name being the subject of the question. Any ideas what is going on here? They are pretty clearly all the same person. Any ideas on a) why this is happening and b) what response, if any, we should have (Including and up to ignoring it, but also including options involving WP:SPI implications and blocks). I have no stake in any conclusion, I just want to know the community's opinions and what should be done. --Jayron32 14:17, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I recall seeing this before, but only a few times, not the current high level. Nil Einne (talk) 17:10, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

One AGF explanation - user doesn't wish to commit to a long-term acccount, but does want to be able to have talk pages related to various questions... Ok, that's admittedly a stretch. Also perhaps the user wants to avoid the ill-treatment that IPs sometimes get here. I agree the questions seem fine, and I am personally uninterested in SPI or other processes unless the user becomes genuinely disruptive. I suppose we can ping @Pressure reducing valve: and see if they want to chime in. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:28, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Does this person communicate after the opening question? I haven't seen enough of them to know, only User:National Treasure Question. If they communicate, it might be worth asking them about it, just in case they mistakenly believe it's required. And it would satisfy my curiosity. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:37, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Thankyou for taking it here. I see no sockpuppet problem, unless the user actually does something relevant to why we hate sockpuppetry. The problem would be one of acuity - people get overzealous applying rules just because someone hit a certain nerve with them. We need a bit of acuity in dealing with things, ie. when a particular rule is relevant in a practical way. That needn't be proven per se, but there would have to be more than the face value of the problem, imho. But if people just find it irritating, and can't even put their finger on why, please just tell us. I have been through it many times, where I think tendentious behaviour is just so annoying, the more so because it puts other, quality, contributors off. I fear that they might leave because of a few idiots, and I believe this has indeed happened in the past. So if we can avoid applying a certain rule, we don't need too much rule bickering to stop someone if consensus finds it irritating. I've seen irritating people get blocked just for "tendentious editing", and we could apply this here. I myself don't care, at least not at the moment. IBE (talk) 14:52, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Continually creating new user ID's that way is a bit odd, and technically against the guidelines for creating user ID's; but unless the user is clearly trolling and/or asking unreasonable questions, I don't think it's a big deal. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:03, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

It is a big deal when the same user uses different accounts to avoid a search showing a pattern of disruption. Curious whether this might be Russel.mo. Listing all the names here for submission to an SPI might help. μηδείς (talk) 20:07, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

It might indeed. Are the questions disruptive? I don't think they rise (or I should say descend) to the level of the Moscow troll. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:15, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

@Russell.mo: is still active in the past few days [4], and now signs with a different name. IMO the user acts in good faith and has never caused a problem. Why do you bring up this Russel.mo? This is not a good place to speculatively accuse people. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:04, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

The user's been brought to ANI, where he was likely to be at least admonished, but an entire page at ANI was irregularly archived all at once, and his case was left unresolved. see the discussion at ANI archive 880. μηδείς (talk) 18:32, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Pseudo-Russian troll

I was able to enact a few targeted range blocks to take this guy down. Hopefully that will help quiet down the problems. --Jayron32 21:15, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I assume that means we can delete other questions posed with this same modus operandi on sight, given the posting would be a block evasion. μηδείς (talk) 04:14, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't expect them back, but I would not object to deleting them on sight. Others might, however, and you should know how contentious deleting anything at the refdesks is. But I don't need this guy around anymore. Cannot speak for what the other regulars here might think, and what blowback you may get. --Jayron32 04:17, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'd still mention it here, especially because new outbreaks should be identified and cauterized). (I notice someone else immediately and then repeatedly deleted a new 'post' by 86.24.128.230 (not by the pseudorussian) earlier today, there was no peep but no mention here either. In any case the user is been so obvious it should not be the object of dispute. If, god forbid, we start getting copycats, then we know those are also trolling, so I don't see any downside. μηδείς (talk) 04:32, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

I assume this is Alex Sazonov, based on the "is being" if nothing else. I seem to recall that he was taken to ANI several months ago, but the decision (at that point) was not to ban him; however, I can't find any such discussion in the archives. If he has been formally banned, then we can delete all his contributions with a clear conscience. Tevildo (talk) 21:26, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

He has been blocked, and further posts would be block evasions. We don't need a ban to delete post by him or posts impersonating him. μηδείς (talk) 22:38, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Alex himself has never been blocked. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:13, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

• For those unfamiliar with the case, see https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science&diff=655883136&oldid=655879926 and as for the Russian, is it the same garbled nonsense one gets in the user's "english". μηδείς (talk) 22:26, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Is Bullets and Bracelets CensoredScribe?

