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How many questions are too many?

I'm a little bit troubled by the amount of traffic that we're seeing from Whoop whoop pull up (talk · contribs) of late. I count fourteen new threads created in the last week, and five just in the last day.

To be absolutely clear, it's not my intent to discourage people from making regular use of the Ref Desk's services, nor am I unaware that the editors offering their services here are volunteers, able to choose for themselves which questions deserve their attention. Generally speaking, any one of those questions would be reasonable to ask here. Nevertheless, we have in the past sometimes had to reign in the occasional editor who overwhelms a Desk with stump-the-Ref-Desk-type questions and activity. (As of a few minutes ago, half of the questions under today's date on the Science desk were from Whoop whoop, including four of the last five.) Looking at the last few weeks' contributions, I am concerned that Whoop whoop is using the Ref Desk as a source of social interaction and entertainment when he gets bored on the weekends.

I would be inclined to be more flexible if the editor had a demonstrated history of giving back to this part of the project through his own work at the Desk. Unfortunately, his only other contributions to the Desk this weekend were the addition of unhelpful jokes [1] and gag images [2] to one thread (encouraged by Baseball Bugs), and a – somewhat ironic – lecture about courtesy [3] to another editor who had made a formatting error.

I suppose I'm putting a few questions forward, then. First, is this recent pattern reflective of Whoop whoop's history with the desk, or are we seeing a temporary departure for an otherwise-helpful and -constructive volunteer? Second, is Whoop whoop's current approach to the Desks appropriate and sustainable, or should he be asked (or if necessary, compelled) to employ a little more restraint? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:10, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, seems to be getting out of hand now, and maybe turning slightly trollish.--92.28.79.174 (talk) 21:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Ironically, the above IP is from LC's neighborhood. In any case, of the 14 items submitted by Whoop, only the one about dying a brain seemed absurd. Several of the others look like they could easily be self-answered with a little googling, but unlike LC's usual idiocies, the Whoopie questions appear mundane, if a bit obscure. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Who or what is "LC"? Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 21:49, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

A long-standing, banned troll named "Light current", who operates from that same Liverpool ISP. If this one actually is LC, so far its comments all seem harmless. As regards this complaint about your questions, be aware that every so often the denizens of this page (me included, sometimes) feel the need to find someone to complain about, and this time it's you that's the target. Next week it will be someone else. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:15, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I think five in one day is a bit too much. An average of two per day, on the other hand, seems reasonable. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:44, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe after previous complaints, Whoop whoop pull up seemed to reduce the amount of questions. (Either that or real life got in the way.) Hopefully they will do this again. I wouldn't say they're trolling, but as BB said, they seem to ask a large number of questions, some of which could probably be answered by Googling. Even many of the questions which couldn't be answered by Googling that may be because they're rather weird or even inane and difficult to actually answer with references. IMO APL put it well last time Wwpu came up when they said 'Perhaps it could be politely explained to him that the reference desk isn't really for asking a large number of questions that just happened to pop into your head, and that he shouldn't overuse the resource' Nil Einne (talk) 14:37, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

"Nerveagentase" was a very good question. "Dyeing one's brain", not so much. He'll probably run out of ideas before we run out of patience. Remember, one purpose of the Refdesks should be to accumulate a huge archive of questions and answers which, someday, natural language processing software will be able to call upon to give curious people all over the world answers based (in part) on what we were able to come up with. Wnt (talk) 04:13, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I believe that if questions are asked out of mere curiosity, a self-imposed limit of one question per day is reasonable. If questions are asked because the editor needs the information for some purpose, I don't think there should be any specific limit. Looie496 (talk) 05:16, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

OMG! Someone using Wikipedia as "a source of social interaction and entertainment when he gets bored" ! Something that has hardly ever happened before. Edison (talk) 04:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

The editor clearly needs to be given specific directives about what or what isn't allowed on the reference desk. Uhlan ^talk 03:22, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Wound inductor = Light current?

