Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 131

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Archive 125

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Archive 129

Header

"We are not a substitute for actually doing any original research required, or as a free source of ideas."

What does this mean? I'm guessing the first part means "we'll help you find references, but you have to use them yourself"; is that correct? And I'm not clear to what "free source of ideas" refers, since we do freely give out ideas if you ask for references on a certain subject. Nyttend (talk) 01:35, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Who created that sentence, and when? It sounds like a sentence designed by a committee. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:03, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Added in this string of edits, in case you're wondering. Nyttend (talk) 04:10, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Possibly prompted by this question-thread (particularly the hatted part), and see also this user talk page mini-exchange.

Pinging ShakespeareFan00 who might have more to add. ---Sluzzelin talk 09:02, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

There was a concern expressed in the hatted part, as I understood it that the reference desk was intended to find 'existing' reference or research material, not necessarily generate new material. There are other sites that are better suited to 'ghost-writing' or academic "synthesis". It's the difference between answering a question on say economic trends in the US , by linking US Treasury reports and projections, and writing entire an entire essay saying "My view is... "

That said, in some refdesk questions, there have been helpful academic asides that have resulted. A question from way back about 'determining' the temperature of boiling water in a repeatable way, lead to some links and disscussion on matters I hadn't been aware of previously concerning calibration standards for something as simple as Water ;) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:37, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the input :-) ShakespeareFan00, what do you mean by "a free source of ideas"? I'm thinking of redoing the first part; please revert me if you don't think it helpful. Nyttend (talk) 01:14, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

The reference desk isn't supposed to be a substitute for actually thinking ;) There's a reason researchers in some fields get paid a lot for not doing very much. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:00, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I had assumed it was supposed to give an explicit reason to hat open-ended "give me some ideas" questions.

You know the ones, the ones that go "I'm writing a time travel story. What are interesting things to do in the 1800s?" or "I want to start an online business. What are some ways to make money online?".

Such questions used to be common. ApLundell (talk) 18:06, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

RefDesk help icon displays in bad position

{{RefDesk help icon}} displays on top of the notifications icon for me in mobile: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Mathematics. It was reported at Wikipedia:Help desk#Display problems with File:Screenshot of notifications fail.png. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:07, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

You could maybe reverse-engineer it and create another one which sits in a better place? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Now archived to Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2018_June_29#Display problems DMacks (talk) 19:12, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I hacked on it a bit. It's now (for me, anyway) in the same horizontal region as the "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia < Wikipedia:Reference desk" subtitle rather than just below it, which also closed up the large whitespace before the actual helpdesk header boxes. I checked it on desktop and mobile, both with and without protection. WP now has three (so far that I have found) different templates that implement this same type of top-of-page help-icon link, and all three are now implemented differently. Will move to VPT to get some consensus later today. DMacks (talk) 19:43, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

...Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Position of help links. DMacks (talk) 06:14, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Chemistry text book questions

I am currently doing a review of my entire BS (chem) undergrad curriculum, rereading the text books from the 4 main branches (organic, inorganic, physical and analytical) to get myself ready for grad school. I'm running into a lot of questions where there are either incomplete or ambiguous explanations in the texts or suspected errors. I've posted a few of them on the ref desk here and basically always get satisfactory and helpful answers that help me to progress in my review (examples are this org chem one, this inorg chem one, this one, and this phys chem one. But I've been holding back a bit because I'm a bit concerned about annoying the answerers with a flood of similarly themed questions or violating rules about homework, etc. I'm not enrolled in any educational institution right now. Does anyone take any issue with me posting these types of questions here? 202.155.85.18 (talk) 01:03, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Do not worry about it.

The "rule" about homework question is because homework questions are supposed to make you think. Imagine the chemistry question is "draw the Lewis structure of N2H2". A bad RefDesk question is "what is the Lewis structure of N2H2?" - even if it gets answered, you do not learn a lot by copy-pasting questions and answers around. A good RefDesk question is "my homework asks to draw the Lewis structure of N2H2, but how do I handle the possibility for cis-trans isomerism?". Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 07:31, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Vote X?

This bears all the hallmarks of Vote X, but the IP address is from Romania, whereas most Vote X IPs are from the London area. Any thoughts? --Viennese Waltz 07:24, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Probably not Vote X because that IPs edits were interlaced with edits from Vote X. That is, Vote X would have had to have been swapping IP addresses back and forth over the past hour or two. Seems unlikely. Also, after Vote X's latest IP address was blocked, perfect to form she got a new IP address to complain about it, and the Romanian was also editing consistently from that IP address over that time period. It is probably not VXFC. --Jayron 32 15:11, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

User:Kharon

Not the purpose of this page. General Ization ^Talk 04:37, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I won't call him outright a troll, but his behaviour has been, in many cases, annoying and his answers, useless. Like: [here] or /Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2018_September_11#Gravity here among others. I'm not asking for a block, but maybe he should take a rest from the ref. desks. Doroletho (talk) 16:26, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

I wrote "No" as answer. Sometimes answers are very simple. If you dont like some answers, either ignore them or stop asking. Everyone is as free to answer as you are free to question. Who are you to judge? --Kharon (talk) 04:33, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

This page is for the purpose of discussing the design and use of the Reference Desks. It is not intended for complaints about individual users or discussion of their behavior. Please move this discussion to one or the other of your Talk pages, or to an appropriate noticeboard if you think an administrator needs to intervene. General Ization ^Talk 04:37, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Semi-protected edit request on 11 September 2018

This edit request to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please post the following to the section "Number of roads passing through a single point":

There is a place in London called "Seven Dials" which has seven roads radiating from it. 2A00:23C0:7F00:C401:E179:D971:1694:CF9C (talk) 15:05, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Since you are the person from whom the desk was protected, I doubt your request will be granted. --Viennese Waltz 15:29, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

If you really cared one iota about Wikipedia, you would appeal to have your ban overturned instead of continually flouting the rules. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:24, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Rest in peace Medeis

Just to let people know, it's been confirmed by another editor that User:Medeis who signed as μηδείς, is deceased [1] [2] As always, everyone is welcome to leave tasteful condolence notices on User talk:Medeis. Nil Einne (talk) 13:33, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Medeis was sometimes as ornery as could be, but was also one of the smartest editors I've ever run across. I'm very sad about the loss of Medeis. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:03, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Duplicate tag on Ents page

I hate the ref desks being protected, seems counter-productive to me, but if they have to be, please can someone cleverer than me work out why there's a duplicate protection tag on the Ents desk and fix it.

Much obliged. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 21:14, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

I commented out the standard IF statement at the top and now there's only one of them. But I can't figure out where the still-visible one is coming from. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:26, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

It's from Wikipedia:Reference desk/header. I have removed the duplication in Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing.[3] PrimeHunter (talk) 22:34, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

The purpose of the IF statement was to prevent the need for adding another template when a page is protected. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:57, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

The header is not "adding another template when a page is protected". It's always on the page and has been probably since 2007 or earlier. Assuming it works properly, and it's been there since early 2017 so it probably does [4], it makes much more sense to keep the IF statement on the header since it applies to all pages, and not just the computing desk just as with the other stuff in the header. There's no reason why any of the desks shouldn't have the protection template when they are protected. I assume the computing desk (and I've found out now the maths desk [5]) are often not targeted so the duplication has been missed until now. Nil Einne (talk) 04:34, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Actually you're probably wondering about the small template which just adds the lock icon. I've removed it as I agree it's unnecessary [6] (also on maths [7]). It was added by the protecting admin [8] [9] I presume because they were used to adding it. But remember this was when the if statement was still there on the computing page, as well as on the header. So clearly having the if statements on the individual pages doesn't help so much and also for a while we effectively had 3 templates on that page. It's possible that adding a hidden comment may reduce such problems but I'm not really sure. The simplest solution is simply to remove any templates added when it happens. It's possible a bot will get to them once the page is unprotected too, I'm not sure. Nil Einne (talk) 04:45, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

The WP:Twinkle tool automatically adds the padlock icon as part of a single action for setting page protection. There is checkbox in the TW dialog box that can be unchecked to prevent the tagging. But none of this actually involves opening the page in an editor, so a hidden comment or edit notice would not be seen. An interesting enhancement for TW would be "display edit-notices when performing an action on a page". DMacks (talk) 05:22, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I just realised this discussion began about the same thing, duplication in the if statements, in the RDE not C so it was 3 desks. Also it looks like the same admin protected all the pages, but then had to fix the problems requiring protection and in doing so reverted the small template from most of them. Anyway it looks like we've dealt with the IF duplication in all pages now. As for the addition by admins, even if they saw an edit notice I'm not sure this is a solution. I think everyone seeing an edit notice saying there's no need to add the template for the odd occasion this happens wouldn't be worth it. (A hidden comment wouldn't even be loaded by most editors since I assume most use edit section.) So unless it was an edit notice only seen by admins dealing with protection settings or something similar which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist and may never exist given the way protection works, we're back to removing the templates when they're added which seems no big deal. Nil Einne (talk) 06:14, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm a complete dunce with anything techy, so can't follow half of that, but I'm very glad it's fixed, thank you. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:30, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

It's been October 9th for nearly half a day already

So why does the edit protection notice say that editing is prevented until then? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:31, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

You didn't name a desk but protections are for a precise time like 48 hours and not until midnight some day. The protection log [10] for Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities says "expires 17:07, 9 October 2018" (UTC). Maybe the edit protection notice should include the time of day when you are on that day. It could be suggested at Module talk:Protection banner. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:47, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

It's the same on all desks. That's a good idea. Gilliam is there a reason why you would protect all the desks, which are well used by good faith IPs and new editors, for such a long period? Repeated vandalism would normally suggest a few hours of protection until the vandal's IT lesson has finished. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:51, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I protected the desk pages with the default length of time. The vandal was targeting the desks' talk pages.– Gilliam (talk) 16:52, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

I will confirm that protection was necessary. The vandal was targeting all desks, and their now rev-deleted edits were eggregious and foul and needed to be stopped immediately. It is unfortunate, but there is no way to stop that one vandal, and allow other edits. Based on the content and types of edits, I suspect this was the RefDesk Nazi vandal, (see Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Ref Desk Antisemitic Troll.) While the edits themselves do not specifically reference naziism, there are other tell-tale signs, based on behavior, that this is probably them. --Jayron 32 17:11, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Could an edit filter help? I can't see the deleted revisions but based on the sizes and timestamps, it looks like a repeated addition of the same stuff. 98.210.48.122 (talk) 19:32, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Link to FAQs

I would like to see a link on this page to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language/FAQs Jmar67 (talk) 13:48, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, the link should be on Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language. Jmar67 (talk) 13:52, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Why is the desk extended-confirm protected?

At the top of each page there is a message like this: "This page is extended-protected as a result of ArbCom enforcement or meets the criteria for community use until October 20, 2018." How can I find out whether this is from an ArbCom case or the community use case? And is there any way to make the message more specific? RudolfRed (talk) 16:59, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

If you look at the page history, the reason is that the abuse that led to the initial disruption was not stopped by semi-protection. As per policy, extended protection is allowed to stop disruption where normal semi-protection doesn't work. In this case, the same person who was hammering the ref desks with abuse (dozens of times per minute) has resorted to using auto-confirmed sleeper accounts to bypass the semiprotection. Given that, I've upped the protection to extended confirmed protection, which raises the threshold from 4 days/10 edits to 30 days/500 edits. It would be nice if it weren't required, but there's simply no way to stop it otherwise. Other admins who helped with the cleanup when it hit this morning, including Zzuuzz (talk · contribs) and Worm That Turned (talk · contribs) will confirm that a) what was posted was beyond-the-pale horrible and b) the severity of the attack necessitated the protection increase. The edits have been oversighted (it was severe enough that normal WP:REVDEL was insufficient). You can see more about this in the immediately preceding thread; its the same person discussed above. I hope that is a sufficient explanation.--Jayron 32 18:12, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

FWIW, I appreciate the effort undertaken by multiple editors to remove/RevDel/oversight/protect the pages. Page histories show a number of different people involved in the various fixes - thank you all. Matt Deres (talk) 18:32, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

@Jayron32: Thanks for the explanation. RudolfRed (talk) 19:54, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

About the template, after the desks were set to ECP, I adjusted the header to show the large protection template if the page has any level of edit protection, instead of just the semi one, as no template was showing. The template itself adjusts depending on the level of protection although it's obviously primary designed for the encyclopaedia proper so the message may not entirely fit. The primary disadvantage that I can think of with the automatic template is that it means admins can't manually add details, see Template:Pp if you're unfamiliar with what can be specified. (Well they will either need to remove the automatic template, or have 2 templates.) But I'm not sure that we should be doing that per WP:DENY anyway. However feel free to adjust or remove the automatic template if others feel it's best. I have already adjusted the automatic template so that it always specifies sockpuppetry as the reason as I can't imagine another reason why the RD pages will have any level of edit protection. And yes having seen one recent example of what's being dealt with, my thanks to all who have done so. I'm not actually sure if the ECP is going to make much difference given that most people here seem to either be long term registered, or IPs (whether long term or not) although it's possible some IPs in good standing just registered to participate and will now be denied. Nil Einne (talk) 14:02, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

WP:DENY needs to be weighed against informing innocent users why the pages are protected. I tend to lean, in this case, towards the latter. --Jayron 32 14:24, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm not saying we shouldn't inform users. The question is solely whether to link to a talk page discussion in the template. I.E. add the 'section' option to Template:Pp since AFAICT, this is the only option we have in it to clarify matters. Short of making a custom template or maybe there is some other protection template. IMO it's not necessary since most experienced users can find this discussion themselves or ask if there is none. I'd further note that this isn't unique to ECP anyway. The RDs have been protected almost continuously for about 10 days now. The has been no link to any talk page discussion in the template since then AFAIK. If anything, it seems to me that it's actually more important to provide the link in the template when the RDs are semi protected. Editors who are autoconfirmed but not extended confirmed are far more likely to be able to find this discussion than non autoconfirmed and any new IPs affected by semiprotection. Still as I said I don't really care. If people want to remove the automated template and let admins add them with links to talk page discussions I'm fine with that. An alternative would be to hard code the section option, but that would require people know what to call the section header for the explanation & also deal with any duplicates. We could probably also find some way to add some automated template while still allowing admins to add a section link somehow. Nil Einne (talk) 18:04, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

