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Merry Xmas!

Merry Christmas community members!

This is for all the Wiki-Ladies

And for Wiki-Gents - Lets do something new this Christmas together

Hope you have a lovely Christmas.

Space Ghost (talk) 22:48, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Very nice. :) Tomorrow is a good day to hit the gym and go a few rounds, as it will be Boxing Day. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:33, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Merry Whatever-Doesn't-Offend-You ! :-) StuRat (talk) 16:33, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Love you guys (all)! -- Space Ghost (talk) 21:36, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Read Boxing Day. While going to the gym is a good way to get off any weight one has gained from Christmas dinner, the name of the day does not refer to a martial art, but to the regifting of presents in boxes, formerly by wealthy Britons to their servants, so engage in any sort of exercise that you want to engage in. Also, if you then eat a lot of the leftovers from Christmas dinner, you might still need to work off more weight. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:28, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

And Yuletide Felicitations to you, Space Ghost. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:27, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

-- Space Ghost (talk) 21:02, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Notice to Good-Faith Unregistered Editors

This talk page and some of the Reference Desks have been semi-protected again due both to trolling and to outright vandalism (the unexplained removal of posts). I am aware that most of the unregistered editors at the Reference Desks are good-faith editors, but because there are a few bad-faith unregistered editors (trolls, vandals, and other subspecies of Internet riff-raff), I would suggest that you seriously consider registering. Most of the arguments against registering are mistaken. For instance, some unregistered editors think that they protect their privacy better that way. Pseudonymous user IDs have better privacy than IPs. Registration has several advantages. The obvious one at the Reference Desks is the ability to edit through semi-protection. So, if any good-faith unregistered editors are reading, consider registering. (Since this talk page serves for multiple reference desks, the use of the feature of requesting an edit does not work as well as it does at articles.) Robert McClenon (talk) 19:12, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Seconded. More specifically, (1) we know where you live, and (2) one could launch a DoS attack or other bad stuff against your IP address. Exposing your IP address is a Bad Idea from a security standpoint. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:37, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Actually, we don't know where they live, that's a complete fallacy. These vandals use IP cloaking software and can change IP addresses (and hence "where they live") every minute. To think otherwise is extremely naive I'm afraid. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:44, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm speaking to the good-faith IP users, per this section's heading. Most of them have IP addresses that don't change very often, and don't cloak their geolocation. Mine, for example, went unchanged for about five years and correctly shows my location. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:47, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Ok, but that's still not true, many good faith editors using IPs can and do cloak their IP addresses, for this very reason. It's trivial, some browsers provide it as a feature. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:50, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Point taken, leaving the elimination of the need to do that (there must be at least some small performance hit involved in that) and the other few dozen reasons to register. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:53, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Any performance hit would be negligible, how large are even the largest Wikipedia pages? You wouldn't notice it. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:59, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we have many good-faith IP users, but some IP-hopping trolls, especially the recent foul-penned IP who uses 119.202.84.124‎; 46.241.20.93‎; 162.248.243.167‎; 174.61.146.61‎; 175.214.114.70‎; 176.36.58.132‎; 182.239.181.212‎; 197.46.255.97‎; 2.132.159.228‎; 203.243.3.13‎; 210.217.150.148; 121.130.53.145‎; 27.1.179.7‎; 36.3.252.154‎; 36.72.119.27‎; 157.7.133.230‎; 123.109.127.76‎; 59.6.194.166‎; 61.94.133.83‎; 116.41.206.254‎; 115.252.130.5‎; 112.121.8.40‎; 107.195.141.240‎; 1.34.157.111‎; 1.236.233.212‎; 113.151.114.168‎; 101.99.7.237‎; 221.118.44.26 etc. -- and that's all this morning! Dbfirs 12:00, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your point is. But, if most good-faith users of the desks were registered, it would be more acceptable to semi-protect them when necessary as a defense against said IP-hopping trolls. In effect, then, the good-faith users who don't register are helping enable the ongoing disruption of the desks by bad-faith IPs. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:16, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

We need some better abuse filters for sure. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:28, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Actually, and I'm sure this has been pointed out more than once, there's little gained by leaving the page unprotected when it's so difficult to sneak in a good-faith edit while the page is in its normal state. I think only one such edit occurred during the 90 minutes of continuous reverting today. Otherwise, there was no good-faith use of the page, registered or not, and it might as well have been semi'd. At least then it would have been usable by autoconfirmed users. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:48, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I suppose we could have given the vandal exactly what he wanted, yes. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:23, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

