Wikipedia talk:Reference desk

[edit]

For general questions, use the Reference Desks

Please post general questions on the relevant reference desk.
This page is for discussion of the Reference Desks only. Please don't post comments here that don't relate to the Reference Desks. Other material may be moved.

For guideline issues and policy proposals, use the relevant subpage

The guidelines for the Reference desk are at Wikipedia:Reference desk/guidelines.
Please discuss issues concerning the guidelines on its associated talk page, Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/guidelines, and more general proposals at the Village Pump. Off topic discussions may be moved.

For discussion about professional advice on the desks, use the relevant subpage

Please discuss professional advice on Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Professional advice.
Please don't post comments here that are about professional advice.

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(37) Aug 31-Sep 29 '07	(38) ?-? '07

User:Dweller/Dweller's Ref Desk thread of the week award - Sixth award

yeah. --Dweller 22:08, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Links at the bottom

Hi I browse, i guess like most of us, the different sections of the ref desk, humanities, science, etc. But then of course I'm usually at the bottom of the page reading the last posts. So every time I have to go back up to click on the link. I know this only takes a well aimed push of the home key but somehow it makes it very frustrating, it seems so unnecessary. Could please someone add the links to the different sections of the desk at the bottom of the page? Tadaaam. Keria 22:01, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that adding an extra table of contents at the bottom of each desk is a great idea! A.Z. 00:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that's impossible. How would the "add comment" functionality work then? Both "click here to ask a question" and the "+" at the top that everyone uses anyway use the comment style editing window. Of course, the + is only there due to a magic word, but I don't see another magic word for where new comments go in the interior of the page. Also I don't think it's possible to force something to the bottom of the content with CSS- only the bottom of the window. Could be wrong, but css based solutions would be nasty --froth^t 18:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Hold on I have an idea.. --froth^t 18:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

hehehe, I did it. It's not a real hardcoded solution but rather a script based one, since as I said it's impossible with just wiki code and CSS. Anyway, I'll document all the stuff I came up with in awhile, but for now just edit Special:Mypage/monobook.js and add this to the end:

document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="' 
            + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Froth/refdeskmodv2.js' 
            + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');

Now you'll have a classic-style nav bar across the bottom of each reference desk! I'll upload screenshots when I document it, but I assure you that this is exactly what you're looking for. Because I'm amazing, it's fully compatible with both Firefox and Internet Explorer (7 at least) --froth^t 01:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Dood, you are tha shiznit ^_^ (that's a compliment). dr.ef.tymac 06:42, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Booohoohoohooo :( not in Opera snurfl. Keria 12:31, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeeepeeee now it works in Opera too! Keria 13:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

o_O I didn't do anything, and nobody else could have done anything since you can't edit js files on other peoples subpages. Glad it works for you though ^_~ (did I seriously just use that emot?) --froth^t 08:40, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Reference Desk Tools

See the comments above. I wrote a script to add a navigation box to the bottom of the RDs for convenience, and put my various tries at WP:RD/TOOLS. Check em out. I didn't want to put them in a subpage of my userpage, because maybe other people have scripts to share? --froth^t 03:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:Dyoh

I toned down the language in this template, which is nominated for TFD. Please feel free to evaluate it and change it if necessary. bibliomaniac15 04:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the text intended as a reply on the RD pages themselves? It now sounds like something to put on a user talk page.  --Lambiam 10:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The reference desk historical cycle

Click here to learn more about it. a.z. 18:07, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

March? What does this have to do with anything? --froth^t 05:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The cycle is repeating itself. See this. a.z. 05:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

And what purpose does it serve to make that association? Rockpocket 17:47, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

So people don't freak out. It's to tell them that they can relax because everything will eventually be OK. A.Z. 02:19, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Whew thanks for pointing that out, I was getting mad :[ Why do people think they need to remove these questions? If people answer, they're the ones breaking the rules. Can't we just reply "sorry can't give advice" instead of censoring questions? The correct form is "they edit question sections we edit only our own answers" not "we edit both question and other peoples answer sections", and while we have the technical ability to edit out of our bounds, it's bad netiquette. So stop :X --froth^t 23:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe your comment is just part of the historical cycle. Gandalf said "If it follows previous patterns, the current debate will reach a peak soon and then die down in a week or two." Maybe reactions like yours make people stop deleting questions. Then, after some time, they feel comfortable enough for starting to delete questions again, so the cycle continues. A.Z. 04:19, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

little archiving help?

Can someone review this comment and figure out what (if anything) User:65.163.112.225 is complaining about? I'm currently on the R/V Wecoma in the middle of Dabob Bay with not nearly enough bandwidth to properly investigate. Thanks. —Steve Summit (talk) 06:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. —Steve Summit (talk) 07:19, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Dweller/Dweller's Ref Desk thread of the week award - week 7 winner

We have a winner --Dweller 09:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

List of contributors?

Should we have a list of regular contributors to the Reference Desks? I think it would be useful to have it in case you're working on an article in need of expertise. bibliomaniac15 00:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

You should be looking for Category:Wikipedians who contribute to the reference desk (except none of the regular contributors seem to have added themselves to it). Rockpocket 02:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

If you're working in an article in need of expertise, I think it would be best to contact the contributors at the reference desk. A.Z. 02:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Me, I'd say "no". I'd say that WP:OWN applies just as strongly to the Reference Desks as it does to the rest of Wikipedia. And of course there's already a perfectly good way of contacting the regular contributors at the reference desks: by posting a question at the reference desks! —Steve Summit (talk) 02:03, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It's much better than trying to figure out which contributor can help with which subject, and then asking them for help on their talk pages. On the reference desk, everyone gets to know what your question is, and everyone can help. A.Z. 02:26, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

In regards to the category cited by Rockpocket above, maybe one of the reasons people don't add their names is that they're unaware of the existence of the category. That was certainly the case in my case until now. Categories are a feature of Wikipedia that I have a rather distant relationship with, I must say. Is there a way of being alerted to new categories as they get invented? -- JackofOz —Preceding comment was added at 12:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Pretty much not, I should think, unless whoever invents the category has the gumption to alert those likely to be intersted through a talk page which those people are likely to see. A historian might be able to tell us if that was the case with the category in question. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:45, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Well I popped myself into the category. Can't do any harm. Lanfear's Bane | t 15:26, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

User:Dweller/Dweller's Ref Desk thread of the week award - Eighth award

And the Computing Desk gets off the mark. Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing#EMail_ID_-_3rd_post --Dweller 13:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

For people who don't frequent the C desk, this guy has been asking for personal info about that Playmate for awhile.. age, weight, etc --froth^t 23:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Computing Desk and Advocacy

I'm going to toss this out here, not sure how many computing desk "regulars" read the talk page, but anyway - when somebody comes to use with a question or problem using Windows, can we please refrain from the "just install Linux, n00b!" or "get a Mac, LOL!" responses? In general, those are not helpful to the issue at hand, and I don't think they give a good impression to the questioner. Anybody who wants that type of response can get it pretty much everywhere else on the web. We should not be here to proselytize for our favorite OS (or browser or whatever). Yes, we all know that Windows has lots of problems, and perhaps a complete change of computing platform would be a great solution to all of them. In the meantime, somebody who just wants to change file extensions without an annoying nag box probably wants an immediate solution, not a weekend project. --LarryMac | Talk 15:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it's expected that any forum for conversation on computing to explode into debate and flames every time a particular OS is so much as mentioned. It's amazing that wikipedia's computing desk has maintained so much restraint! Also specifically with the issue of "Switch to X".. that's an important component of tech support IMO as long as the immediate question is answered. The questioner should know the underlying cause of their problem and that nagging thought that they don't have to deal with this crap could actually get them to switch in the long term. In any case this seems to be an issue of control freaks basically saying "GTFO my reference desk" like the whole humorous answers debate last year. These people wouldn't have replied anyway, it's not like they're withholding useful information until the person switches OSes.. what do you care if the person puts their opinions there or not? Quality answers aren't hindered. And boo at instruction creep as usual. --froth^t 23:20, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The point is that in a lot of cases lately, the immediate question does NOT get answered - and in fact, yes it's like the "humorous answers" problem because certain people were going for the "joke" first instead of answering questions. I'm not a control freak (NPA ?) and this is not "instruction creep" it's a reiteration of the existing Wikipedia guideline that says Wikipedia is not a soapbox. --LarryMac | Talk 23:56, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

So a lot of questions don't get answered.. what do you want, we're volunteers >_> --froth^t 02:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This disagreement, like some others that have come up, can be best settled by everyone remembering what we're here for: providing factual answers with good references. We should stick to the question asked and refrain from preaching for or against anything. Friday (talk) 00:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

That is your personal opinion of what we're here for. Many disagree. A.Z. 01:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

That was the consensus as described in our guidelines. So people are free to disagree, but it does not give them carte blanche to use the desks as they please. Rockpocket 01:17, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

So it seems. People who disagree with the guidelines should try to change them. A.Z. 01:22, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Do you ever get the feeling, Rockpocket, that you are moving in endless circles, or living through some Wikipedia Groundhog Day? LOL! Clio the Muse 01:30, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Aren't you the one who got a marriage proposal on the reference desk once? You think that kind of thing is OK, but people saying their opinions on the best operating system is just too inappropriate? A.Z. 03:17, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. Ain't it the truth. But on the bright side, it was an iteration of that circle almost exactly a year ago that got me drawn deeply into the RD's, so it's not all bad. (Er, unless you can't stand me, I guess.)

