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RFC: Proposed guidelines for Reference Desk

Should the following guidelines be implemented by local consensus at the Reference Desks?

A. Hatting of posts and threads

A. Original posts (questions) and threads (original posts followed by responses) shall not be hatted.

Survey

• Support as proposer Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support Hatting a discussion is the equivalent of the Streisand effect at the ref desks: it draws attention unnecessarily to that which was ostensibly inappropriate in the first place. --Jayron32 00:09, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Hatting draws attention to the content, which on any view is the last thing we should be doing. Tevildo (talk) 00:10, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support I've always disliked this option. --Dweller (talk) 10:43, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support But needs qualification. I hatted one the other day because it had been moved to another refdesk. A comment at the end stated that it had been moved, but I felt that wouldn't be enough to prevent continuation of the old thread. Removal would have been the wrong move since a pointer to the new location was needed for the OP and earlier responders. There is occasionally a good reason for a hat. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:28, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Remove and use {{Moved discussion to}} to provide the pointer. NE Ent 10:56, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support Hatting seems pointless to me. If you want it gone, delete it if not...then leave it alone. Hatting of "evil" content is also likely to evoke a curiosity that will probably result in MORE people reading it, not less. SteveBaker (talk) 17:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

Hatting of questions, whether appropriate or inappropriate, has been found to be ineffective, and in fact encourages trolling. Note that, as written, this rule is binding not only on general editors but also on administrators. There is never a need to hat original posts or whole threads. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. Occasionally, it's useful to use some form of boxing to hide a large amount of text. It might be an idea to recommend a suitable template for this, with the essential caveat that only the person posting the text can employ it. Tevildo (talk) 00:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I'd support that - when the hatting is simply collapsing a section that people won't really be interested in...and done by the person doing the posting...and with a clear reason and/or summary of the content that's inside the hat...then that ought to be OK. SteveBaker (talk) 17:29, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Question. Is this proposal only about hatting per se which collapses the discussion, e.g. {{Hidden archive top}}, {{hat}}, and {{collapse top}} or is it intended to also include those forms of closure which put the discussion in a box and advise not to modify it, e.g. {{discussion top}} and {{Archive top}}? If just about the collapsing ones, is it intended that the other two be allowed? Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:22, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I was primarily referring to true hatting, which collapses the discussion, which has in the past been an approach to troll questions and to irrelevant discussion. Putting the discussion in an open box with the advice not to modify it is not a common practice at the Reference Desk. I have no objection to doing that if the original question has been answered and there is side discussion, but some other editors may object to that practice. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:44, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. I really feel that this is a good example of the disadvantages of hatting. (Do I comment on who did it? Perhaps it's not necessary). I've changed the message to something less - prominent. Tevildo (talk) 22:44, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

B. Deletion of posts and threads

B. Original posts (questions) and threads (original posts followed by responses) shall not be deleted, except by administrators, unless the original post is a duplicate, is incomprehensible (e.g., not in English), or is not a question.

Survey

• Support as proposer. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
• I won't support or oppose, so count me as neutral for the following reason: I am very uncomfortable granting any power to administrators that is not tied to the use of their tools, which we do not grant to the everyone. If an editor can do it then they should be allowed to do it, unless we specifically ban someone. That's how Wikipedia has, does, and should always work. It's an open community, and I don't like rules that grant a special class of people special privileges, excepting those privileges tied to the toolsets they have been granted (like admins, stewards, etc.) That all being said, the reason that I won't oppose either is that I begrudgingly realize that something has to be done here to establish some order, and frankly, I don't see any other possible solution the regulars here have the stomach for. That all being said, the best you'll get out of me is "I won't oppose this." And I'm still not comfortable saying that, but accept that it's probably the best we will do. Sorry for the long "vote" but I felt the need to fully explain myself. --Jayron32 00:13, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support per nom. See earlier threads for further comments. We need to allow for the fact that admins are not perfect, and some method (not necessarily formalized) of questioning deletions will be needed - we may also want to allow people to delete their own posts. However, the basic principle of non-admin deletion being prohibited should have a very positive impact on the situation. Tevildo (talk) 00:14, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose It's a wiki. Hipocrite (talk) 11:04, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support - Not "per nom", since the proposer didn't give any rationale for me to agree with. The best WP:DENY we can deliver is no response at all, including removal. We should minimize the size of the hole created by the very vague word "incomprehensible". It says "not in English", but it also says "e.g." ―Mandruss ☎ 16:47, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Um... - I agree that posts shall not normally be deleted - but I don't agree about the automatic presumption of deletion of "not in English" and especially not with "not a question". The latter is easily misinterpreted and might result in certain editors deleting things that are clearly asking for information but where the OP simply didn't phrase it very well. A polite "What exactly is your question here?" is often enough. SteveBaker (talk) 17:25, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Too rigid in all aspects
  1. There are questions that I would unhesitatingly, and I believe uncontroversially, delete that fall outside the listed categories (won't spell out per WP:BEANS, but think BLP, threats, etc).
  2. Also as Steve points out we should make a best-effort attempt to answer good-faith queries even if they are not posed in English rather than blindly delete them; the appropriate response may well be just politely saying that we are unable to help (and I have responded more substantively in the past). Also we shouldn't delete an OP post, "My friend said that galaxies are moving away faster than the speed of light" just because they forgot to add "How is that possible?" in the end. This is not Jeopardy!.
  3. As Jayron explains above (and, has argued previously) limiting actions that other editors are fully capable of carrying out to admins alone, is not a good idea. If certain editors are deleting/hatting discussions inappropriately, compile evidence and restrict them, rather than restricting the whole class of regular wiki volunteers.

So while I understand (and share) the motivation behind this proposal I believe it is too rigidly prescriptive about what should be delete; what cannot to delete; and who can delete. Abecedare (talk) 18:38, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• oppose per Abecedare. Too prescriptive. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:44, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

This "If an editor can do it then they should be allowed to do it, unless we specifically ban someone" idea keeps popping up, but that's not how Wikipedia works. For example, anyone here can replace the signature on this post with their own, but that does not imply that they should be allowed to do it. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:29, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I see that a neutral concern has been stated by an administrator evidently in response to the phrase "except by administrators". I didn't say, but mainly intended, that this would have to do with the occasional need for admins to do the super-deletion of redaction, which is an administrative tool, in response to purely disruptive material, etc. Maybe a closer can take this into account in April. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:48, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• An editor says that if other editors are hatting or deleting discussions inappropriately, a list should be compiled and they should be reported. My reason for proposing this guideline, and I am willing to consider an alternate guideline against deletions, is that, in my opinion, there is a considerable amount of inappropriate deleting, but it doesn't violate any specific rule. That is why I think we need a rule. If we want to drop the admin exception, that is all right with me. Admins will still be able, based on higher policy, to redact purely disruptive material. However, what we currently have is that some editors do a lot of hatting and deleting, and other editors think it is inappropriate, but there is no rule that says not to do it. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:13, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

C. Non-permitted questions

C. Original posts (questions) that request medical or legal advice may be answered only with statements that Wikipedia does not give medical or legal advice. Responses that give medical or legal advice may be hatted or deleted. Original posts that appear to be homework questions may be answered with statements that Wikipedia does not assist with homework, and with pointers to appropriate articles.

Survey

• Support as proposer. This merely restates existing policy. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support if and only if we strike the "hatting" part. Questions that ask for medical/legal advice should get the boilerplate and be left alone. Any responses except the boilerplate "we don't do that here" template should be deleted. --Jayron32 00:14, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose. See below. Tevildo (talk) 00:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support strike "hatting." Hipocrite (talk) 11:04, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support - this is long-standing policy here - and it is enshrined in our guidelines. Worth mentioning Kainaw's criterion. SteveBaker (talk) 17:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Mild Oppose as redundant. What does ths add that is not in the current guideline? The problem, as I see it, is not that many editors disagree with this in principle, but that editors in good-faith disagree about what constitutes asking/giving medical or legal advice. Example, solely for illustration and thought (please do not discuss this any further as part of this RFC): did this question/discussion cross the line because the OP is clearly talking about himself and mentioned disorder; responses mentioned Asperger syndrome and many psychological disorders? Abecedare (talk) 18:54, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Mild Support - Sounds perfectly sensible in most situations. Eman235/talk 23:31, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

• As I see it, there are two issues with this proposal as it stands. Most importantly, it's in conflict with A and B above, as it allows both hatting and non-admin deletion. I would support the proposal if "hatted or deleted" were changed to "deleted by administrators". Secondly, the wording of the current guideline is "medical, legal or other professional advice", and what counts as "other professional" advice is a matter of disagreement which it's not appropriate to discuss in this RFC. For the moment, I would recommend adding the "other professional" to the proposal so that it is aligned to the current guideline. Tevildo (talk) 00:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• This appears to disagree with A and B in allowing non-admin hatting and deletion. It is not in conflict, because this has to do with the hatting or deletion of responses, and A and B have to do with the hatting and deletion of original posts. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:50, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the clarification. I've updated my opinion accordingly. Tevildo (talk) 23:23, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

D. Hatting and deletion of responses

D. Responses to original posts (questions) shall not be hatted or deleted, except by administrators, unless they provide medical or legal advice, are duplicates, are incomprehensible (e.g., not in English), or are unambiguously not responsive to the original question.