He said that's what he wanted. What if, heaven forbid, trolls don't always tell the truth? What he wanted was disruption, and which is more disruptive, 90 minutes of reverts that almost completely disable the page for everyone, or semi-protection that disables it only for unconfirmed users? I say the former, and I say you were played. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:17, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Say what you like, no skin off my nose. I'll leave it to others to worry about from now on since it's clear that there's nothing but criticism coming out of this. FWIW, the Humanities desk has been semi-protected until late-March, if you'd prefer that for all the reference desks, just ask at WP:RPP, should be simple enough to do that across all the ref desks, for consistency. Or perhaps we simply disallow IP editors from contributing to this specific part of Wikipedia altogether (which, effectively, is what medium-to-long term protection means). Perhaps write that up somewhere so IPs know that they're not part of this microcosm of Wikipedia after all. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:36, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

And just re-visiting your claim of a "few dozen reasons to register", there's a total of twelve, one of which is to vote for picture of the year? Your own talkpage? IPs have talk pages. Unified login? If an IP wants to edit Wikpiedia, who cares about "unified login"? Honestly, don't brainwash yourself. And more importantly, don't try to brainwash others. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:43, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I personally do not consider unregistered editors who use IP cloaking to be good-faith editors, but that is my opinion, and others may disagree. I personally think that a mistake was made more than a decade ago in allowing unregistered editors most of the same privileges as autoconfirmed pseudonymous editors. I am aware that decision is not likely to be changed within the next few years if ever, but I personally generally support nibbling away at it, including the use of semi-protection (rather than pending changes protection) against bad-faith unregistered editors. My original comment had been that good-faith unregistered editors should register. Even if most of the advantages of registration are trivial, the perceived disadvantages of pseudonymous registration are invincibly ignorant. A few unregistered editors know, beyond knowledge, that they will compromise their privacy by registration. (They will compromise their privacy from Checkusers if indeed they give reason to do Checkuser, but I am not persuaded that there is a privacy right to be a sock-puppet.) A few unregistered editors then whine whine whine about how their rights are abridged by semi-protection, when they always can just register. That is my opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:01, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Has anyone considered pending changes protection instead of semiprotection? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:02, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, I wasn't even sure that pending changes was still in widespread use. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:04, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Pending changes is not in widespread use. I don't know if it ever was in widespread use. But it does exist. I disagree with using it for the Reference Desks, but that is only my opinion. I would prefer to completely lock out the bad-faith unregistered editors, and let the chips fall where they may, and encourage the good-faith unregistered editors to register. I still don't think that they have valid reasons for not registering. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:15, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Does that mean the change would not happen until a user with pending-changes enabled approves it? If so, it's certainly worth a try. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:40, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, that's precisely what would happen. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:42, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Details are at Wikipedia:Pending changes. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:50, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps that's a great first step, putting all the RDs under pending changes would at least allow regular editors while stopping boring psychopathic IPs. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:53, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure pending changes is sufficient here. The edits would still happen, they would still be in the history, they would still be seen by regular editors, they would still have to be reverted, IP vandals could still revert-war over them if they chose to, they could still create confusion. In the case of the "Vote (X) for Change" disruption on the humanities and language desks, I don't really like the idea. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:57, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

To clarify, if there's a psycho-vandal pending change, but a normal editor makes an edit, is that edit then automatically accepted, overtaking the psycho-vandal's edit? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:02, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the claim that "The edits would still [...] be seen by regular editors":

"When a page under pending changes protection is edited by an unregistered (also called IP) editor or a new user, the edit is not directly visible to the majority of Wikipedia readers, until it is reviewed and accepted by an editor with the reviewer right." -WP:PC.

  --Guy Macon (talk) 05:05, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's probably true for articles, assuming that "the majority of Wikipedia readers" are unregistered. But how large is that proportion on the refdesks? How many unregistered people read here, apart from the few that have been asking questions at any given moment? In any case, I'm not convinced it would make a difference to the trolls either way. Their purpose in doing what they do is not to reach some other unregistered readers; their purpose is to force their presence on us, the regulars, and they will have reached that purpose no matter whether other unregistered people see it or not. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:47, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I think that the assumption is that the majority of Wikipedia readers are unregistered or not logged in. However, the majority of Wikipedia editors are registered. I think that that applies to article space. The Reference Desk is primarily used by registered editors to talk to other registered editors, and secondarily by a combination of good-faith unregistered editors and bad-faith unregistered editors. So any statement about a majority of readers is not applicable. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:13, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I just made a test edit to Wikipedia:Pending changes/Testing/4 using an alternate account (User:TestAccountZboxx3R7ql001). I confirmed that the page did not contain the edit (but did contain a small box saying that there are pending changes) when I was not logged in, logged in as a non-autoconfirmed user, logged in as an autoconfirmed user, and as an autoconfirmed user with pending changes reviewer rights. In all cases the page did not have the edit.

I then reverted the edit using this account (I am a pending changes reviewer). The small box that says there are pending changes went away, and of course the page did not have the edit. Again, it looked exactly the same when I was not logged in, logged in as a non-autoconfirmed user, logged in as an autoconfirmed user, and as an autoconfirmed user with pending changes reviewer rights.