BTW, while I have no qualms if people want to change how we handle the template, a bigger issue is IMO that we don't have a clear way for truly uninformed editors to make edit requests. The template etc will direct them here. But they can't edit here. There are norms for unprotected talk subpages, but although I've seen the sad irony for quite a few days now of directing people here but then they can't do anything here, I haven't done anything. Mostly out of fear any target will become a new magnet for the LTA. Nil Einne (talk) 18:14, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I feel you. The Gordian Knot we have to cut is that ANYWHERE we direct someone to, our friend will shut it down by spamming it with their disruption. If you can figure out how to simultaneously stop our disruptive troll, AND still direct IP users to an unprotected page to edit, I'll be sure to nominate you to the Nobel committee for consideration. You're choice of prizes. --Jayron 32 18:28, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Is it friend or fiend Jayron32? There is some precedence for the use of either, or both, with the name of this film :-) MarnetteD|Talk 18:44, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I generally dislike pending changes (partially due to being lazy and never fully investigating them), but would this be a case where it would be useful? --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:41, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Wouldn't PC still require all of the rev/del that is currently being performed? I think all the crapola would still be in the edit history and summaries. MarnetteD|Talk 18:44, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Rats. If I understand PC right, on reflection I guess you're right. PC kind of solves the problem of added content to articles, but does nothing for edit summaries. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:48, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

For this particular recent problem, I would recommend an edit filter that rejects anything with the targeted user's name. (Assuming they're all like the vile comments I saw earlier today before they were rev-del'd.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:04, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 October 2018

wp:deny

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This edit request to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please add new section:

Why were the jury boxes made too small? (October 10)

We can do better than this. All it needs is for someone to take their tape measure down to the Queen's Building, measure the jury boxes, and then pass through the courtyard and through the door which leads to the corridor running parallel to the west wall of the main hall. From the corridor pass through the double doors leading into one of the original courts and measure the jury boxes there. 92.23.53.134 (talk) 12:17, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Protection suggestion

I notice that some (though not all) of the ref desk protections are set to expire within a few minutes of each other. I would suggest moving those to at least an hour apart. Some editors have mentioned that these attacks look to be run in a bot fashion. While I don't know enough about the mechanics of that I have noted that once they start they are so rapid that - even with how closely they are now watched - a large number of edits happen quickly and there is a lot of cleanup needed. This number expands when all the ref desks are unprotected at the same time. My thought is that if this jerk can only hit one desk at a time the cleanup will be a little easier or at least the offending material will be exposed to view for a shorter period of time. One day this may stop and things can return to their normal disorganized state on the ref desks but until then this might help. Now this is just a suggestion and if others think it unworkable that is okay. MarnetteD|Talk 03:30, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

wp:deny
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
That's right - protect one for three hours, one for six and so on. One month for Humanities is too long. 2A00:23C1:385:2E01:3124:5DC9:E6E7:E267 (talk) 20:41, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 October 2018

Moved to Language Reference Desk. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:43, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

[Another would-be follow-up to the "irregardless" thread within the Language desk. Sorry to cause work, but I'd be grateful if somebody would move it there.]

Moved second thread to RDL. --Jayron 32 10:41, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all

Thanks to all of you who answer questions. You are very much appreciated! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 20:29, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

A big thans to you Anna Frodesiak for your kind note. It is appreciated. MarnetteD|Talk 20:45, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:01, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Pointless, annoying censorship

This from User:Floquenbeam. It may have been an unconventional experiment to propose, but it would have got to the topic at hand. Are people just deleting anything here they don't like now? Wnt (talk) 01:20, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Reverted removal per WP:BRD. Floq may seek consensus here. Or, Floq may edit war. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:29, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Floq will edit war. —Floquenbeam (talk) 01:33, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Very impressive! ―Mandruss ☎ 01:35, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. —Floquenbeam (talk) 01:38, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Good removal. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:40, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Based on what PAG? ―Mandruss ☎ 01:41, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't know what PAG means, but the comments about uncontacted tribes were blatantly racist. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:47, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Not only can't cite a WP:PAG, doesn't even know what it means. Too comical. It's time I finally unwatched RD so I'm not tempted to enter this particular Crazy Zone again. Enjoy. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:57, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Nothing comical about racist comments. Good riddance. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:03, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I never saw "member of an uncontacted tribe" listed in a nondiscrimination statement. Besides, if you had bothered to read my comment before judging it, you might have realized my concern is that there is no actual positive control for a mirror test -- does it actually work for humans who haven't seen or heard of mirrors? Last but not least, I should point out that the global worldwide consensus of enlightened minds is to systematically discriminate against these people, gleefully withholding all state benefits and watching through telephoto lenses as they die from preventable diseases and taking down careful notes, Tuskegee Syphilis Study style. Am I worse than them? Only in the sense of being creative, or amused, or something. The highest of all virtues for any censor is not to think, and not to wonder why not. Wnt (talk) 02:14, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Now we get to your real agenda. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:17, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

If by that you mean emphasizing the lack of a positive control, then yes. Otherwise ... I doubt what you say has a meaning. Wnt (talk) 02:21, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Concur with the removal. Trolling by regulars is still trolling, and has no place here.--Jayron 32 02:48, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

"Trolling" defined HOW? My question was Are people just deleting anything here they don't like now? and I take it your answer is a clear yes. People like you are why Bolsonaro and his ilk have taken over the world. Wnt (talk) 02:53, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Your comment indicating that uncontacted tribes are too stupid to recognize their images in a mirror is blatantly racist. And it also has nothing to do with elephants. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:08, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Good removal and it was neither pointless or annoying. The post (which was annoying) had absolutely nothing to do with the question. MarnetteD|Talk 03:12, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Bullshit. "Uncontacted tribes" aren't even a race. My suggestion was and remains that I would suspect humans, as a species, probably need more than one brush with a mirror to get the general idea. Wnt (talk) 03:21, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

How many millions of years ago did animals of any kind begin to recognize their reflections in bodies of water? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:31, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Oh I don't know, maybe it is in mirror test, or perhaps you'll look it up and enlighten us, or perhaps the oceans will boil and the continents will blow away first. I know what I'd put my money on. Wnt (talk) 04:42, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Or maybe you'll box up this section and apologize for your racist comment. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:17, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the removal and would have done it myself if I hung out on RD/S, not because it was racist but because it was pointless and irrelevant. The fact that you put it in small text is a sign that you yourself recognized its irrelevance when you posted it. --Viennese Waltz 07:51, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

So if censoring whatever you don't like is the standard of conduct here, there's still one lingering question: I would guess I'm not allowed to randomly cut out people's comments, or at least, would be required to tell them when I do rather than just have them wonder what happened to their text and happen on a nasty edit summary in the history. Is it official that this is an admin-only power, in reflection that this is fundamentally their forum and they just allow (sometimes) a few of us nobodies to post here if it amuses them? I mean, it would just be intellectual completeness to cover that issue, though I suppose admins can do what they want and they don't really need to have any rules why, let alone publicize them. Wnt (talk) 08:07, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

Good removal (WP:TPO, "removing harmful posts" - maybe borderline on the racism front, but clear trolling even if unintentional). Bad execution (just reverting instead of leaving a note that something was removed - DENY does not apply without a sanction against Wnt first). Awful edit summary (WP:PA applies even to trolls - I will not be arguing whether insults are personal attacks but even if they are not it still isn't a good idea to put them). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 08:46, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
It's not censored, it's in the history. It's not rev-del'd. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:58, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
Calling that comment "racist" is just plain stupid. It was obviously a comment on the mirror test and its failings as a benchmark. Either it's stupid for not seeing the obvious meaning, or it's stupid for presuming that other's won't see the obvious meaning themselves and realize that calling it racist is just more WP:BATTLEGROUND bullshit that doesn't belong here. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:58, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
- Your personal attack on me is every bit as offensive as the admin's comments about Wnt. And tell me what his racist comments have to do with elephants. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:58, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I think the essence of the comment was the reference to a prank reality TV show and associated hypocrisies such as not accepting a salary and the presentation of oneself as a humanitarian all the while glossing over collateral casualties to uncontacted peoples. It could have been written better but I get the gist of it. And it has nothing to do with elephants therefore that would be a basis for removing it. Bus stop (talk) 17:04, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

I am happy to agree with Bus stop's last sentence. Wnt, sure the desks are censored, and really stupid stuff regularly gets removed here. As for your post: of course it wasn't really stupid (nor was it racist, for goodness sake), it was a mix of political and stylistic choices that, predictably, came across as insensitive, insulting, belittling, and apparently also racist. Predictably, Wnt. You are no novice to how things work and people react here. When your answer to a query is that flippant and irreverent without helping the querent in any way or fashion, it's just as well it gets removed. Bad combination, sorry. ---Sluzzelin talk 02:13, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

It's always said to be the user's responsibility to attempt to predict censorship (compare Google's need to work out what terms to block by spying on 265.com/Baidu searches). Do note however that there is no actual policy that could predict those "political and stylistic choices". An AI would be very confused with this one, since I am barraged with an unanticipated outpouring of emotion on behalf of the dignity of the uncontacted tribes I'm said to be racist against, as if people cared, yet the "political" choice that I might speculate you mean that caused the deletion of the post is presumably that one is supposed to read about Brazilian fascists intending to take indigenous lands yet never have an inkling that these people might become available as research subjects (if not entirely rounded up and removed from their lands) until the "surprise" announcement is made in the news.

Though the nature of their concern eludes me, I am thinking of a poster on the lines of "buzzed driving is drunk driving", namely Thinking is Trolling. Because making people think is inherently regarded as a hostile act of a provocateur.

But this still leaves the amusing question of whether I should go delete a post by Baseball Bugs telling somebody go Google "innate responses to tastes" (without even trying the search, apparently, because it isn't productive). [11] Now he of course is free to go ahead and "hat" the person complaining that that isn't an answer, but I could say all three replies there are useless, so go delete it. Now, I doubt I'll even bother trying because censorship is about power, and someone whose main role on the desk is to try to come up with reasons to condemn posters and respondents is obviously going to outrank someone who simply likes to talk about science. This is, after all, first and foremost a bureaucracy desk, no? Wnt (talk) 14:35, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

I did try the search, and there are a number of options. It's not my place to tell the OP which ones to look at. Bearing in mind also that the question is asking why we call bitter stuff "bitter". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:43, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

There are options, but it looks like they're all crap. Point is, being "on topic" should mean you don't tell IPs "go ask somewhere else". Especially when you ought to assume good faith and therefore at least consider the OP tried Google and got crappy results. It's unproductive, you were told that, and your response was to hat the person complaining ... but not your own unresponsive answer. Wnt (talk) 15:22, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Where did the OP say they had tried Google already? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:48, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Pointless and annoying, indeed. Wnt, you have my sympathies, which along with fifty cents will get you some fraction of a cup of coffee. I must, reluctantly, commend to you Mandruss's comment of 01:57 18 October 2018. Those who wantonly delete whatever they don't like are in firm control here, and at this point there's just one thing that you or I can do about it. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:28, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Wnt, have you considered that contacting them might also give diseases that won't always be curable? Like how Native Americans had little resistance against European germs? Also shrinking the uncontacted zone also causes land stealing, slash-and-burn, cyanide ore processing and ranching to expand ruining the hunting and gathering land of the tribe or ones a bit closer to civilization which causes some to turn to the mainstream economy to make a living and turn to prostitution cause "extremely good at hunting or gathering" is not a very marketable skill in an economy when any farmer can beat them in food per acre. And causing societal disruption and culture shock is not worth whatever state benefits Brazil has. I think a few percent of Rio favela residents still don't have electricity (and some that do steal it), there's not a lot of government revenue to go around. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:11, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Does deleting a wikipedia comment cure those diseases and solve social problems in Rio? I wouldn't have expected it to. ApLundell (talk) 05:42, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Nor does retaining it. And either way, it had nothing to do with elephants. It had to do with the racist assumption that "primitive" peoples wouldn't recognize themselves in a reflection. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:08, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Obvious bullshit remains bullshit. There is nothing racially distinct about uncontacted tribes to distinguish them from other humans. Literally the only thing defining them is that no explorer ever came out of the bush to claim them for some country. Ethnically, they cannot be much different than any other Native American, and obviously we know Native Americans can use mirrors. I would assume that a white, black, and/or Hispanic child diligently kept from all sight and mention of the idea of mirrors (even on television) would be equally confused on first contact. Note I don't actually know anyone of any race would be confused by mirrors on first contact, but am not convinced the opposite is true. Now would you kindly quit calling me a fucking racist over something that has absolutely nothing to do with race. Wnt (talk) 00:10, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Your first sentence totally describes your condescending comment about primitive tribes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:30, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

When the cure is worse than the disease

Isn't this strict extended protection of the RD pages worse than the trolls? Obviously it ended trolling completely, but the RD seem almost dead for me. Doroletho (talk) 11:43, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure you've seen the nature of the attacks. It's basically hammering the desks with offensive edits, from a variety of random IP addresses, every 2-3 seconds until someone stops them. When the desks are unprotected, they generally start up again within minutes. We're open to suggestions for how to stop that. --Jayron 32 12:05, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I was complaining more about the strict nature of the protection and the harmful effect on contributions. I do not dispute the RD needs it.