Survey

• Support as proposer. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support if and only if we drop the exceptions. If we're going to do this (and see above for my explanation why I am still uncomfortable with this) then we need to go whole hog. Again, not happy to have to do this, but I don't see any other way. --Jayron32 00:16, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support if not outright prevented. --Dweller (talk) 10:44, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose as stated. I would support this if it simply read "Responses to original posts shall not be deleted except by administrators" with no further caveats or exceptions. Tevildo (talk) 00:23, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose still a wiki. Hipocrite (talk) 11:05, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support. I wish it wasn't needed, and it wouldn't be needed if a small handful of regulars simply stopped doing things that invariably lead to criticism and pushback, but that is clearly not going to happen, and thus this proposed rule, while not perfect, is far better than what we are doing now. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support...mostly. There are perhaps a few other corner cases for deletion (eg WP:BLP violations, WP:NLT and WP:NPA) - but your sentiment here is correct.) SteveBaker (talk) 17:18, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support - What SteveBaker said. Eman235/talk 23:31, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

• 'Does "It's a wiki" mean that anyone should be permitted to delete anything? If so, this goes against very many Wikipedia concepts, and may be a misreading of the concept of a wiki. If it doesn't mean that anyone can delete anything, then can the objection be clarified? (Comment to future closer: If this really means that anyone should be able to delete anything, then please take that into account in considering strength of arguments.) Robert McClenon (talk) 17:55, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Needs copyediting, since as written the proposal implies that anybody can delete responses that "provide medical or legal advice..." and that administrators are not even so restricted. I believe the intended proposal is:

Responses to original posts (questions) shall not be hatted or deleted, unless they provide medical or legal advice, are duplicates, are incomprehensible (e.g., not in English), or are unambiguously not responsive to the original question. Only (uninvolved?) administrators may make such deletions

I have mixed feelings about the proposal itself, although the "not responsive to the original question" addresses a major concern I had Proposal B. And I can see that if one removes the "Only administrators may make such deletions", the proposal will lose all its teeth, so I am conflicted enough not to support/oppose at the moment. Abecedare (talk) 19:24, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Reasonable guess as to what I meant, but that is not what I meant. I meant that uninvolved editors, whether admin or not, could delete medical or legal advice, duplicate answers, incomprehensible answers, or answers that were clearly out of place. I meant that admins could use the admin tool to redact purely disruptive material. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I indeed misunderstood your intended meaning (as I guess did some of the other readers). I would suggest simply removing the "except by administrators" part, since the power/responsibility to revdel, and the circumstances under they may do so, is defined by wikipedia-wide policy and cannot be granted/removed by local consensus in any case. As for the rest, I support this proposal. Abecedare (talk) 19:35, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Other

Reserved for threaded discussion of other issues about Reference Desk behavior not covered above. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion before threaded discussion

This is RFC useful - but I think it only scratches the surface of our problem here. We're not only concerned with hatting and deletion. The issues of how we handle tolling, how we deal with poor-english posters, how we handle respondents who put crappy jokes in as answers without small-fonting them, whether we require a reference in every answer, whether individual editors are allowed to take on the role of quasi-admins...there are a TON of questions here. IMHO, we need to create a new, comprehensive set of "GUIDELINES FOR RESPONDENTS" that covers the entire spectrum of response patterns here. Simply saying "NO! You can't hat trolls" simply begs the question of how we actually do handle trolls. Many people when faced with your questions, above are going to say "What? You're removing any defense against trolls?!" - when what is truly needed is a step-by-step guideline for the identification and handling of trolls that incidentally says "Don't hat them"...or whatever. SteveBaker (talk) 17:38, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I basically agree that we need detailed guidelines, and I supported efforts to develop such guidelines, but that effort seemed to be getting nowhere, possibly because those guidelines had to use common-sense phrases such as "usually" or "in general", and efforts to advance those discussions didn't seem to be working. I welcome efforts to write more general guidelines, for which these, if adopted, can serve as a part. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The larger the proposal, the harder it is to reach consensus; that's axiomatic at Wikipedia. I welcome these little steps as an experiment to see if we're capable of making any progress at all. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment, Mandruss. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest that anyone who thinks that additional rules or alternative wordings for the proposed rules would be in order may add them with another RFC, and possibly call them E or B1 or C2 or whatever. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

Oh, look, another RFC insisting on the right to tell shitty jokes on the RefDesk! Hipocrite (talk) 11:05, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Please explain the concept of "It's a wiki" and how that doesn't guarantee the right to tell bad jokes. (This is not meant to be a wise-crack, but if anyone is allowed to delete anything, then isn't anyone also allowed to add anything? I may misunderstand. If so, please explain.) Robert McClenon (talk) 17:57, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Other other

This is doomed, as have been all the other discussions relating to poor behaviour on the ref desks. Those who behave poorly and inconsiderately have sufficient backing for their approach. Those who object don't have sufficient backing to gain a community consensus otherwise. That means the status quo remains and those of us who believe we are responsible Wikipedia editors should continue to advise anyone who will listen that much of the bad behaviour at the ref desks should be overlooked in the hope that they will see the nuggets of proper cited ref desk info amongst the plethora of personal opinion, inside jokes and IP-hounding and IP-biting. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:32, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Editors who complain on the talk page, but who don't contribute to the ref desks

At the time of my posting this thread, I did a search of all seven ref desks for posts by Guy Macon and Robert McClenon. There were none. No questions, no answers. At the same time, I find 36 matches to Robert McClenon on this page and 42 matches to Guy Macon, along with comments about Nazis and those who want to control others and the ref desks, and so on. (This is about a behavior, not about Guy and Robert personally, they are not the only ones doing this.)

This raises the question, who exactly is it that is looking to control whom here? The next time someone brings up "people who want to control the ref desk" or "police it" or whatever, can we have some names and diffs, as I did immediately above with the Penis size question? The unending innuendo above by people who don't even contribute to the desks strikes me as just a little bit odd. μηδείς (talk) 21:32, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

If someone makes a constructive effort to help resolve ongoing refdesk problems, I call that contributing to the desks. Each of us (well, most of us) has something different to bring to the table. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:37, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Some folks are the "answer refdesk questions" kind of contributor. Others create articles. Others fix typos. Others patrol new pages, or edit templates, or fix BLP problems, or help decide if articles should be deleted. All of us are contributing in our own way. I am involved in dispute resolution, as is Robert. You will see both of us a lot if you search the archives for DRN, ANI, and Arbcom -- usually as an uninvolved commenter, almost never as a named party. The fact that we are uninvolved in the fights that plague the reference desks is a positive, not a negative. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:51, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I support Guy Macon and Robert McClenon as constructive contributors who need feel no shame about editing this page. I don't care when they last edited mainspace, the ref desks, or anything. We don't need names and diffs until it seems plausible that there is agreement, and some action can be taken. If people name names, this is exactly what causes the thus-named to start getting upset. I'm not going to look for comments about Nazis, because I simply don't care enough, but if anyone engages in reductio ad Hitlerum, I advise them to treat difficult people (no names mentioned) with kid gloves. The people are very touchy, and will take up loads of our time. IBE (talk) 14:43, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree: We judge the merit of edits and talk page proposals, not motives or experience. Any editor is welcome to look at how we do things and propose and advocate for changes. That's what being a Wiki is all about. Suggesting that only people who are experts or experienced at a page, regardless of namespace, should be involved in editing or improving it is a form of page ownership and there are very few places here where that is allowed. The ownership policy begins with: "All Wikipedia content − articles, categories, templates, and other types of pages − is edited collaboratively. No one, no matter how skilled, or of how high standing in the community, has the right to act as though he or she is the owner of a particular page." and then goes on to give these examples of an improper statement suggesting ownership: "'You obviously have no hands-on experience with this topic.'" and "'You hadn't edited the article or talk page previously as a history search shows.'" Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:51, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The opinion of an admin who actually works on the ref desks, such as Jayron, is in a much stronger position to comment on these things. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:08, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The opinion of Jayron is that no one should be saying that these two cannot comment on the operation of the desks, and that no one should be implying that they are not allowed to help out in any way they want, including conflict resolution and helping establish a framework for preventing said conflicts in the future. Anyone can contribute anyway they have the skills and desires to do so, and no one has the right to tell other users their help is unwelcome, especially by implying that prior experience or certain qualifications as being "part" of some closed-off community are necessary prerequisites to be taken seriously. People should never treat anyone like that, and one should never cast aspersions or obliquely note that someones lack of prior experience in editing as though that made any difference at all to whether or not their ideas should be taken as seriously as anyone elses. That's the opinion of Jayron. --Jayron32 16:31, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I don't agree, as to me it's like the old joke, "You no play-a the game, you no make-a the rules." But your input is worthy of consideration. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:11, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