In all cases the edit could be viewed by going to the history, which in my opinion is an important safeguard against a pending change reviewer misusing the user right.

I could find no example where registered and unregistered users see anything different. With all due respect, it appears that the above comment is based upon a misunderstanding of how PC works. Could it be that administrators see something different? I am unable to test for that. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:04, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Please put it back, and I'll see if I can see it while logged out. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:40, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Done. BTW, what you will see depends on the setting "Show the difference between the latest accepted version and the latest pending revision when editing pages" in your preferences. I believe the default is to have that option unchecked. I will confirm that and will check whether those who are not PC reviewers even see that option the next time I log out. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:07, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

OK, the "Show the difference between the latest accepted version and the latest pending revision when editing pages" check box in the preferences is only there if you have PC reviewer rights. The rest of the options are the same. In Preferences --> Recent changes --> Pending Changes, the defaults are "Use small icons and minimal text to show review status of pages" and "Use the default settings for each page".

If you choose "Always show the latest version" it shows the edit even though it has not been accepted. If you choose "Always show the stable version (if there is one)" or "Use the default settings for each page" it doesn't.

Are the default PC settings on any page set to "always show the latest version"? It seems like that would stop the PC feature from working. Is there some situation where that would be useful? --Guy Macon (talk) 18:27, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm able to see it even when logged out. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:23, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I can't see it when logged out. I always clear my cache when testing things like this. Any chance you are seeing a cached version? Other than that, I don't know how Wikipedia can tell the difference between me not logged in and you not logged in. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:55, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I oppose Pending Changes for several reasons, including: (a) they will prevent people from acting on IPs who potentially could be reporting serious abuses; (b) regular edits can get stuck behind the IP edits and not show up either until a reviewer happens along; (c) the system is not reputed to work well under high volume, and our whole problem is that IPs want to deliver high volume. Wnt (talk) 16:40, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Protection of ref desks

All, this morning we had a minor blip of attacks from a determined IP-hopping vandal on the Miscellaneous desk. The desk was at no point protected but it was unusable, as the IP vandal changed addresses every minute or so and continued to attack the board. I noticed that the Humanities desk is semi-protected until late-March 2016. This very talkpage is protected until 29 December. It seems we have a very inconsistent approach to this across the Ref Desks and associated talk pages. Is this deemed to be acceptable, that IP visitors can edit some desks and not others? And some are protected for a few days, while others may need protection for three or four months? The thread above, I believe, is an attempt to forewarn the concept of long-term semi-protection across all such pages. Is that was is required here so that "genuine" editors can participate here, and IPs are effectively banned? The Rambling Man (talk) 14:44, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

A couple of ideas, one new, one old:

(1) March seems excessive, and the 29th might not be enough. To fix the inconsistency, when protecting one, set a standard such as 5 to 10 days, and then protect them all at once, for the same amount of time, so the troll doesn't get to jump to other desks to continue the havoc. That protection would also extend to this page.

(2) Create a separate, non-protected page for the sole purpose of requesting the posting of questions, to be used whether or not the pages are protected.

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:35, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I feel your characterization of the preceding thread is inaccurate. I can only speak for myself but I certainly did not say or intend anything about long-term semi. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:55, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Really semi-relevant to the point being made, but if you insist on derailing this, then that's your play. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:58, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I wish I had a clue what I'm insisting on derailing, but I'll cease forthwith. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:04, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I wish you had a clue too. Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:05, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't have a clue either as to what User:The Rambling Man says that User:Mandruss is derailing, but I would suggest that implying that an experienced editor doesn't have a clue (in general) is uncivil. I am aware that a few editors think that civility in Wikipedia is optional. If so, please show me the policy that says that civility is optional. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:54, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Unless the vandals are using bots, one or two determined refdesk regulars can undo vandalism as fast as a vandal can introduce it. I'm not sure we have enough determined refdesk regulars any more, but my preference would be for more manual vandalism removal, and less (much less) semiprotection. —Steve Summit (talk) 16:17, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Today's vandal wasn't using a bot, but as noted above, it rendered the desk unusable for over an hour. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:20, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Does ClueBot or one of the other antivandalism bots watch the RDs? If not, should it? —Steve Summit (talk) 18:03, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

It might do, but it doesn't do more than revert a couple of times. Once the psycho-anon changes IP addresses, it starts all over again. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:05, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

My understanding is that ClueBot and the like reliably detect blatant vandalism (which the recent spate certainly was!) and revert it almost instantly. Whether the same or different vandalism was or wasn't performed recently by the same or a different IP is immaterial. Is my understanding incorrect? —Steve Summit (talk) 18:10, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

No, that sounds right, but once it's reverted a couple of times, it's no use. And if the signbot gets involved, more issues arise. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:12, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