Seriously, and to A.Z.'s point: although I'm regularly guilty of launching into them myself, it's clear that debates are inappropriate on the Reference Desks. This is a sound consensus, I think; it's far from just Friday's personal opinion. —Steve Summit (talk) 01:54, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Another bright side is—i think—the Humanities Desk, which is really outstanding these days. Most likely because a few editors have raised the bar there than any guidelines or talking in circles.—eric 02:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

There are discussions, and there are discussions, though. An excellent example of a really constructive (and informative) discussion in response to a question I asked: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities#Conducting. There is OR there, speculation and opinion; yet it is all reasonable, educated and sourced where appropriate. Great stuff, and a demonstration of how we don't need to hark back to rules and regulations when everyone provides responsible answers within the spirit of the guidelines, rather than lawyering over them. Rockpocket 07:37, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec) I think there are three sides to this question:

1. Proselytizing aside, if platform X is beset by a significantly annoying problem and platform B is not, then everything else being equal, switching to platform B is a valid solution to the problem, and pointing this fact out is not inappropriate. (But, of course, everything else is rarely equal.)
2. Point #1 aside, most fans of platform B are utterly unable to point the relevant fact out without injecting a note of smug proselytizing. (As a user of both platforms B and 3, I certainly can't manage it.)
3. But if fans of platforms B and/or 3 do tend to inappropriately inject a note of smugness, I think it's fair to say that fans of platform X just as often inject an unnecessary note of wounded defensiveness in their rejoinders. "I'm sorry, that's not an option for me" would be fine. "That's not an option for me, you smug bastard" is less so.

See also this classic cartoon (an episode of Doctor Fun).

Personally, in case 3, I think the wounded defensiveness often stems from what amounts to an underlying sense of jealousy overlain by frustration, stubbornness, and sour grapes, but that's probably just my own smugness seeping through, so I really shouldn't mention it. (But boy is it annoying when someone complains about a notoriously fundamental known problem with platform X, and ends their request for help with a challenge along the lines of "and don't you B/3 fanboys suggest switching, 'cos I'll never use that POS". But I digress.) —Steve Summit (talk) 01:44, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

While there's nothing wrong with "Unfortunatly, that's not changeable in Windows, but it would be in Linux", it's bloody annoying to read through nothing but "WTF windowz sux0rz. Linux 4evah." It's not helpful, it's not answering questions. It's better to not have anyone answer at all - meaning nobody knows - than just "LOL your OS sux0rz." What are we, 12? This isn't the "Switch to Linux" desk, nor the "Non-Windows Computing Help Desk" - the fact is, most computer users use Windows, so if you don't use windows, don't answer Windows questions. It's that simple. It's like, if on the misc desk someone asked "What's the best way to peel an orange?" and the only answer they got was "Oranges suck, use apples, they don't require peeling at all, in fact the peel is good for you!" and then the followup "no, use grapes, they don't require biting either, you just pop them in your mouth whole!". Kuronue | Talk 18:32, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

There's a slightly loftier reason for some of these "you might consider switching" remarks than just "WTF windowz sux0rz, Linux 4evah". Precisely because most computer users use Windows, most computer users have been subliminally trained that its faults are inevitable. Most computer users believe that a BSOD is an appropriate response to an application bug. Most computer users believe that regular reboots and occasionally wipe-and-reinstall sessions are an ordinary part of computer maintenance. Most computer users believe that computer viruses and other forms of malware are facts of life that have to be put up with, like biological viruses or bad weather. So, sometimes, what we who have the temerity to use something else are trying to say is, "It doesn't have to be that way." —Steve Summit (talk) 14:26, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

"It's better to not have anyone answer at all".. and why is this exactly? Because you just can't be bothered to read through the answers and weed out useless ones? Because you just find it so annoying? Well sorrr-y. Welcome to the internet. I'm starting to get tired of people telling me how I can and can't volunteer my time here. Granted, wikipedia is only good because we regulate each other but it's no fun to be regulated and it should be kept to an absolute minimum --froth^t 21:08, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm of two minds here, and I suspect that many other editors on the Ref Desk are as well. I don't think there's anyone here who thinks contributors to the Ref Desks should never have any fun by incorporating a bit of humour into their work. Occasionally adding a bit of a joke that lacks any useful content at all is chaff that can be separated from the wheat without too much trouble, and is probably reasonably tolerated as an infrequent indulgence.

On the other hand, the sort of proselytizing that is being discussed here is apparently getting to the point of interference with with the function of the Computers Desk. Remember, we're here to help people; it's not our function to crack jokes at their expense. If there are editors who have gotten in the habit of giving useless answers, they probably ought to look carefully at why they're here. Proselytizing runs the gamut from Kuronue's very silly example ("You've chosen the wrong fruit, luzer!"), through the rudely unhelpful ("You've chosen the wrong operating system, luzer!"), to the outright obnoxious ("You've chosen the wrong religion, luzer!"). Anyone who's operating anywhere on that spectrum is biting newbies (if the OP is new) or just being rude, otherwise.

Why we're here.

Froth's comment above is very troubling. I thought that our aim here was to provide useful, helpful information to people. It's not a game we play with posters to challenge them to 'weed out' the useless answers. We're supposed to be better and smarter than 'the Internet' — as it says on the label, "We make the Internet not suck". We damn well ought to aspire to be better and more reliable than a random Google search, even if we don't always hit that mark. I have seen some editors put great amounts of thought and research into their work on these Desks, and I have seen that effort reflected in tremendously improved articles, happy questioners, and a warm fuzzy feeling of collegiality and cooperation.

It is absolutely true that Wikipedia is a volunteer project, and I doubt that anyone would question that statement. Nevertheless, it is a volunteer-driven project with specific aims and goals. 'Volunteer' does not equal 'person-who-does-whatever-he-wants'; this is a collaborative project. If a person wants to crack jokes or – worse – pick on other people, there are (in)appropriate venues for that: Uncyclopedia, Encyclopedia Dramatica, or a personal blog. Wikipedia is not the place to get cheap thrills kicking other people for their real or imagined defects. When that person is ready to go back to making the Internet not suck, Wikipedia will be here waiting. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:13, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I don't make useless "then switch to whatever" posts (while I do enjoy inserting anti-mac invective into useful posts)- I'm just defending peoples right to do it. I guess I'm a WikiLibertarian.. I wouldn't do these things anyway but that doesn't mean I'll tolerate them being illegal. It is absolutely not a problem at all that a person gets a "switch to watever luzer" response. Again, personally I tend to be more courteous but that doesn't mean that the rude people are wrong. WP:BITE is a ridiculous rule and I'll not be a part of a consensus to enforce it --froth^t 02:00, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

And as usual I support the little lively debates that crop up after questions are answered.. the acrimonious mini-arguments are especially interesting :) --froth^t 02:02, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I find that attitude really disappointing. If someone wants to be rude to strangers on the Internet, there are lots of venues where that sort of conduct is accepted. Wikipedia is supposed to be better than that—and it has the policy to back it up. If you want to be a libertarian, then start your own site and invite people there to be attacked. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Hey, what do you expect from someone who doesn't like Macs? What a luzer! :-) —Steve Summit (talk) 03:48, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I find many of your actions to be rude, TenOfAllTrades. I remember one time when you went to my talk page to accuse me of plagiarism and then stopped replying to my posts there. I also think it's rude to delete questions, and not even sign your username. I also think that Lewis's indefinite block was rude. I am also against making rudeness illegal, though, since I wouldn't like people to be artificially kind to me just because it's the law. A.Z. 03:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I spent an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to explain to you the concept of plagiarism and the importance of avoiding it in academic writing. (Discussion.) Frankly, I stopped responding to you because I couldn't think of any other way to explain the concept to you. It's not rude to accuse someone of plagiarism when they've – unintentionally or otherwise – plagiarized material.