In case there was any remaining question about Macon's fitness to be sitting in judgment of actual participants, this is the level of maturity we're dealing with here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:53, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Your repeated references to "non-participants" and "actual participants" are offensive personal attacks. Please stop. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:46, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

No offence, but that little ASCII comic (maybe 2 seconds of chuckling after 30 minutes tweaking, using the preview function, tweaking some more, getting it just right. It also looks like you're calling Bugs fat based on the parentheses use for the torso when pipes (|) would have been sufficient) does not reflect well on your conduct either, Guy Macon. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 24 Adar 5775 13:30, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Cut and paste, 15 seconds tops actually. Because at least one person didn't like it, I will replace it with a little bird (also cut and paste) that makes the same point:

    Responding just 
    encourages them! 
           \ 
            >') 
            ( \ 
             ^^` 

Thanks for the feedback. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:46, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Lame (c/ping someone else's work and copying an ASCII drawing you already used here which I'm fairly certain is meant for discussions of trolling) and beside the point, I'm afraid. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 24 Adar 5775 14:09, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd say it was the whole point. Just as we have WP:RBI. People here seem to forget the third of these three, taking every opportunity to drag back into discussion when "this IP, geolocating here, did this bad thing" and "that IP geolocating there has been doing those bad things for a while...". That's exactly what the trolls want to read. IGNORE! The Rambling Man (talk) 14:12, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

No, we are not discussing trolling at the moment hence my point about that ASCII being reserved for discussions of trolling. What we were actually discussing, and what the actual point was, was that Guy made an unflattering comic about Bugs and then, when called on it, pointed out Bugs' behaviour rather than apologising for unnecessarily immature behaviour in a debate (it's fine to fool around and joke, I do that lot, but if it's at someone else's expense in a mean-spirited way, then it's just not cool). That actually does disrupt things. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 24 Adar 5775 15:00, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I should probably say "participants only on the talk page", which is factual. And even if someone thinks it's a "personal attack", it is as nothing compared with openly fantasizing about gunning down another editor (using the Sarah Palin --> Gabby Giffords illustration as a model). Macon also can't even take his own advice on the matter. So he might be best off to take some time away from this topic, as he seems too emotional and personally invested for his own good or anyone else's. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:47, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Changed section title per WP:TALKNEW: "Headings may be about specific edits but not specifically about the user." --Guy Macon (talk) 23:55, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

If you are going to change the title, fine, but anchor it, and place your comment at the bottom, since your comment was not the subject of the thread. I've made the title more accurate, since "univolved editors" are totally univolved. μηδείς (talk) 00:06, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

As a courtesy, when I started this thread, which was not about Guy's cartoon below, but about contribution versus inquistion, I placed a notice on Guy's [1] and Robert's talk pages. It was only then that I saw this vicious personal attack, showing Bugs being targetted, raising his hands, and being exploded, composed by Guy Macon on his talk page (since deleted):

  [BUGS DETECTED]   [TARGET AIMING]   [TARGET LOCKED]  [NOBODY  REPLIES]
 .---------------. .---------------. .---------------. .----------------.
 |       o       | |       |       | |     \ o /     | |   \`. || .'/   |
 |     /( )\     | |    -- + --    | |    --(+)--    | |--- *IGNORE* ---|
 |______/_\______| |       |       | |______/|\______| |_ _/_'_||_'_\_ _|
 '---------------' '---------------' '---------------' '----------------'
 --Guy Macon 03:08, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Robert's response has at least been to resume editting the actual desks, Guy's has been to play the victim and call me a troll for catching him. I really don't care about this drama, but there is no problem on the desks, no edit warring, nothing of any substance at dispute. But this page is like an unending Kafkaesque nightmare, and it should be made very clear what the inquisitors are doing with their "targets". μηδείς (talk) 00:19, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

In fairness, what the cartoon actually showed was very clearly not someone getting "exploded", but rather ignored. (It has backfired, of course, but that's because we are all guilty, every one of us who posts here, of keeping the Kafkaesque nightmare running.) --Steve Summit (talk) 16:23, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

So you say. But I can't imagine anything more ad hominem than openly fantasizing about gunning down another user, which is what that juvenile cartoon portrays, regardless of rationalizations to the contrary. Macon has lost whatever ethical high ground he might have had before, and would be well advised to steer clear of the ref desk for a very long time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:31, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

And you and Medeis had already lost the logical high ground when you tried to marginalize Guy's and Robert's contributions earlier in this thread (which of course is what I was referring to when I brought up ad hominem). So I think we have to call this one a draw. --Steve Summit (talk) 16:50, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

You're funny. You're equating simple debate to fantasies about murdering another editor. Maybe you should take a vacation too. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:01, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

No rest for the weary, no vacation for the archivist. --Steve Summit (talk) 20:01, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

It's kind of late to post this, but for the record, this subsection section from the beginning has been the very definition of an ad hominem argument. --Steve Summit (talk) 16:09, 18 March 2015 (UTC) (tweaked 16:27, 18 March 2015 (UTC))

Yes, it is, but I'm a forgiving sort. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:20, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

To me, this just says "IGNORE", that's what WP:RBI is all about. It's like a Garfield cartoon where the final frame is Garfield flicking Odie's nose into the future. It's a joke. Just as Garfield isn't really abusing Odie, nor is Guy threatening to murder, or even depicting the murder of anyone. The sooner some here get a grip on reality, the better. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:48, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

---

If anyone is interested in my preferences, they are that any and all comments that could be broadly interpreted as trolling, personal comments or baiting receive zero responses of any kind. I don't want anyone to defend me -- my block log speaks for itself[2] -- nor do I intend to defend myself (my previous responses were before I realized what I was dealing with here). If anyone ever has a serious complaint about my behavior, I suggest that you ask me about it on my talk page, and if that does not satisfy you, go to WP:DRR, scroll down to the section on "Dispute Resolution Requests (user conduct)", pick an appropriate venue, and file a complaint. Remember, responding just encourages them. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:17, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

What are the problems here?

I have a little bit of experience round here of aiding conflict resolution. It seems that the first stage is usually to work out what the actual problems are, according to all parties. I can't see that that's been properly done, so...

I'd be quite interested to see if anyone disagreed that the following occur at the Ref Desks and are problematic:

1. Replies from regulars (no names, thanks) based on individuals' opinions that aren't flagged as such
2. Newbie/IP biting by regulars (no names, thanks)
3. Regulars (no names, thanks) editwarring with each other by hatting and dehatting or deleting and restoring

• Please say "yes" if you agree that all of these are problems
• Please say "yes" even if you think that there are other problems I've not mentioned
• Please say "no" if you think one or more of those points is not a problem (and it'd help if you said which one and why)

Please restrain yourself and just answer the question and don't comment on others' responses.

One word answers are fine and possibly even helpful.

Cheers --Dweller (talk) 10:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Replies from regulars that are totally unprofessional. Not an option, but the sole problem. Hipocrite (talk) 11:06, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Please could you reply to the question asked. Thanks. --Dweller (talk) 11:18, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

No thanks. I thought I'd explain the problem to you clearly and succinctly, as opposed to playing at bureaucracy. Hipocrite (talk) 13:45, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Addressing your points individually:

(1) NO - Redundant, as any response without a link qualifies as original research.

(2) NO - Nowhere near the problem that a few here seem to think it is.

(3) YES - Definitely a problem.

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:19, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

That reads like a "no". --Dweller (talk) 11:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Two of the three, I don't see as significant problems, hence it works out to a NO as per your rules. My other comments are in keeping with your comment "it'd help if you said which one and why." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:42, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

True. Thanks. --Dweller (talk) 13:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

No. More specifically (1) happens occasionally but is not a major problem (2) happens occasionally but is not a major problem (3) happens quite often and can be a problem. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:58, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks --Dweller (talk) 13:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

No. Number 3 isn't how I would describe it. It isn't totally wrong, but in my experience, the people restoring the posts have typically done the right thing by coming to this page and bringing it to the attention of others. I have hardly seen those who remove the posts doing the same. So I cannot agree with the term edit-warring. I would call it tendentious behaviour in hatting/ removing posts, or I would phrase it more neutrally to avoid the suggestion that there are two sides in some kind of battle over hatting/removing. Thanks, Dweller, for your help here. IBE (talk) 15:04, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• All three are problems. --Jayron32 16:00, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Eh?