Those curious whether Bullets and Bracelets (the psychological effect of religion) is here to build the project might want to see this bizarre thread where [Bullets and Bracelets] attacks MarnetteD after a total of 260 edits, most of which spent in talk, ref, Jimbo and AN space. μηδείς (talk) 03:17, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

From the top of the page "This page is for discussion of the Reference Desks only. Please don't post comments here that don't relate to the Reference Desks. Other material may be moved. I will not remove this material, but it is not helpful, and does not improve the ref desk in any way. You are not even linking to ref desk pages. If you like this kind of thing, maybe you can participate at SPI or ANI, or start your own club somewhere. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:25, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Without links, it may be unclear what this has to do with the RD. User:Bullets and Bracelets (who has been blocked indefinitely for sock puppet violations) started the following RD sections:

• WP:RDH#Are there certain non copyrighted images that can't be shown in public? (deleted by Medeis 05:16, 17 April 2015)
• WP:RDH#What is the most comprehensive study on the psychological effects of religion? (deleted by Medeis 05:15, 17 April 2015)
• WP:RDS#‎Injecting a substance into the veins with the tongue. (now archived)
• WP:RDS#‎Can an animal genetically engineer itself? (now archived)
• WP:RDS#Are there any studies as to what happens if you extract an embryo and inject it into someones blood stream? (now archived)
• WP:RDL#Is the root of damn the babylonian damu; and the root of ritual the Indian ritu? (now archived)

As the questions are not overtly disruptive and all have received responses, they should not be removed (assuming anyone is tempted to do so). -- ToE 14:45, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

The sockmaster CensoredScribe is banned from Wikipedia, and his edits cannot be allowed to stand, regardless of their alleged quality. Banned users are not allowed to edit. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:30, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, banned users are not allowed to edit, which is why their socks are banned. But are you telling me that policy states that, following banning of a sock puppet, all their edits are required to be expunged?

Particularly in cases where a sock puppet racks up 10 edits purely for the purpose of becoming auto-confirmed in order defeat semi-protection, I will assume bad faith and step through their edit history undoing both negative and neutral edits, but will leave in place those edits which clearly do improve an article. On talk pages I will leave in place neutral, non-disruptive edits which been responded to, as doing otherwise can be disruptive to the editors who responded.

The reference desk is closer to a talk page than a main-space article. -- ToE 17:06, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

It's the person behind the accounts who's banned, and the prohibition from edits encompasses the entirety of Wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:55, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

As TOE points out, there isn't any real problem with questions that B&B have asked at the ref desk. If you don't like them, you are free to ignore them. This is not helping the ref desk. What is your goal here with these comments? Do you really think retroactively removing questions will somehow hurt the sockpuppeteer, or make the ref desk a better place? SemanticMantis (talk) 18:31, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

No, you've got it wrong. Banned users are not allowed to edit. That is a bright line that cannot be crossed. Banned means banned. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:53, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Actually, Bugs, you've got it wrong. No one is disputing that banned users are not allowed to edit. The question is, if they are naughty and edit anyway, are we obliged to revert their edits, every one? And the answer is unequivocally "no", as clearly stated at Wikipedia:Banning policy: "This does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made by a banned editor".

Now, I'll grant that a possibly-trollish question posted to a Reference Desk by a banned user is certainly an ambiguous case, but that changes the presumption to delete to a "should", not a "must". And I encourage you to think about SemanticMantis's question: Do you think removing questions will somehow hurt the sockpuppeteer? --Steve Summit (talk) 09:50, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

"Anyone is free to revert any edits made in violation of a ban, without giving any further reason and without regard to the three-revert rule." That seems as plain as the nose on W.C. Fields' face. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:44, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

So what did SemanticMantis get wrong? --Steve Summit (talk) 15:12, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Everything. (1) "There isn't any real problem with questions that B&B have asked at the ref desk." Irrelevant. Banned users are not allowed to edit. (2) "If you don't like them, you are free to ignore them." Or free to delete them, as per the guideline regarding banned users. (3) "This is not helping the ref desk." Wrong. Allowing banned users to edit harms Wikipedia. (4) "What is your goal here with these comments? Do you really think retroactively removing questions will somehow hurt the sockpuppeteer, or make the ref desk a better place?" Banned users are not allowed to edit. Whether they feel "harmed" or not is irrelevant. They're banned because they choose to be. Keeping them away from Wikipedia makes Wikipedia a better place. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:30, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