Couldn't we:

Block IPs only, but not users?
CAPTCHAs? For posting a link you'll need one, couldn't that be expanded to every post?
Some Wikipedia:Flagged revisions system, where only a set of regulars could let questions into the desk? Doroletho (talk) 13:03, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

We currently have IPs blocked only. It's currently set for semi-protection or extended-confirmed protection, AFAIK, and those only affect new users and IPs.
CAPTCHAs are an interesting technical solution. I'm not sure how to do that.
We already do that; when the desks are protected, people can leave edit requests on the talk page, or on their own user talk page, and we can cross post them to the desk. --Jayron 32 13:34, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

This cross posting to the desk is kind of cumbersome. The system would work better if it were as simple as pressing a button. Doroletho (talk) 14:20, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

It may be a little inconvenient, but it's better than leaving the desks open to the troll. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:48, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

AFAIK it would basically be as simply as pressing a button were it not for the fact this page was also an avenue of attack. Anyone who views sources sees a button to submit an edit request which if click will automatically open a partially filled in edit for the talk page which just need to be filled in. Try it logged out with a protected page e.g. Martin Garrix. Actually if you're not an admin, Sofia Airport should work without logging out currently. And yes, it should deal with the fact that the talk page for each desk is actually a protected redirect. Someone still needs to handle the request but that's a given. Due to the protection of this page, however it doesn't work like that. Although I was wrong last time I raised the issue. (Not sure if anyone corrected me, I didn't follow the discussion after my last comment.) The edit request button is designed to deal with the fact this page is protected. It will automatically direct people to the place to make an edit request although won't start an edit. Nil Einne (talk) 17:52, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Anyone who has seen the crapola spewed on the desks and edit summaries can attest to the fact that the disease is far far worse than the cure. MarnetteD|Talk 18:01, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Yes and on that note about the flagged revisions comment, WP:Pending changes does exist. However there's no chance it's going to be used for these edits since although it's true it will stop non logged in editors from seeing the edits unless they look in the edit history, simply having the edits is likely to be enough for this editor and the edits are so bad we don't want them lying around even semi hidden for hours. It will also create a major cleanup mess for admins or even oversighters since most of the edits need to be rev deled or even suppressed, and they already have a mess just from a few minutes of every time a page goes unprotected. Nil Einne (talk) 18:31, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I would love to hear what is supposedly so terrible about these comments. Somebody deleted comments on my own talk page, and what they are is a secret. I don't feel any great trust on any part of this, given that the double-protection looks intentionally designed to destroy the RD. We could direct the comments to be put somewhere else and they would only protect and "have to do revdelling on that". The rule of computers is that who owns the computer makes the rules (or whoever owns the person who owns the computer, more likely). The rest of us are superfluous. Wnt (talk) 00:14, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I can't disclose the full details, but the RevDeleted comments generally follow the same template. First, they name a random RefDesk regular or admin or other user who has either recently posted to the RefDesk, recently reverted the troll, or recently blocked him. Second, they contain an accusation of a crime, usually of a sexual nature, that the named person committed. Then, they include addresses/phone numbers/latitude and longitude where said person supposedly lives. Then, they rapidly spam the desks with repetitive messages until blocked. For obvious reasons, we can't leave that just lying around, and also the repetitive and rapid nature of the attack means that even if the comments themselves were benign, they basically shut down the desks and prevent others from editing due to massive edit conflicts. --Jayron 32 16:53, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Your comment makes little sense. If the RD pages are unprotected, they attack the RD pages that are unprotected. We can't direct them where to attack. If we had mind control, we would use that to stop the person attacking anywhere rather than directing them were to attack. I agree that these attacks are at least in part done to damage the RD, but that's the fault of the person doing the attacks. If and when you invent mind control and use that to control the person attacking the RD, give us all a ring although may I repeat what I said earlier namely it would be far more fruitful if you use this device to stop the person attacking anywhere rather than directing them where to attack. Nil Einne (talk) 05:29, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

P.S. Yes I'm sure you can come up with some sci-fi mind control device which allows sufficient control to direct the place of attack and maybe even the type of attack but not to prevent an attack. Again if and when you have such a device, feel free to ping us all. Nil Einne (talk) 07:34, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Not only does Wnt's comment make little sense but their "lack of trust" combined with their desire to feed the troll may indicate a WP:CIR problem. The comments have no business anywhere on Wikipedia. MarnetteD|Talk 16:01, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

@MarnetteD: My competence is not required, nor relevant, given that I have no role or say in what comments are deleted or retained here, and only just now saw any hint of what they might be. I can only choose to pray to or blaspheme the gods above me who have the say in such things. I could probably write up some Lua script that would read in the page as data and remove comments containing certain robot text before displaying it, thus stymieing an untended machine, but my morale is not up to it. Wnt (talk) 00:45, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

It sort of sounds like you're saying 'well there is a big problem and you're all evil for not fixing it and I could fix it myself but frankly I can't be bothered'.

In any case, I'd note that AFAIK Wikipedia:Edit filters do not involve Lua scripting. They do have regex, actually our page says more extensive than Lua. But I'm not really sure how writing up a Lua script would actually help anything. If you are proposing a bot to revert the changes, this won't fix all the problems the changes cause as outlined above and below. And also, unless you give the bot admin or oversight permissions, someone else is still going to have to deal with the revdel or suppression. (And especially for the 2nd, good luck on convincing anyone that your bot can be trusted to automatically suppress edits.)

If you're proposing that edit filters include Lua scripting capabilities, well I'm not convinced the WMF will add it even if you code it entirely yourself, but I definitely suspect it's not happening anytime soon if you're going to ask them to do it for you.

One issue with any edit filter is performance issues although from reading mw:Extension:AbuseFilter/Rules format, it sounds like the current design does run stuff sequentially and abort once it knows it can. So as long as the problem is only a few pages I guess that you would first match those pages. And if it doesn't, sophisticated coding isn't run so isn't an issue. But you'd still need to convince the WMF that this is a useful thing.

To me, it seems the better solution if you're really able to solve this is to earn the communities trust enough that you can receive edit filter manager permission, and then try those first. If you can't but can privately demonstrate it is possible with Lua scripting, then you may have a chance. Or maybe you'll find, as our current managers have, that this is very difficult to solve since the person making the edit's is quite adept. And if you're just trying to make an edit where some percentage of people can sort of recognise the name of someone's edit, and can sort of recognise a crime (or similar), it's actually hard to stop that without stopping many other edits.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:21, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Just removed some vandalism on Ents. Why is that page not protected like the others are? --Viennese Waltz 14:28, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

It is now. Good catch. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:44, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Also, is there any possibility that the edit by "ADolph was right" on the humanities desk can be oversighted, or that name struck from the edit history? Eliyohub (talk) 15:38, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

A fine neo-Nazi that one is, who can't even spell his hero's name correctly. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:46, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Possibly they couldn't or didn't dare our of fear it would be caught by an edit filter Nil Einne (talk) 03:18, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

As to CAPTCHAs, I believe such a feature (requiring CAPTCHAs for any edits to a given page under bot attack) would be helpful, and probably not just on the refdesk. Can someone more experienced at WP:PHAB consider filing such a request? (A request for a "require ALL edits to this page, except those by APPROVED bots, to enter a CAPTCHA" setting, which an admin could toggle in the event of a given page being subjected to a trollbot, vandalbot, or spambot attack). I have zero experience at WP:PHAB, and it would be a big mess for me to file. Eliyohub (talk) 15:51, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Isn't it the rapidly repetitive posts that burden most? From what I've seen the isolated vandalism or trolling can be more easily dealt with but the barrage of posts overwhelms the desks especially when nobody is around address the problem. This makes me think a software solution can prevent that sort of repetitive posting. Bus stop (talk) 17:12, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Hypothetically, the Edit Filter could; it has a throttle feature that prevents such a thing, but there are some limitations on what the EF can be set to catch, and he's been playing around here long enough to know how to circumvent it. --Jayron 32 17:20, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd love to give the troll a good throttling. Unfortunately, I can't find any option to do so without facing jail time. Eliyohub (talk) 18:05, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Giving the troll a good throttling would be a question for the language desk. Bus stop (talk) 20:30, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

@Doroletho: Apparently the "real" discussion about this issue is here, unadvertised to keep it away from trolls, i.e. us. Wnt (talk) 19:39, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

No, that discussion was merely started by someone unaware that this discussion was happening here. In a world of 7 billion people, that sometimes happens. --Jayron 32 19:52, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

@Jayron32: You previously posted a response to that discussion directly beneath the text "(Per WP:DENY I'm keeping this discussion away from the Ref. Desk itself and its talk page, but if it's better placed somewhere else please feel free to move it.)" Wnt (talk) 10:15, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and? I'm aware of that. You're repeating it again can't possibly make me more aware of it.--Jayron 32 20:07, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

You're not aware that someone specifically mentioning this discussion was not unaware this discussion was happening? Wnt (talk) 09:30, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request

For the computing desk:

I'm trying to use ImageMagick to crop a bunch of images of various sizes. I want to remove the leftmost 10% and the rightmost 10% of each image. Let's say the image is 1000 width by 1000 height, I want to remove the leftmost 100x1000 rectangle, and the rightmost 100x1000, so that I end up with an resulting image of 800 width by 1000 height. Reading its manual[12], this is seems easy to do using the -crop command if all the images sizes were identical, so that I can pre-calcuate the crop rectangle XY coordinates in advance. But when the input images have different dimensions, I can't seem to find a way to use percentage values to specify the crop rectangle size and location. Any and all help would be much appreciated. Mũeller (talk) 08:44, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

You don't seem like a new or unregistered user. Can't you post your query on the computing desk yourself? By the way, I removed a load of vandalism from your talk page. --Viennese Waltz 09:42, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Oops, my bad. I was trying to post it a while ago but the system said I needed 500 edits or something and I didn't have that many edits. Mũeller (talk) 12:27, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Banned user thread

This thread was started by the banned user Vote (X) for Change. I deleted his original post on sight, but he reposted it, since when there have been some good-faith replies. What is to be done with the thread now - delete it, hat it or allow it to stand? --Viennese Waltz 06:37, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Unexplained deletion by Baseball Bugs

You want an admin opinion on this. Here's an admin opinion. --Jayron 32 18:41, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

A new user posted a question in Farsi, see here. Baseball Bugs deleted it 15 minutes later, see here. His edit summary reads "rvv" (revert vandalism), but Baseball Bugs has proved strangely reluctant to expand on that in our discussion on the matter on his talk page. This was not vandalism, but a good-faith edit by a new user. Questions in foreign languages are rare here, but not exactly unheard of, and the correct response to such questions is not to delete them on sight but to engage with the user in an attempt to answer their question or steer them in a direction where it might be answered. Baseball Bugs has refused to revert or explain his deletion despite numerous requests for him to do so. --Viennese Waltz 07:36, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I remain unconvinced that it's not a banned user. You think it's not a banned user, so you are free to restore it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:52, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

You need to explain why you think it's a banned user. --Viennese Waltz 07:54, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

You need to explain why you think it's not a banned user. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:57, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

No, users are not guilty until proven innocent around here. That would be a gross violation of WP:AGF. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:14, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

That's why VFXC's entries never get deleted, right? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:19, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

What are you talking about? The post you deleted was not by VXFC. --Viennese Waltz 08:22, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Whatever. You have to have actual evidence that a user is banned, not just some feeling, which is all you seem to have. Unless you have something you want belatedly to share with us? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 08:24, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Shall I restore it along with VFXC's translation of it? Would that make you happy? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:26, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

No, because VXFC is a banned user, as you know. What would make me happy is if you restored it, period. --Viennese Waltz 08:27, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I would like to get some admin opinions first. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:32, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah let me know how you get on with that. I'll wait. --Viennese Waltz 08:33, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't want to knowingly restore an entry from a banned user. If admins who know banned users' behavior intimately tell me it's OK to restore it, then I will. Meanwhile, maybe you could explain how a person who knows no English (as you claimed) still managed to find their way here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:40, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

That's not really any of our business, nor is it relevant to this discussion. --Viennese Waltz 08:46, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

So a user who supposedly knows no English posts here, and a banned user reposts it and also translates it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:55, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

If that's all you've got, you're going to have to do better than that. --Viennese Waltz 09:32, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I note that FPAS, who knows VFXC's behavior very well, re-removed the entire thing.[13] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:43, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Pinging Future Perfect at Sunrise. He was just reverting VXFC's post, and was right to do so. By that time the damage had been done. --Viennese Waltz 09:46, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Electrochemical gases compressor - Edit request for RDScience

I see that RD Science is protected so I ask here the following question:

Does the type of compressor mentioned at electrochemical hydrogen compressor work for other gases like oxygene, chlorine, helium, etc? Thanks!--109.166.206.2 (talk) 16:05, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Has been moved to the Science Desk. Deor (talk) 21:14, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 November 2018

This edit request to Wikipedia:Reference desk has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

which types of problems can be solved using C Language? 39.41.177.138 (talk) 14:07, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Please post your question at WP:RD/C. Thanks. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 14:51, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Done

ANI thread (initiator: Tigraan, target: Kharon)

FYI: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#RefDesk_regular_giving_unsourced_(and_incorrect)_answers Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 10:44, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Science questions on the Computing reference desk

There has been a number of science questions recently stuck onto the computing reference desk. They are all single questions from different ip's which have never done anything else. It looks like some stupid form of annoyance to me. Is there some reason for this now or is it a new form of vandalism? Dmcq (talk) 10:28, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Hanlon's razor says it is a mistake from the poster. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 10:42, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

No I am pretty sure you are wrong. Same thing happening on the Humanities desk as well. Long titles which are questions which are then just duplicated as the text. All from different ips. It is pretty evident to me that someone is on a campaign to disrupt the reference desks. Dmcq (talk) 10:47, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