When the vandal is just as determined as the regular is, you end up playing pingpong with the IP-hopping vandal... until such time as an admin notices it and semi's the page yet again. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:54, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

First, I agree that there is too much inconsistency in the protection of the reference desks. Often they are not protected long enough, and occasionally they are protected too long (although I personally would favor long semi-protection in general). When one desk is protected, I would suggest that they all be protected. Otherwise the trolls or vandals just move around in a game of Whack-a-Mole. I disagree with Bugs idea of creating a special page for non-protected edits. The good-faith unregistered editors can register, and the trolls and vandals will just use it for their mischief. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:09, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

There is no particular need for "consistency" between the various ref desk pages, as long as the problems on each are different, which is the case. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:59, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

We tried an edit filter for a while, but that also became a game of whack-a-mole as they tried to get around it, making it little more effective than just blocking the IPs. Sam Walton (talk) 21:02, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I personally think that, although no solution is ideal, Bugs' second proposal has the best balance of advantages and disadvantages. It means that IP users will still be able to use the desks, and that vandals won't be able to disrupt them, as happened this morning. The open page will still be liable to vandalism, but we won't need to deal with it "real-time" to keep the main desks running. Tevildo (talk) 23:41, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

@Sam Walton: Semi-protecting this page really makes me wonder where the buck stops. I think the edit filter approach can work, but it must be an open source edit filter. No more "trust me, I have a secret formula" security through obscurity. The filter I want is simple: it should allow non-autoconfirmed editors to add text to this page, but not change or remove it; each edit must be a single continuous block of added text and it must contain a four-tilde signature or it will be rejected. That can be an upfront policy and there's no getting around it. Added text is not nearly as much a problem as deleted text because everyone sees added text and can decide how to handle obvious abuse, whereas the deletions require people to look at the history. Wnt (talk) 16:27, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I'll add that the signature must be at the end of the added text, save for a few characters of whitespace. This is to deal with the problem that Abe says "I am an analyst for SuperCo --Abe" and Bozo makes it "I am an analyst on this case. --Bozo /n I am a lunatic looking to write ads for SuperCo --Abe". People expect a signature to work backward and so that is what we must demand of the IPs. Wnt (talk) 16:36, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Very good suggestion and well worth implementing across the ref desks wholesale. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:55, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I would also support this - indeed, can we extend the signature requirement to logged-in users? Tevildo (talk) 18:25, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

It's far from a solution that would make protection or other edit filters superfluous, but it would probably be some help. I'm not sure it can be implemented technically though. Edit filters have to be stated in terms of regular expressions. Are those criteria evaluated before the replacement of ~~~~ with the actual signature, or after? If the former, the filter would be easy to set up; if the latter, not so. (Also, no, it wouldn't be right to enable it for logged-in users too: regular editors do sometimes have to make edits without a signature of their own – e.g. refactorings of scussions, or reinstating postings that were removed accidentally or by a vandal.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:54, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I was afraid it might require new code to do this, but if the idea has enough support we can request it. I think that established editors can be trusted to refactor their own comments here; imposing this restriction on everyone would make a talk page into almost a sort of lab notebook, which is more formal than we generally need. Wnt (talk) 12:34, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: I took this to WP:VPT; we'll see what they say. Wnt (talk) 22:16, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request

Please add the following under WP:RD/L#Referring to art works by the artist's name:

• I agree that works of literature are not referred to in the style "three Shakespeares", but I don't think this extends to genre or series fiction. "Three John Grishams" or "three Agatha Christies" seems a normal enough usage to me. Or similarly, "Are there any more Agatha Christies here?" And just as people might see (or not see) "the latest Almodovar", so they might read (or not read) "the latest Grisham". Of course, if the series features a single lead character, the character's name may be used in the same way, but that's another matter. --76.69.45.64 (talk) 05:19, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

 Done ―Mandruss ☎ 09:34, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

And another semi-protected edit request

Please add this under WP:RD/H#GSD:

I've done some searching in Google Books and it seems that in the Improved Order of Red Men, a month was called a "moon", a year was a "great sun", and G.S.D. stood for "great sun of discovery", that is, the year counting from Columbus's first arrival in the New World. Although the word "moon" might suggest a lunar calendar, they used the same one we do, just with the months renamed and the years renumbered. One source I found in Google Books for this is H. L. Mencken's book The American Language, 1945 edition. --76.69.45.64 (talk) 05:52, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

 Done ―Mandruss ☎ 09:32, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Request to Deal with Request for Vandalism