If you'd like to seek a review of any action I've taken as an administrator on Wikipedia – Loomis51's block included – feel free to ask for one on WP:AN/I. Wikipedia is a collaborative working environment. The sort of rudeness that is tolerated (or at least not illegal) on the street is inappropriate for this project. I could walk down Main Street and call every third person I met an asshole, and I wouldn't get arrested (though I might get punched). If I did exactly the same thing at work, I'd be fired. See also my football analogy below; different standards of conduct exist in different environments. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I find your attitude horrifying.. don't like it, make it illegal. In other words: don't like it, force people against their will not to do it. Well I call that wrong plain and simple. --froth^t 04:12, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

What's so horrifying? The vast majority of the endeavors in the world have structure and rules; there are precious few successful anarchies. There are parts of the Internet where anything goes, but Wikipedia simply isn't one of them. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

For the record, I too am a WikiLibertarian (excellent term. Froth !). I agree we need a few rules, like WP:NPA and WP:CIV - so I am not a WikiAnarchist - but as few rules as possible. A rule or guideline that says "Do not recommend a particular platform or OS on the RDs" or similar is going too far. Next thing we would get is rules like "Don't ask questions about seagulls on the RDs" just because some people think there are too many questions about seagulls (yes, this was seriously suggested in a previous incarnation of this debate). Personally, I contribute to Wikipedia because it is fun and interesting. If some editors are motivated by the belief that they are helping humanity and contributing to some great endeavour, then that's nice for you. But please try to understand that not all contributors see the world from your POV, and that's not a problem so you don't have to fix it. I guess I am more of a Dave Lister than an Arnold Rimmer. Gandalf61 08:49, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I won't typecast myself in this debate, because that's part of the problem. The thread started out with a user asking "can we please refrain from xyz". The first response was "this seems to be an issue of control freaks" and "boo at instruction creep". Merely listening to other people's concerns doesn't seem to be an option anymore, there always needs to be a rebuttal ad absurdum. The guidelines were not initiated by a couple of control freaks to satisfy their anal retentive fetish, they became inevitable when every single request to focus on the question and to deliver more informed and referenced answers was met with "Show me where the rulebook says that jokes or debates aren't allowed!". Wishing to keep a certain balance and to improve the desks is legitimate and doesn't need to be ridiculed or met with a labels such as "deletionists" or typifications such as "If some editors are motivated by the belief that they are helping humanity and contributing to some great endeavour, then that's nice for you.". I mean, really. Like Gandalf and most of us, I'm also here out of fun and interest - not to save humanity. I think it can be fun and interesting to improve the reference desk. It can be fun and interesting to talk about improving the desks, but not if it's not possible to raise any concern without being labeled "control freak" or "deletionist". ---Sluzzelin talk 09:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Nicely put, Sluzzelin. Do you also have an opinion about Ten's view that libertarians like Froth and myself should leave Wikipedia ? Gandalf61 10:23, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

It is my opinion that labels and factions, whether self-declared or attributed to others, lead to nothing. A wise wizard already pointed out here that, while we might disagree on what is inappropriate, we do agree that certain things do not belong on the reference desk. First step for finding a modus vivendi? Forget about positions, and discuss the issues instead. That being said, no good-faith contributor should ever be told to leave Wikipedia, nor did I see Ten express this opinion. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Besides factional labels, another thing that's extremely frustrating in these debates is the extreme polarization that sometimes goes on. I'm not trying to pick on you, Gandalf, but why did you talk about a hypothetical "rule or guideline that says 'Do not recommend a particular platform or OS on the RDs'"? Why did you talk about an alleged "view that libertarians like Froth and myself should leave Wikipedia"? I know which remarks by others prompted these remarks by you, but really, nobody said what you're making it sound like they said. If these were your attempts at reductio ad absurdum arguments, they didn't work. If you honestly believe them, then you really, really don't understand what your opponents are saying (and how close, in most cases, their views actually are to yours). —Steve Summit (talk) 14:14, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

<rmv indent>Steve - you say your're not trying to pick on me, and yet you focus exclusively on criticisng my contributions to this thread !! "Nobody said what you're making it sound like they said". Let's see. Friday said "We should stick to the question asked and refrain from preaching for or against anything", which is close to "Do not recommend a particular platform or OS on the RDs". And after Froth identified himself as as WikiLibertarian, Ten replied "If you want to be a libertarian, then start your own site" - which sounds to me like a view that libertarians should leave Wikipedia. But if Ten mis-spoke then I am sure he will clarify what he really thinks about libertarians who contribute to Wikipedia. Gandalf61 15:35, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Gee, I guess you really don't understand what your opponents are saying.

"We should stick to the question asked and refrain from preaching" is perfectly true. It's not the same as "Do not recommend a particular platform or OS on the RDs", and it's not at all the same as proposing a formal rule or guideline that says "Do not recommend a particular platform or OS on the RDs".

Wikipedia is not and will never be your vision of a Libertarian utopia. If you want one -- nothing wrong with that -- you're going to have to start it somewhere else. But that obviously doesn't mean you have to leave here!

When you take someone's honest and nuanced statement, distort it into some extremely polarized mutant variant that no one has said or agrees with, and then accuse people of having asserted the variant, it just makes you look paranoid. It doesn't advance the discussion, and it's rather insulting to those who are trying -- really trying -- to find a consensus we can all agree with, and who hold, as I said, views for the most part quite close to yours.

I'm sorry it seemed like I was picking on you. That's why I said, "I'm not trying to pick on you". There are plenty of examples of this disquieting polarization, posted by a number of editors; your two were simply the most recent and the most convenient to cite. —Steve Summit (talk) 16:08, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

←(unindenting), (edit conflict)Er, what the heck? If someone wants to respond to my comments, feel free. I'd appreciate, though, the courtesy of responses to things that I actually wrote, rather than worst-case imagined interpretations of what an evil bogeyman like me might have said.

I didn't say that "Libertarians...should leave Wikipedia". I said that some conduct is appropriate for Wikipedia, and that some belongs elsewhere on the 'net. Football is fun, but I don't play in the library—it's not what the library's facilities were constructed for, and it interferes with other people's ability to use the library peacefully and productively. I don't care if you guys want to play football outside, but when you come indoors to Wikipedia's Reference Desk, there's an expectation that we will maintain a certain atmosphere. We're flexible, but certain conduct – mocking or insulting people who come here for help (or other contributors, for that matter); spending so much time and space on jokes that useful answers become difficult to find – impairs the function of the Desk. I'm not going to set up a Ref Desk on the football pitch; is it unreasonable to ask that people not play football in the library?