You just keep repeating yourself; you aren't even acknowledging the difference between must and may - or if you prefer, logical necessity and logical possibility, respectively. Put another way, we (myself, ToE, Steve) are discussing the distinction of ought and could, or in the terms of Deontic_logic, what is obligated, compared to what is permitted - does that make it more clear what we are trying to discuss? If you continue to respond "banned users are not allowed to edit" then I will be forced to conclude that you are not acting in good faith. After considering ToE's examples above, I personally think that reverting a good edit by a banned user would be doing a disservice to the project. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:35, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure Bugs is interested in these fine distinctions we're trying to make. His logic appears to be:

1. Deleting all edits by banned users will improve the Reference Desks.
2. We are allowed to delete the edits of banned users.
3. Therefore we must delete all edits by banned users.

But if you disagree with (1), or even worse, if you believe that deleting the edits of banned users is a fine idea, but for a different reason than (3), and if you think the logic behind (3) is faulty, and if you try to make that point, Bugs thinks you're arguing against deleting the edits of banned users (meaning that you're a supporter of banned users), and he'll repeat himself at you some more. --Steve Summit (talk) 20:44, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

(He also appears to believe that "banned users may not edit Wikipedia" implies that "banned users' edits may not be allowed to stand on Wikipedia" which in turn implies that, again, we must delete all edits by banned users, and he's impervious to the words at Wikipedia:Banning policy explicitly denying this reasoning. --Steve Summit (talk) 20:51, 14 April 2015 (UTC))

Here's the basic flaw in y'all's reasoning. Let's suppose that I'm topic-banned from the subject of wombats. That means I'm not supposed to do any editing on the subject of wombats, and if I defy that ban, I can be blocked for it. But according to what you're saying, I should be OK to edit wombats as long as my edits are "constructive". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:32, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

If you don't like this policy, I suggest you take it up at Wikipedia talk:Banning policy. —Steve Summit (talk) 01:58, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

The policy is that banned users are not allowed to edit, and that's fine. Note the statement in Wikipedia:Banning policy: "An editor who is site-banned is forbidden from making any edit, anywhere on Wikipedia, via any account or as an unregistered user, under any and all circumstances." (Except for appealing the ban from his talk page.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:01, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Bugs. Yes. I acknowlege reading those words there. Now will you please acknowledge reading the words "This does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made by a banned editor"? —Steve Summit (talk) 02:16, 15 April 2015 (UTC) [P.S. Will someone else please tell me to stop arguing with Bugs? It's inevitably futile.]

Splitting hairs/hares. Edits by banned users are subject to removal. Does that mean they will always get removed? Not necessarily. Someone might not catch it. Someone might catch it but not bother to remove it. But they may be removed on sight, by someone else. Why? Simple: (1) Banned users are not allowed to edit. (2) If in doubt, see (1). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:41, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

• The question of whether troll X is sockpuppet Y is a side one which I probably should not have brought up. The bottom line is that Bullets and Bracelets has indeed been indeffed for disruptive behavior, and shows all the hallmarks of a sock, immediately sophisticated and controversial editting with a focus on personality such as the attack on Marnette with the self-sabotaging ANI complaint. I brought it up here because someone mentioned CensoredScribe, and I figured that might ring a bell, and help identify other problems. μηδείς (talk) 20:17, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Because Lord knows we don't have enough problems to discuss on this talk page, so it's certainly good to be vigilant in seeking out possible new ones to address. --Steve Summit (talk) 09:55, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

There is actually ONLY ONE problem here - perpetual disagreement on how to handle certain types of edits. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:47, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

On the contrary, most people probably agree that we should ignore disruptive edits. Therefore, as most of our editors are ignoring such things, these discussions are exclusively conducted by a tiny number of editors who choose not to ignore disruptive edits. This vocal community is still a minority group of editors. Occasionally, a different editor (like Steve) gets roped into this, and needs to be reminded to take a break, because these discussions are unproductive.