IP blocked
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
We just had an unregistered editor make a request that another editor vandalize one of the reference desks. Can an administrator please block the requesting IP as a would-be vandal? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:20, 30 December 2015 (UTC) Geez, it was a joke. You don't seriously think I was expecting someone to vandalize on my behalf, do you? The two above topics are both edit requests, I just on a whim made a joke one, mostly to show up the tediousness of semi-protection. You reverted it, that's the end of the matter as far as I am concerned. If punishing me makes you happy though, you could try reporting it to WP:AIV 62.37.237.15 (talk) 19:33, 30 December 2015 (UTC) Read Don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. You disrupted Wikipedia to make a point. Maybe this talk page should be semi-protected. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:35, 30 December 2015 (UTC) Read WP:STICK. It was a joke. It's gone now. There's no further issue unless you make one yourself. By all means overreact, have me banned, and have the talk page protected if that's what you want. Or you could sit down and have a nice cup of WP:TEA and let the matter be confined to the history tab. 62.37.237.15 (talk) 19:38, 30 December 2015 (UTC) Next time you take a plane, talk in a loud voice about hijackings and bombings, and see if the flight crew sees humor in it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:23, 30 December 2015 (UTC) Because a joke on the reference desk and hijacking a plane are totally the same, right? What an hysterical hyperbole of a comment. 62.37.237.15 (talk) 20:46, 30 December 2015 (UTC) It's true that the one could only lead to an edit block, while the other could lead to a cell block. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:07, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 January 2016

Please post this answer on the Language Desk under December 30, the question about Jamais mon amour. Thanks!

More likely than it being a translation of an English song, it refers to a French song. If you google the phrase, all the first hits are lyrics sites for the song Jamais mon amour by the French singer Castelhemis.184.147.121.46 (talk) 00:12, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

184.147.121.46 (talk) 00:12, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Done. Tevildo (talk) 09:43, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks.184.147.121.46 (talk) 13:43, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Three months?

The Language desk has been semi-protected since December 23. The block will expire after 3 months. This on the grounds that in one contributor's opinion "keeping this page open to IPs is simply not worth the trouble".

I say harrumph, and also, "no consensus here for that". --76.69.45.64 (talk) 19:29, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree (with the lack of consensus, that is). But others seem to believe that we have to destroy the desks in order to save them. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:38, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

That's a funny one. So are you volunteering to watch them 24 x 7 in lieu of semi-protecting them? Or do you figure that's somebody else's job? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:12, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Bugs, that is a thinly-veiled personal attack, a lack of assumption of good faith, and it is not funny. —Steve Summit (talk) 01:58, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Retract your ridiculous comment about "destroying the ref desks" and I'll retract my response. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:25, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

That's a fair point. Some people feel we have to redefine the Reference Desks as we have known them in order to save them. —Steve Summit (talk) 14:45, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree that this "cure" is worse than the "disease". StuRat (talk) 20:01, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

IPs can leave an edit request at WT:RD. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:36, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Here's what happens when you try to ask a question on a protected desk, if you don't have an account here.

(1) You see the usual top of the desk, "Welcome to the language reference desk" etc, and click the blue "Ready? Ask a new question!" button. (i.e., your first impression is that your question is welcomed and invited.)

(2) Clicking, you get "Permission error. You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reason: This page is currently semi-protected so that only established registered users can edit it." (Which is probably incomprehensible jargon to someone new.)

(2b) However, that page also has a "What can I do?" section, with a new blue button "Submit an edit request". (Note that the instructions say this isn't for asking questions, but only for "if you have noticed an error or have a suggestion for a simple change". It may not be clear you can still go ahead and ask your question, or maybe people won't read all this and will just click the button anyway. It certainly isn't welcoming.)

(3) Clicking, you get a new section on this talk page. The entire top of the screen is warnings and lengthy instructions, and includes a big yellow banner reading "Please do not ask knowledge questions on this page. This talk page is where the reference desk itself is discussed. To choose an appropriate reference desk to visit, click here." (Clicking "here" takes you back to the main desk splash page.)

184.147.121.46 (talk) 12:56, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

You realize that not displaying that potentially misleading "click here" you're mentioning in point (3) would require having edit attempts on protected pages tracked, it is not practical. The rest is only normal routine. Otherwise I'm also presented with that rude yellow red-banner "Please do not ask", presently, so you did it all right. --Askedonty (talk) 15:01, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

What I mean to say, is that normal routine is not at all user-friendly for the good faith newcomer/reader. Can the wording in (2) be improved, or the step bypassed while the desks are protected? Can the yellow banner in (3) be removed while the desks are protected?184.147.121.46 (talk) 16:10, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Why not encourage ref desk regulars to become reviewers and then give pending changes protection a try? -- ToE 01:10, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, pending changes are visible, which kind of defeats the purpose. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:16, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

No, I don't mean flagged revisions. Have you read (at least the lead of) WP:Pending changes? -- ToE 02:14, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Try a test and see if it works. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:25, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Bugs, try setting your preferences to the defaults. It looks like you have set them to make pending changes visible and are now assuming that everyone sees what you see. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:41, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Forget it. Just implement it and see if it fends off the IP's and redlinks successefully. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:09, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

The Reference Desk is found when you click the "Help" link in the left sidebar, where it is advertised with this wording:

If searching Wikipedia has not answered your question (for example, questions like "Which country has the world's largest fishing fleet?"), try the Reference Desk. Volunteers there will attempt to answer your questions on any topic, or point you towards the information you need.