I'm fairly certain that the the OP for the Wound inductor question is Light current. The location and ISP are correct, and LC has an interest in electronics. LC has in the past trolled with electronics questions, followed up by making fun of the respondents if he perceives them to have given an incorrect answer. So far I'm only 99% sure this is LC, so I'm not deleting the question immediately, but be advised that any response risks being made fun of. Red Act (talk) 23:09, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Come on, it's a perfectly legitimate question. The fact that it's about electronics and is from someone that uses the same ISP as a known troll is not remotely enough evidence to make that kind of accusation. Can we please stop this ridiculous McCarthy-style LC-hunt? --Tango (talk) 00:00, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I've removed your comment (and the facetious response to it) from the desk. It is completely unfair to OP to makes that kind of accusation like that. I'll report anyone reverting me to WP:ANI. --Tango (talk) 00:03, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

No problem Tango - I'll rely on your call. BTW, "facetious" was an excellent characterization, I meant no harm and thought I was expressing the obvious. It was imprudent to do so. hydnjo (talk) 01:21, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

If it had only been the ISP and an interest in electronics that matched, I wouldn't have batted an eye. But what you have neglected to address in my post above is that the location (Liverpool) also matched. Furthermore, if you do a whois on the OP's IP address[4], you'll see that the post's origin is listed as AS13285, which almost certainly means that it is indeed LC.[5]

Yes, it was a perfectly legitimate electronics question. But this was also just a perfectly legitimate electronics question[6], until he returned to take a crap on the thread.[7] We've probably fed the troll enough from his post by now that he won't bother taking a crap on the current thread. And there's a chance that he actually asked the question because he genuinely wanted to know the answer. But there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that the OP is anyone other than LC. Red Act (talk) 02:49, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

As has been explained many times before, that location is just the location of the ISP and bares no relation to the location of the user. You can't use geolocation to narrow someone down to more than that they are in the UK. There is absolutely no way you can be that certain that it's LC based on just the ISP and the fact that it's about electronics. That is just plain ridiculous and borders on libel. Stop it. --Tango (talk) 13:08, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't see how "libel" figures into it. He's not being accused of committing a crime. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:58, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The definition of libel doesn't include anything about the false statements being accusations of crimes. Any false, damaging statement can be libellous. --Tango (talk) 00:47, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

How could an anonymous, unknown user be "damaged" financially by being falsely accused of sockpuppetry on a website? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:35, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Where are you getting these strange ideas about what libel means? There is no need for the damage to be financial... --Tango (talk) 20:01, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, Perry Mason, who is being "damaged", and how, in your hypothetical case? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:42, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The usual tipoff is that ISP plus the nature of the question. If it's from that IP and acts like LC, it probably is LC. If it's a reasonable question, it could come from any ISP. And there's always the narrow possibility that LC decided to ask a reasonable question. If he had behaved in a normal civilized way from the get-go, he wouldn't be banned. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:05, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

You seem to be suggesting that if you do a geolocation on any set of LC's ISP's IP addresses in the UK, they will all geolocate to the same location, namely the ISP's national headquarters or something. But that isn't the case. The IP of the OP in question was 92.28.91.245, which is part of the block of IPs owned by LC's ISP consisting of the range 92.24.0.0 - 92.29.255.255 [8]. I just now did a geolocate on 10 random IPs in that range. Four of the 10 IPs geolocated to London, which isn't too surprising, but the remaining 6 IPs geolocated to 6 different cities spread all over England. If the IP had just geolocated to London, that wouldn't be particularly strong evidence, but the Liverpool area has a population about 16 times smaller than the London area. Red Act (talk) 04:31, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

AS13285. That is the service aggregator, whatever "geolocation" address shows up for the owner of the particulat range is irrelevant. Inspection of RD interactions from all addresses managed from AS13285 (from when Opal bought those ranges) will show that they are overwhelmingly from the same editor. There is a user preference to enable IP range searching on the usercontribs special page, anyone is free to give it a shot and find contrary evidence. Franamax (talk) 04:56, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The OP's follow-up comment to this question seemed perfectly reasonable to me... --Tango (talk) 00:47, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it "reasonable",[9] as it was snippy and filled with "attitude" - but not LC-like attitude, just garden variety IP attitude. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:55, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Metadiscussion regarding appropriateness of advising people on their legal situation regarding parking tickets.