Steve, perhaps you'd like to hop over to WP:RDS to read about planetary orbital resonance; or WP:RDC to read the entire boot sequence checklist for an Intel CPU (which is, amazingly, more interesting than meta-discussions about internet trolls). Or if you really like, read about quokkas. There are so many interesting things to do that are more fun than worrying about how others choose to waste their time on the internet.

Nimur (talk) 09:34, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

OK, if you want to put it that way, the one problem here is perpetual disagreement about what constitutes disruption. And when someone trashes established editors while arguing for giving a pass to banned editors, they are furthering that problem. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:49, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

archiving delay

Due to a series of circumstances both too complicated and too banal to explain, archiving and date header addition by scsbot is down for a day or two. I can probably get it working again by tomorrow night, but if the hiatus lasts much longer than that I'll let y'all know. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:22, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Manually adding date headers in the mean time shouldn't interfere with restarting your bot, should it? -- ToE 03:11, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Not at all. Its algorithms are all nicely idempotent, designed to discover what needs doing on any given day without regard to whether someone else (or some other invocation of the bot) has already done part or all of it. —Steve Summit (talk) 10:08, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanx for linking that fancy word! ―Mandruss ☎ 09:51, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Banned topics

Isnt it strange that only serious questions on topics of medecine or law are banned? Why not ban questions about financial advice(risk of losing money), home electrics(risk to life), chemistry performed at home( risk to health/life) etc, etc, etc. Could this be anything to do with medicine and law being two of the most restrictive and reguated professions? If so, what is next for banning? DIY animal surgery questions? Nuclear scince questions? DIY laser experiments? Any other potentially harmful activity? PS BB need not reply-Im fed up reading his diatribes--86.171.5.29 (talk) 16:09, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Serious questions on medicine or law are not banned. You are mistaken. --Jayron32 16:37, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

• Also, read the disclaimer, we don't give professional advice of any sort, none that requires being a licensed professional: "If you need specific advice (for example, medical, legal, financial or risk management), please seek a professional who is licensed or knowledgeable in that area."

Wasn't there a recent, similar question? From a different IP, of course. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:27, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Put this on the computer desk

Is there any algorithmic composition software for Windows which I can use to create classical music melodies automatically without knowing anything about music? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.126.105.41 (talk) 19:59, 17 April 2015

 Done ―Mandruss ☎ 20:05, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.126.105.41 (talk) 20:06, 17 April 2015

Semi-protected edit request on 18 April 2015

Where can I find Jami’ es-Sittin on the map?

To the South of Walli Yetaim, there was a structure called “Jami’ es-Sittin” or “The Mosque of the Sixty” in English. It was located on a hill with escarped walls and a carved beam positioned over the door. It is thought to have been a synagogue11. It contains many ancient remains such as column shafts and classic resources. After the consultations made in 1967, a beautiful room to the west was exposed. The room has been plastered two times with white lime, and it has an area that faces south to Jerusalem. The Lintel was removed from the north door, and a pillar a synagogue or a church are encased over the west door. [5] Dr Lol (talk) 08:02, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

 Done ―Mandruss ☎ 11:27, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request

How come women who are raped orgasm if they don't like it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by HeavyHittingNewsShowi3 (talk • contribs) 11:10, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

 Not done - Question is based on an unproven premise and therefore unanswerable. Sorry. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:22, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

This question and its assumptions could be addressed with references such as this Popular Science article. -- ToE 14:06, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Women in Love

Moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities § Women in Love

―Mandruss ☎ 15:26, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Marking question as resolved

How do I mark my question as resolved? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roger adams49 (talk • contribs) 23:57, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

A common way is to insert {{resolved}} just below the section heading, and you could follow it with your ~~~~. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:00, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Reference desk protected

Why is the reference desk protected? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.119.235.171 (talk) 03:52, 17 April 2015 UTC

Someone has been attacking the reference desk lately [6], so it was necessary to temporarily protect it. We apologize for any inconvenience. Dragons flight (talk) 05:10, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

If you've got a question, you could ask it here and it could be posted for you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:41, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

At least, they can now that this talk page isn't also protected, as it was for a while. --65.94.49.82 (talk) 15:58, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Alas, it's another example of someone ruining something for the rest of us. You can avoid being inconvenienced by such protection is you register a username and log in (there is no requirement to reveal an email address or any other information). plus you will no longer have to enter in a CAPTCHA on some posts. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:50, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