That is, it is presented as a service for readers, not a service for the people who are writing the encyclopedia (that service is Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request). "Fending off IPs and redlinks" fundamentally changes the nature of the service. 184.147.121.46 (talk) 13:08, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

That service does not implicitly extend to trolling IPs and redlinks, which is the problem being discussed here yet again. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:27, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

But it's a fair point. Very few of the approximately 4 billion IPs (not counting V6) do troll. What is the threshold for disruption we accept? We don't ban the sale of gasoline despite arsonists, or cars despite "average" drivers. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:12, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

The bottom line is how much time you and your fellow admins want to spend dealing with the trolls. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:29, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

What's complicated is that there are three different costs -- three kinds of disruption -- we're juggling here:

• If there's unblocked vandalism, we waste significant amounts of volunteer time reverting it
• If vandalism goes unreverted, the appearance of the desks to visitors is diminished
• If we protect the desks, unregistered editors can't easily ask or answer questions

Now, various of us have very different opinions as to which of these costs we're more or less willing to bear. —Steve Summit (talk) 20:51, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Pending changes protection stops vandalism just as well as semiprotection does, but allows unregistered editors to easily ask and answer questions. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:18, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Pending changes protection says that autoconfirmed and confirmed users "can edit; changes go live immediately (if no previous pending changes remain to be accepted)". Thus anytime IPs edit at nearly the same time confirmed users do when a question gets posted the confirmed user may get "pended" too, which would likely be more of a problem for us and the OPs than even the IP and even more so for everyone than the present occasional hassle of an edit conflict. Perhaps this is why it says "Pending changes protection should not be used on articles with a very high edit rate, even if they meet the aforementioned criteria. Instead semi-protection should be considered." Of course most of us can become reviewers, but it will still take significant time for reviewers to read the queues, thus needlessly slowing down the question and answer process. Thus simply keep the length of semi-protections short as possible for everyone's sake. --Modocc (talk) 22:50, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Define "short". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:15, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Anything more than four days would be long, but long enough for a hot button topic to be archived or died out. So in comparison, short would be anything from two days to a few hours. And in the opposite direction, anything more than a week would be far too long. --Modocc (talk) 02:27, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Any length of time that the trolls feel like they can just "wait out" and then resume their mischief, is too short. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:44, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

The refdesk threads get archives after 1 week at the earliest, and the particular vandal in question here has been known to continue edit-warring persistently over the same threads for weeks, whenever they can. Protection time need to be measured in terms commensural to the known persistence of the vandals, and in this particular case that persistence can only be measured in months. Anything shorter just won't work. We've tried it; how many more times do people need to learn it doesn't work? When protection was lifted yesterday, the trolls were back within a day, one of them in less than an hour. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:57, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

The threads frequently do get archived at one week [1] and some threads may have already been active several days so a five day block would suffice. In any case, simply reapply semi-protection when that happens. As for "working", what makes you guys think the troll(s) will go away in three months when this has been happening for years? --Modocc (talk) 14:27, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Future Perfect at Sunrise, are we protecting the archives at all? I removed some of that trolling a couple of weeks ago; I really see no reason not to protect them. Drmies (talk) 16:59, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

kiss kiss kiss = xxx

How come, kisses in letters were/are abbreviated as xxx / x x x ? The oldest mentioning I find in 1937 Any games with pronounciation? Why not kkk ? Play It Again, SPAM (talk) 09:00, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

P.S. Why do I have to go through this hassle although I'm a registered user?

Even though you're a registered user, you're not autoconfirmed and thus still affected by semi-protection. You need ten edits and an account older than four days to become autoconfirmed. clpo13_(talk) 09:18, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Although someone closed this edit request as answered, the query was not acually added to a ref desk. I've posted it on the Miscellaneous desk. Deor (talk) 10:45, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Straw poll on primary goal in antivandalism efforts here

So as I mentioned above, different people have different things they're ultimately trying to uphold here, or at least, different costs they're willing to bear. And this may end up being sort of like the old "good, fast, cheap -- pick two" dilemma.

So, separate from all the debates on what to do, let's have a three-way rank-ordered straw poll on what people would like to achieve. You may agree with at most one of the following three statements, and for rank-ordering purposes you may weakly agree with a second. (No need for "disagree" or "oppose" !votes in this poll, I think.)