I have moved the metadiscussion to this page, where it is more appropriate, since it is about reference desk policy, and not about answering the OP's question. --Jayron32 19:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

If you don't want to answer the question due to legal advice that's fine, but you shouldn't remove the previous answers, especially when those answers also said "we can't give legal advice." RudolfRed (talk) 03:13, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Guidelines#nodiagnosis, and I quote "Questions that ask for medical, legal or other professional advice may be removed and replaced with a message..." (bold mine) and from the box at the top of this page "The reference desk will not answer (and will usually remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or request medical opinions, or seek guidance on legal matters." (bold mine). If you wish to change this practice, please start a discussion at WT:RD to seek consensus to change the practice. Unless and until the rule is changed, the proper thing to do is to remove the question, NOT to answer it with qualifiers. In summation, don't complain about people enforcing the rules as written, you must first instead change the rules. --Jayron32 03:34, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem was that someone tried to actually give legal advice. Had they left it at "see a lawyer" or "contact your local government office", it might have been OK. Unless a given respondent is actually from Lansing and can give definitive, solid evidence (such as pointing to an official website with the answer clearly stated), they ought not be trying to "help" the OP. There is also another bit of safe advice I might have given: "Don't be a scofflaw - pay the fine." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:42, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Why would anyone want to park there anyway? It doesn't seem to have much going for it, unless you are particularly keen on observing drug-intoxicated students - at least, that is the impression our article gives. The only example amongst the 'notable people' mentioned that I recognise (as an ignorant Brit, admittedly) is Malcolm X - who seems to have lived "a short distance west of East Lansing", which may very well have been a sensible choice ;-). Wikipedia at its least inspiring... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:17, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It's hardly Wikipedia's fault if this particular notable subject has so far failed to inspire the rest of the world. Let us assume that it's not actually the case that it's the Centre of the Universe and Wikipedia has somehow omitted to record that fact. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:54, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not only not the center of the known universe, it's not even the center of its own county. It's also a little known fact that the city was named for an Irish settler named Lansing A. Boyle. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Or was he Lancing A Boil? Astronaut (talk) 10:29, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

It is a city of 45,000 residents but with a college student population of 48,000. It is a town of 35 km² in area with a university taking up 21 km². Rmhermen (talk) 16:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Given that, it's possible that the rules are different on-campus and off-campus. The OP needs to do his own, direct research on this... OR, pay his overdue parking ticket(s). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

edit filter

I'm trying to post a comment to the computer desk but I am getting "triggered filter 58, performing the action "edit" on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. Actions taken: Disallow; Filter description: Long-term pattern abuse". I don't know much about the edit filters and I am not comfortable going to those pages to report false positives. Can someone else have a look and see what is wrong? I can edit other questions fine, just that one is the problem. Thank you. 82.45.62.107 (talk) 23:07, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Can you tell us which question you edited and what you tried to post ? Offhand I would guess you are using an I/P address that falls into a range used by a troll. If so, registering and posting under that name might solve the problem. StuRat (talk) 23:22, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

It's all there in the filter log entry that 82.45 provided. I'm not all that good with the nitty-gritty of the edit filter, so I'm investigating. If I can't figure out what caused this edit to trip the filter, I will ask input from the person who coded filter 58, the one that was tripped. --Jayron32 23:27, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I just investigated, and the relevent filter was edited recently (about 6 hours ago); so I have contacted the editor that made the recent changes to see if the OP is the intended target, and if not, to see if this can be fixed. Please be patient while we work this out. --Jayron32 23:32, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Just following up, this looks to be resolved, per [10]. I hope it is; if anyone else has problems in this regard, please let us know! --Jayron32 14:37, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks 82.45.62.107 (talk) 11:44, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Sections not visible

Don't know if this is happening to others, but in my browser I can't see the sections below this one. --SupernovaExplosion ^Talk 12:26, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

This edit damaged the SineBot template, which hid everything after it. I've fixed it 82.45.62.107 (talk) 12:38, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

For those having problems seeing it, try zooming in since it's only one character. What happened was the deletion of one - from the closing tag for sinebot's hidden comment, hence the tag was never closed and the rest of the page became a hidden comment. Nil Einne (talk) 01:19, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Whoa, I'm really sorry if I damaged that Sinebot. I'll take more care in future. I wondered why my post didn't initially appear, God you learn so much here. (holds up hands in apology) Richard Avery (talk) 19:36, 22 February 2012 (UTC)