What's with the persistent idiotic vandalism of the various Reference Desk pages? Is this a recent development? Is it just one moron creating separate accounts, or is there some particular incident that has sparked a group effort?--Jeffro77 (talk) 23:53, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

It's a regular troll we've had around here for some time. Some time ago (probably a few years back. Maybe less, maybe more, have a bad memory for details like that) he started posting provocative questions which really weren't requests for information, but rather breaching experiments to see how much he could get away with. When his obvious trolling would inevitably get removed, he would immediately and repeatedly try to get it back on the desk. The hallmark is that people would explain, patiently, how he could find the information, or ask the question and get the same answer in less provocative and more appropriate ways. His refusal to change even a word of the question, and his repeated attempts to return these trolling posts to the desks, is how we recognize him. He's usually blocked pretty quickly. This last time, a week or so ago, he lost his shit and decided to create like a million sockpuppet accounts and start disrupting the ref desks with them. We're working on a few methods of shutting this down; some more advanced admins with tools normal admins don't have been contacted, and we're looking at some options to return the ref desks to normalcy. It just takes time for them to investigate, respond, and set up the fixes. It sucks, but the problem is being worked on. --Jayron32 01:23, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Unprotected page?

For times when one or more ref desk pages is protected (including this one), might it be a good idea (as per talk page guidelines) to create a catchall, unprotected page where users could post questions? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:13, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Post for discussion, or as edit requests? If the latter, I thought the talk page was the place for edit requests. If the former, I wouldn't see the point. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:21, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Sure, except if the talk page itself is protected, which it sometimes is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:33, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I think I'm beginning to grasp your concept, but check me on this. It would be a single refdesk with different rules, where you can post anything you want and it may be responded to or ignored, depending on the whims of the responders. But nothing will be hatted or removed, and no blocks will be imposed. Good-faith unconfirmed users there will endure whatever disruption the vandals care to cause, including offensive language, removing their questions or otherwise vandalizing their threads, or blanking the entire page. If these good-faith users have the necessary skills, they can fight the vandals themselves. Do I have it right so far? ―Mandruss ☎ 16:25, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Pretty much. They could go nuts with that page and it could be ignored as appropriate. If Jayron or another admin decided to issue a block, obviously they could do so. But there would likely be no clamoring for it on the regular talk page. As for the unprotected page itself, you could call it "unprotected ref desk talk page", as per the recommendations for when a talk page is protected. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:48, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm. Being as it would be more like a refdesk than a talk page (talk pages are for discussing the article/project page(s)), wouldn't something like Wikipedia:Reference desk/Open be more suitable? Shortcut: WP:RDO. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:58, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Whatever name makes sense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:02, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I concur with that. I'm strongly opposed to names that don't make sense. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:03, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Can I ask what action is proposed to be taken if this 'open' page is used to post say copyright violations or libellous statements? I ask because it seems to me that there might be legal implications if the answer is 'none'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:04, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

The thot plickens. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:05, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Postings that are directly against the rules could be deleted and rev-del'd - just as they would be anywhere else. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:06, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

And per the above description, the bad guys can remove stuff but the good guys can't. Interesting. Let's make it Wikipedia:Reference desk/Wild West, shortcut WP:RDWW. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:12, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Not exactly. BLP violations and Outing, for example, are forbidden anywhere on Wikipedia, and hence are subject to removal by anyone. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:26, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Understood. I meant generally speaking. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:30, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Barring those kinds of gross violations, we should leave it alone. The theory is that the vandal will get bored if he's not being fed in some way. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:09, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

But after the vandal blanks the page, it goes one of two ways. Either a good-faith user reverts, in which case he's being fed and continues, or no one reverts and the page might as well not exist. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:52, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

No big deal. Just look in the pre-reverted version and see if there are any pending questions for the regular ref desk pages. If so, post them as needed. If not, leave it be. That makes it almost like a "sandbox" page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:32, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

That's feeding, and the vandal is waiting for you to do that so he can blank the page again. Rinse, repeat. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:49, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

No, you misunderstand. Here's the sequence of events:

1. IP or not-confirmed editor(s) post reasonable question(s).

2. Vandal blanks the page.

3. One of us checks recent history for valid questions.

4. One of us posts those valid questions on the appropriate desk.

5. We leave the blanked page blank.

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:22, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