In fact have a look at [14] which is an example in Miscellaneous. The non-unicode characters make it pretty evident they are not typing in the question but probably have a program and a list of questions probably in a Windows file which someho gets some ip and fires the question at a random reference desk. Dmcq (talk) 11:14, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

That question comes from [15]. Probably a lot of the others are questions grbbed from places like that too I'd guess. Dmcq (talk) 11:24, 27 November 2018 (UTC) Dmcq (talk) 11:24, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

I'll raise this at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Strange_multiple_questions_on_Reference_desks. Dmcq (talk) 11:36, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Let this be a lesson to those who complain that we're not getting enough questions at the ref desks! :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:34, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

These questions are being posted all over the place, with the same pattern (title same as question) and from IP's that don't come back to interact. Should these things be deleted on sight? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:15, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

I think so if nobody has responded to them. Otherwise perhaps not as people don't like their replies being deleted. Dmcq (talk) 19:28, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

As outlined at the ANI discussion, on misc, language and humanities I think I've dealt with them all. Ent and Maths seem to have none. I've not dealt with Comp and Science. Any without substantive replies (including replies which just said this is the wrong desk or moved to another desk) I deleted outright. Any with replies I kept but replaced the question and title where it was a copy of the question, with a link and explanation. Since it is unlikely the poster is the copyright holder, WP:copyvio concerns arise if we leave these here intact. Nil Einne (talk) 00:01, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Hanlon's razor! Funny how 99.129.97.177 now has a proxy block. Johnuniq (talk) 03:10, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Account security

It's possible the LTA is now trying to login to the accounts of RD regulars. Even if this isn't the case, there has been a recent spree of editors including admin accounts being compromised so you could easily be affected by that especially, if your password is scriptable. So editors might want to consider their account security. In particular make sure you password is not too easily guessable such as being way too simple or the same or too similar to that as you used elsewhere which is now public through one of the large number of password leaks of various different websites or services. See Wikipedia:User account security for more. This would also apply to any email password, especially if your email address is either public or easily guessable. (E.g. username@gmail.com.) You can also choose to enable two-factor authentication for your account by requesting the OATH tester permission here meta:Steward requests/Global permissions#Requests for other global permissions. Nil Einne (talk) 18:40, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Is it possible for an account to be logged on twice from two different places at the same time? If not, then staying logged on might be a good barrier? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:20, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Nope, I've been simultaneously working from multiple devices before. It's not an issue. Since Wikipedia doesn't have an active connection (Each device just pulls the page and the you passively read or type on it) with the clients, it doesn't matter; it just checks security at each device. So you can be logged in and editing on your phone and your laptop simultaneously. The ONLY way to do it is to have a strong password (i.e. 50+ random characters, or a long memorable but unscriptable passphrase) and/or utilize 2-factor authentication (which requires the entry of two different checks on your authentic indentity). AFAICT, the current attack appears to be limited to admins, and it seems to be working from the publicly-available admin logs; attacking admins who have recently logged an admin action. Mine started shortly after I handled some business regarding the RD troll, but other admins who were uninvolved in dealing with the RD troll are also reporting being attacked right now. That doesn't mean that non-admins won't also be a target, but that's my impression. My recommendation is to change your password to something strong, and request 2FA from the stewards. Admins can get 2FA without much problem, and stewards will give it to non-admins if you can demonstrate you need it (like, have been recently attacked, etc.) --Jayron 32 19:41, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I assume you meant 50+ random bits, not characters. —Steve Summit (talk) 15:57, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

I'll just add that logging out in one place logs everything out everywhere; that is, it should log you out from all WMF wikis on all devices. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:46, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

They tried mine 630 times. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:10, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I was getting failed-login-attempt messages earlier this afternoon, something like 200 of them. Maybe I got promoted to admin and nobody told me. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:11, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Please see this thread Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Multiple attempts to log on to my account for more info. Bugs I think they are trying to hack anyone (editors and admins) who have reverted/deleted posts by the ref desk troll over the years. MarnetteD|Talk 20:21, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

They tried mine 972 times so far. I've now changed my password anyway. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:24, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Pish posh. Mine's been hit somewhere in the 5 digits before they stopped. I also don't think it is ref-desk related. There's an admin who got hit who doesn't ever recall dealing with the Ref Desks in any meaningful way. I think they're just hitting the most active accounts regardless. --Jayron 32 21:37, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I got 630 overnight as well. --Viennese Waltz 07:54, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia's login page have any kind of governor to thwart high-rate password guessing attempts? —Steve Summit (talk) 13:56, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, isn't that interesting. Less than ten minutes after posting that, I got a spate of "multiple failed attempts to log in" alerts from Wikipedia. So somebody's watching here. —Steve Summit (talk) 14:17, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah I'm getting a whole bunch of new ones as well. My total is up to 774 now. --Viennese Waltz 14:22, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

This is getting worse. I just got an email saying that someone had requested to reset my password. It's a strong, system-generated password, so hopefully they won't be able to crack it. --Viennese Waltz 15:03, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

I've had several hundred in the past week or so. That's "a lot", but hardly enough to brute force a password. Frankly, if your password is one of the top 1000, you're asking to be hacked. Beyond that, I'm not sure what a few hundred guesses will really net our friend. Matt Deres (talk) 13:03, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Pending changes protection

Just thinking out loud here... Could PC protection be a viable option to deter the long term persistent vandal? Yes legitimate posts would be delayed, but that may be acceptable as the lesser evil? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:44, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

This was asked before in redesk talk archive 131. The problem raised was that "...the crapola would still be in the edit history and summaries". So no, it's apparently not a solution? Eliyohub (talk) 09:00, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

The vandalism will never be visible to casual readers, because PC reviewers will not approve the post, while they can also initiate revdeletion. That way the vandal at least gets frustrated by a lack of simple visibility. The vandal's aim is to propagate libelous claims, if nobody except PC reviewers and admins ever see the posts, the vandalism has no meaningful impact. A solution does not need to be perfect to be useful (and worth trying). Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:18, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

That's not quite how Wikipedia:Pending changes works - the edits are visible to all registered users, not just PC reviewers and admins. "The latest accepted revision is displayed to the general public, while logged-in users see the latest revision of the page, with all changes applied." Matt Deres (talk) 03:38, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Why have we now got all this duplication??

Why have we now got all this duplication on the WP:Reference desk/Language page?? Seems to stem from the edit by User:AnonMoos here? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:12, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Probably some weird EC relating to the LTA active at the time. I have removed the duplication. Fortunately most of the new content was in one version, only one was in the other version. Nil Einne (talk) 17:18, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:55, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

You know, if you see something broken, you're allowed to try fixing it yourself. See WP:BOLD. Matt Deres (talk) 03:39, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Long term protection

We should do a long term protection to stop the person who keeps disrupting the reference desk and we might want to make something so IP and new users can ask questions Abote2 (talk) 10:53, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Disagree, this goes against one of the fundamental principles of Wikipedia, that anyone can edit. Plus, this trolling is a temporary thing and will pass eventually, so there is no need for a more permanent fix. --Viennese Waltz 10:55, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't agree that this is "temporary" trolling. The perp (or perps) have been doing it for years. It's like a hobby. However, as long as the admins are content to stay vigilant and to keep rev-del'ing the garbage and use only very-short-term protections, it's fine. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:07, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Per Bugs, short term protections seem to work; during times when this troll sleeps or eats or is otherwise unable to set up his attacks, it allows other users to not get caught up in the protections. Much preferable to protecting the desks indefinitely. --Jayron 32 18:09, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

The trolling is not a temporary thing. Various sorts of trolls have been plaguing the Reference Desk for a few years. Bugs is right. Bugs is also right that what is important is for the admins to be vigilant and apply short-term semi-protection quickly. There are a few "idealists" on the Reference Desk who think that the Reference Desks are Special and that we need some special solution for them. I think that it is silly. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:01, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

By the way, I see that this talk page is indefinitely semi-protected. I agree that limiting the ability to discuss the Reference Desks to registered users is a reasonable protection. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:01, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Is it possible to delay archiving active thread for a couple days?

Re: Humanities Ref Desk, Dec 1, 2018 : Identifying a logical fallacy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanities#Identifying_a_logical_fallacy

I was waiting on email responses from academic experts and have finally responded pinged thread posters. If it could hang for a day or two I would appreciate. Responses might well lead to article improvements. Thanks -- Paulscrawl (talk) 07:25, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

I believe that Steve (@Scs:) still fires off the archiving bot by hand. Also note that you are encouraged to add to a Reference Desk thread even after it has archived if you come across new, relevant information. -- ToE 19:45, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

It might not be seen by many once it's archived. Is there a problem with re-posting it to the current date, to keep it around for a few more days? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:21, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for responses (and apparent delay) - I think a couple of days was long enough and it may now scroll off into archives without further ado. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 19:28, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Fixing category

I noticed that the Misc desk had a weird Category link sitting in the middle of the screen. (See here). When I went to edit it, I saw that Cat had a colon ahead of it, which (I figured) was why the thing was showing up among the headers rather than as a footnote. I tried to fix it, but my edit seems to have made the Cat disappear completely. Wha'happen? Matt Deres (talk) 22:15, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@Matt Deres: The cat probably "disappear[ed] completely" because it's a hidden category and you don't have your preferences set to show those. I'm seeing Category:Non-talk pages that are automatically signed among the page's hidden cats after your edit. Deor (talk) 22:24, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@Deor: Ah, yes, you are correct; I didn't even know 'hidden categories' was a thing, but I've enabled it now. Thank you! Matt Deres (talk) 18:56, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Looking a bit further, it seems like the Cats for the individual desks are not very uniform. Maybe we should settle on which ones should apply and then apply them evenly? Matt Deres (talk) 22:16, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Further to above, here is the current breakdown of categories for each desk:

Comp: Wikipedia help forums (−) (±)Wikipedia reference desk (−) (±) Non-talk pages that are automatically signed (−) (±)Pages automatically checked for incorrect links (−) (±)Wikipedia help pages with dated sections (−) (±)
Ent: Wikipedia resources for researchers (−) (±)Wikipedia help forums (−) (±)Wikipedia reference desk (−) (±) Wikipedia pages semi-protected from banned users Non-talk pages that are automatically signed (−) (±)Pages automatically checked for incorrect links (−) (±)Wikipedia help pages with dated sections (−) (±)
Hum: Wikipedia resources for researchers (−) (±)Wikipedia help forums (−) (±)Wikipedia reference desk (−) (±) Pages automatically checked for incorrect links (−) (±)Wikipedia help pages with dated sections (−) (±)
Lang: Wikipedia resources for researchers (−) (±)Wikipedia help forums (−) (±)Wikipedia reference desk (−) (±) Non-talk pages that are automatically signed (−) (±)Pages automatically checked for incorrect links (−) (±)Wikipedia help pages with dated sections (−) (±)
Math: Wikipedia resources for researchers (−) (±)Wikipedia help forums (−) (±)Wikipedia reference desk (−) (±) Wikipedia pages semi-protected from banned users Non-talk pages that are automatically signed (−) (±)Pages automatically checked for incorrect links (−) (±)Wikipedia help pages with dated sections (−) (±)
Sci: Wikipedia resources for researchers (−) (±)Wikipedia help forums (−) (±)Wikipedia reference desk (−) (±) Wikipedia pages semi-protected from banned users Non-talk pages that are automatically signed (−) (±)Pages automatically checked for incorrect links (−) (±)Wikipedia help pages with dated sections (−) (±)
Misc: Wikipedia resources for researchers (−) (±)Wikipedia help forums (−) (±)Wikipedia reference desk (−) (±) Wikipedia pages semi-protected from banned users Non-talk pages that are automatically signed (−) (±)Pages automatically checked for incorrect links (−) (±)Wikipedia help pages with dated sections (−) (±)

Removing the cats that are the same across the board and the semi-protection notices gets us to this:

Comp: Non-talk pages that are automatically signed (−) (±)
Ent: Wikipedia resources for researchers (−) (±) Non-talk pages that are automatically signed (−) (±)
Hum: Wikipedia resources for researchers (−) (±)
Lang: Wikipedia resources for researchers (−) (±) Non-talk pages that are automatically signed (−) (±)
Math: Wikipedia resources for researchers (−) (±) Non-talk pages that are automatically signed (−) (±)
Sci: Wikipedia resources for researchers (−) (±) Non-talk pages that are automatically signed (−) (±)
Misc: Wikipedia resources for researchers (−) (±) Non-talk pages that are automatically signed (−) (±)

So, it's not as bad as I thought (the uneven protection levels threw me off), but it looks like the Computing desk is not a resource for researchers and Humanities is not automatically signed. Any objections to me making them all the same? Is the auto-sign thing all that needs to be done or is there something additional that has to be applied? Matt Deres (talk) 16:37, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Is it possible to simply remove the cats from the individual desks and add them to the header like we did with the protection template? I don't know how the no include etc work with cats. Nil Einne (talk) 13:34, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

No idea and it doesn't seem to be a topic of interest to many. :-) FWIW, I've updated the Comp and Humanities desks so they are in the same categories as the other desks. Matt Deres (talk) 15:43, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

We need to talk about Kharon

Closing as initiator of thread cannot participate in this discussion so would be better for someone else to start. Nil Einne (talk) 10:42, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Although I don't believe his intentions are bad, I have to say, that his contributions are, to put it politely, really poor. His mastery of the English language is also deficient. I don't mean to be offensive, but with his attitude, he might be wasting his time and ours. Doroletho (talk) 13:32, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Your only contribution seems to be putting random Questions on some of the reference desks. Oh and going after me again and again since that one incident where you felt "made fun of". How about you simply forget about it?--Kharon (talk) 18:58, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

The reference desks are there for people to ask questions. We are here to provide referenced answers. You seem to be unclear about both concepts. Matt Deres (talk) 01:12, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

One thing you should do is "show preview" before "publish" - because sometimes your comments are not written well and are hard to interpret. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:30, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Has it occur to you that I have one account for editing articles and one for asking questions? BTW, I don't know what incident you are referring to. Providing references is definitively not something you are used to. --Doroletho (talk) 12:14, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Uninvolved admin closed WP:ANI report about this multiple-accounts situation based on lack of evidence of any WP:SOCK violation. Therefore I'm closing this discussion here as a resolved/non-issue. DMacks (talk) 21:20, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

That's an interesting admission. You're obviously not familiar with the principles of WP:SOCK: "To maintain accountability and increase community trust, editors are generally expected to use only one account.... An editor using multiple accounts for valid reasons should, on each account's user page, list all the other accounts with an explanation of their purpose." I look forward to seeing you justify your keeping of two accounts, and expect you to make full disclosure of all of them on their user pages. --Viennese Waltz 12:36, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm pretty aware of it. But let's not forget the details:

"generally expected"

" Editors who use unlinked alternative accounts", " avoid any crossover" which is pretty much my case.