Libertarianism is a good read for anyone interested in the topic. When Wikipedia works, it's a very libertarian place. The Wikimedia Foundation provides its servers and bandwidth; thousands of editors contribute text and ideas; everyone participates voluntarily in the arrangement and all the parties put their resources to work as they see fit; there's no government coercion involved or required. It is important to remember that we are using the Foundation's property here, and that it would be very un-libertarian indeed to use their resources solely for our amusement, or to interfere with their project's goals. Of course, if one found the Foundation's rules governing the use of their property absolutely intolerable, one could always fork the project. Everything here is licensed under the GFDL, and anyone is free to take their own time and money to start their own web site under their own rules. Using one's own property without interference and as one sees fit is the libertarian ideal. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. "If you want to be a libertarian, then start your own site" actually meant "If you want to be a libertarian, then start your own site, but please continue to contribute to Wikipedia as well because Wikipedia welcomes libertarians". Ten, I see now that I misunderstood your intention, and I apologise for my honest mistake. I am very pleased to hear your support for libertarians and libertarian principles here on Wikipedia. Gandalf61 16:22, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Ten that WikiLibertarianism is very close to the Wiki Way, but unfortunately (just as in the political arena) the conservative dissenters tend to be more powerful since their position is easily consolidated. In wikipedia I think there are far too many rules, and that by far most of them are completely unnecessary. The very core guidelines of Wikipedia are WP:TRIFECTA. The whole of wikipedia's rule structure should reduce to these three rules. Matthew 22:40: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Just as in real Libertarianism, we should stick to our WikiConstitution and not feel like we need to define every. single. thing. as "legal" or "illegal". Or anything at all for that matter- we may come to decisions on how to interpret the trifecta on a specific issue, and use that decision in the future, but there's very much an atmosphere in Wikipedia of guidelines-in-the-making, of being able to simply achieve consensus and all of wikipedia is bound by your new rule. Don't like how some people act on the reference desk? If we can simply achieve consensus then we can write ourselves a new guideline that prohibits such behavior. I think this attitude is totally wrong- the magic of the internet is total freedom, and the only reason that wikipedia works is because of the surrounding internet atmosphere, not in spite of it. The rest of the internet has no inherent rules and it has collectively accomplished far more than wikipedia ever will.. granted, we have a special requirement of at least a bit of academic reliability, and of unprecedented cooperation, but still these are easy to enforce with only a very few rules: the policy trifecta. Not the trifecta + the thousands of other little rules that people make up in their little projects. In fact, the trifecta can be reduced to the very first one and wikipedia would work just as well- the 2nd one is completely arbitrary and unnecessary, but I guess that's Jimbo's decision and it seems successful. And the 3rd is a guaranteed right, not a rule. Actually I just realized I have no idea where I'm going with this- I'm trying to take notes from an audio lecture right now and it's very difficult to do both at once.. but this sounds good so I'll post it :P Something about it being wrong to extend rules from the trifecta- those are our only rules. Wikpedia has no legislative branch- "consensus" is not a legislative body. Our highest WikiAuthority is a judicial body: the ArbCom. They have the wide powers that a high court would be expected to have, but even THEY don't make policy, they just interpret it. So our attitude of just making up a rule every time you don't like something is completely unfounded.. even if interpretation is functionally identical to making up new rules, I think our debates would look quite different if we had that attitude of constantly refocusing on what we're interpreting, rather than just giving the once-over "does this pass trifecta, yeah it doesnt conflict so it's ok". Well that actually wrapped up nicely! --froth^t 18:49, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Hahah, no matter how accurate your logic or compelling your arguments, none can stand against the Giant Wall of Text.. so deviously sapped with circular reasoning and flaws in assumptions, yet so exhaustingly long that none dare to unravel it! Guaranteed to stop a fierce debate in its tracks! --froth^t 20:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I can only speak for myself, but I sorta tuned out of the discussion once you got into the mode of "I'm a volunteer! Don't tell me what to not do on Wikipedia!" This position is inherently indefensible. Wikipedia has an intended purpose and scope. Soapboxing is not within that scope. There are plenty of forums where soapboxing is appropriate, so there's really no reason to clutter Wikipedia with such stuff. Friday (talk) 20:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

It's quite defensible- see the Solid Wall of Text defense above. --froth^t 00:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

You will be amazed how much a giant wall of text can become more readable if it is divided to paragraphs. Not only that, but those whose ideas are not coherent enough to be naturally divisible into paragraphs are most likely to write in this form. No offense intended, but I think the above illustrates this quite nicely (you have, after all, admitted this post lacks coherence).

I agree completely with Friday's last post. No chartiable organization in the world, no matter how understaffed, would accept to its ranks people who come with the "I'm a volunteer, so I'm allowed to do whatever I want" attitude. Volunteering, at its very core, means helping. Anyone has the right to choose why and how he wants to help, but no one has the right to do harm. And it is clear that some sorts of responses at the reference desk (not expressing any opinion about OS advocacy in particular) are harmful.

For the reference desk in particular, I would say the OP needs to be considered first, but it is still okay to make posts that will benefit many of the readers of the refdesk, even if the OP isn't one of them.

It goes without saying that more leniency is appropriate when volunteers are involved, especially when the individual in question does more good than harm. But that doesn't make it okay to be unconstructive.

As for the rules issue... The quality of Wikipedia is higher than the overall quality of the internet because of its rules, not in spite of them. Rules are essentially a means to preserve thoughts. If a discussion leads to the conclusion that a certain type of behavior is inappropriate, it is much more productive to formulate it as a rule (with a justification included) than to restart the debate any time the issue pops up.

I also advise everyone to take a look at Teratornis's brilliant essays which, among other things, explain very nicely why Wikipedia works. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 12:14, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Well I do help.. no puffery intended but I'm the primary contributor to /C and I get the job done. It's just that when I have my rhythm going cranking out responses and everyone's happy -it's just working- people try to mess with the formula. --froth^t 20:21, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. That's actually a little worrisome. Nothing at all against you or all the good work you've done, Froth, but we should not have a "primary contributor" to any of our desks, and not just because of WP:OWN. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:01, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I think froth was referring to the fact that, according to wikidashboard, he tops the list of contributors to the computer desk in terms of number of posts (over 900 since August 2006) and that the majority of his posts are useful to the querents. It also looks like he's asking for leeway and latitude, but then everybody editing the desks is allowing for leagues of leeway and latitude, the way they should.

Froth, no one said: "Hey froth, could you be less frothy?" Instead, someone said: "Can we all refrain from proselytizing for our favorite operating system, every time people ask a question about using (not changing) their OS?" I don't think anyone here has a problem with WP:TRIFECTA, or with your statement "we may come to decisions on how to interpret the trifecta on a specific issue, and use that decision in the future". So, when someone says: "Hey, how about not doing xyz for a while, it's getting annoying", then how about actually not doing xyz for a while, or at least giving a good reason for xyz, instead of screaming "Fascists!"? No one is trying to codify every minor ailment into guidelineland. Just a couple of thoughtful editors trying to improve or keep our standards. Personally, I've learned from many a critique uttered here. ---Sluzzelin talk 04:04, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I love the fact that good old HagermanBot is number four on the computer desk and king of the entertainment desk! His dashboard shows how valuable he was to us! Hope he's enjoying his sabbatical. (Or has he been made redundant?) ---Sluzzelin talk 16:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

We have SineBot now, more or less the same thing as HagermanBot.--VectorPotential^Talk 19:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Although I think the bot flag throws off the wikidashboard thing.--VectorPotential^Talk 19:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Odd, I just checked, I don't think SineBot has a bot flag, but it does mark all its edits as minor, that may be what's throwing wikidashboard. I know when I look myself up it loses several hundred edits. It's possible that it doesn't record edits marked as minor? Or something else entirely? --VectorPotential^Talk 12:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Someone who knows more about wikidashboard could probably clear this up.--VectorPotential^Talk 12:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

little archiving task

Can someone go to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives add the appropriate links for October, November, and December 2007? Thanks. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:24, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Steve, I was about to ask but didn't want to divert attention from the above! - hydnjo talk 16:01, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Took a while to find where the section was hidden... Call me crazy, but I expect an 'edit' button to allow you to edit a section :) Skittle 19:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! (And I confess it was that same hide-and-seek issue that daunted me from just doing it myself...) —Steve Summit (talk) 19:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Fixed :O --froth^t 23:17, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

It's hidden here, but don't tell anyone. Skittle 00:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

I already fixed it what more do you want from me >:( --froth^t 02:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

What? After you said that, I had a look and thought you'd just taken the 'edit' button out. I assume I missed something. My reply was more to Steve, and to my future self in case I wonder where the page is again... Skittle 07:08, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Yah, I did. Those aren't actually sections, they were just spots where the original page designer used <h3> to size his font, which produces a header, and apparently when transcluded produces a broken header. It was some bad code that I fixed. If you want me to actually add real sections I can do that too :x --froth^t 13:02, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

No, it's fine now, but I'm wondering whether a link to the editable pages might be handy somewhere. Seriously, the only way I could find them was through Google; I wondered whether they were deliberately obscure! We are going to need to edit them again in a few months, so being able to find them is useful. Skittle 16:45, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Heh, yeah transclusion syntax is a little obscure. If there's no namespace given then it's in the Template: namespace (which they were in before I moved them) and if it starts with a single forward slash then it's relative to the current (sub)page. --froth^t 19:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Reckless

I removed that section. Isn't that sort of reckless to tell a kid what poisons to put in his eyes? See also ANI here. • Lawrence Cohen 13:36, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Given that Picture of a cloud went on to ask a question about how to handle his overly-large penis on Misc ([1]) while nearly-simultaneously asserting on AN/I that he's "a girl, not a boy", my ability to assume good faith here is getting stretched. I've removed his penis question, and I'll warn him not to play silly buggers around here if someone else hasn't already gotten to it first. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Bad thought: I'm not going to see where this link ends, as I am in work, but perhaps we are dealing with a dickgirl here?

Real question: Where is the line drawn in reference to this sort of question? Would answering a question about botox be over the line as even though used cosmetically it is also a poison? Lanfear's Bane | t 12:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

To the first question—I have doubts. The user went on to get blocked a few hours ago (by another admin, not me) for trolling on RfC/Username. Regardless of his/her plumbing or orientation, he/she is looking for trouble.