1. Please say "yes" if you agree that all of these are problems
2. Please say "yes" even if you think that there are other problems I've not mentioned
3. Please say "no" if you think one or more of those points is not a problem (and it'd help if you said which one and why)

So if I think there are any problems at all with the ref desks (like I wish the page was green with pink text) then #2 says I have to say "YES" - but then you can't tell whether I have some bizarre random problem or whether I agree with all three of your issue points (which I don't)...but then you say I should answer "No" if I think any of those three things is not a problem? Eh?!

Totally confusing mess. Not the way to run a !vote poll.

There is one and only one problem here - the rules of behavior for respondents are inadequately described.

The consequence of that failure is that we spend all of our time arguing about who is or is not breaking some imagined rule. Your set of three questions (which don't even scratch the surface of the wide range of complaints and arguments) aren't helpful for resolving the key problem.

SteveBaker (talk) 17:04, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

It's not a problem of description, it's a problem of interpretation. No level of describing hypothetical questions and responses will get us to all agree on what is appropriate and what is not. And nothing will ever stop people from making jokes, or passing off opinion as fact, etc. The Wiki Way is open, for better or worse. If you want to see what top-down control is like, check out StackExchange or Quora. Both of those services have moderators/admins who can delete whatever they want, because they in charge. Consensus, BRD, etc just don't apply when you have a walled garden. I don't think WP or even the ref desks should go that way, but there are alternatives out there. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:39, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• Yes. All three are problems, and number 3 is worst. I think SteveBaker must have misunderstood the intention of the (paraphrased): please say yes even if there are additional problems (like colour choices) thing. Steve (I believe), and I, and many others, agree that the behavour of respondents is the root problem, and the behaviour of regular respondents is what your points address. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:57, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• My reading:
  1. Happens very often, but I don't see a rule based (as opposed to a norm-based) solution. Encouraging hatting/deletion of unsourced replies will only inflame tempers. IMO it is best to just set a good example by addressing the OP's query directly, and ignoring joke/unsourced/opinionated responses that one doesn't like.
  2. I have seen this happen and it makes me cringe each time. Don't know how big a problem this is (although frankly this should never happen)
  3. Maybe I haven't being paying enough attention, but I don't know how common this is and whether the frequent and lengthy discussion on the talk-page is in proportion to the problem. To get a rough idea: here are the diffs of all the thread-deletions I could find on the Humanities desk for this year (essentially large byte removals; excluded edits by bot, deletion of one's own posts, and clear vandalism; let me know if I missed any instance, and I'll add it to the list):

Thread/response deletions on Humanities desk in 2015

March 8 (f it is a troll, we don't leave a memorial to all the people he sucked into his game...), March 4 (rv troll), Feb 19 (duplicate question) Feb 6 (revert trolling by anonymous holocaust denialist and his anonymous supporter--this is not the place for fringe soapboxing); also Feb 6 ({{WP:DENY]] this is not he first trolling by noopolo) Feb 3 (duplicate) Jan 31 (Removing sections created by block-evading sockpuppeteer) Jan 26(rv racist troll) Jan 24 (Whatever this is, it doesn't belong here.) Jan 22 (Removing pettiness and making a nicer answer) Note: edit was soon reverted Jan 14 ( (I've deleted this trolling...) there were quite of number of deletions/posts by User:212.96.61.236, whose reasoning I couldn't exactly follow Jan 12 (or did I?) Jan 11 (delete, given OP says he doesn't care about references) Jan 8 (rm trolling)

Now admittedly this is just one desk that I picked at random, and I haven't tabulated hatting (since that is harder to do), but barring 2-3 exceptions IMO most of these deletions appear to be at least acceptable (in the sense that I may not have deleted some of the thread, but I wouldn't have expended much effort objecting either). So is this a big enough issue to require new rules (as opposed to better enforcement/editor restrictions, if that)? Abecedare (talk) 23:01, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• No, or, not really. I don't see 1 as a significant problem. 2 is definitely a problem. I'm not sure 3 is a problem in and of itself, although it is definitely a big symptom of the deeper, underlying problem.

I do have thoughts on that deeper, underlying problem, which I'm going to go ahead and mention here, at the risk of their getting lost in the midst of one of the currently too many separate here's-my-take-on-how-to-fix-this threads. (It's tempting to start my own, but under the circumstances, no.)

I think the biggest problem is that we've lost much of the consensus, collaboration, and camaraderie that makes a place like this work. The disaster area that is this talk page at the moment is all the illustration you need of this phenomenon. There are at least three different factions with pretty widely differing views on what the desks are for and how they ought to work. There are more factions than that with differing views on what the problem(s) currently are. And even more different views on what we should do to fix them. A week or two ago I had it in mind to start a nice little thread under the subject "Renewing our vows" that was going to try to recenter our consensus on what we're here for, but everything's gotten so confused since then I don't even remember how I was going to couch it. —Steve Summit (talk) 00:17, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

1. Minor problem, best dealt with by calling for references or otherwise expressing skepticism in the thread itself. 2. Sometimes a problem. The more someone attempts to do "enforcement" (against the IP or against the biter) the more of a problem it is. 3. The deletion or hatting is a problem; it serves no useful purpose. The reverse is generally not. Even the worst trolly pseudo-English crap causes the least disruption when left alone. Wnt (talk) 13:08, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Another proposal to do something concrete.

I've suggested several times that we attempt to put together some clear guidelines for the behavior and etiquette for answering questions here.

Each time, the discussion gets derailed very rapidly.

I'd like to suggest that we put together a SMALL group of representative and experienced ref-desk regulars here (perhaps 5 people?) to go off someplace off-list and put together a clear, clean set of guidelines that can be brought back here as the basis of a concrete discussion. Then we can limit ourselves to asking "What's wrong with rule 27(b)?" rather than launching off in random directions.

I don't particularly want to be one of that initial group - but I'd be prepared to do so if enough people wanted me to.

I'm not sure how to get that started...how about nominations and seconders? You can't nominate or second yourself.

Please respond with:

• Oppose (I don't want a group like this to come up with a proposal for new rules)
• Nominate: (username)
• Second: (username)
• No Thanks (username) (I am (username) and I don't want to do it, despite being nominated).

SteveBaker (talk) 17:08, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• Nominate: Medeis SteveBaker (talk) 17:09, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• Second: Medeis ―Mandruss ☎ 03:21, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose, per WP:CREEP, WP:NORULES, etc. Also, I no longer think our problems are due to lack of rules/guidelines. If everyone here followed WP:HERE, WP:CIVIL, WP:AGF, WP:HUMAN, WP:BRD, and WP:DICK, then we'd be fine. Of course, that's just my interpretation of those guidelines ;) - that said I would participate and offer positive, constructive criticism to newly proposed rules if this gains consensus and is brought to fruition. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:48, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

  You're absolutely right - if everyone followed those rules, and if we all agreed on how they should be interpreted in this context - then we wouldn't need any more rules. WP:CREEP doesn't say that you can't create new rules - only that you can't do so needlessly - and if you actually read that guideline, you'll see that it directs us to do what I'm proposing ((1)Solving an actual problem, (2)Doing it clearly (3)Doing it with community consensus). WP:NORULES says that you can (occasionally) break a rule if that makes the encyclopedia better - and that would (of course) apply here.

  But when things go as badly wrong as they have been for the last year or so, some people benefit from a clearer statement of the implications of the big picture rules that guides Wikipedia in general. Take, for example, the way we handle trolling. Deriving the best way to handle trolls from those very basic Wikipedia rules isn't easy. There are many possible interpretations that you can take away from them. That results in multiple approaches to handling them, which by my count includes:

  • hatting the entire thread
  • hatting the answers
  • hatting the question
  • deleting the thread
  • deleting the thread - but only if there are no answers yet
  • deleting the just the answers
  • deleting the just question
  • ignoring the question
  • seeking an admin to handle the matter
  • providing simple, factual, boring answers
  • insulting the troll
  • posting jokes about the troll
  • discussing the troll here on the talk page
  • not discussing the troll anywhere
  • using a template to identify trolling threads

  Not one of these 15 alternatives can be clearly identified as "The Right Approach" from those core principles that you identify (although some can certainly be rejected). Yet without a uniform, standard way to identify and handle trolls, we're going to continue to feed them and collect more of them. So, I maintain that we need to sit down and decide what the best common-sense approach to trolling is that is compatible with the core Wikipedia principles - but provides a simple interpretation for everyone to follow, so we don't have 15 different approaches, applied patchily and with massive disagreement. That disagreement distracts from the work we do here and feeds those trolls with precisely the weird 'kick' they get from trolling us. Similar problems arise with people adding jokes and sarcastic replies to threads...with how we handle medical and legal questions. The core principles don't tell us what to do in any of those situations - and if we wish to have a peaceful, friendly and productive set of Ref Desks, then (sadly) we DO need more rules...and we (mostly) shouldn't be ignoring them. SteveBaker (talk) 12:44, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