And there's Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Legitimate_uses Especially due to privacy issues, linking accounts is sometimes not feasible.

Anyway, no account of mine was banned, blocked or even accused of troll-ish behaviour. I have also lost the login data for some accounts, so I just abandoned them. Doroletho (talk) 13:56, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Holy Moly. How many different accounts have you had? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:39, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Assuming (as we must without evidence to the contrary) that none of those accounts, nor the current one, have ever been used to violate Wikipedia policies, I'm not sure that's any of your business. In any case, it's certainly off-topic in this discussion, and sounds a bit like retaliation for the editor's having expressed their opinion (which apparently you share) above. (I doubt that was your intention, but it could be read that way.) General Ization ^Talk 17:02, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

I assume you're talking to both VW and me. And it's not retaliation. On the contrary, the OP brought it up. If he didn't want it discussed, he should have kept quiet about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:56, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

This is simply an attempt to use a widely shared/watched meta talkpage to setup a Pillory to satisfy an old, silly personal Vendetta. --Kharon (talk) 08:14, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

By the OP? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:44, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm somewhat confused whether you are still using your other accounts. If you are not, then you're right provided your accounts have not been sanctioned or come anywhere close to being sanctioned (e.g. several posts on your talk page questioning your behaviour) then it's none of our concern. However if you are still using old accounts then IMO per WP:SOCK you probably should refrain from opening further discussions of this sort, or participating in them, per the 'Editing project space' restriction. The fact there is no crossover seems irrelevant since this is something explicitly forbidden. I admit I've never found more clarification on what "discussions internal to the project" means. The specific example given in the arbcom case was policy discussions. But it seems to me, suggestions on possible problems with an editor on the RD clearly fall into the "discussions internal to the project" line, and assuming the other account/s is used to edit the encyclopaedia proper, it should be considered the main account. Note that this has nothing to do with any like for Kharon. Nil Einne (talk) 11:48, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

For me the issue was settle per [16]Doroletho (talk) 13:11, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Subpages at MfD

Just a heads up that a few refdesk subpages are at MfD. Unclear to me the extent to which they're used/supported.

— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:05, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Proposal to shut down the reference desks

Surprised to see this wasn't already posted here: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Proposal_II:_Shut_down_the_Ref_Desks. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:50, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

There's no need to post this here. The link to the discussion is tagged on the top of all RD pages.--Doroletho (talk) 21:32, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

The post here was made before the link was added to the RD pages. --Viennese Waltz 07:48, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

No, it was not. The links were added 12h before this post.--Doroletho (talk) 10:48, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

And another discussion here: http://answers.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:Views_sought_on_Wikianswers_as_replacement_for_Wikipedia_Reference_Desk Count Iblis (talk) 12:21, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Another proposal would be to replace the RD by Yahoo Answers! --Doroletho (talk) 21:34, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm glad the note was posted here -- I wouldn't have known of the discussion otherwise.
The discussion is now at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Indefinitely semiprotecting the refdesk.
—Steve Summit (talk) 12:16, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone ! Nil Einne (talk) 00:22, 1 January 2019 (UTC+13)

Format of the talk page

The top of the talk page looks a little weird, with the archives kind of pushing down everything. Someone added a "{clear}" tag to force that to happen. Removing that gets rid of the blank space but reinstates the earlier problem of the archives interfering with the actual discussions. I don't want that either. Are there other options? Is there a way to have them take up the same vertical space? Or, could we kind of "hat" a portion of the archives? I have a feeling that I've seen that elsewhere, but I can't think of where. WP:ANI does something different again, though they're dealing with even larger amounts of material and their solution might be overkill here. Just a minor annoyance, to be sure, but maybe there's an easy solution. Matt Deres (talk) 16:00, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

The "clear" is after the "FORCETOC" thing, so why it would be messing with the actual TOC is unclear to me just now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:50, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

I just created a "dummy header" and put the "clear" after it, and that seems to take care of the TOC / archive box. Maybe something a little more elegant could be used (and also somehow kept from being archived). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:54, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

I did some reading and switched the template to default to collapsed state (and removed the dummy header, etc.). I think it looks better now, but feel free to revert if I've broken something on the way. Matt Deres (talk) 13:29, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Lookin' good! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:49, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Help desk

The reference desk is part of the help desk. The help desk is the place to find technical and practical help with using the site, while the reference desks are used to help with the content and information, though not limited to that, that is what the ref desks are, part of the help desks. It's very important. If a vote were passed to close them, somebody would try to close them and there'd be war, guaranteed. To leave them as they are, even if they do nothing, as long as they do nothing damaging, is the only way. Only individuals can be damaging from the reference desk. The concept itself, dissemination... It's out of bounds to voting here on the encyclopaedia. It could be part of the first pillar. Problems are based on individuals. You can't, fairly, challenge a crowd of well intentioned people without being particular. General chastisement without powerful, clear motivation, that they are poor, ugly, useless or worthless on the whole, is just a form of discrimination/intolerance/apathy/abuse. After financial corruption, it is the major evil of democracy. We should anticipate it, and show it not the door, but the mirror. You don't polarise the opposite of your enemy or you will risk becoming their reflection. You hand them the mirror and let them reflect upon themselves, if you can. That's what bullies do. Look at yourself you are weak, and therefore intolerable, they say. It's difficult to enact bullying if those words are removed. Prevention is better than cure. This is not part of the voting discussion. This is a request to prevent (part of) that discussion, much as that discussion is largely a request to prevent this reference desk. ~ R.T.G 13:12, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

The ref desk was spun off from the help desk. The question of what to do as a replacement is being discussed on that request-for-comment page. You could add these comments (hopefully in a condensed form) to your for-or-against comment on that page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:52, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

I absconded from that page when I saw the weight on the closure vote. I don't know Bugs I didn't use WP as a hobby for a while. Usually that sort of initiative is led by contributing professionals or their highest level students, i.e. MOS, diplomacy etc., and we lowly just refine over time. I'd say librarianism. It's an L-space matter. The librarians know this stuff. I'm going to see if they have also avoided that page, o/ ~ R.T.G 00:26, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

So only two of our active librarians have even chimed in on that page, and then not to be constructive, but to give short votes on the closure. I'll note it with them, ~ R.T.G 00:38, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

This is a bit of a persistent myth. The Ref-Desk was not "spun-off" the help-desk.

The Ref-desk pre-dates the help-desk.

The help-desk started in 2004, but the Ref-Desk already existed in 2001, which is as far back as our current database goes.

ApLundell (talk) 19:18, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

No one is going to close down the Ref Desks. Every few years or so, someone gets a bug up their ass, and thinks that everything they don't personally like must be ended. We ignore those people (except to vote against their silly proposals) and we go about our business. They desks aren't going to be shut down. Pay it no mind. --Jayron 32 19:21, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
Some links from search hits for:- What is a reference desk? .\o/. ~ R.T.G 13:38, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
- Obviously, Wikipedia uses the terms "ref desk" and "help desk" to describe different functions. At BYU they might be the same thing, but not here. Also, how are you identifying so-called "librarians" within Wikipedia? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:25, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

There's a libraries project on the site. And believe it or not, the question, was rare and almost exclusively answered by librarians and academics. And if you think about it, where do you find a reference desk? Typically a major urban library, or a specialised one, like a university. Librarianism is a science. ~ R.T.G 06:06, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm aware of Library Science as a profession. Thanks for explaining how you found them here. Maybe it would help if more of them weighed in at the ref desks. But there's no requirement of such, at Wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:01, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

No, and it is understandable that a reference clerk isn't interested in doing reference clerk on Wikipedia. ~ R.T.G 14:49, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Russian troll

I've closed a thread at WP:RDS which was started by the old incomprehensible russian troll. For those unfamiliar, I'm digging through to find the old SPI or LTA case. We have one somewhere. When I find it, I'll link to it. --Jayron 32 13:53, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Alex Sazonov. --Jayron 32 13:53, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Is that the guy who, when it suited him, could write near-perfect English? Or am I thinking of a different Russian troll? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:03, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

A modest proposal

And I do mean "modest"...

Background:

On several occasions someone has suggested closing down the refdesks. The proposals have all failed to reach a consensus for closure, but each time the proposal gets more support, and a lot of the support !votes point to specific behaviors by those who frequent the refdesks.

In addition, various proposals for major changes in how the refdesks operate have failed to reach a consensus for any sort of change. Because of this, I would like to discuss minor chances in how we do things, coupled with limited-time tests. The idea here is that we try a tiny change, test it out for 90 days, then it automatically reverts and we have another discussion on whether it made things better or worse and whether we should abandon the idea or make it permanent.

I would like to hear ideas for small changes that we could try. You can of course argue that what we are doing now is perfect in every way and that any possible changes will be bad. I will ignore any such argument and advise other to do likewise, simply because if you respond the resulting thread takes over the conversation.

If we approve at least a couple on minor changes in the way we do things (not necessarily my ideas) that will be a good argument to make the next time someone proposes closing down the refdesks.

Here is my first modest proposal. If you think it sucks that's OK. Please try to think of something better.

RATE LIMITING

We get some participants who's only interactions with Wikipedia consist of asking refdesk questions. That's not a problem, but some of them post hundreds of questions, using up the limited resource of editors willing to answer questions.

I propose the following limits:

Anyone who has posted 30 or fewer questions in the last three months is totally exempt from the following rules.
If you have posted more that 50 refdesk questions and less than 5 edits outside of the refdesk, you are limited to one refdesk question per day until your ratio gets better than 1 edit in other areas per 10 edits to the refdesk.
If you have posted more than 50 refdesk questions and have posted 5 or fewer followups or other indications that you read the answers, you are limited to one refdesk question per day until your ratio gets better than 1 edit where you engage in a conversation about the answers (even if it is just a thank you) per 10 edits with no followup.
These limits are an experiment that expires after 90 days.

Comments? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:53, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

I doubt it would fly, but even if it did, can you point to any specific user who has posted more than 50 questons to refdesks over the last three months? And how do you add up IP-hoppers? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:01, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

I also suspect that it won't fly, but that's because I suspect than no proposed change will ever fly, until the greater Wikipedia community finally gets fed up enough to nuke the refdesks. As for "can you point to any specific user...", that's the entire point. I purposely proposed a tiny change that is unlikely to have any effect at all. Think of it as a test; if I can't get consensus for the tiniest possible change, then clearly I and anyone else who might have a proposal are wasting our time proposing any change in the way the participants of the refdesk behave. Feel free to come up with a tiny change that is more to your liking and post that. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:57, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

How about limiting questions, and answers, to 25 words or less? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:34, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

A word limit is a really good idea. At the very least get rid of the walls of text that nobody reads. I think 25 is a bit low for the Computing refdesk.

If we ever get past minor changes and into more major changes (I am still unconvinced that the regulars will ever agree on any change in user behavior) a requirement that answers must contain a citation or a link to a relevant Wikipedia page might be interesting. I did notice that in the last attempt to close down the refdesks, pretty much nobody complained about length, but there were a lot of complaints about speculation and other uninformed personal opinions. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:22, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

"25 words or less" is an old-old advertising slogan. Highly technical stuff, especially, will require more verbiage. And it's hard to know how to count words when you're posting mathematical formulas! Citations are ideal, but what if you know the answer but can't find a citation? Although beware of any response that starts, "I believe..." Or if you are grasping for further info, like when someone asks about some extremely obscure bit of pop culture, and the OP needs to try to provide more info to narrow down the search? Or similar to that, this kind of response:[17] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:54, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Word limit hardly feasible. At the entertainment desk when someone can't remember the name of a film or TV show the more scenes they can remember the better for those of us trying to find their answer. Since no editor is required to read really long questions a word limit is not needed. MarnetteD|Talk 04:15, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I apologize for going off topic (but the suggestions are so interesting...). Is there any change to refdesk user behavior that we can get a consensus for? Anything at all? --Guy Macon (talk) 04:25, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I propose that the regular reference desk editors should exercise great discretion but should be willing to curate our content. Questions that are not requests for encyclopedic reference material can be ...ahem, curated. Few people will miss them.

People who ask questions must pose these questions in a way that merits attention from our volunteer research and reference community. Questions that don't merit attention should be politely removed. Individuals who seek to have long discussions can be referred to various internet forums elsewhere.

Nimur (talk) 05:39, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Agreed - and this does happen to some extent. There's a feeling that the RefDesk is like a talk page and so all comments short of libel should basically be left as they are. I felt that way myself to some extent, but I am more and more coming around to the idea that, although our contributions are signed, it is still a "public facing" page that requires judicious pruning - curating, if you will. I myself have removed a few user comments that were just so completely beside the point that I felt they were detracting from our ability to serve our customers in a professional manner. I still feel strongly that a signed edit should not be amended by anyone else - we should never put words in someone else's mouth - but they probably should be removed in certain circumstances.