To the second, we answer questions about medicine, but we do not answer questions that seek medical advice. In other words, we can answer the questions,

• Where does botox come from?
• How does botox work?
• What is the history of botox?
• I'm doing a project on wrinkle removal. What techniques are available?
• or even Where can I get botox treatment?

but not the questions

• I have a lot of wrinkles. Are there any drugs I can take?
• How do I use the botox I bought on the internet?
• I have diabetes. Is it okay for me to get botox treatment?
• I had botox treatment the other day, and now I have this rash. What is it?

Does that make sense? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Sure does, good set of examples, I'll try and apply that in future. Lanfear's Bane | t 14:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Dweller's ninth award

Big it up for the f**king brilliant Languages Desk. ([2]) --Dweller 12:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I concur, good f•ck•ng choice. (I can't believe I missed this thread, I f•ck•ng love swearing me). Lanfear's Bane | t 12:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Is that a quote from a Viz character? Roger Mellie? --Dweller 14:09, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Eh no, that's just me typing and sounding a little Welsh, I rarely read Viz. I just love swearing, it puntucates speech so wonderfully. You can have profanity serve as noun, adjective, verb, whatever you need, for instance - "F*ck that f*cking f*cker". Beautiful. To think people assume that those with poor lexicons abuse profanity to cover their ignorance. I love the c**t word even more but I save that for special occasions. Lanfear's Bane | t 14:45, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Which reminds me of a joke - Four letter word, ends in u-n-t, and is another word for a woman. That's right, a-u-n-t.

I feel that I should point out that when you bowlderise the word by using asterisks you aren't actually swearing :-( If you want to say fuck just do so, it's a fine olde english word and our article on it is very informative. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 00:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I suspect you've not yet read the thread I gave the award to. --Dweller 16:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

You're right on the button. Ignore me I'm an idiot. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 20:13, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Naa, you're just hum*n. :-) --Dweller 09:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Medical advice

I recently was bold enough to remove what I took to be a question soliciting medical advice, and caught some crap for it. Actually, it was a question solicting medical advice. Thing is, I see one practically every day on Science or Misc, and I feel a crusader-like urge to sweep them away in keeping with The Guidelines (caps added for irony). Am I the only one who sees it? Please look at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Lights_at_night_appearing_.27blurred.27 on Science and tell me why that is not another of these questions. --Milkbreath 16:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Some of the answers were probably OK, some were definitely not. The answers of the form "You have medical condition X" are clearly inappropriate. Friday (talk) 16:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

(EC) I don't think it is a medical advice question, so much as a question of human physiology. If someone asked why they had spots before their eyes when feeling faint, it would be fine to direct them to the Phosphene article. For all I know there is an article on the visual effect the OP is querying. Clearly it would be possible to answer the question so as to give a diagnosis or other medical advice, but that would be to overstep the mark. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:16, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

What about "...should i be worried? I mean...i'm short sighted and have astigmatism..."? (Note the small i like Bucolic Buffalo.) I don't seem to be able to twist my thinking enough to see that as anything other than an outright request for medical advice. Help me out, here. --Milkbreath 16:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Yep, that's a classic sign of a request for medical advice. 'I have symptom foo...', 'should I be worried', 'is this caused by disease/disorder bar...' are the Medical Advice Trifecta. As a compromise, I've left the original question in place as well as the first response which gave (sound) advice to seek the opinion of a qualified medical professional, and added an HTML comment reminding editors not to offer further advice. If further advice does appear, I'll remove the entire question and replace it with a template in line with the guidelines. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, the one-a-day background rate seems pretty steady; it lines up roughly with what I saw when I did an analysis of the problem back in January. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm with you on this one, Milkbreath. Although I believe questions like this can be partly answered with general, non-medical responses, inevitably someone wades in with an amateur diagnosis. Its better to cut it off at the source when the OP is soliciting medical advice. Others feel its simply just not worth removing some medical questions/answers when it means reaping the whirlwind from disgruntled Wiki-libertarians. However, ToaT has taken the plunge. Brace yourself. Rockpocket 18:09, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I really thought it was one of those "I see floaters in front of my eyes what are they" type questions - and as such harmless - nevertheless - caution is the better part of valour, or something - I'm sure you did the right thing.87.102.7.57 18:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has clear disclaimers disavowing any responsibilty for medical infomation on the site (there are loads of it in articles), so people who oppose medical questions are just being unnecesarrily overcautious, much like the copyright Gestapo. —Nricardo 16:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Preventing Wikipedia (and the Wikimedia Foundation) from getting sued isn't the only – or even the most important – reason why requests for and offers of medical advice are barred from the Ref Desks. There has been extensive discussion on this topic before; feel free to search through the archives of this talk page for more of it than you'll ever want to read. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I prefer "Taliban", please. I'm of the "Medical Advice Taliban". You sidestep Godwin's Law that way, too. --Milkbreath 17:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Colo(u)r Collaboration - Please Help Out!

It seems that this discussion has pretty much dried up, probably since this talk page is the only page on which it is referenced. Does anyone have any ideas how better to promote the color discussion page?--VectorPotential^Talk 21:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to be rude, as I know you have gone to some lengths to be inclusive about this (and that is to be commended), but perhaps its time to make a decision regarding the colour issue based on the discussion that is already there. There has been plenty of opportunity for people to contribute and no-one appears inclined to express strong feeling about it. Lets be honest, people who frequent this page are not normally shy about expressing their opinion strongly, yet no-one has done so. I suggest you be bold and implement something. If someone bitches about the changes, then you can point them towards the 6 month long discussion. If lots of people complain then it might be worth reverting, but at least it would stimulate debate on the issue. Alternatively, you could interpret the inactivity as indicating people are happy with it the way it is, but my feeling is that no-one is that bothered either way as long as the colours are not too garish.. Rockpocket 22:05, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, does anyone know if changing the name of the header would confuse Scsbot? Right now {{Wikipedia:Reference desk/headercfg}} is transcluded on all the desks, ideally I'd like to color code all the desks, which would mean putting a different header on each page. --VectorPotential^Talk 00:23, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Nope, no confusion at all. —scs 02:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

It shouldn't, considering that it used to transclude /how to ask and answer and changing it to /headercfg didn't break the previous bot. Additionally, the color you changed it to looks terrible :[ --ffroth 00:46, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

That means it worked, as I've just attracted more attention to the color scheme of the reference desk than has been paid to it in the last 6 months or so (; VectorPotential^Talk 00:49, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I undid the tentative change- when you're ready with nice looking color coded desks (very good idea) do it all at once. Remember to take advantage of the flexibility in different colors for highlights and headers, it looks much nicer --ffroth 00:53, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Idea: Try using some of the pastels from the main page. You can see the exact colors used at WP:COLORS --ffroth 00:59, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Unanswered questions

It's unimportant but my question was archived but not placed in unanswered questions - I got not replies by the way - here - Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2007_October_13#ray_node_traversal_image

I don't really expect you (whoever you are) to go through checking.. so maybe there would be a way to automatically place unanswered questions in the right place - just an idea. Is too impossible?87.102.17.46 20:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Its a bot that archives the page, Scsbot (talk · contribs), run by owner Ummit (talk · contribs). You could always ask him if there is a way his bot could differentiate between answered and unanwered questions. To be honest, I don't think Wikipedia:Reference Desk archive unanswered is active anyway [3], so you would be better off if you took the advice at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives, "If your question has been archived but you feel that it hasn't been adequately answered, copy and paste the archived discussion as a new question." Rockpocket 21:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Color coding the desks

Time's up! I left a message here for like an hour waiting for yeas and nays before I got impatient and just did it. The desks are now color coded. The desks move through the Hue of the HSV color space as you move down the navigation column, as sepcified by Wikipedia talk:Colours. Love it? Hate it? Leave comments here. I know some of them are kind of ugly- Computing got shafted with beige. Does anyone have any thoughts on actually having the backgrounds of the navigation bar "tabs" be colored with that desk's color? It would require a major redesign, but it would be possible --ffroth 01:26, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it looks great. Nice work. Rockpocket 01:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm working on the problem of how to actually color the tabs while retaining configurability. It's... weird. Stay tuned --ffroth 01:39, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Color. Color good. --Milkbreath 01:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Froth: "That should do it. Here are your names... "

(pointing to each respective desk) "Mr. Brown, Mr. White, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Blue, Mr. Orange, and Mr. Pink."

Miscellaneous desk: "Why am I Mr. Pink?"

• Can we get a little more vertical space between the list items? They're looking a little cramped, at least in my copy of Firefox. [Never mind, someone fixed it as I was writing this!]
• Are we gonna carry the colors over onto Wikipedia:Reference desk?

• And what about Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives (which currently has an almost completely different color-coding scheme)?