My response to your bit on trolling is already expressed in my opposition post further down, SteveBaker. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 23 Adar 5775 12:54, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose on transparency grounds. I don't think that what we need is a small group to go off in private and propose new rules. If I see the names and agree that it is the right list of names, I may strike my oppose. I agree in principle with SemanticMantis that we shouldn't need more detailed rules and guidelines, but we obviously do, because the generality of the general rules seems to clash with the strong feelings of some editors. Weak oppose. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:24, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • The proposal is not that this group of editors set rules that everyone must obey. The idea is that they draft a set of (hopefully) reasonable rules. Then we can seek consensus to either adopt those rules, or amend them and adopt the amended version...or of course completely fail to adopt anything whatever. There is no lack of transparency. The problem is that in a group of a couple of dozen people, it's very hard to get some coherent vision put together without getting side-tracked. My hope is that a small group can stay focussed long enough to put out a set of guidelines that can at least be discussed at a concrete level. SteveBaker (talk) 23:12, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support as willing to try just about anything at this point. Fear of failure has resulted in paralysis, and we need to get out of the habit of responding to every proposal by searching for reasons why it won't work (they are always there to find). If we have to try ten things to find one that improves things even a little, then let this be number 1. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:03, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Nominate: SteveBaker ―Mandruss ☎ 21:03, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• Second: SteveBaker. A deep understanding of Wikipedia policies and the reasoning behind them. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:21, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

• Nominate: Robert McClenon ―Mandruss ☎ 21:03, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• Second: Robert McClenon. He has been a thoughtful and calming influence at WP:DRN and there is every reason to believe that he will do the same here. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:21, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

• Nominate: SemanticMantis ―Mandruss ☎ 21:03, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• Second: SemanticMantis if you guys decide to do this though I'm opposed to this whole thing. Semantic seems to have displayed the best understanding, out of most people here, about the actual problems and also has displayed a much better understanding than most here about how trolls operate. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 23 Adar 5775 12:39, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

• Nominate: Abecedare ―Mandruss ☎ 21:03, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose The current rules are fine, there is no disruption on any of the boards except this talk page, and the notion that some subcommittee would choose new rules among themselves is counter to policy. μηδείς (talk) 23:05, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • No, read what I actually wrote. This small group PROPOSES a set of rules - when we have some set of rules, the whole group can discuss and we can try to seek consensus. I am absolutely not proposing that a small group imposes rules on anyone. SteveBaker (talk) 23:16, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Think Senate subcommittee, if you're American. If you're not, think something equivalent. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:21, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
    • Um, you do realize that the US congressional subcommittee process is not universally thought of as a good thing, right? There are complaints that the head of the subcommittee has near-dictatorial control over the agenda of the subcommittee and thus which bills are presented to the full congress, and that regular members have little ability to amend/influence the contents of that legislation after presentation. Throw in allegations that bills are actually written by whatever special interest group has the subcommittee chair in their pocket, and you have a view which doesn't find the subcommittees very representative. - I'm not saying that that would happen here, but I'm guessing once a completed proposal - any proposal - is made, some will present it as a fait accompli and arguments on accepting/rejecting it will include "We must do something. This is something. We must do it." and "Why are you rejecting this? You're just an obstructionist! (And secretly helping the trolls, perhaps?)" - Saying this, I also realize people will now swear up and down that it won't be the case *this time*, and then will be completely underwhelmed by the irony if it actually does. Oh, well. I just wanted to articulate why people might not be convinced by the argument that the elite subcommitte "just proposes" a plan, and views accepting a subcommittee as equivalent to accepting whatever proposal they come up with. -- 162.238.240.55 (talk) 17:38, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Completely agree with SemanticMantis (I nominate him if it is to go ahead, although I don't support the proposal per se). Happy with the team as suggested so far. Constructive suggestion, but can we at least wait until @Dweller:'s process has run its course? It looks like the best way forward. IBE (talk) 04:35, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per SemanticMantis's reasons, and strongly suggest once again that if you guys do this that those involved do their due diligence before writing any guidelines about trolling and I would be vehemently opposed to anything else as it would be both written out of ignorance and incorrect. The basic starter information can be found be at https://encyclopedia dramatica.se/Troll (you'll have to remove the space to use it, and a warning that it is NSFW as there are porn ads on the side that can be blocked with a script-blocker, and there are pop-ups every now and then so have a pop-up blocker on) and then individual notable cases of trolling can be researched from there. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 23 Adar 5775 12:39, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose on the grounds that the alleged problems are way exaggerated (especially so by non-participants), and that the core dispute remains just exactly what constitutes professional advice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:07, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Intellectual jousting is all that we are really discussing. I think it is highly unlikely that we are going to formulate effective procedures for responding to posts that are to some degree seen as not on the level. The best procedure in my opinion is to engage in tentative dialogue with an entity posting such an inquiry. Furthermore it is not all that important that we respond properly to the extremes of such posts. What really concerns us is the middle ground of these sorts of posts. These would be the inquiries we have not conclusively determined to be problematic but about which we are suspicious. One suggestion that I would offer is that at the top of each Reference page we include mild language that suggests that it might be helpful if the person posing an inquiry remain available for further dialogue in order that we can tailor our responses to the needs of those posting the inquiries. This alone may help to weed out the number of spurious requests for information. We need to be wary of inquiries that seem to be off-color in any way. We don't have to be nasty but anything that raises a red flag warrants further clarification in the form of follow-up questions. In other words we should want to put the burden of legitimacy on the person posing a questionable inquiry. I think that many of us ask legitimate questions but that we don't state them clearly. The dialogue that I am recommending not only addresses the trolls that we are discussing but also those that we are really here to assist. Rarely can one question at the top of a thread be appropriately addressed by twenty responses beneath it without any further input from the original entity posing the question. The banter can be fun and productive for us but strictly speaking we should be guided by the requests of the person posing the original inquiry as well as their refined formulations of their original question. These should be available further down in the thread and we should encourage that. Bus stop (talk) 17:20, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

You're not the first to oppose this attempt to formulate solutions because you already know the solutions. Sadly, there is little agreement among that group. If only we could identify the one truly wise one among you, we could turn over control of the whole thing to him or her and we'd be done. My suggestion (and request) to you, and the others, would be to put your ideas into a concrete and concise proposal, and I think such a proposal should be given a chance to work. We can try only one thing at a time, however. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:33, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

We should be encouraging dialogue between those fielding the question and those posing the question. More such dialogue is called for. A dearth of give-and-take speech leaves us vulnerable to carefully worded questions that lead us off on a wild-goose-chase. And even legitimate questions benefit from close interaction with those attempting to provide assistance. Bus stop (talk) 17:56, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, but that's a statement of general refdesk philosophy, not a concrete and concise proposal. To deal with actual real-world situations in a somewhat consistent manner, we need something more specific, and in a separate section. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:08, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

• Comment Steve actually has a very good point about a smaller group getting less side tracked. Even with good intentions, it is nearly impossible to keep a large group on point without an administrator or meeting leader (but that is not the wiki way!). So I'm beginning to come around to the notion that a "sub committee" would indeed be a good way to draft content. Of course such a proposal would go through standard procedures of consensus before adoption. However, even if I change my !vote to support - there doesn't yet seem to be a consensus in favor. On the other hand, if any three or five users want to get together to draft policy content, they don't need consensus to do that, though it would probably help the chances of eventual reform. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:01, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
• Comment Could it be that the problem is us? If we are the problem, we should be discussing how we could better man (or woman) the Reference desks. We should refuse to entertain absentee inquiries. That could almost be software-controlled. All questions without further input from the OP (original poster) after a preset measure of response is automatically removed. A troll has increasing difficulty maintaining the appearance of legitimacy with each additional post that they make. Also we should not be guessing what the question might be. We should see it as our role to try to clarify questions. That may mean asking the OP if they are specifically asking about ABC or if their interest is in XYZ more generally. The OP has to be present to engage in ongoing dialogue. The alternative is that we go off on tangents discussing among ourselves a variety of interesting topics but not necessarily what even the most on-the-level OP might have been asking about. A troll is someone who is pulling your leg. But that phenomenon cannot be indefinitely sustained. Bus stop (talk) 22:23, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Re: OP followup: While it's nice and preferable to get followup info and a dialogue with OPs, I don't think we should demand that. At least a few of us believe that part of the value of the ref desks is to build a "database" of Q and A and references. Since WP has high pagerank, ref desk hits actually come up pretty often if you type a similar question in to google. My point is, even if an OP writes the question, walks away, and never reads any answers or gives any feedback, that question and responses can still be useful to other people, present and future. I think you're right though, the problems are indeed at least in part due to us, as a whole. I would like to get a bigger pool of regular respondents, and encourage our legions of lurkers to start helping out too. But that's a topic for a different day... SemanticMantis (talk) 14:51, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