The nub of the problem is this: I think most people reading this would agree with what I'm saying, but we'd all draw the line differently as to what passes snuff and what gets killed, which has previously led to quite a bit of turmoil on this very talk page (sit tibi terra levis, Medeis). Forgive me for stating it like this in light of that, but with the two most extreme ends of that spectrum no longer contributing to this page, perhaps - just perhaps, we could come to a kind of consensus? Matt Deres (talk) 22:32, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Aside from crystal-clear policy violations (such as libeling someone), or a posting by a banned user, much of that debate was about deletion vs. hatting. The trouble with hatting is that it draws attention, which seems counterproductive. Has anyone ever suggested simply commenting the questionable section? That renders it invisible to the casual reader while not actually deleting it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:52, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Interesting. No, I don't think that's been proposed, though there have been times I've just given up on reading the talk page here. Commenting it out would have the advantage that, if consensus says to reinstate it, it could be easily done without having to comb through history, etc. I think it's worth considering at least. Agreed that hatting is often counter-productive. Matt Deres (talk) 16:29, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

There are two things we are discussing here; restrictions on refdesk editor behavior, and the method used. The easy one first:

Method: yes, commenting out rather than deleting or hatting seems like an obvious thing to try. Given my "test it out for 90 days, then it automatically reverts and we have another discussion on whether it made things better or worse and whether we should abandon the idea or make it permanent" clause, it would be easy to propose "behavior restriction X, enforced by commenting out". Which leads me to...

Restrictions: I have yet to see a shred of evidence that I will be able to get a consensus for even the smallest restriction on user behavior. Right now we are kind of sort of working under a "restriction" against offering medical advice that has never been presented to the Community for consensus, and which no administrator will enforce for that reason. So, can we agree on ANY restrictions that are not already site wide? Anyone?[18] Anyone?[19] --Guy Macon (talk) 19:53, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

If it was not allowed to vote for closure of the refdesks, people might have voted for change instead. People might have actually got the cogs spinning. As it was, the attempt to start that conversation on the special subpage, got only one reply. Now quickly as you can, template or delete my comment before somebody reads it. ~ R.T.G 22:10, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, or not really understanding your proposal; but who is going to spend even one second of their valuable time trawling through a questioner's history to see whether they have posted X questions in Y days/months? This would have to be done each time a new question is posted by that user, because maybe they'd fail the test yesterday but would scrape in today.

One of the reasons I voted to remove the ref desks in the recent poll (subject to their recreation in a better form), was that they're dying, and that's very obvious from the paucity of questions, relative to our heyday, that we actually receive these days. Your proposal would even further limit questions. What we need is positive encouragement. So what if the only presence a certain user has on WP is on the ref desks? If their questions are good questions, then they are good questions. If they are not, then no respondent is required to respond at all.

Please don't make martyrs out of the regulars ("... using up the limited resource of editors willing to answer questions"). Just because someone is generally willing to answer questions, does not mean they are conscripted into years of backbreaking thankless drudgery. Or even to spending one minute answering any one particular question. Each and every time someone answers a question, it is a free choice.

Yes, trolls are in our midst, which is an irreversible feature of the online world. Some cases do require positive action. But just because a user has posted 30 refdesk questions in the past 3 months, or whatever yardstick might apply, is not such a case. The best, the absolute best response to most such instances here is to ignore the questions and go and do something else more worthwhile. They'll soon get tired of seeing their questions go nowhere. If you suspect a user's ultimate agenda is to troll us, the first line response is NOT to engage them, NOT to challenge them, or whatever, because otherwise already they've won. Deliberate indifference is a very powerful tool, and requires absolutely no energy on our part. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:41, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Agree with Jack 100%. Guy, I don't want to sound discouraging. Your drive to improve things is an absolute necessity, but if you want me to consider your proposal, I'd want to see some kind of evidence that a) your proposal addresses the problems at hand and b) that it's possible to enact. I don't see our problem here as there being folks asking too many questions - far from it. I see our problem as stemming more from our collective inability to focus on the task at hand (i.e. providing references) and instead have allowed too much conjecture, guesswork, and other forms of "pull-it-out-of-our-assery" to thrive. This combines with a sometimes bitey attitude to newcomers that have both choked out our main source of new users and directly led to several of the trolls that have long infested this page. I believe that these are the reasons that similar pages from elsewhere on WP aren't in similar situations. Rather than a cap on questions, I'd sooner see a cap on answers (again infeasible, but if I was only allowed to reply to one question a day, maybe I'd focus on providing really good answers to it.) Rather than a cap on questions, I'd sooner see a change such that any reply without links, references, or similar directly to-the-point answers could be commented/deleted/hatted freely. Matt Deres (talk) 23:24, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

As I have explained twice already:

My proposal was just a starting point. I am NOT asking you or anyone else to accept my proposal. what I am asking is for someone -- anyone at all -- to post a proposal -- any proposal at all -- they in some way restricts -- any restriction at all -- the participants of the Refdesks. I 100% convinced that I will never get what I am asking for. I don't think that the regulars will ever accept any limits, no matter how small.
Please do not ask for "evidence that my proposal addresses the problems at hand". My proposal deliberately is for a tiny change that will pretty much not do anything. I don't know how I can make this any more clear: The purpose is to demonstrate that no restriction on resdesk user behavior, no matter how small, will ever be accepted by the refdesk regulars.
The next time there is a proposal to close the refdesks, and we get the usual "instead of closing them, why not make change X?" argument, I will point to this thread as evidence that no restriction, no matter how tiny, will ever be acceptable to the refdesk regulars.

BTW, I would love it if somebody proved me wrong and showed some small restriction in user behavior which won't be shot down in flames. But I am not holding my breath. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:12, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

What you are proposing is not "some small restriction in user behavior". --Viennese Waltz 07:25, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Then tell me what you think is "some small restriction in user behavior" and I will propose that instead.

Unless, of course, no restriction in user behavior is acceptable, which is my working theory. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:07, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

What exactly is the problem you are trying to fix here? So far, all you've been able to come up with is "We get some participants who's [sic] only interactions with Wikipedia consist of asking refdesk questions. That's not a problem, but some of them post hundreds of questions, using up the limited resource of editors willing to answer questions." Forgive me, but I'm not seeing much of a problem here. --Viennese Waltz 19:43, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Then I have indeed misconstrued your proposal. Whatever it is, it is one that you have 100% certainty will never be accepted. Which leaves me wondering just what the point of all this is ...................... -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:57, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

You want us to consider a proposal that, by your very admission, does no good? That's not a starting point to anything positive. It is, in fact, the heart of WP:POINT, albeit one done with good intentions. I'm afraid my earlier point still stands: I'm not really interesting in considering something which does nothing about our problems. I'm not sure why anyone would. Who has time for that? If what you want to propose is some incrementally increasing rule that curbs bad behaviour or encourages success or whatever, I'm all ears. Matt Deres (talk) 15:01, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Re: "You want us to consider a proposal that, by your very admission, does no good?" please explain what part of "I am asking for someone -- anyone at all -- to post a proposal -- any proposal at all -- they in some way restricts -- any restriction at all -- the participants of the Refdesks" you are having trouble understanding. Go ahead and fire up your flamethrower and blast my example proposal without offering any alternative proposal that you do find acceptable. I have all day. All you are accomplishing is to drive home the fact that no proposal of any kind is good enough.

Again, every time a "close the refdesks" proposal comes up, the support grows. And again, every time multiple support !votes (and some oppose !votes) point to specific behaviors by the refdesk regulars. I am simply demonstrating that the refdesk regulars can be counted on to oppose ANY restrictions on their behavior. This thread so far (and in particular the refusal to even discuss what sort of proposal would be acceptable) is demonstrating that nicely. -Guy Macon (talk) 17:07, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Guy, I'm not flaming you. Please knock it off with that martyrdom crap. I have, in fact, suggested two proposals in this very thread and expressed support for a change in how we deal with problem posts. Why not discuss some of those points? Matt Deres (talk) 19:22, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

I already addressed your comments about how we should enforce any restrictions on user behavior -- I said I thought that they were a great idea. Then I asked if you or anyone else could name any actual restrictions on user behavior hat we could use your really useful enforcement idea to enforce. There aren't any. No behavioral restriction of any kind is acceptable. Let's just admit it. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:12, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Can you identify any user(s) who have posted "hundreds" of questions? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:59, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

I took a quick look and could not find any before making the proposal. the whole point was proposing something so minor that nobody could accuse me of proposing too big of a change. I will now ask you what I have asked everyone else: Don't like my proposal? Great! Can you think of any restriction on user behavior that you will support? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:10, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, to echo what someone else here already said, what problem are you trying to solve? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:48, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

I am trying to solve the problem that on several occasions someone has suggested closing down the refdesks. The proposals have all failed to reach a consensus for closure, but each time the proposal gets more support, and a lot of the support !votes point to specific behaviors by those who frequent the refdesks. I am trying to solve -- or at least document -- the related problem that no restrictions on any specific behaviors by those who frequent the refdesks are acceptable. I am trying to solve the problem that if the refdesk regulars continue to reject any and all restrictions on their behavior there is a reasonable chance that one day we will not have any refdesks. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:59, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

A pre-emptive strike, sort of? I may be wrong, but in the recent discussion, I don't recall any names being mentioned, but just the usual generic "problematic users" complaint, with no evidence to support it. And it seemed like many of the complaints came from non-users of the ref desk, jumping on what they saw as a bandwagon. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:09, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, you didn't answer my question above, but you answered the same question from BB here so I guess that's OK. What you are describing is not a problem and does not require any corrective action to be taken. Thanks for your concern, but we've got this covered. --Viennese Waltz 09:13, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I fully agree with Guy Macon's analysis that the refdesks are a slowly-sinking ship at the moment. However, a proposal that does nothing and whose only purpose is to show change is possible is counterproductive per WP:CREEP.

I already gave my $0.02 for reform a year ago: require at least one form of reference for any purported direct answer. There was fairly solid consensus against it (though I still believe the counterarguments are specious). Maybe I should take it to the wider community instead of the in-group. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 09:39, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

I'll say what I said then: Try it for a month and see how it goes. As to "the wider community", we already had a lot of ignorant input from non-users in the recent discussion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:40, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

If, as certainly seems to be the case, the RDs are withering on the vine, then that confirms my position that there is no problem with them that requires solving. It's like the old Woody Allen joke: "Such terrible food, and such small portions." --Viennese Waltz 15:31, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Bingo! I tend to do most of my topic searches on Google, and very often a Wikipedia article will show up as one of the first options. Sometimes it can be hard to define a search that will work in Google, and that's where the Ref Desks can be helpful. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:40, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

New Modest Proposal: make it less like a talk page

Hi, long time ref desk watcher but rare editor here... aren't you on to something by mentioning the dislike of 'curating' signed comments? What if you'd treat the RefDesk less like a talk page and stop signing responses to user questions? If no-one is considered to 'own' the answer, it's easier for others to update/extend responses, and perhaps there may be less attempts at 'scoring points' by answering first without referencing it, just to get your name out there first. It would be more like eg. Stackexchange was supposed to work - perfecting answers instead of commenting on each other. If you disagreed with an existing answer (eg, pointing the wrong direction) you wouldn't be responding/commenting to the earlier answer, but rather just offer a new top level answer to the question and leave it to the original questioner to decide which answer to use. Unilynx (talk) 22:50, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Now *that* is an interesting idea! OK, I am going to abandon my previous proposal and try to turn the above into something concrete:

Proposal:

I propose a limited 3 month test of an idea proposed by Unilynx The idea was his, but any deficiencies in this proposal are mine.

After 3 months the test will end and we can discuss whether we want to restart it, possibly in a modified form.

The test will not involve any of the current reference desks, but will instead be run as a parallel page covering the same topic as one of the existing refdesks, but with different rules.

RULE 0: The following rules are a first draft. Suggested improvements are welcome. Simply blasting them without suggesting something better is allowed, but will be considered to be rude and unhelpful.

RULE 1: No signatures.

RULE 2: Editing anything anywhere on the page is allowed. Editing of opinions without sources in encouraged.

RULE 3: Normal edit warring rules, BLP rules, etc. still apply.

RULE 4: Answers with sources (Wikipedia pages or external) are preferred over unsourced answers. More reliable sources are preferred over less reliable. We will, however allow sources that would not be allowed in an article (blogs, stack exchange, Reddit) as long as it is clear what source we are citing.