—Steve Summit (talk) 03:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The archives page is weird like that because freshgavin couldn't get consensus to change the whole RD to that color scheme so he just did it on the archives page. His original is here. --ffroth 20:09, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. In my own way ;) I got rid of that inconsistent ugly useless splash page and replaced it with the header.. the link to post a new question says "choose a topic from the right". Beautiful! I tried to pull this off last year but I was drowned in opposition.. we'll see how it goes now --ffroth 04:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Keke, finished! The tabbed colors are done too, to the pixel. Note that it's designed to internet standards and if your browser doesn't comply, it's absolutely not supported. (ahem internet explorer). Zero sympathy. Fortunately for you, it still looks OK in IE (kind of sloppy though, just like the rest of monobook in IE). Looks good in Opera, and in firefox it's pixel-perfect. --ffroth 04:15, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

First reaction: Yuk!

Second reaction: Why?

I'm quite willing to endure the hurt to my eyes if there it serves a purpose, but I can't see one. The humanities and computing colour schemes look good, but the rest hurt my eyes to vaious degrees and miscellaneous is just awful. But the worst is the combination of the colours in the sidebar, which clash horribly. Then again, it's only the top of the pages, so I don't get to see it a lot, most importantly not while I'm reading. So I can live with it.

Another thing is, however, what impression this leaves on newcomers. Colours have a strong psychological effect, especially for first impressions, and I wonder what kind of people this would attract and repel. It looks very pre-teen girlie. Like that toy horse with the many coloured manes, what's that called again? So not very scientific. I wonder how I would have reacted if I didn't know Wikipedia and this were my first introduction. I might not bother to look any further, thinking this would not be for me. Well, at least there are nog flash animations, so that's something. :) DirkvdM 06:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

(My little pony - trivia)

I've got to agree with the above, looks 'cute' - actually the colours are a little pale (ie practically invisible) - if I was using a CRT I'd assume someone had dropped it or had been messing about with a magnet near it. But what's the point? How does this help? ( can I go around wikipedia 'playing' with the colours too? <sarcasm>) Seriously - is there an explanation for stupid people that explains - what the colours mean and why it's been done. Please help87.102.16.28 08:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC) In the meantime lets all look at this image and draw what meaning we can individually from the text within the image..87.102.16.28 08:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC) Comment - I have no objection to changing the main colour in the heading from the usual blue -to another colour - makes a welcome change - but I really think the rest has to go - as it serves no purpose..09:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.16.28 (talk) I think the simplest explanation is you are either a. Gay b. A 12 year old girl c. Very very drunk?

Also the 'science desk' sidebar isn't coloured in.87.102.16.28 09:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

What was the point of this? I didn't take part in the colour collaboration discussions because I didn't understand the point of the scheme, and thus assumed it was some deep computery/user-friendliness thing. But now it just looks like it took away the friendly icons from WP:RD and added weird colours to the top bars of the pages. Is it supposed to aid in navigation? I don't quite see how it does, and the changes to WP:RD make it less obviously accessible to an inexperienced user. Changing between different shades of blue/green as I click through the desks just looks inconsistent, like someone forgot to make a note of what colour they used each time. And some of the colours clash with the standard Wikipedia blue/grey background. But I assume there was a point to all this that I'm missing. Skittle 10:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

All I have to say is that it looks gay. --Taraborn 13:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Where did the icons go? I want my icons back!. —Keenan Pepper 18:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

It looks good!! :[ A ton of people have told me how cool and good it looks, where are you all?! I got rid of the iconed splash page because it's totally inconsistent- new users have to learn 2 completely different levels of navigation. They click the right icon, then get into the main reference desk app, and learn that navigation, then come back to check their question and-- is this the same page? I thought the desks were listed vertically at the top?! WHAT IS GOING ON?! etc. Also the portal was completely useless- it just said pick a topic (which the new one does now too at /header/addnewalt) and gave a search box (we already have one on the left, and all users are assumed familiar with it) and links to irrelevant projects (relevant ones are listed in /header/otherrd in the main header anyway). So poof it's gone. It seems like I'm being drowned in opposition again, but seriously, a lot of people have said how much they love it so it's a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing I guess. I was initially concerned about the gay rainbow effect but the colors turned out to be so light and pastel-y that it doesn't look gay at all IMO- they're barely distinguishable if you have your monitor saturation set to a reasonable value. As for the people saying "Why change"... well, why not? Everyone hated the new look at first last time but come on can you actually imagine going back to this hideous beast? You'll get used to it soon enough -_- --ffroth 19:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

It's nice to see this implemented, though some of the colors could use a little tweaking. I started creating individual desk headers last night but stopped halfway through, seeing the final product, I do kind of miss the icons, but this is defiantly more consistent. I ran into this problem myself, and it is actually why I stopped while only half done, but there just aren't enough distinctive colors for each desk, so some desks get stuck with in between colors. But other than that, nice job, a lot more organized than the changes I was going to make. --VectorPotential^Talk 19:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I was worried about that but some kind wikipedian posted a ton of colors to Wikipedia talk:Colours, and the top table was perfect- equally spaced out so they're not too similar and only one set less than the number of desks. I ended up using H240 from the big table (right between 210 and 270) for one of the desks to fill that gap. So those 3 desks are a little closer than the others, but it helps the other ones remain more distinct. In case you're curious, the 240 desk is Language- that's why it looks sort of dark and weird on the list. And that just sort of works out that L and E, our least trafficked desks, are two of the more-similar colors --ffroth 19:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Never mind on that I re entered all the colors so now the hues are equally spaced. Well sort of, Misc and Computing are technically 10 degrees farther apart than the others, but they're not next to each other so you can't tell.

		mainbg		accent		headingbg	borders
H30	#FFFAF5 	#FFF2E6 	#F2E0CE 	#BFB1A3		COMPUTING
H80	#FCFFF5 	#F7FFE6 	#E6F2CE 	#B6BFA3		SCIENCE
H130	#F5FFF7 	#E6FFEA 	#CEF2D4 	#A3BFA7		MATHEMATICS
H180	#F5FFFF 	#E6FFFF 	#CEF2F2 	#A3BFBF		HUMANITIES
H230	#F5F7FF 	#E6EAFF 	#CED4F2 	#A3A7BF		LANGUAGE
H280	#FCF5FF 	#F7E6FF 	#E6CEF2 	#B6A3BF		ENTERTAINMENT
H330	#FFF5FA 	#FFE6F2 	#F2CEE0 	#BFA3B1		MISCELLANEOUS

--ffroth 19:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

OK I'm pretty much done. Over the past 2 days I've made about 800 edits to the header code.. Except for the colors there's basically no differene visually, but the code has changed a lot. The major changes are in how it stores properties that change from desk to desk. All configuration and navigation information is now stored in an array page, with a twin page for external configuration via the "external" parameter. New objects can easily be added to the configuration page and those properties are then available for use anywhere in the header. So to add a new desk to the list, you don't copy and paste the giant block of wikicode and change 10 places inside it to the new desk name and links, you just add color and name information to the configuration file and transclude the nav/aux template, which is a helper template that processes the configuration information and prints the wikicode for a desk tab. nav/aux is currently the only helper template, but that's the idea of this particular feature.. being able to define what WP:RD/C (objects are named by their shortcut) looks like, and then telling a helper template to build a nav tab for WP:RD/C and it being able to look up all the information it needs. The rest of the header sort of just directly accesses the configuration information wherever needed, but the plan is to Eventually™ build it up to the point where properties are mostly accessed through helper templates, like "build a header block. look up information for the header block named leftblock and go from there". There aren't actually any type definitions; all the objects are sort of just mashed up together in the configuration file and anything that uses them knows what to do.. kind of unusual but it wouldn't be any more useful to have strict data types (except maybe some simple methods for the bigger types like the desk objects) and the code is small enough that I can keep track of things fairly easily. The other major change in the code is that it no longer depends on the {{SUBPAGENAME}} variable. Just like the color information used to be, the desk's object name (along with the external flag, for unrelated reasons) is passed as a parameter throughout the header tree. This is used to identify what desk you're calling it from.. so now it's possible to actually specify which desk object you want the header to display. Very frickin cool!! Just FYI, you know ;) --ffroth 00:39, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Same colour scheme

Don't know about gay, but it definitely looks pre-teen girlie, with the same colour scheme as 'my little pony' (so I put that back here - the similarity is just too striking). Maybe it's to do with the browser and monitor (settings) or such - I am a photographer and graphical designer and I have a top grade monitor, so maybe some others don't see what I see. I'll never get used to that, just like I will never get used to commercials with bloody flash animations. But like I said, at least I can instantly scroll away from it. Until I want to switch desks, because then I have to hit one of the links in the hideous sidebar. And it's that that I object to most. A different colour scheme is one thing, one for each desk, ok (but why?), but if you put these colours side by side, they clash horribly.