We need not "demand" but we can suggest the advisability of would-be questioners to try to remain available in case respondents wish clarification of the question being posed. At the top of each Reference desk are a series of bullet-points, to which such a suggestion could be added. Bus stop (talk) 16:39, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

• Per SemanticMantis, you don't need consensus to go write a draft, but don't expect me to legitimize it before I even read it. The main issue though is that I see the attempts to do rules enforcement here as the main source of the disruption. Wnt (talk) 13:15, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the idea is to legitimize before reading, but rather to let the community suggest a pool of qualified/respected members of the group. Let's be honest, there are certain groups of 3-5 editors that I would generally trust to come up with something reasonable that would qualify as a good starting point, and other groups that I would not. I assume the same goes for most regulars who have been around long enough to form opinions on the general temperament and skills of other regulars. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:54, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

You're right - we clearly don't need any kind of permission to get together a bunch of people to group-write a proposal. But the problem is that a spontaneously formed group would likely be comprised of like-minded people with a common set of ideas - resulting in a set of proposals that would be unacceptable to far too many people. I was hoping that this approach I've been suggesting here would result in a more balanced group with a wider mix of views - and thereby result in a more widely-acceptable set of proposals. I don't expect anyone to "legitimize" anything before we see that proposal. It's been said at least three or four times already: The idea here is to come up with a coherent set of proposals - the full group here would have to discuss, possibly amend, and possibly reject whatever the small group came up with. SteveBaker (talk) 22:54, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Yep, I take your point. A group of e.g. you, me, medeis and Robert would have to come to terms with many different viewpoints than a self-selected group would. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:33, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

And it's not hard to imagine that if a diverse group like that could come up with set of clean guidelines for respondents, that it would be more likely to be acceptable to the wider community. Of course, getting to a set of guidelines that a group like that could agree on would be tough - but at least the discussion could be tightly focussed and goal-directed and not generate the mountains of bad feelings and attendant upset that yet another round of debate will inevitably cause here. It's no accident that my nomination was for Medeis - who I probably disagree with more than anyone else here. I really want to see that diversity of opinion. SteveBaker (talk) 03:10, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

She has my second. Do it. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:21, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

• @Wnt: To pick apart your objection...

  you don't need consensus to go write a draft -- indeed...but see above.

  but don't expect me to legitimize it before I even read it. -- that was never part of the proposal here. I'm asking the community to suggest a good sub-committee to come up with some better rules - whatever they'd come up with would still be up for community discussion, amendment, or outright rejection.

  The main issue though is that I see the attempts to do rules enforcement here as the main source of the disruption. -- I take slight issue with this comment. The problem lies with attempts to enforce an imagined set of hypothetical rules that are not widely agreed upon..."unwritten rules". My contention is that if we had a set of consensus-driven rules that provided clear definitions of infractions AND what we agree is an appropriate reaction to those infractions - then people who take joy in enforcing those rules will go from being a pain in the butt to being heroes who patrol the pages and enforce the rules. Conversely, people who insist on 'firing from the hip' and taking actions that are not community-sanctioned would be in clear violation of our guidelines - and could be dealt with accordingly.

  SteveBaker (talk) 03:26, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

• A completely reasonable proposal. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:29, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

68.102.58.146

Resolved

68.102.58.146 (talk · contribs) has asked the same question at least three or four times, and refuses to take the advice given. Should anything be done about this? Several users are getting a bit exasperated. (And by the way, he's already been blocked a couple of times for this kind of thing.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:19, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

The question should not have been engaged here in the first place, since refdesks are not for questions about why Wikipedia articles have not been created. They should have been directed to the Teahouse, a place specifically designed for handling clueless people. If they persisted here, it would be handled as disruptive editing. Now that we have thoroughly muddied the issue by mishandling it, the best we can do is reset, apologize to the user, and start over from square one. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:43, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Since I've never heard of this "Teahouse", maybe you could explain that better to the user. As for apologizing, he has been told several times to take his request to the article creation request page, which he even said he would do, and yet came back with the same question again. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:21, 19 March 2015 UTC)

WP:TEAHOUSE is basically a Help Desk designed to be especially friendly and tolerant with newer users. It's handled by editors who have limitless patience and say things like, "Hi! Welcome to the Teahouse!!".

He has been told several times to go elsewhere, but his question was also engaged multiple times by at least two users including Jayron. That sent a very mixed message, which is what I meant by "muddied the issue". He should have been advised once to go elsewhere, maybe twice, and subsequent posts here should have been met with disruptive editing warnings on his talk page, along with repeats of the advice to go elsewhere. As the last resort, ANI. Basically we created our own nightmare through our own lack of self-discipline. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:51, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

He wanted to know how to get the article created. His options are to go to the page where you ask for articles to be created, or to create an account and do it himself. He has been told several times to take one of those options. He was blocked twice in December for exactly the same behavior, so a warning is likely to fall on deaf ears. I was going to take it to ANI, but I decided to get some input here first. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:56, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Also, he already went to that Teahouse, two days ago,[3] and still keeps coming back with the same question. You're saying the Teahouse is for the clueless. Where do you send a user who's too clueless for the Teahouse? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:00, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Was the process I described above followed? No. Hence the problem. It's that simple. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:07, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

He was told multiple times about the two options he has, but he refuses to do either one. It's that simple. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:09, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

There is not a single warning on his talk page about disruptive editing at a refdesk. Instead, you just keep arguing with him here. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:14, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

If you had actually looked at his talk page, you would see that he already knows how to request article creation, and that he has received multiple warnings for disruption of various kinds. He has likewise been directly challenged many times on the various ref desks and at the Teahouse. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:27, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

If you wish to seek a temp block for disruption at the refdesks, you need a history of warnings about disruption at the refdesks. That's not there. In my experience this is most often in the form of user talk page warning messages produced by the templates listed at WP:WARN, not by comments at refdesks. If you think the other warnings are enough to seek a block, then go seek a block. A short block is often the only way to get through to people with a hearing problem. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:38, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I've already turned him in at AIV. If you think he's not been sufficiently warned, go talk to Jayron. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:43, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that will be declined because of no history of "clear vandalism", which is what is required at the top of WP:AIV. He has 3 vandalism warnings: one that is three months old and stale, and two that were mislabeled as vandalism by the same editor. If I'm not mistaken, clear vandalism requires clear malicious intent. Needs to go to WP:ANI for disruptive editing if anywhere, I think. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:56, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

"Stale"? It's the same guy. I think what he's up to is that one of his article requests got turned down at the article creation page, so he doesn't expect that to work. Instead, he hopes to pester someone into creating the article for him. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:58, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think we sanction people for things they did three months prior. Anyway, you cited disruption in your report, and disruptive editing is not vandalism and is not what they handle at AIV. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:02, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

What they handle at AIV depends on the competence of the particular admin who happens to work on it at any given moment. Some of them take a careful look at the situation and make a wise decision. Others are too lazy to do that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:08, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok. Good luck. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:09, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

The next logical step is ANI, but I would rather get some consensus here on how to handle it and hopefully avoid ANI. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:19, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

There should be no question about seeking consensus about how to handle this. The larger consensus for all parts of Wikipedia is already clear, and was expressed quite well by Mandruss:

"He should have been advised once to go elsewhere, maybe twice, and subsequent posts here should have been met with disruptive editing warnings on his talk page, along with repeats of the advice to go elsewhere."

We don't need consensus. We already have it. We need the discipline to follow the larger consensus that already exists instead of some of us deciding to answer, others deciding to hat or delete, and others arguing about the actions of the first two groups. This is also known as "how we screw up the handling of disruptive questioners again and again, never learning from how poorly it worked the last dozen times". --Guy Macon (talk) 14:36, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

• For the record, he's created an account and is now happily taking care of his own business without bothering anyone else anymore. Can we consider this done, since he's not trying to make work for anyone and is now working in good faith to make Wikipedia better? He's doing good work, and no longer being a pain in the ass. There's really no need for us to keep discussing his behavior when he's moved on, taken our advice, and is no longer being trouble. --Jayron32 14:41, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

Hallelujah! I have withdrawn the AIV complaint. AIV is pretty well backlogged at the moment, so one less item won't hurt. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:03, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

That is, resolved until the next guy like him comes along, since it appears nothing has been accomplished in this thread. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:47, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, one thing has been accomplished, and you deserve credit for it: some of us have been introduced to / reminded of the Teahouse, which looks to be able to substantially better apply WP:AGF and actually help people than the RD's currently are. --Steve Summit (talk) 20:11, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

So shut down the ref desks and send everyone to the Teahouse. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:04, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Jayron's right that we don't need to discuss the OP's behavior further, but I'd like to say a few more words about our own. Here are some words and phrases I think we shouldn't be using much in cases like this:

• "clueless"
• "disruptive"
• "vandalism"
• "refuses to take the advice given"
• "I've turned him in at AIV"
• "He might be from the part of Kansas where they can write but can't read"

When someone seems to be confused, or overly excited, or to be having trouble accepting our advice, or whatever, here are some of the things we might assume (in no particular order):

• they're only barely familiar with computers
• their first language is not English
• they're having trouble with their web browser
• they've never edited Wikipedia before
• they don't understand Wikipedia jargon
• they read that Wikipedia is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"
• they haven't discovered where our replies to their queries are
• they're under 10 years of age
• they're over 70 years of age
• they have a short attention span
• they're used to exchanges of at most 140 characters each
• they're mentally or emotionally challenged in some way

But here are some things we should not leap to assume (also in no particular order, other than that they're waaaay below everything on the previous list):

• they're a troll
• they're deliberately wasting our time
• they're ignoring our advice
• they're causing a problem
• they're vandalizing Wikipedia
• they're causing a problem that something must be done to correct

I'll grant that 68.102.58.146's behavior might have seemed strange or annoying. But why were several people so quick to assume bad faith, to accuse him of disruption, to escalate to AIV? Why, especially given all the recent suggestions right here on this talk page, couldn't people simply have ignored the fellow if they didn't feel like helping him further?

