Wikipedia talk:Reference desk

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Proposal to delete Ref Desk

Just like clockwork, the complaint about Medeis to Admins has once again led to a proposal to ban the Ref Desk: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Time_to_close_down_the_ref_desks.3F. Bugs supports closing the Ref Desks. StuRat (talk) 17:48, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Mild support only. But if it happens, it would compel the busybodies to find someone else to harass. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:59, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Mildly harass. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:28, October 20, 2017 (UTC)

Moved to WP:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Should the Reference Desks be closed? -- ToE 08:22, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

In addition to BB, JBL and SteveBaker also support closing down the Ref Desk. It seems odd to me that people who oppose the Ref Desk's existence would spend so much time on it. StuRat (talk) 00:06, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it boggles the mind. It's like they are announcing to the rest of us "This is worthless, and should be destroyed, that's why I spend lots of time there." Steve at least has basically quit the ref desks, so his !vote is less embarrassing. JBL has a PhD in math, so I think he'd be smart enough to know he can just not read or post on the ref desks. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:19, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

You'd be amazed at how much time most people spend doing things they know isn't productive. ApLundell (talk) 19:15, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

But, less snarkily, I don't think there's any contradiction.

If the desk is here, it would be even more embarrassing for Wikipedia for it to be un-staffed.

ApLundell (talk) 19:20, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

AFAIK SteveBaker's comments there are accurate. He spends very little time here now. I don't see that there's anything wrong, or unusual, in people who used to spend time here feeling things have changed and it's no longer worth it. Or perhaps it was always pointless and they've only just realised. Or maybe some combination of both. This doesn't have to mean that the RD should be closed. On the other hand the RD is part of wikipedia so editors may feel it harms wikipedia in some way and reasonably feel it should be closed. Ignoring a problem is not always the best solution. These and other issues have been dealt with to some extent in that very discussion so I don't think they should be a surprised to anyone whether or not you agree with these views. Putting these two together, I'm not sure why it should be unexpected that someone who used to, but no longer, spent a lot of time here may now feel it should be closed. I would agree it's perhaps a little more surprising for anyone who does still spend a lot of time here, although there are various reasons even there why it may arise. Nil Einne (talk) 11:43, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Passing of a great contributor

After recently mentioning User:DrChrissy as one of our better ref desk respondents, it has come to my attention that DrChrissy has passed away this July. I'm not sure how many of you interacted with him here, but whenever I saw his red sig I always knew I was getting good references and explanations from a skilled expert who sincerely loved helping others learn and understand the wonders of biology. Some wikipedians are sharing memories and sympathy over at User_talk:DrChrissy#CHERISHED_MEMORIES, I assume at least some of his meatspace friends and family are reading along. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:11, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

A worthy opponent, he will be missed. Our last skirmish: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Humanities/2017_May_22#Agricultural_revolution_and_cats. StuRat (talk) 02:22, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

He called you out on your crap just like everyone else does. This isn't the Model UN, you don't skirmish with opponents here. You're obviously just openly trolling now. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:06, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

(I won't respond because this is not the appropriate place for an argument. StuRat (talk) 03:10, 25 October 2017 (UTC))

What can I say? I will sorely miss him, and his amazing explanations of animals, zoology, biology, and veterinary medicine! :( Eliyohub (talk) 14:03, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Closing questions reverted

I have reverted several question closures by Legacypc, as such closures are not the normal practice on these boards. The reasons given for a closure do not match the rules specified for these RD's. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:54, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

I will add a bit more: The references desks are not just for "building the encyclopedia". They are also there for readers to find out information that might be held in Wikipedia, or elsewhere. There is a clear prohibition on certain types of questions. But the "How do I ..." questions are not prohibited. They just need appropriate answers to say that Wikipedia has and that we cannot help with advice or opinions. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:34, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Agreed, and very similar to what I said to him at the Suits Q [1]: "You've made a fundamental mistake in thinking the purpose of the Ref Desk is SOLELY to improve Wikipedia articles. It does have that purpose, among others, including connecting people to references both inside and outside Wikipedia, and providing useful answers to them." StuRat (talk) 15:56, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. We can talk about reforming the RefDesk, but such reform should not be done unilaterally and out of the blue by a single editor. Obviously. ApLundell (talk) 03:57, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Agree as well. As I've said directly to LegacyPac, even if there is consensus for reform, the reform they appear to be trying to unilaterally enact makes no sense, except as a backdoor to close the RD. If we only allow content that related to improving articles or is otherwise allowed elsewhere on the encylopaedia, then the RD serves no purpose as that content should almost definitely be elsewhere. This doesn't mean that we should allow any and sundry forums posts, but rather by definition the RDs are intended to allow content that isn't allowed elsewhere namely requests for helping finding references and ultimately information for personal use, and that may or may not eventually relate to improving wikipedia. Nil Einne (talk) 10:58, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for not pinging me or spelling my name correctly Graeme Bartlett. I addressed your behavior reverting my closes on your talk page and at ANi but you failed to respond in either location. I believe you are an Admin and your behavior overturning my closes is unacceptable. StuRat is headed for a topic ban at ANi and his post here confirms he fails to understand WP:NOTFORUM . A large number of users support closing down the RefDesk, and I'm hardly trying to singlehandly reform things here. Legacypac (talk) 01:58, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

I would really like to know where you get the idea that you have the authority to impose a sacred "close" that can't be reverted. We don't have "closes" here, in the sense of concluding a discussion aimed at consensus. We do sometimes remove questions, and you can call that a "close" if you want to, but it's not at all the same sort of "close" you get at, say, AfD.