Although I certainly have my own (rather strong) opinions here, I have tried to word these three alternatives neutrally. I have probably not succeeded. Therefore, for the next four hours or so, until 16:00 UTC on 2016-01-06, the wording of the three alternatives is subject to good-faith alteration. If you !vote in the next four hours, you may need to check back later and possibly change your !vote if you agree differently with a possibly different final wording. (But I hope we can avoid getting into any huge debates about the wording, as that tends to very quickly drown out any actual results from the poll.) And remember, for the most part this is a poll about ultimate goals, not the mechanisms we use to get there. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:39, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

The most important thing is to minimize vandalism

Vandalism must not persist on the desks. Vandalism must be reverted as soon as possible after it is committed, or ideally prevented from occurring in the first place.

• Weakly agree. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:39, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• Weakly agree with the provision that it refers to obvious vandalism under WP:AGF. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:50, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• Agree with the same provisions as Stephan. However, I am opposed to any form of long-term semi-protection (short-term protections of at most a few days are acceptable for me if necessary, though). Pending changes isn't perfect but I would very much prefer it over semi. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 12:12, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

The most important thing is that the desks continue to be openly usable by unregistered editors

The desks are a resource for all of Wikipedia's readers, not all of whom have registered yet. They must be able to freely ask questions and participate in discussions. (But at least for the purposes of this discussion, having to request an edit to a protected page does not constitute free, open access.)

• Agree. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:39, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• Agree. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:49, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• Agree - The reference desks have been affected by such trolls for a long time now, but locking it down just because of it, at the expense of good-faith editors, isn't doing favors. Doing so could potentially turn away potential editors, and while it could be argued that the same can be said of semi-protected articles, the reference desks are different in that they're (in theory) supposed to be pages open for asking questions. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 12:12, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• Agree. Deor (talk) 14:09, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• Strongly Agree. These desks have absolutely served everyone well, so please keep up this good work and have a Happy New Year! -Modocc (talk) 16:22, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• Agree. Hey Deor! Happy new year! Drmies (talk) 16:58, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• Strongly Agree. As the first experience in Wikipedia for many people, as it was for me, it should be friendly. Between not being allowed to post and then getting slapped down for their post when they do get access, we may be scaring quite a few people away. StuRat (talk) 19:45, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
  • How many sincere users have been "slapped down" here? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:49, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• Agree. All efforts to minimize disruption should always keep this in mind as a goal. --Jayron32 21:10, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

We should not allow trolling at the desks

• Support Not sure why "vandalism" is being talked about, the problem here is trolling. The ref desks are already a hotbed of trolling, we need to continue to prevent it or we will alienate the new users who come here. Do people really think the desks will be more welcoming to new users if we don't prevent trolls from posting disgusting or racist questions? They will look at the place and think "Oh, this is a troll fest, lets go find a website that has some class". HighInBC 16:28, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

The most important thing is to minimize manual antivandalism work by volunteer editors

There is a strong preference for automated antivandalism mechanisms (including page protection and antivandalism bots); manual reversion is not generally adequate.

This poll presents a False dilemma

By picking three possible "most important things" and asking the reader to choose from that limited selection, this poll introduces a strong bias towards those three "most important things" and against more nuanced solutions.

• Support --Guy Macon (talk) 14:22, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be a false trilemma? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:30, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support - I agree with User:Stephan Schulz, but the number of qualifying statements in supporting various choices indicates that it isn't time for a straw poll that excludes nuanced discussion. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:18, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support The most important thing is that we make an encyclopedia. The whole ref desk thing is getting further and further from that. New users can work on building an encyclopedia. There is a huge difference between vandalism and trolling too, and an area being soft on trolling is hard on the whole project. This whole poll is framed in such a way as to gain a bias response. HighInBC 16:26, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support of course we want both to make the desks accessible to newbies and to keep the trolling/vandalism down. The big thing is not really trolling except with the obsessive cases, but questions that fall afoul of the guidelines based on the wikimedia disclaimer. μηδείς (talk) 19:13, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
• True - The missing choice is how to fend off trolls while still allowing sincere IP's and redlinks to use the ref desks. The core problem is a philosophical clash which shows no signs of finding a resolution. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:29, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Two Related but Conflated Problems