There seems to me to have been a lack of AGF here. And quite aside from the disregard for a core Wikipedia principle, this is also quite contrary to the interests of the Reference Desks. It's been accurately observed that one of our problems is a decline in the number of good, engaging questions. Now, why would a newcomer (other than perhaps a real troll) want to ask a question on the RD's today, if it's so clear that this is how they might be treated? --Steve Summit (talk) 23:22, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

"So quick"? This kind of thing has been going on with that user since December. I'm glad he finally took somebody's advice, over 3 months later. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:39, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Ask your doctor about X: medical advice?

I'm wondering about this edit [4] from the question on the Humanities desk "Teens more intelligent?":

See your general practitioner. Things they can test for like a thyroid deficiency can make you quite slow.

I'm not objecting to the "See your general practitioner" per se, I'm just concerned that suggesting a particular condition ("like a thyroid deficiency") that wasn't specifically mentioned by the original questioner might cross the line into "diagnosis", and thus runs afoul of the guidelines against providing medical advice. I thought I'd post here to see if there was a general consensus one way or the other about it. -- 160.129.138.186 (talk) 15:16, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

• A few years back, we used to completely remove such questions and replace them with the boilerplate template {{RD-deleted}}. We stopped doing this because it upset some users who would rather play doctor by giving unreferenced medical advice than actually doing what is just and proper. I'd like to see us go back to removing the question and simply leaving the boilerplate again. --Jayron32 15:23, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I think the question itself is borderline at worst. Yes, the questioner involves their own situation with it, but at it's core it's a medical information question rather than a medical advice question. I think Abecedare's response [5] is perfect in that respect: it answers the core medical information question with a reliable source, explicitly avoiding going off into the questioner's personal situation. I think (hope) that the questioner would be satisfied by that "authoritative", general response. - I think the issue comes up more with answers "rising to the bait" and potentially crossing the line into medical advice when the question might merely skirt it, rather than necessarily being an issue with the question per se. I wonder if that's the reason consensus can't be reached: instead of discussing what to do about problematic responses, everyone is bickering over whether or not to remove the borderline questions which "caused" them. Or to put it another way, we spend so much time on debating how to address what *they* do wrong, that we completely ignore fixes for what *we* do wrong. Lots of ink has been spilled on what to do about medical advice questions, but relatively little on what to do about medical advice answers. -- 160.129.138.186 (talk) 18:41, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

As Jayron knows perfectly well, we stopped removing questions because people disagreed over what constituted a request for medical advice. Even in the case of questions worded as explicit advice seeking, there has always been a way around it, just giving references and putting a boilerplate. There were few of us who wanted to play doctor, although there may have been people doing this who were uninvolved in the discussion. We don't need your flippant summaries, please Jayron. IBE (talk) 21:30, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I gave references, not diagnoses or advice. Except "Ask your doctor". That was unreferenced. But it's a good idea to get some ideas of what might be causing a symptom before you ask a doctor. They're busy, and often don't have the time to consider much more than what they're already thinking before sending you off. Never hurts to ask "What about x?" InedibleHulk (talk) 01:57, March 21, 2015 (UTC)

So yet another serious proposal dies.

My last proposal to get something done about the mess that is "problem handling" here on the reference desks failed (to my utter amazement) on a 2:7 !vote. I simply cannot understand the position of the opposers - and they are not responding to my clarifications of their objections.

So another (IMHO, reasonable) suggestion dies.

• Do people imagine that there are no problems here? Judging by the long string of complaints and arguments on the subject, I don't think that's a defensible position.
• Do people actually enjoy the rancor and debate? If so, then there are a lot more trolls out there than we thought!
• Do people seriously think that we're going to fix this problem piecemeal? I don't think that's likely...but if so, then we need to state the list of problems we have and start at the top of the list and work down, fixing each one individually. I can't see that happening.

My last proposal didn't even suggest a set of rules - just a way to draw up a set of draft rules for further debate...and even that got voted down!

I don't get it. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only sane person around here!

So what's it to be? With no guidelines about how we deal with trolls, inappropriate responses to questions and inappropriate questions - what should we do? In a lawless town, mob rule soon takes over. I see no reason not to get into the ref desks and simply do what the fuck I like - undoing more or less everything Medeis does - deleting Baseball Bugs' posts on sight. Whatever I, personally, feel is the right thing to do? Why not? A whole bunch of people around here seem to think that's OK.

Is this the kind of place we really want to work?

The volume of questions here has been spiralling down the drain - and when you eliminate the junk questions, decent content is vanishing even faster. I can see the death of this valuable service looming if we don't clean our act up and become a whole lot more professional. Yet even the simplest, and (I thought) least controversial proposal to improve things gets shot down in flames.

I just don't get it.

Well, don't say I didn't warn you all. SteveBaker (talk) 16:53, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Read Jayron's comment in the section immediately above for some insight on why this never gets resolved. It's an endless loop, and will remain so until (or if) there is consensus. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:48, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

But Jayron's advice won't be put to conensus !vote and written down as a guideline for the future - so operating practice will 'slip' just as it has been doing - and history is doomed to repeat itself. Jayron may or may not have the right idea (I think he has) - but unless it's a rule that we work that way, what's to stop people slipping back it.

Nobody (well, almost nobody) disagrees that offering medical advice is not allowed. That's because that's written down in our guidelines. But precisely how you deal with that was never formally decided - so you get people choosing to do the wrong thing. SteveBaker (talk) 18:05, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

With this, I was trying to give some encouragement to the user. How do you figure that's "inappropriate"? Or did I assume too much good faith on the part of the OP? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:54, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

It falls contrary to my opinion of how medical questions (which this, IMHO, is) are to be handled. So I took matters into my own hands and reverted your post. There is nothing to say that I have to justify this position. Welcome to the new face of the reference desks. SteveBaker (talk) 18:05, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

And there is nothing to say that I will have to justify reverting your reversion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:09, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

• Steve, failing WP:BLP or some other reason like personal attacks, simply deleting posts as you did with InedibleHulk's here is way out of bounds. I see from the edit history you did this with four posts. I will leave it to others to handle, but I think this is way out of bounds. μηδείς (talk) 18:13, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

User:SteveBaker: Please read the essay on disrupting Wikipedia to make a point again, and explain either why you did that, or why your action was justified in deleting multiple answers. It appears to me that Steve, having failed to get a committee appointed to propose new rules for the Reference Desks, either decided that we don't have rules, or decided to show what the consequences are of not having rules. I don't think that anyone else, except maybe User:Hipocrite, who made the ambiguous comment "It's a wiki", which might mean "We don't need any rules", really thought that we don't have rules. I had been about to explain why I, in particular, opposed Steve's idea. I still will explain why I opposed it. However, I had not expected that Steve would become part of the problem that he was trying to address. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:27, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

It's a wiki, so when things should be deleted, we delete them. If you want guidelines about when to delete things, feel free to base those guidelines on something. If you want policies, you will be unable to get the broad consensus require to enact a policy. Hipocrite (talk) 11:20, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

• The above comment by μηδείς/Medeis does not in any way respond to what SteveBaker wrote, instead complaining about his alleged misbehavior. This is the wrong page for posting such complaints, and I strongly suggest not responding to it under the basic principle that Responding to trolls in any way only encourages them. And yes, I do realize that I am in this comment responding to a troll. This will be my only comment on this, and I look forward to the day when all the good-faith editors automatically ignore trolling without being reminded. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:42, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

• I look forward to the day when you stop fantasizing about murdering other editors. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:11, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Guy, are you actually suggesting I should have started a whole nother thread on this? The above comments indicate the deletions well poorly received by more than one editor. I don't know how things work in your country, but in the US we judge acts on their merits, we don't declare people "criminals" and assert that their every act is trolling because they are trolls. I contribute a lot of good work here, and you contribute sniping, literally. μηδείς (talk) 19:05, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