The relevant guideline is Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines#When removing or redacting a posting. It does indeed say that one shouldn't restore a question that has been removed simply because one disagrees with the rationale, so that's a point for you. But it also says the person removing a question should generally post a notice on the refdesk talk page (that's this page), and that the remedy if you disagree with a removal is to come to discuss it here. It has been discussed here, and opinion is clearly against you. --Trovatore (talk) 05:02, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

This is now being discussed at ANI. [2] ApLundell (talk) 02:03, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Ping versus user template

The user template does seem to ping me, but with a bug/feature: If used more than once on the same page, I am only pinged once for the page, not for each use. This means not for each Q on a Ref Desk board. So, we should probably avoid using it, and stick with either ping or no template at all. Have others had similar experiences ? StuRat (talk) 15:54, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

AFAIK, there is zero difference in how these work. Both of them simply rely on the user mentions feature of echo, which primarily requires a link to the user page and a newly signed post but also has various other requirements, see mw:Help:Notifications/Notifications types#Mentions and Wikipedia:Notifications for details. Of course as always, notifications aren't considered ultra reliable (including for example the possibility of people disabling them) so if it really matters, it's better to go to a user's user page. BTW it is possible to get notifications when you've failed to, or successfully mentioned another editor although I'm not sure if even these are guaranteed to be accurate. (Well obviously failed notifications alone isn't enough since if the software doesn't recognise you were trying to mention someone it can't tell you it failed. But it's theoretically possible that a successful mention is tied to a notification actually being sent although that would seem to raise privacy issues e.g. it effectively means a user's settings on user mentions are public. Nil Einne (talk) 10:48, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Notification of ANI discussion related to RD

This is a notification of a discussion at ANI related to the RD Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#StuRat's behaviour on the Reference Desks (again). I removed an earlier notification, due to concerns the notification may violate WP:Canvassing and dispute over how to deal with these concerns. Nil Einne (talk) 11:03, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Straw poll for reform: require one ref per each answer?

I am testing the waters here before proposing it formally in a widely-read forum. The idea emerged recently at an ANI thread (I had thought up along those lines before, but seeing it written was much clearer).

The idea would be that any post on the RefDesk that makes a factual statement in answer to a question must link to a source for that statement (the responder's authority not being enough source). I do not think a WP:RS-level source should be required (for instance, it happens regularly on the Computing RefDesk that the question was already asked and answered on StackOverflow, and it just was a matter of knowing which words to search), nor that any factual statement should be sourced (risks to stifle discussion and/or bureaucratic enforcement for WP:BLUE-like statements), but I mention both as being within my evaluation of the Overton window.

As a draft for the proposed wording, I suggest altering Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Guidelines#Guidelines_for_responding_to_questions as follows: (quoting only the modified paragraph)

Responses to posts should always attempt to answer the question and should almost always fall into one of three categories:

• direct answers or referrals to Wikipedia articles, web pages, or other sources, including at least one reference to a Wikipedia article, web page, or other source,
• clarifications of other answers, or
• requests for clarification.

Feel free to comment both on the philosophy and the wording. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 21:44, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

• Sounds good in theory. Try it for a month and see how it goes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:13, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose as easily gamed rule creep. That would mean that my recent comment to Lgriot at the language desk would have been improper, because I said I would look for an RS later, or it would mean the response was okay because I linked to something pro forma. Perhaps the standard should be that citing an RS be possible. Even then, this would mean that we would have to stop offering translations of notable texts and stop identifying objects and species in many cases. Even better, the standard should be on the question itself; that it be capable of being answered objectively. μηδείς (talk) 22:19, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

  Problems about questions are a matter for another discussion, feel free to open a new thread. But if you want my $0.02, we already have sufficient rules in place against such questions ("we don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate") - the problem is not to entertain questions that fail them.

As for that restriction being easy to game, it surely is an improvement over the "anything goes" that is, policy or not, the current practice. (See: nirvana fallacy)

I don't see how this is a problem for "identifying objects and species" (if you match a photograph to a species, surely you should give a ref for the species, and I would be dubious of such a ref without a picture).