Why not change? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And I didn't hate the last change. I can understand your frustration after all the effort you put into this. The thing is that people will not react until they are confronted with it. And who are all those people who loved it? At Wikipedia:Reference desk/Colo(u)r Collaboration - Please Help Out! I only see a proposal for a different colour for each desk at the very bottom, and no reactions to it. And before that, only about 12 people reacted.

However, I do agree with leaving out the icon page. I've got the science ref desk bookmarked, so I never get to see that anymore, but it is indeed quite useless and potentially confusing. DirkvdM 07:08, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Seem to agree - the new format is good. The side bar-colours not. End of message.87.102.0.6 12:20, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Can't we just have alternating light grey / greyish blue for the boxes? Provides contrast and we can lose the My Little Pony colourscheme. I feel slightly embarrased when using it. Lanfear's Bane | t 13:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it's because you've changed the colours again, maybe it's because I'm on a different monitor, but the stripy colours are much more obvious. Subtle is definitely not the word. My Little Pony, or perhaps Lovehearts. Not especially librarian :) Skittle 14:15, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The Maths/Languages/Humanities group particularly looks like someone just forgot to note the right colours when I click between them, as if they are meant to be the same but aren't. Skittle 23:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I want to make one thing clear. There is nothing girlish or gay about the all-mighty spectrum of visible light. I think the current colors give that feeling because of their high luminosity, low saturation and more than the fair share of pink. The stripes would look much better (yet more intrusive) if they were pure color, that is, full saturation and mid luminosity, and distributed sensibly along the hue spectrum - Red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, purple would cover the current desks quite nicely. Of course, the backgrounds should still be faint. Oh, and /math should be blue. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

If we followed the portal conventions, then math should be apricot, cerulean blue for science, periwinkle for history, old gold for languages, charcoal for computing, and no suggestions for entertainment and miscellaneous. There are also color coded infoboxes ... ---Sluzzelin talk 19:13, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Disappointing? Yeah I spent like half an hour building the color table, but by far the most work was on the code, so that if we need to make changes like this I can do it much more easily. I have no personal bias like I worked so hard on it I refuse to change it, but people have told me (on my talk page, like one at color collab, some here, several friends through IRC and google talk) that they think it looks really good so meh. SEE THE SECTION BELOWW. --ffroth 00:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

In response to Meni Rosenfeld's comment, changing it to a rainbow of colours really won't help things... Lanfear's Bane | t 11:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The association is not inherent in the colors themselves. We should therefore introduce resemblance breakers - for example, reduce luminosity, reverse order, include cyan (which is absent from the current flag), and most interesting - replace the stripes with colored squares next to the desk names. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 17:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Missing links

The links up in the Choose a topic: box aren't hyperlinked at this time (except for "Archives"). - hydnjo talk 23:17, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Fixed! - hydnjo talk 23:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry :( Laïka messaged me about it and I was able to fix it immediately. I was sloppy --ffroth 23:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Hallucination

I think I am hallucinating. The top right part of the page with the quick links to other reference desks has colors now ... multicolor bands. Was it always that way? --Kushal^t 14:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC) -->

See Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk/Computing#Color_coding_the_desks - apparently it was an attempt to mimic the web design at clubseventeen.com...87.102.16.28 14:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

(After EC) It's all new in the past 24 hours or so, though the "Colour collaboration" (click on multicoloured dot at the top right corner of this page) has been going on for many months. Bielle 14:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, we can't give medical advice on the reference desk; if you think you might be hallucinating, see a medical physician immediately ;-P Kuronue | Talk 15:57, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Sock puppet?

How can you tell whether a user is a sock puppet? There is a question, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#stay_or_leave, that was posted twice in the space of a minute (21:11 and 21:12) by an IP address. I and another user deleted one each, inadvertantly erasing both. A minute later, a new registered user posted again the exact same words. The question itself is on its face suspect to my mind, but the circumstances are even more so. --Milkbreath 00:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Sock puppetry can be identified by editing pattern or by checkuser. This really sock puppetry though, as its likely that a person who edited anonymously decided to create an account because their question was deleted. The question seems heartfelt enough, if not really appropriate for the desks. I think the answer offered is fine, and we probably leave it at that. Rockpocket 00:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

OK. I thought I saw other clues, too, but no biggie. Murder will out, they say. Thanks. --Milkbreath 01:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll keep and eye on the account and IP and see of anything out of the ordinary turns up. Rockpocket 01:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Header problem

WTF is going on with the RD hedre header? - hydnjo talk 02:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I see no problem :| And if you're using "going on" in a progressive sense, nothing further will be going on with it unless vectorpotential tweaks the colors a little --ffroth 02:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

'twas a temporary lapse of coherence within the header that was resolved shortly after my post. I'll wait a bit before letting my anxiety rule the keyboard again ;-) - hydnjo talk 10:36, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

O ya, 3 or 4 times I had a large change to implement.. I have to have like 15 tabs open and race from tab to tab hitting Save page as fast as I can but until I get to that last tab it's messed up. And of course it's really not fun when things don't work after the massive change.. I don't exactly have time to debug, I have to race through every tab again reverting my edits and it takes like 5 agonizing minutes knowing RD users are seeing a giant explosion of wikicode :P So yeah I'm not surprised that someone tried to load a page while things were unstable. --ffroth 23:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Clashing Colors Tabs Straw Poll

Response seems to be good but people hate the color tabs. The point of them was to make the color coding distinctive like "I can't remember which desk I put my question on, ah that's right it was the bright pink one" or to let regulars find the link to their desk without even reading.. once they get used to it, just look for the color and quick-click. But I've heard a lot of negative response to the tabs.. so it's time for a good old fashioned straw poll! Support or Oppose to having the colors put right next to each other like that in the nav list. If the majority is oppose, I'll make the other tabs the mainbg color, it'll look fine. So choose your fate! --ffroth 00:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• Support. I think it looks good. We could use a little break from the 1990s monobook style- this is the TF2 era, let's be a little wacky! --ffroth 00:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • This is not a TF2 site. And what does monobook have to do with this? DirkvdM 04:54, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm just saying that monobook is 1990s "corporate style" grey-and-white monochrome, and the rest of the internet is a decade past- it's gone through the crappy super-colorful phase and back to white with splashes of brilliant color, like youtube and digg. As for TF2, I'm of course not suggesting this is a TF2 fansite, I'm just saying that that wacky, super colorful but excruciatingly detailed design has been praised up and down and loved by millions of players; the lighten-up-this-isn't-real-life attitude has been very successful and we shouldn't be terrified to have it --ffroth 18:39, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Moral Support. I don't care one way or the other. But I like ponies. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Color good. --Milkbreath 01:20, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. If colors are to be then, for consistancy, the color scheme should continue into the archives which now have two different color schemes: one for October 2006 to present and another for August 2005 to October 2006! - hydnjo talk 01:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Abstain. The colors are wholly unnecessary, but they don't look at all bad (Froth did an excellent job), and they're certainly not "gay". But we should carry them over onto the Arvhives page, and also bring back the icons on the top-level page, but compatibly colorized. —Steve Summit (talk) 01:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support The colours are cheerful and don't interfere with the "readability" of the text. Sometimes there doesn't have to be a serious reason for a change. Bielle 02:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support A.Z. 02:18, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose It hurts my eyes and it serves no purpose. DirkvdM 04:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I love them. -- JackofOz 06:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, you would, that was Tarabom's point. :) Not that I find it a very valid reason, but to each their own. DirkvdM 06:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, no, actually, my vote had nothing to do with that word. I'm glad it's gone now. -- JackofOz 08:01, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose, I suppose. I appreciate a lot of work went in, and I'm not opposed to colour itself, but it generally feels pastelly and a bit messy. But I'm not sure how you could colour-code the desks without it feeling rather messy as you click through, although not having the close-together blue/greens might help. Skittle 06:59, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks to this I now have the 'My Little Pony' jingle stuck in my head, forcing me to consider the reference desks 'Ponyland'. (There's no place like it) Skittle 07:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Look good, though as froth notes my judgement may be swayed by too much TF2. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 07:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't like the washed-out colors. Clarityfiend 07:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Brightens the place up, but could we stop using the term "gay" in such a manner please? Rockpocket 07:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Pleasant and serves a purpose; I must admit I like this sort of "differentiation by colour" (you should see some of my spreadsheets at work!). Hassocks5489 07:58, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • That's not the issue here, and I fear that confusion is affecting the poll. It's not about the colour schemes but about the sidebar. I suggest everyone can change their vote to reflect this, but it may be too late for that. DirkvdM 08:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Fair enough (and I agree it's not clear), but I still Support having a side navigation bar. After all, it's similar in principle to the Table of Contents in articles, isn't it? And they are generally considered useful. Hassocks5489 11:07, 23 October 2007 (UTC) Hold on ... you mean the colour scheme of the sidebar as opposed to the colour scheme of the board terms and conditions, don't you...? Well, that's what I meant - I hadn't even thought about the terms and conditions panel. Just to clarify, I Support having the spectrum of colours in the sidebar. Hassocks5489 11:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Washed out and unattractive, a better approach would be something like the reformed banner templates with a white box and a vividly coloured border on one side, in this case probably the right. I might have a go at tinkering with the my own design of the header but it seems very... untidy right now. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • It's essentially impossible. I just spent an hour or so trying to figure it out, and we'd have to have each individual link tab construct part of the outer border instead of it all being lassoed together into a nice block.. we'd have to use pixel-perfect negative margins to bind everything together, and of course it would explode in any other browser. To have the little color bars inside the outer border doesn't work either for some reason- the top and bottom borders around the highlight tab cut through the top of the thick color border (and not the bottom) so it looks really messy --ffroth 21:07, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Grrrrr --ffroth 18:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• Abstain, I guess. I'm not convinced they bestow any advantage, but I don't object. I'm so sick of web pages with lurid dancing graphics that, whether it's in pastel shades or plain vanilla, Wikipedia is always a welcome relief.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. I like the idea in principle, but when I first saw the rainbow design, I was very unhappy with the colors on some desks. Less bright colors might do the trick. I'm also surprised at how it was implemented, first there is a page that discusses color schemes and suddenly the link to that page is gone and one is implemented without a wide poll announced. I think we need to go back to the drawing board and have a site-wide poll on the most popular designs from that earlier discussion. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:58, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. Feels a little childish. Really not comfortable with the amount of pinky colours. Do we have any evidence that it helps people remember which board they posted to? Is this actually a problem? Lanfear's Bane | t 09:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