RULE 5: Original research is allowed, but you have to label it as such and explain exactly how you did the research. Otherwise it will be treated as an opinion (See rule 2)

Rule 999: Again this is just a rough draft. Please improve it if you can (he said, knowing that he would be ignored...) --=Guy Macon (talk) 00:02, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

My prediction: this, like any other proposal, will not be acceptable. Everything is already absolutely perfect, and nobody has to change until the day when we lose the refdesks. Then comes the finger pointing. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:02, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Oppose No signatures? I hope you are kidding. If not then please put a big Please come troll us banner at the top of the rd pages. I certainly do not want to have to dig through the edit history to find who said what. Opinions without sources is equally ridiculous. That would lead to the free-for-all nonsense that has happened at times in the past in the past. A "lets change the rules for three months and then change them back" would be confusing in the extreme. Actually, having been a watcher of the ref desks for several years, the worst of the problems have died down and I don't see the reason for trying to put new (and frankly odd) restrictions on the desks at this time. I have seen no coherent articulation of any current problem that this proposal would solve. MarnetteD|Talk 00:24, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Considering the number of times that removal of the ref desks has been proposed and not occurred "losing them" is not in the cards. MarnetteD|Talk 00:26, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

You really can't see the pattern that they get closer and closer to deletion every time? And by the way, please consider yourself mocked for joining the "everything is perfect, no change is acceptable" choir and failing to even hint at a change that you would find acceptable. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:17, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

No that is not the pattern. I did not say everything was perfect. Nothing on Wikipedia is perfect - not in article space - talk pages or the ref desks. That is part of its design. Your predilection for stating facts not in evidence is noted as is your violation of WP:NPA. MarnetteD|Talk 02:06, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Was there anything resembling a description of a restriction on user behavior that you would find acceptable in there? If you aren't someone who rejects all proposed change, you are doing a great imitation of one. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:01, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Oppose per MarnetteD. Guy Macon, you still haven't explained what the problem is here that requires solving. --Viennese Waltz 08:14, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes I have. Repeatedly. Please don't confuse "I am not willing to accept that answer" with "he didn't answer". As I keep saying, The problem is that every time the idea of shutting down the reference desks comes up it gets closer and closer to passing. Support for nuking the reference desks is steadily increasing. In each of those discussions multiple editors cite the behavior of those who post answers as a reason for nuking the refdesks. Despite this, no restriction of any kind on user behavior will ever be acceptable to the refdesk regulars. No matter how small the restrictione or how short the time proposed to test it, the answer is always no. And yet, after the refdesks are gone, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth by the same refdesk regulars who refuse to accept any small restrictions on their behavior. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:41, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The ref desks, for many months now, have seemed fairly calm. So it's not clear to me what problem you're trying to solve. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

What part of "The problem is..." (in the post you replied to) are you having trouble understanding?. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:53, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The problem, in your eyes, is that the ref desks might get shut down. You're claiming that user behavior is the trigger for that problem. But since you're unwilling to name any specifics, then the problem can't be that grave. That's why I mentioned that the ref desks have been fairly calm, except for the occasional appearance of LTA's, which nowadays are being handled pretty quickly by a number of users. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:01, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I have no problem with you disagreeing with my take on what the problem is. You might even be right. But I believe that I have clearly expressed what I think the problem is and what I think the solution is. I have no idea why two editors have said things like "it's not clear to me what problem you're trying to solve" and "you still haven't explained what the problem is here that requires solving". Is this some new debating tactic, reading something that you think is wrong and pretending that the person never wrote it instead of saying that what they wrote is stupid? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:40, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

No, it's more straightforward than that. What you're seeing as a problem, others of us don't see as a problem. You're trying to somehow pre-empt the possibility that the ref desks will be shut down. And from what I saw in the most recent RFC, two things: (1) There's no imminent risk of a shutdown; and (2) experience says that if the deletionists get enough support to shut it down, they will do so, and no reasonable argument will stop it. Conclusion: Don't worry; be happy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:41, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Yet Another Modest Proposal: require at least one form of reference for any purported direct answer.

The credit for this one goes to Tigraan. I am, as usual, proposing a three month trial to see how it works. If three months is the only issue, we can talk about a different amount of time. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:08, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Why would you want such a thing? If someone posts something without a reference, someone else will come along and add a reference. That's how this thing works. Next. --Viennese Waltz 08:15, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

If someone posts something without a reference, someone else will come along and add a reference. - not true. See for instance Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Charged_black_hole,_color_charge (taking an example from the live version of the refdesk, but of course archives are full of similar stuff). I suspect the first answer is correct, but I have no way of evaluating whether it actually is, due to my lack of knowledge in the topic. I doubt an answer with references is forthcoming. If no refs come, it can show either of two opposite things:

The answer is correct and complete, and those who are able to provide references will not bother to answer only to add refs
The answer is pure bullshit, but none else knowledgeable enough in the topic has read it. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:56, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

No. The language desk works well because it is, among other things, a place to ask native speakers about their language. Answering what a word means in a specific context is easy for a native speaker, but proving it with references can be difficult, and often isn't what the person asking the question is looking for anyway. Also in mathematics, most people prefer reading a short proof to being given a reference that contains the proof. So your proposal would be bad for two desks. Is there any problem that it solves? —Kusma (t·c) 09:49, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

There is a problem that needs solving, but of course that doesn't mean that this is the right solution to that problem. The problem is that every time the idea of shutting down the reference desks comes up it gets closer and closer to passing. And in each of those discussions multiple editors cite the behavior of those who post answers as a reason for nuking the refdesks. If you think that this is the wrong solution, please post some indication of what you think might be the right solution. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:11, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Support my own proposal (duh). Notice it does not call for "Wikipedia article or RS" - a link to a dodgy forum would be enough. Here's my recap of the possible counterarguments including those met last time, and my answer to them:
1. Easily gamed by putting useless source: Forcing a ref search does not force to find a good ref, but it forces to make a minimal effort before answering. It breaks the state of mind of "oh, I can think up that one, let's start typing" (source: me catching my own thinking a few times).
2. Gameable by formulating answers as "requests for clarification" - not always feasible, hence a net improvement.
3. "Personal knowledge" answers are good - most of them are, but some are not, and when you post from your memory there is no surefire way to know which it is.
4. Not for my desk - admittedly that proposal is mostly tailored for the Science desk, but:
  1. Translations on the Language desk: A link to google translate (or equivalent) is sufficient for mundane requests (maybe with additional notes e.g. "X is actually better translated by Y in that context"). If it involves significant cultural/historical/etc. content (e.g. a translation of so foul and fair a day I have not seen that includes all possible double meanings), it should include a source explaining those.
  2. Math demo on Mathematics: OK, maybe carve pure logic out of the proposal. The problem is when invoking facts out of evidence that cannot be proven or disproven based on the thread contents alone. (Answering "what is the density of air on top of mount Everest" by "(ref1) gives the altitude of mount Everest, (ref2) gives a graph of air density vs. altitude, hence the answer is so-and-so" is OK, even if OR; answering by "I guess mount Everest must be about 100km tall, hence (blah blah)" is not OK.)
  3. Flora/fauna ID on Science: if you can ID it, it has a Wikipedia article you can link to.

Since last time around there was some fairly large participation and the RefDesk crowd renewed little since then, I doubt either side will produce a brilliant argument that convinces a large fraction of the crowd (including me). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:41, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Beware of recommending Google Translate. I've been yelled at more than once for using it, including when it was correct. I've come to the opinion that Google Translate should only be used by one who already has a pretty good idea what the translation is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:30, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

If (GT + "trust me, it's valid") is not acceptable, then ("trust me, it's valid") should not be either. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:55, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

And an OP can use Google Translate just as easily as we can. Whereas someone already fluent in the language can probably advise as to where Google Translate has gotten it wrong. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:03, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

The translation questions on the ref desk are exactly those that require some subtlety where Google Translate is sometimes useless, sometimes worse. —Kusma (t·c) 15:40, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Then I do not see why they should be exempt from the sourcing rule. A ref to dictionary or a grammar book for the litigious points, or to some background (cultural/etc.) information, would be needed to go above the "I know it" threshold. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 15:55, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Tigraan, the question is how many answers the language desk will get if such additional restrictions are imposed, and what will happen. Would you remove answers without refs? Block or topic ban the responders? I imagine in many cases where a good answer has been given, followed by "but can you provide a reference, because, THE RULES", the next edit is the OP saying "thank you" and then the responder will just ignore the reference request, because the OP has had all the help they asked for.

We should try to promote good answers and discourage bad answers. Whether an answer is good or bad should not be reduced to the question whether it includes a reference or not. —Kusma (t·c) 17:33, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Again, I think "personal knowledge" answers being accepted are the main source of poor answers on the refdesks. But I am not going to die on this hill, especially since I do not know if the Language refdesk is problematic or to what extent. Make the proposal Science-desk only, since that is where I know there is a problem, if that puts the opposition at ease. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:43, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Nothing will put the opposition at ease. For them, no conceivable restriction on user behavior will ever be acceptable. That being said, making the proposal limited in time and limited to the science desk (or maybe computing?) is a great idea. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:17, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Good idea. Confine it to science and maybe computing, which are areas that should be more amenable to finding references. (Sometimes harder to do with Misc, Humanities, Entertainment and Math.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:09, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Strong Support. I believe that I have already established that no proposed restriction on behavior will ever be acceptable to the majority of refdesk regulars. Clearly all requests that the naysayers reveal what the would find acceptable have fallen on deaf ears. I believe that it is time to ask the larger Wikipedia community to decide what, if any restrictions on user behavior are appropriate with an RfC. Given how contentious this will be, I suggest starting with a draft RfC in user space and inviting comments / suggestions, then after any tweaks/changes are made, posting the RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). --Guy Macon (talk) 15:19, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
- It's easy for non-users to try to impose a restriction on users, since it won't affect them. We saw a lot of that mindset in the recent discussion about possible closure. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:27, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
  - So what? WP:LOCALCON is policy. If the last discussion had ended with a consensus to close the refdesks, no matter how misguided or stupid the arguments were, and no matter if all refdesk-dwellers had been strongly opposed to it, the refdesks would have been closed. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:38, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
    - If you're saying consensus is often driven by the misguided and the stupid, you won't get an argument. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:55, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

- If you want to propose a restriction for the sake of proposing a restriction, you could start with something like "no use of purple blinking text outside of signatures", which is idiotic but harmless. The proposal you made here breaks things that work (explanations on the math and language desk), without clearly solving an identified problem. —Kusma (t·c) 15:40, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
This might need to go at WP:PEREN. This exact proposal has come up, at least once a year, for probably a decade or so. Good luck though. I think it's reasonable that any answer should have a reference or a link to further reading, excepting questions for clarification for the OP and things like that. --Jayron 32 15:56, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Ah, but did it come up on the refdesks, or was the larger community ever asked to decide? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:10, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
- I am not aware of it being proposed anywhere else than here and my proposal two years ago (and if so, it never went to the larger community). Ironically, I would ask Jayron32 to provide a link to those discussions "at least once a year for a decade". Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 12:38, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

This discussion from 2006 has many comments with people asking for requiring sources. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk/Archive_15 Much of this archive from 2006 has discussions about the type and appropriateness of answers, with many of them getting at when to provide links and references and what kinds of links and references are appropriate, and why speculation is bad. This discussion from 2007 is about whether or not is is desirable to require that all answers be verifiable with explicit references provided by the answerer.in 2007, the Ref Desk guidelines specifically included the phrase "answers should refer (link) to relevant Wikipedia articles, or otherwise cite reliable sources." There's a discussion there about whether or not to expand those rules. That one section is short, but most of that archive is filled with discussions regarding whether or not we should be required to include links or references.this discussion from 2007 started as a discussion about medical advice, but devolved quickly into a long discussion about providing links to internal and external reading in our answers.This one from 2007 discusses whether or not linking to a Wikipedia article is required, or if external sources would be OK as well. This one from 2007 discusses the problems with answering based on hunches rather than providing references directly. this discussion from 2009 is about requiring references in answers. This discussion in 2010 dealt with a lot of issues, but one of the things it delves into is " the opinions, lack of real references, and the catering to obvious discussion type " (bold mine) when and the pitfalls of answering questions with discussions rather than references. This discussion later in 2010 looks explicitly at the use of references by RD regulars. This discussion from 2012 on Original Research on the reference desk looks into combating bad answers by "responses that cite a Wikipedia article or an external source"this discussion from 2013 looks at whether or not questions of a hypothetical nature should be answered, with a focus on the difficulty in providing sources as already required by the guidelines.2014, around the problems with medical questions " The reference desk may refer individuals to those articles, and to suitable external reference material".This discussion from 2015 around developing a heuristic or flow chart to answering questions contains extensive discussion on whether or not answers should provide references directly. This discussion from 2015 is short, but in response to a request for advice about answering questions, TOAT asks " Do you consistently include useful references – internal or external – in your responses?" as though that should be an obvious requirement.2015 we had a full-on RFC. This discussion in 2018 looked at whether referencing Google was sufficient for a reference, or whether additional requirements were needed on what counted as a reference.
These discussions are representative and not exhaustive, but I would say that, based on my own random walk through the archives, something more than 50% of the archive pages for WT:RD have at least one discussion that touches on or mentions requiring answers to have explicit references. Now, I will grant you that we have not had a formal RFC every year which has been advertised to the community and been officially closed by an admin; those have happened in 2015 (cited above) and 2017 (which you note). I also apologize for saying "the better part of a decade" That was wrong. It's been much longer than a decade that these discussions have been happening. --Jayron 32 12:49, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Supposing a new rule was passed, what would be the enforcement mechanism? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:47, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

For a limited-time trial with consensus for the trial established by RfD, it is possible to define the enforcement mechanism in the RfD. Unlike the refdesk guidelines -- which have never been put before the community to see if there is consensus for them -- Admins enforce the results of RfDs with warnings, topic bans, and blocks. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:10, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Here's a new question that asks for a native Brazilian Portugese speaker.[20] It doesn't ask for any citations, nor evidence that a respondent is actually fluent in Brazilian Portugese. How would you handle this? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:53, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

The devil is in the details. In my opinion, OR answers should be allowed if clearly labeled and the qualifications of the answerer listed. Possible answers if my idea flies: "Here is what Google translate says, but be aware that machine translations often get it wrong" "Hi! I am a native Portuguese speaker (moved to the UK and learned English at the age of 20). It means..." --Guy Macon (talk) 23:10, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

So, how about my idea of starting with a draft RfC in user space and then after any tweaks/changes are made, posting the RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)? Because they did such a good job on the local proposal (and because I am lazy and don't want to do the work myself) :) I suggest that Tigraan is a good choice for the person to do this. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:04, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

If the worry is that editors who don't like the Ref Desk may gain enough support at AN/I or start an ArbCom case that will lead to the shutdown of the Ref Desk, then the best way to avoid that is to make sure any problems here don't spill over to AN/I. We should not take on board any criticism uttered by people who think the Ref Desks don't belong here at face value. References can be given when appropriate, but not to win a reprieve from people hell bent on closing the ref desks down. If they see that references are given routinely, they'll end up finding something else wrong here. That's why it's best to remain low profile to them, which means staying out of AN/I. Count Iblis (talk) 23:41, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

I probably should stay this before this discussion is archived. IMO it would be a major mistake to site-wide RfC on anything to do with the RD. I think it's clear from the last massive sprawling RfC that many in the community are sick of the continual RD threads and so there's a fair chance that such an RfC will not be productive. I would suggest a minimum of 1 year from the start of this thread (so over 1 year from the last massive RfC) before any attempt is made. An exception would be if there is something really urgent or clear consensus is reached here for some proposal but there are fears it will be rejected as a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Nil Einne (talk) 03:59, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

You are correct. It is a colossal waste of time discussing this further. It is clear that no restriction of any kind on user behavior will ever be acceptable to the refdesk regulars. No matter how small the restriction or how short the time proposed to test it, the answer is always and will always be no.