Finally, translation could be carved in as an exception if that is one of a finite number of identified problems, but honestly, I don't see that as a problem. Giving your own translation is no better than giving your own recollection of what physics course you had ten years ago as an answer to a science refdesk question; and surely, we don't want people to do that when at least in theory there is a source out there (a professional translation for the notable text, a physics lecture for the science Q). Yes, if only knowledgeable, past-Dunning-Kruger-point people answered questions, that is an unneeded restriction; but experience has shown that's not the case (I refer you to the VPP thread for diffs, if you really need them). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 22:56, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion: Start with a machine translation for your ref, the add your own comments about where you think it is off. StuRat (talk) 23:17, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

• Comment. I'd like to see something along those lines, though I'm not sure what precisely. I think we need the ref desks to work like actual ref desks (with the emphasis on "ref") and with a bit of the rigor that's demanded of actual articles, rather than as free-form verbal diarrhea forums. There's a Michell & Web sketch on YouTube that I thought of when reading the ref desks recently, but I can't link to it as it's a copyvio - but I don't think there's any harm if I suggest "david mitchell reckon" as a search. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:24, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I like the heart of it. Anything to discourage wild-ass guessing and other off-putting filler. ... To me the problem with this proposal is that "requesting clarification" and "Clarifying answers" are very wide umbrellas. I can't really support it without being sure that we won't just create another grey-area to rules-laywer and debate. It may be easier to define narrow categories of prohibited answers, rather than try to define wide categories for all acceptable answers, but perhaps that's just the same can of worms. ApLundell (talk) 23:12, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

• We really do need to allow requests for clarification, like: "You just linked to a 1000 page document, what portion of it do you think answers the Q ?" ... "Oh, sorry, page 238, 3rd paragraph." StuRat (talk) 23:15, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree. But I can already imagine the rules lawyering on what constitutes legitimate clarifications and what's just noise and discussion. It already makes my head hurt. I acknowledge that I do not have a better suggestion, and perhaps I'm just being a pessimist. ApLundell (talk) 01:56, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Too rigid; would hamper good-faith responders and make the desks less useful. Really we do want access to people's personal knowledge, when that knowledge is real rather than imagined. It's unfortunate that some responders have too high an estimate of what they actually know, but I don't think this is the way to fix it. --Trovatore (talk) 23:18, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

  We do want access to people's personal knowledge, when that knowledge is real rather than imagined. But how would you propose to check that this knowledge is real rather than imagined? Forget about writing something that could be codified as a Wikipedia policy and pass an RfC, the problem runs deeper. By definition, whoever is posting that knowledge cannot know whether it is or not solid; if we require them to check upfront we might as well demand the reference they checked against (this is the intended effect of the proposal); and requiring validation by other editors, in addition to being rigid as well, is no guarantee by the same token (cf. the famous "What is the length of the Emperor of China's nose?" metaphor in Feynmann's Judging book by their covers).

If your argument is that getting some good but unsourced answers is worth getting some rubbish answers, at least for the current ratio of rubbish to unsourced-yet-good, fine - let's agree to disagree. But if your argument is that we should find some unspecified way to do better, I feel compelled to link again to the nirvana fallacy. Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 00:04, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, my position is as you say that "getting some good but unsourced answers is worth getting some rubbish answers". That doesn't mean we can't work on the S/N ratio, but it does mean that I think the current ratio is not a good reason to do anything drastic. --Trovatore (talk) 00:15, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose Ditto Trovatore's comments and because we already have the guideline "The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources." posted at the top of each page. Lets keep it simple. I doubt that adding more words would deter those that use the ref desks as a social gathering. -- Tom N talk/contrib 02:53, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Notice of ArbCom Request

I have requested that the ArbCom open a case concerning conduct at the Reference Desks. I have suggested that the ArbCom can take this on either of two tracks. The fast track would be to implement ArbCom discretionary sanctions as a device to permit expedited sanctions for editors who are disruptive in any of various ways. The slow track would be a full evidentiary hearing, which should result in discretionary sanctions as well, but could also result in the ArbCom imposing their own sanctions. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:42, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Conduct_at_Reference_Desks. Statements may be made to the ArbCom to support (or oppose) accepting the case. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:42, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Misc desk is 100% empty.

Did the bot get over-zealous, or has question volume really dropped that low? ApLundell (talk) 03:27, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, I was going to post a question on arm swing in human locomotion, but I found an article that answered my questions (is it learned, is it related to the gate of quadrupeds?) so I didn't. μηδείς (talk) 03:30, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

We may want to lengthen the time before archiving, as it looks like our Q's have reduced (possibly as a result of all this AN/I attention). I, for one, had some Q's I could have asked but opted not to, because of all this. StuRat (talk) 04:08, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

May I join this Leper colony? Bus stop (talk) 04:47, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Why not? This looks like a meeting of everyone Macon has on his Enemies List. The entertainment desk is also getting a little thin. It happens. I also note a BLP-based removal from the huge manatees desk.[3] It wasn't removed by Medeis, so it probably won't be challenged. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:49, 31 October 2017 (UTC)