*OPPOSE HATE HATE HATE the colours, what are they for, no purpose so far as I can see and they slow down the loading of the page. Forget it !!--88.109.243.56 09:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC) (banned users don't get to express an opinion. Rockpocket 16:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC))

• How can you complain about Light colours? (evil grin) —Steve Summit (talk) 10:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• :O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O :O --ffroth 15:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

By the way, the colors aren't slowing it down, all of wikipedia is fubared at the moment --ffroth 20:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. Per Dirk. His arguments about pre-teen girls and little ponies sum up perfectly my opinion on all these colours. PS:I've given proper format to the vote above by mr. 88.109.243.56. PS2: Perhaps changing the pinks and purples will give the Desk a more macho look ? :) --Taraborn 09:56, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• So what's all this squeamish negativity about pastels and ponies? Heck, even Slashdot adopted them some little while back, to wild acclaim... —Steve Summit (talk) 10:51, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• If all the other big people on The Internets stick their hand in The Pastel Forge Fires of Doom does that mean we have to too? :P Lanfear's Bane | t 13:00, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, that means it makes Wikipedia more unique, one site that keeps its cool amidst all the loudmouths, so that's a plus. Actually, that was one of the reasons that I instantly fell in love with Wikipedia three years ago. And since it's only gotten worse elsewhere, so hurrah for us - until now. DirkvdM 16:54, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• This is not about that. For clarification, as I see it, there are three issues here:

1. Whether there should be any change at all, and if so, which colour scheme to use
2. If so, whether the different desks should have separate colours
3. The colour combinations in the sidebar, which is what this poll is about

Because all have been implemented at the same time, the list will now have to be dealt with in reverse order, but so be it. Oh, and then there is the unrelated issue of replacing the icon page with a sidebar page (to make that the same as at the separate ref desks), so that may need to be dealt with as well, but that could be done right now, in a separate poll, because it is unrelated. DirkvdM 12:44, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose Like the new format - get rid of the colours - they serve no purpose - just fluff.87.102.17.104 11:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Clashes with Monobook, no apparent benefit. I find the colors shaded too similarly to make off-the-cuff "oh, I posted on the x color page" identification likely. — Lomn 14:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose (sorta). I think the purpose of the colors should be to make identification of the desk easy--but the present colors do not do that. They are much too similar and wishywashy.--Eriastrum 15:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose for lack of a reason to try to make these pages look different from the rest of Wikipedia. The colors do nothing useful that I can see. Friday (talk) 16:59, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support. I quite liked the change of colours, added a bit of life to the boards. Wouldn't cry myself to sleep if it returned to as before either though. ny156uk 18:16, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. I really want the old intermediary page back. (You know the one; the page that had all the Reference desks laid out with icons for each and a short description of what the desk did.) --S.dedalus 18:54, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Moral support (Thanks for that phrase, Sluzzelin) It is a daily treat to see how the Ref desk has been changed. No irony: it's always functional, but just a *bit* different. SaundersW 21:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly the attitude I have- a little change is always fun! --ffroth 22:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to the WHATEVER reference desk

In the banner at the top, I'd like to suggest the relevant name (Humanities, Computing, etc) be put in ALL CAPITALS, or at the very least, in Initial Caps, to help the name stand out better and lower the risk of people asking questions on the wrong desk. -- JackofOz 06:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to the HOMEWORK HUMANITIES Desk. (Sorry, sorry, one of my bugbears). I don't know about this idea, I mean it does say Wikipedia:Reference desk/Name of Desk at the top of every page. Lanfear's Bane | t 12:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It's lowercase because it doesn't make sense to have a random cap in the middle of the sentence --ffroth 15:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Duplicate questions

I've removed four duplicate questions in the past couple of days, and I know others have removed dupes too. I just wondered if anyone can think of a reason for this sudden spate of them. They don't seem to come from the same user. Could there be something awry with the posting procedure that people are not understanding? Or could there be a bug somewhere?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is very slow of late. (Maybe meant as an incentive for people to donate?) A result might be that people post a question, can't see it saved before their patience runs out and then decide to post it again without checking if the first save actually worked. Because it's especially the saving that is slow, or at least appears to be. Later it turns out the edit has been saved, but there is no feedback. DirkvdM 10:39, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

It's the new RD colours. They are clogging the gears of knowledge and slowing Wikipedia as they have to be handpainted from behind your screen by "Evil Wikifaeries" (not Wikifairies, those are good). Down with pastels. Take off every zig. For great justice. Lanfear's Bane | t 11:43, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I was actually worried about that since I added several kilobytes of pre-expand include size, but after doing the math it's really irrelevant compared to the massive size of the desk content itself --ffroth 18:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

pony rainbow removed

50% consensus is unsettling for an idea I wasn't sure would work well in the first place.. I removed the rainbow of tabs, which incidentally allowed the 'external' parameter to actually work. So it's a good thing, sort of. Dirk seems determined to start votes for every change, so expect those soon I guess.. I don't really see any potential problems with the way things are now (especially no problems with the lack of inconsistent, ugly, redundant icon page :/) so I won't be asking for opinion or changing anything for awhile. Of course if there's consensus that the color coding idea is stupid then I'll remove it; I mean that I won't be making any additional changes. Ya so the rainbow is gone --ffroth 21:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Iconic header

I've restored the iconic header. Discussion? Also, there are some links there that aught not be so casually discarded. - hydnjo talk 23:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Like what? Everything above the icons is obvious or redundant- a 2nd search box?.. The reference desk acts like a reference desk you don't say. Oh I thought "Archives" was a desk for questions about archives, you mean it actually contains previous questions? As for the descriptions under the icons.. I would have never guessed that the computing desk is for questions about computing, or that the mathematics desk is for questions about (gasp) math. The other descriptions are similarly inane. Help desk and VP are already linked to in the otherrd section of the header, and so is the help manual. The mediawiki handbook is appropriate for the help desk, NOT the reference desk. Citing wikipedia is unrelated too- the reference desk is uncitable. Resolving disputes has absolutely nothing to do with "For Wikipedia reference information", what the heck is that doing there?!?! This thing is ugly, redundant, and confusing for users who have to learn 2 forms of navigation for the same pages. It's also full of absolutely useless unrelated links.. I agree with you they shouldn't be casually discarded they should be enthusiastically burned --ffroth 23:59, 23 October 2007 (UTC)