You're right, I didn't understand, in part because you never answered my opening question: Post for discussion, or as edit requests?. I flipped a coin and chose one. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:26, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

OK, I had it more in mind for edit requests. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:18, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

omniglot.com

There is a discussion to blacklist omniglot.com at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist#omniglot.com. Please read and join if you can help resolve it. Since it involves a website about languages I hope experts here can help. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 20:22, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 April 2015

Language: Could someone translate this message for me? It's a question from an eBay user I got who just bought some Magic: the Gathering cards from me.

buenas nose si has recibido bien mi direccion a la que me tienen que enviar las cartas es españa 03004 alicante calle belando nº 29 2º derecha. y tambien queria preguntar cuanto me tardara en llegar??

Also could someone write a reply to it for me? Whatever you think would be the most likely reply assuming all is well. Thanks, 2A02:8084:9300:A80:90AD:946E:EF56:F50 (talk) 14:03, 21 April 2015 (UTC) 2A02:8084:9300:A80:90AD:946E:EF56:F50 (talk) 14:03, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Did you try Google Translate? Also, "nose" is not a Spanish word. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:40, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I did. And Bing translate. It's hard to make out what's being said. I'm guessing "nose" is a misspelling of something. 2A02:8084:9300:A80:90AD:946E:EF56:F50 (talk) 14:43, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I am copying this question to the Language desk. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:34, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

This is an annoying system.

It's staring to make more sense now. It was from a user with zero feedback. So what address do I send the item to? The PayPal email lists the address as:

María Miota

03004

03004 alicante, Comunidad Valenciana

Spain

Which looks different to what was put in the message.

Thanks, 2A02:8084:9300:A80:90AD:946E:EF56:F50 (talk) 17:02, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is an annoying way to operate.

I'm not seeing the city name in the original Spanish message. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:39, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

ALICANTE. And one imagines "nose" to be "no se".... I suspect it's best to let actual experts to answer this question, and I'm sure at least one of the millions of Wikpiedia editors that pass by here is fluent in Spanish. Unlike, it would appear, the rest of us. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:42, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

• "Buenas nose" is a slang greeting. I translate the message as, "Did you get that the address to send the cards to is Calle Belando, 29, #2, 03004 Alicante Spain? And I also wanted to ask how long it will take me to get them?" ("Calle" means "Street". ""Calle Belando, 29" is the way you write a numbered street address in Spain.) Google Maps shows this as a valid address. Unfortunately my Spanish is not up to writing a reply. Looie496 (talk) 19:05, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

• Alicante is a city within Comunidad Valenciana. I'm sure there are editors here who can give you a reasonable English-to-Spanish translation of whatever your reply is going to be. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:15, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

The reply doesn't matter too much. I can just reply in English and let him/her try to muddle through it like I've had to do. Just need to make sure I get the address written down properly. How does this look?

María Miota
España 03004,
Alicante Calle Belando nº 29,
2º Derecha,
Spain

Looks like Spanish address go in the opposite way I'm used to. Is that right? I'll be sending this from Ireland if that makes a difference.

Also, I usually write "Cards Inside, DO NOT BEND" on the cardboard I use to protect the cards. It's not too important but if anyone happens to know the Spanish version I could use that instead.

Thanks for all the help everyone. 2A02:8084:9300:A80:90AD:946E:EF56:F50 (talk) 20:24, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

---

Right, User:Medeis seems to be suggesting this as the address:

María Miota
Calle Belando nº 29
2º derecha,
03004 Alicante,
España

Is this the address I should use? 2A02:8084:9300:A80:90AD:946E:EF56:F50 (talk) 02:43, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

España is the country, and should go last, on its own line. Calle Belando nº 29 is the street number. 2º derecha is the box or apt number at that street address, and should probably go on the same line as and after Calle Belando nº 29. The postal code 03004 Alicante is the proper designation for the postal district; only very large cities have an additional number code that comes after the city name. Don't put the number second as is done in most English speaking countries. So the above is fine, although I would put Calle Belando nº 29, 2º derecha on the same line. Keep in mind postal officials have no trouble figuring out what you mean as long as you write in their alphabet and you don't exclude vital information. 03:20, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

PS, if you are sending cards, you can put NO DOBLAR on the envelope, and you can email the client Las cartas llegarán en aproximadamente XX días. With XX obviously being the approximate number of days. μηδείς (talk) 03:35, 22 April 2015 (UTC)