The underlying issue that this straw poll is attempting to address is when and how long should the reference desks be semi-protected. I will observe that there are two related but different problems that need to be recognized as separate, but that are sometimes conflated. The two problems are trolling and vandalism. Trolling has been a problem longer than vandalism, but is a problem requiring a more nuanced response. Trolling, at the reference desks, usually consists of the posting of questions that a reasonable observer can see are intended to provoke anger, or angry exchanges, or hate speech. There have been in the past some editors who have themselves become controversial by being very quick to respond to trolling, either by deleting or by hatting the troll post, and often by deleting or hatting the responses. Reasonable responses to trolling include ignoring it, deleting the troll exchange, hatting the troll exchange, semi-protecting the desk, and blocking the troll. It isn't always obvious whether a post is trolling, or, if it is, whether to ignore it or to respond. Vandalism at the reference desk usually consists of mass blanking, sometimes replacing it with hate speech or obscenity, or the mere introduction of obscenity or hate speech. Vandalism is a more straightforward problem. It should almost always be reverted, and the desk may be semi-protected and the vandal blocked. (Removing a single question is almost never vandalism. It may be a wise or unwise response to a perceived troll.) In discussing responses to what I will call bad conduct, we need to maintain the distinction between vandalism (straightforward) and trolling (more subtle). Vandalism must be prevented. The question is how, not whether. Trolling is undesirable, but there is not always agreement on what it is. Let's not conflate them. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:13, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I will add that some significant part of our response to trolling is driven not by the behavior of the trolls, but by our behavior in responding to them. We ban troll questions in part because we are collectively incapable of not responding to them (or, in a related way, because we sometimes respond in ways that others of us find objectionable, or because the arguments we get into over the appropriate response end up being even more disruptive than the original question). "We have met the enemy and he is us." —Steve Summit (talk) 17:28, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

As a side comment, another underlying issue is what rights unregistered editors should have anywhere in Wikipedia in the first place. That has never been satisfactorily addressed, and probably never will be. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:13, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: As too often happens here these days, one thread becomes many threads. How can we possibly hope to have a focused discussion and produce any worthwhile outcomes, while we constantly divide ourselves and in so doing conquer ourselves? I find myself less and less capable of even comprehending the issues, let alone participating in any resolution of them, when the discussions are spread among different threads all being carried on simultaneously. I find I come here, look, read, and go away dismayed, with nothing worthwhile to offer the many-threaded hydra. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:49, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Math Reference desk and med/legal comment.

All of the reference Desks have Wikipedia:Reference desk/header at the top. Thus all of them have "Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice." However of all the desks, the med/legal part seems least suitable for the Math Reference desk. Feelings?Naraht (talk) 17:11, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. Not giving medical or legal advice is still good advice. I see no need for different headers. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:15, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree that a single boilerplate for all desks is fine. While you wouldn't expect to see requests for medical advice on RDMA, we do occasionally get things like Long term level of drug in blood based on halflife. -- ToE 18:55, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

OK, thanx.Naraht (talk) 21:12, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 January 2016

Please add this answer to "Donald Trump and foreign reporters" on the Humanities Desk, thank you. 184.147.121.46 (talk) 17:40, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Try "Trump Mexican reporter", "Trump Canadian reporter", etc. [2], [3], [4]. 184.147.121.46 (talk) 17:40, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Modocc. 184.147.121.46 (talk) 18:58, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

When did Medeis and Baseball Bugs appeal and have their Reference Desk ban lifted?

I bring this up in light of, among other recent things, the frankly absurd and acceptable conduct shown by Medeis at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Have_you_ever_heard_.22eight-to-two.22_used_for_.22eighty-to-twenty.22_or_.22four-to-one.22.3F, where (s)he complained about a user's question (that two other users had had no trouble answering), bickered with him when he responded much more reasonably and patiently than Medeis had any right to expect, and then had the gall to close the tangent thread that (s)he had started with a message that implied the questioner had inappropriately/deceitfully edited the question. The question had indeed been edited, but only after two of us had managed to answer it just fine, and not in a way that remotely justified any of Medeis's behavior. If no one else has a problem with the question but you, the problem is probably with you, not with the question. If this had been an isolated incident, I might simply have ignored it, but the fact is that this sort of arrogant and disrespectful behavior is the rule rather than the exception with this user. This is something I've noticed personally as a frequent reader (but infrequent contributor) of the Reference Desk, and more importantly, something that the community at large has taken note of, with the result that Medeis was indefinitely banned from the Reference Desk pending an "appeal to the community." Since both (s)he and Baseball Bugs are again posting, I can only assume that appeal took place, but I've been unable to find the record of it. I am particularly interested in whether there were any stipulations relating to not continuing the problem behaviors. As I said, I'm quite inactive on the Reference Desk (and Wikipedia as a whole), so I am very reluctant to insert myself into this sort of "drama." But the bottom line is that I remember when I could read this desk and expect to find people giving their best efforts to provide answers to questions, even unclear/poorly written/ignorant ones, rather than a parade of complaints about how questions are asked, bad jokes, and closures and hattings. Seriously, just take a look at some archives from ~2010 or so...it's like a whole other world. And it seems to me like it's a very small number of users driving this, and Medeis above all. If his/her appeal was indeed approved pursuant to not being a problematic presence the Ref Desk again, then I think the ban needs to be reinstated. This needs to stop. -Elmer Clark (talk) 04:53, 7 January 2016 (UTC)