As I see it, Steve, your mistake with the subcommittee proposal was to ask for permission. If an individual doesn't need permission to bring a proposal, why should a group? You have nominations and seconds for four members, I don't see anyone flat out refusing their nomination, and even a subcommittee of three would probably be enough to develop a viable proposal. That idea isn't dead as far as I'm concerned. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:25, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Mandruss, you make a good point. I say SteveBaker should go ahead, make the best proposal you can, post it and read the objections, revise it if any of the objections are valid, then post it again. If the result is acceptable to most people, we all win. If it gets shot down, that just puts the final nail on the lid of the coffin showing that we cannot solve this and ANI cannot solve this, so it should go to arbcon. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:42, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Personally, the more I think about it, I don't think the ref desk can really work substantially better (which is part of the reason I've moved on from spending a lot of time on it - and other things besides that too). There really isn't a way to codify how people should handle problems when it comes to more open ended dialog such as we have here - as opposed to article space, where it is easier to judge the merits of a contribution (in general). But, even if we came up with some lovely list of perfect methods and rules, and etc., I'm not sure what the end goal would be, from what I can tell, nothing really compels anyone to follow them, not in any hard way. There's major disagreement now over how certain people conduct themselves, yet none of the parties involved seem to be able to do anything about it, what would the final outcome of your idea be able to do to make people follow it? What prevents a handful of folk who don't like those ideas from becoming regulars and flagrantly ignoring it? The Wikipedia setup seems far more suited to dealing with encyclopedia style edits, as mentioned, they are easier to assess - whereas something along the lines of the ref desk would seem to function better with reasonable moderators in charge (people who can be trusted with that authority, etc.). Honestly, I really love the spirit, and idea, of what this section is supposed to be, but I don't think it can function much beyond where it is now, by the very nature of being a part of Wikipedia. --This is the conclusion I've reached based on my time here (and I lurk way more than I say anything). I may, honestly, be very very wrong, and if I am, please enlighten me (and if your proposal has the hopes of going somewhere and the power to back itself up, then if I'm wrong, I'll jump fully on board (for what little that's worth)).Phoenixia1177 (talk) 18:37, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

(ec) My own opinion, as I was mentioning earlier, is that a big part of the problem is that there is so little consensus at the moment, in particular on how best to approach these big problems we might or might not have. And since basically nobody trusts anybody, if someone (either you, or the 4-5 other people who've tried it recently) sits down to write up a careful analysis of (one version of) "the problem" and charts a course towards resolution, too few people jump on board with it for it to get any traction. I'm not sure anyone is well-respected enough to lead a reform movement right now (although there are certainly plenty of people who wish they were).

Another big problem, of course, is that this talk page is an absolute disaster area. I seriously think we won't accomplish anything until we all take a deep breath / cup of tea / jaunt up the Reichstag dressed as Spider-man, and wait for all these overweight threads to expire, and start from scratch in a couple of weeks when hopefully at least a few of us have clearer heads. --Steve Summit (talk) 18:51, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

"Well, don't say I didn't warn you all." "Welcome to the new face of the reference desks." That looks very much like an admission that he was disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:49, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Reply to Steve Baker

User:SteveBaker wants to know why his proposal to create a subcommittee to propose new rules for the Reference Desk was not accepted. I see that there were different reasons for opposition. Some posters said that there isn’t a problem on the Reference Desks themselves, only on this talk page. Other posters didn’t think that the issue is with the rules themselves, but with how the rules are being applied (such as with disagreement about what constitutes medical advice). I in particular opposed because I didn’t see the need to kick the can down the road by appointing a subcommittee, when I thought that the way forward was by the Requests for Comments process. There are several reasons why various posters opposed Steve’s idea. I don’t think that any of those who supported or opposed thought that the existing rules, or the lack of rules that Steve now thinks we have, would justify arbitrary removal of responses. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:47, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

People are free to support or oppose a proposal developed by the subcommittee. I don't think they can oppose the subcommittee itself. You are free to decline your nomination, but I hope you don't. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:56, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

• I suggest the RfC process might work a lot better if we tried one thing (line item) at a time, rather than an entire overhaul at once. I support bringing back the old guideline asking users if they have used a search engine, and asking them to tell us what articles they have read, and providing a link to the info on the web they are referring to. As for disputes over the application of rules, ask two Rabbis and you'll get three opinions. The poor will always be with us. μηδείς (talk) 18:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

• I also count 7 "Oppose" votes, so I must be one of those. And you tell me I failed to reply to your follow up! I can't find any follow up. I did state that we should wait on the Dweller-initiated proposal, since it comes from higher up and is backed by experience. But your "serious proposal", which I genuinely disagree with, but not vehemently, came straight after Dweller's thread. In fact, I was rather miffed at you for failing to respond to my point about this other process. We can all ping Dweller on his talk page and ask him to keep going with this, and throw our support behind something that has a chance of working, as I have done. I see no other way forward. I used to agree with you to the point of wanting to give you my proxy on almost anything, but this has changed radically, and I can't identify with you in this thread. I agree the ref desk ain't what it used to be, but I think Dweller is more likely to have the solution than you. IBE (talk) 21:47, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

@SteveBaker: can you actually reply to this please? I specifically want to know whether you intend to support Dweller's process. He is experienced at solving conflicts on Wikipedia, and I feel we will have more luck with him. The constant deluge of flowcharts and more discussion and subcommittees is getting a bit much. IBE (talk) 08:22, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I didn't see much promise in Dweller's approach - and I have a TON of experience in conflict resolution at Wikipedia myself. But I'm tired of trying to push this particular giant rock up the hill - so I'll duck out for a while and see if anyone else can do something. SteveBaker (talk) 04:08, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

@SteveBaker: Thanks, and that's fair enough. For you or anyone, the advantage of Dweller's process is that it comes from outside. Not that your experience doesn't count, but this is external to the people involved, and looks promising to me. I hope we will at least support it, since I think we need outside de-stressing influences. IBE (talk) 10:36, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Can we please try to stay on topic?

Among the many reasons that almost none of the discussion on this page has gotten anywhere is that the following pattern keeps happening:

1. Person A makes a serious point and invites agreement (or disagreement)
2. Person B or C immediately replies with an inflammatory comment which is almost (but not quite) completely unrelated to A's point
3. The reply in (2) being inflammatory, a horde of people jump on it, either agreeing or disagreeing, but in any case absolutely ensuring that
4. The original point in (1) is now completely obscured, and no one ends up responding to it at all.

So please, let's not do this, and if it keeps happening, we may have to find an acceptable way of refactoring the 2-3 subthread so that point (1) is clearly left open for discussion. --Steve Summit (talk) 19:03, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, and that's part of the reason for the subcommittee. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:07, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

The core problem is the lack of good faith shown to established editors. Too often, these discussions begin with "What are we going to do about [user]?" rather than "What are we going to do about contentious issues - such as how to identify and handle requests for professional advice?" When it starts by attacking someone or some ones, naturally those attacked will defend. And it goes downhill from there. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:15, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

• I'll post this here, but someone can move it elsewhere if necessary. We currently have 169 live question on the ref desks at this time, with few or no hats, and some contested deletions that are abnormal, so I will ignore them. I again assert that there is no real problem on the desks, but just as Rob alluded to, my opinion that this page is the real problem. We have the phrase in American politics, a "do-nothing congress", as if that were a bad thing. But murder and treason and counterfeiting and assault and criminal negligence and practicing medicine without a license are all already illegal. Sometimes congress doesn't need to do anything. Just implementing rule creep for the sake of rule creep is not progress, it's regress. μηδείς (talk) 19:28, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Romance advice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

YAP: Yet Another Proposal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wrapping it up

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

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

Here is the version I am considering:

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Recommended Decision-Making Flowchart & Guide to Answering Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WickWack is back

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

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

Well, the necessary conditions are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thankyou, @Tevildo:.

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

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

What is wrong with this?

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

i am women

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a previous discussion about this, @Jayron32:. If you want to check through the archives at [6], please go ahead. I looked through, and found no real consensus. Hence I edited the medical page, after a protracted discussion which you may remember. Your repeated ignorance of this is getting tiresome. There is disagreement among editors about the best policy here. You continually ignore this, or make flippant comments about it. I find this irksome. Please desist. IBE (talk) 15:21, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

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

In that case, my apologies, @Jayron32:. The impression came from this and other earlier comments. However, I respect your process. I do rather think we did it to death here [7] and I rather tentatively made the changes, and stated that there was a "reasonable" consensus, which does not mean outright. But you are well within your rights, so thankyou for taking it to an RFC. IBE (talk) 17:30, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time to get back to work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Proper Handling of Request for Legal Advice

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

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

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