Alas, we do not have the power to stop the next site-wide RfC proposing closing the reference desks. Support for nuking the reference desks is steadily increasing. Yes, I do understand that the refdesk regulars who oppose any restrictions on their behavior are also of the opinion that the reskdesks will never be shut down. That's exactly what the supporters of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct thought. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:57, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

And yet, the sky remains unfallen. --Jayron 32 19:01, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The ref desks now get pathetic page views (less than WP:TRM for instance) and clearly now only serve themselves and not our reading public. The main page gets in excess of 16 million hits per day, the entertainment ref desk is getting an average of just over 200 hits per day. No-one is really using them, no-one trusts the answers, and yes, this is another timesink, just a matter of time before the whole shooting match is archived. Oh, and yes, support provide a source for every answer, or at least a link to a Wikipedia article. We should never have to endure the "personal experiences" and "anecdotes" we are inundated with here, time after time after time.... The Rambling Man (talk) 19:09, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

If the Ref Desks go away, questioners can always ask questions at the Help Desk. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:35, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree we don't have the power to stop anyone else opening an RfC, but we do have the power to stop ourselves so I'm suggesting and hoping that no one does it, since I assume they want to achieve something productive with the RfC. But IMO that will not happen any time with a year or so. With the possible exception of something which has consensus here. That includes closing down the RD for anyone with that goal. Nil Einne (talk) 20:14, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Questions about reference desk regulars

This was moved from WP:RDM with permission of the OP. The original question was titled "Reference Desk". --Jayron 32 16:39, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

In my early twenties, I had a REALLY boring job, as I do again now. Both allow me to spend extraordinary amounts of time researching and asking questions. I asked, maybe 13 years ago what all of the people on the ref desk do, that allows them to sit around answering other people's questions, I note several people have been around since this time such as Baseball Bugs and Jayron. I recall one of the answers being that the person was permanently bedridden and so was not able to do much other than be online. I ask if this person is still active and how they are doing? And thanks for all the answers of the years allowing me to be an autodidact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.40.58 (talk) 14:37, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

This question seems more appropriate for WT:RD rather than here. Do you mind if I move it? --Jayron 32 15:20, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

NP — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.40.58 (talk) 15:37, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm a teacher, and I often edit Wikipedia and answer questions in short bursts throughout my day between grading/lesson planning/etc. Just as little 2-3 minute breaks from the other work I am doing. --Jayron 32 16:39, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
I'm retired, so that I have a lot of free time. Deor (talk) 16:44, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
- Ditto, except I have contrived to keep myself involved in "stuff" and thus I have limited spare time, which is partly why I'm not really a regular anymore. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:42, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
I have a desk job at an industrial company, and being salaried, I make my own breaks. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:16, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
I specialize in being hired as a consultant to fix engineering departments and engineering projects that are in deep trouble, taking over as temporary head of engineering, fixing the problems so that everything is running smoothly, on time, and under budget, then leaving. A lot of time I am sitting around waiting for someone to finish something (it doesn't help them if I solve the problem myself - I need to teach them how to solve the problem), and sometimes I simply need to take a couple of weeks off before accepting the next job. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:00, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think any of us spend really inordinate amounts of time here, and being on reference desk isn't much different than normal wikipedia editing except there's (usually) less viciousness and insanity. And that in turn is not much different from Facebook, Instagram, Usenet, or other online time sinks. I don't know who the bedridden contributor you mention was. We did lose a regular (Medeis) recently and I know she'd had health problems, but I hadn't heard she was bedridden so I'm guessing you mean someone else. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 09:06, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm a business analyst and, like Bugs, can make my own breaks. To be honest, I find answering questions less time-consuming than "normal" editing. If I have a good idea of the answer, it's just a matter of looking up an article or source (or two) to support it. And if I don't know the answer it takes even less time as I typically just keep my big trap shut! If it's somewhere in the middle and searching is involved, that also is often conducive to multiple bursts of research. Matt Deres (talk) 17:59, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Currently I'm between (office admin) jobs and can work on the project any time that suits me, but when employed I have (since the early 2000's) habitually dropped in during lunch and coffee breaks, as mental relief from work tasks, as well as in the evening and night after work (I'm very much a night owl). A particular benefit I derive by regularly reading the RefDesks (from which answering naturally flows) is that many queries prompt me to read into their hitherto unconsidered subject matter. A former bookseller and non-fiction researcher and editor of both special-subject encyclopaedias and science & technology textbooks, I have an underlying compulsion towards didacticism, and wide-ranging (if sometimes shallow) interests, which suits researching and answering RefDesk queries better than working on articles. However I do perform minor article copyedits if I stumble across the need, and occasionally make more substantial Talk page suggestions or article additions on certain subjects (e.g. Homo naledi). Once I have definitively retired I will likely buckle down to a really thorough perusal of policies etc., register an account, and do more in-depth article editing (and creation?): until then, my refraining from having an account restrains me from feeling (due to personal quirks) the obligation to over-commit my time here when I should be doing other things. (The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.138.194 (talk) 12:50, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

I work from home, so I can waste as much time on the Internet as I want! Adam Bishop (talk) 18:16, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Anal sex

heat has exceeded light in this discussion --Jayron 32 16:28, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

From as far back as 2001 Wikipedia has maintained an article about Anal sex. This is a semi-protected article that completes the encyclopedia's Outline of human sexuality and its present state has been reached by the work of hundreds of editors who have together provided 139 references, plus further work on a related article about Islamic views. This work that lead to this vital article (B-class) was made possible by editors who respect the policies WP:NEUTRAL, WP:NOR, WP:VER and, significantly, WP:NOTCENSORED that means "being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds for the removal of content.

Per the Wikipedia:Image use policy, images are allowed in the article only "to increase readers' understanding of the article's subject matter" and subject to the WP:OM guidelines.

Clearly any Reference Desks responder is equipped to answer a general question about anal sex by giving a reference to the relevant article, as would be the case if it were any other subject article, and no personal comment is called for.

A question about anal sex is posted at WP:/M

an editor deletes the question stating "I think the project can do without this"

The question is restored.

Baseball Bugs posts information about the death of Farrah Fawcett and directs personal abuse at the questioner.

DroneB refers questioner to the Wikipedia article thus: See Anal_sex particularly Anal_sex#Health_risks.

Richard Avery queries what is the intention of Baseball Bugs?

Comment by Baseball Bugs without summary.

Comment by Richard Avery without summary.

A user also wonders why Baseball Bugs mentioned FF.

Dweller deletes the abusive response by Baseball Bugs and the comments that it gave rise to, citing these as a breach of WP:BLP. The reference provided by DroneB remains.

At this point I think the reference desk had handled the question adequately. What followed is edit warring.

Question and responses deleted.

DroneB restores question and responses. The edit summary is Explain deletion on Talk page and/or edit summary, neither of which were done.

Question and responses deleted.

Serols restores question and responses

MarnetteD deletes question and responses, claiming rmv LTA Vote X thread

DroneB restores question and responses. The edit summary is Contentious deletion should have been brought to Talk page before edit warring.

Viennese Waltz deletes question and responses, claiming it's not VXFC but the deletion is still uncontroversial, this thread has no place here

A reality check

1. Providing understanding of human sexuality is a legitimate part of Wikipedia's mission.

2. The response by Baseball Bugs that insults the questioner and, quite inexplicably, introduces the death of Farrah_Fawcett is below-the-belt abuse that is correctly deleted.

3. I add my agreement to editors Richard Avery and Serols. The reference desk can and should answer the legitimate question about anal sex. DroneB (talk) 17:29, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I was the person who deleted the question after it was originally posted, a deletion I stand by. The point you're missing is that this was not a legitimate question. It was a troll question, posted not because the questioner wanted to know the answer but because he thought it was funny and disruptive to post it. --Viennese Waltz 17:47, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I was happy to remove it per WP:DFTT. MarnetteD|Talk 18:22, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm fine with the removal, but I'd like to pursue why Bugs feels the need to bring up Farrah Fawcett. And not for the first time. And those are just the ones that made it into the archives. It is indeed true, per our article, that receptive anal sex is a risk factor for anal cancer, but this knee jerk reaction seems way out of proportion. Matt Deres (talk) 15:19, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I already had this discussion with Dweller. Must we feed the LC-like troll further? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:29, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

What does my query on your obsession with Fawcett's anal cancer have to do with "feeding" the troll? Or, to put it another way, how do you suppose bringing Fawcett into every discussion on this topic helps... anything? WP:BLP no longer applies, but it's at best original synthesis, while being needlessly provocative, distasteful, and utterly unnecessary in every instance you've chosen to invoke it. Matt Deres (talk) 21:49, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

"Every discussion" being exactly once except for something 9 years ago which some obsessed fan must have remembered, because I certainly didn't. In the recent case, Dweller removed it and we discussed it on his talk page in which I posted a link to an article that discussed it in context of FF's death. So I won't be bringing this up again. So why is DroneB trying to continue to create some buzz around it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:58, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

The source that BB cited to Dweller contains only this heavily qualified text: "Having anal sex with someone who has HPV may put a person at risk of becoming infected with HPV. Some people who are infected with HPV may develop growths inside or outside the anus, and some growths may develop into cancer." (my boldings) It used Farah Fawcett's death merely for a click-bait headline and it does not claim a causal connection. It will soon be 10 years since BB launched his own unqualified medico-forensic speculation on the cause of FF's cancer, with which he still disrupts the Ref. desk. DroneB (talk) 12:25, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

How long do you intend to keep beating this dead horse? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:26, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs Your future in Wikipedia depends on yourself. Will you accept 1) a voluntary ban on posting private information without source about a celebrity, living or dead, and 2) a voluntary ban on personal abuse at the reference desks? DroneB (talk) 20:11, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

@DroneB: - this is getting close to harassment - Wikipedia:Harassment - Epinoia (talk) 20:32, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

(1) Sure; and (2) sure; and (3), it certainly is harassment, to dredge up something I said 9 years ago, and to also dredge something up here which I had already settled with an admin. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:59, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs You seem to accept the proposed voluntary bans 1) and 2). That assures us all that, by being true to your promise, you will not post again this kind of retort that is inappropriate. Thank you for making a wise choice here for the good of the Ref. desks. I don't see anything untoward in citing posts that you knowingly put into Wikipedia's archive and see no evidence here of an admin "settling" anything about Farah Fawcett with you. DroneB (talk) 02:39, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Have you even bothered to look at the discussion I had with Dweller? It was already settled, and you dredged it up again. In retrospect, I should have just deleted the initial question as trolling - as per other users above. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:23, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs I already quoted "The source that BB cited to Dweller". Do you have a complaint about Dweller's reply ? DroneB (talk) 13:43, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

No, my complaint is about you beating this dead horse (and continuing to feed the original troll) after Dweller and I had already agreed that the FF reference should come out. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:18, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Science desk

Can one of the busy bees here give a ruling on who's right in the little edit skirmish at the science ref desk? Attention Guy Macon (talk · contribs) and 76.69.46.228 (talk · contribs). I don't see a reason to take a heavy-handed approach to Guy's question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:42, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm in no position to give a ruling, but I observe that in the past several users have forcefully advanced the view that the primary purpose of the Ref Desks is to help improve the quality of articles and of the Encyclopaedia, rather than to offer an answer service to users. Guy Macon's request seems to me to be completely in line with seeking to improve an article (and hence the Encyclopaedia) and in no way in conflict with the Ref Desks' mission even if one doesn't (like myself) take the view described above. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.2.132 (talk) 11:44, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

The one trying to hat it has been reverted by two or more users, so that may be the end of it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:27, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I'm conceding the issue. --76.69.46.228 (talk) 05:13, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Shameless plug (but I am plugging a proposed improvement to Wikipedia, so this is allowed): The 2019 redefinition of SI base units is scheduled to happen on 20 May 2019. I would like it to be Today's featured article on that day. To make this happen, it needs everything listed at Wikipedia:Featured article criteria (some of which it already has), followed by a nomination at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, then a nomination at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. Any help improving the article would be greatly appreciated. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:04, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately I suspect that's an impossible task, even if it was already a featured article—the review process can take several weeks—rarely less than three. And that's not counting the time it would take to get it to the required quality. Although it's in pretty good shape already I must admit. Perhaps WP:OTD might be more possible? ——SerialNumber54129 09:21, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Archiving

Since Scsbot (talk · contribs) hasn't been archiving recently, I archived one day's questions from the Wikipedia:Help desk to get it below 100 kilobytes. Unexpectedly, I ran into error messages from the #time parser function. I found I had to make edits to {{HD Archive header}} and two of its sub-templates {{Yester}} and {{Tomorr}} to resolve this. I've tried to make the same change to {{RD Archive header}} but haven't tested it - please take extra care when re-starting the reference desk archiving. Courtesy ping @Scs:. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:33, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

I suppose this is now out of date enough to no longer be useful. Good lord, it's been five years... Matt Deres (talk) 02:38, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

That procedure is probably still correct. The method I worked out archiving the help desk is different, but just as complicated. -- John of Reading (talk) 05:57, 9 May 2019 (UTC)