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For native English speakers only: Would a native English speaker talk like this?

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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
(Let's say A and B are friends in their late twenties, and A is a pessimist when it comes to dating and relationships.) A: She only loves you for your money, obviously. If you told her you sold your car and quit your job, she'd be gone in a minute. B (being sarcastic): Sure, I'll take your word for it. You're a self-proclaimed authority on dating, aren't you? You made me realize that every woman I've ever met or fallen in love with was either a sociopath or a gold digger. (I got mixed responses the last time I asked native-English speakers if this conversation sounded natural to them. Some said the wording is so archaic and stilted. Others said it's fine the way it is. What are your thoughts? If you were A, and B told you that, would you say "well, I didn't expect a 21st century native English speaker to say that"?)Jra2019 (talk) 02:59, 23 January 2016 (UTC

Proposal: Try a different approach as a limited-time experiment

Our primary problem is that certain individuals insist on trying to control the behavior of others. That never works. We need to stop that kind of behavior, because it has a long history of generating increased trolling everywhere anyone has ever tried it.

We need to stop feeding the trolls. We need to either ignore posts we don't like, reply to posts we don't like with a deadpan serious answer to the question asked as if we never noticed that it was an attempt to disrupt the helpdesks, or report posts we don't like at ANI for the admins to deal with.

We need to stop responding to trolls. We need to stop hatting or deleting comments by trolls. We need to stop talking about trolls. We need to stop talking about each others responses to trolls. We need to stop making trolls the center of attention. We need to stop making regulars who respond to trolls the center of attention.

We need to put all of the above in an RfC as a limited-time experiment, achieve an overwhelming consensus that this is what we want to do, put it in our guidelines, and report anyone who refuses to follow the consensus at ANI so that they can be blocked for being disruptive.

What we are doing now is not working. I propose that we try the following approach as a limited-time experiment:

PROPOSAL

This is a preliminary proposal to gauge rough consensus. If there is sufficient support, I will turn this into an RfC.

Proposed: All editors on the helpdesks will (for the duration of the a limited time experiment) have several choices as to how to respond to trolling at the Science Desk:

1. Ignore the question and move on.
2. Post a warning template on the poster's talk page without any mention of it here.
3. Answer the question asked with a deadpan serious answer to the question asked, acting as if we never noticed that it was an attempt to disrupt the helpdesks.
4. Take it to WP:ANI or WP:AIAV and let an administrator decide whether to delete it, whether to remove it from the history, whether to block the user, and whether to protect (full, semi, or PC) the page.
5. Post a warning template on the talk page (without any mention of it here) of any regular who does anything other than the above.
6. Take any regular who does anything other than the above to WP:ANI for not following consensus.

Note: Some of the above can be combined.

Proposed: All editors on the helpdesks will (for the duration of the a limited time experiment) be absolutely forbidden to respond to trolling at the Science Desk in any of the following ways:

1. Responding other than with a deadpan serious answer to the question asked, acting as if we never noticed that it was an attempt to disrupt the helpdesks.
2. Deleting any other user's comment.
3. Collapsing any other user's comment.
4. Discussing the refdesk behavior of any other user -- troll or regular -- of the refdesks or on this talk page, Such discussions are suggested to be taken to WP:ANI, WP:AIAV or the user's talk page, but this proposal only specifies "not here." This will be a place to discuss improving the help desk or our answers, not a user behavior noticeboard.

If an RfC based upon this proposal passes, all of the above will be written into our guidelines, and enforced by uninvolved administrators with blocks for those who refuse to comply. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:26, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

CLARIFICATION

This proposal should not be construed as in any way overriding our existing rules about edits that should be removed on sight, all of which are listed at Wikipedia:Edit warring#3RR exemptions. They are:

1. Reverting your own actions ("self-reverting"). In other words, the troll is free to revert his own trolling.
2. Reverting actions that are clearly performed by banned users, and sockpuppets of banned or blocked users]—edits that any well-intentioned user would agree constitute edits by a banned user.
3. Reverting obvious vandalism—edits that any well-intentioned user would agree constitute vandalism, such as page blanking and adding offensive language.
4. Removal of clear copyright violations or content that unquestionably violates the non-free content policy (NFCC). What counts as exempt under NFCC can be controversial, and should be established as a violation first. Consider reporting to the Wikipedia:Files for discussion noticeboard instead of relying on this exemption.
5. Removal of other content that is clearly illegal under US law, such as child pornography and links to pirated software.
6. Removing violations of the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy that contain libelous, biased, unsourced, or poorly sourced contentious material. What counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Consider reporting to the BLP noticeboard instead of relying on this exemption.

I apologize for adding this after several people have supported/opposed this proposal. Please indicate if this addition changes or does not change your !vote. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:15, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Support / Oppose

• Weak Support as follows - In view of the fact, correctly stated, by the Original Poster, that some of the regulars do indeed try to control the behavior of other regulars, this will turn out to be a draconian remedy, which is probably needed. It is unlikely that WP:ANI will follow the consensus here, if there is one, to stop berating other regulars for their behavior. This draconian remedy, at least as an experiment, is better than nothing, but probably not much better than nothing. I am assuming that the reference to the Science Desk is not really limited to the Science Desk but to all the desks. I would strongly advise that trolls not be reported at WP:ANI, but at WP:AIV. This does not rule out requests for an entirely new design that eliminates semi-protection, although I don't think that is practical, or has sufficient support. More later, maybe. I won't give strong support because I am deeply cynical in that I don't see some of the regulars having the common sense to stop trying to control other regulars. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:04, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
• weak support - The basic idea is a good one - and lays out behavioral norms that I strongly believe we should all practice. We don't actually need consensus on this proposal to individually choose not to respond to trollish/unsavory questions - or to respond dead-pan if we think they are merely "iffy". The problem here is that we're now saying that instead of attempting to control the actions of our end-users, we instead control the actions of our editors. I have no problem with trying to do that - but we should be aware that (to steal the words of this proposal) Our primary secondary problem is that certain individuals insist on trying to control the behavior of others editors. That never works either. But, that said, it should be easier to exert peer-pressure on fellow editors than it is to apply pressure to the trolls and other miscreants. IMHO, we need to re-instill that feeling of professionalism that WP:RD regulars had several years ago. That standard has declined and we need to re-establish it. We should award ref-desk barnstars to great answers...tell the list that we did that. We should suggest mentorship to new answerers. We should write a set of guidelines for what makes a good answer, and when jokes and asides are not appropriate. When a newbie editor doesn't follow them - then let's actively explain to them what they did wrong...but off on their talk page.

However, I suspect that this won't be enough. This approach won't be enough to cut out the highly-legitimate questions that we sometimes get from banned users from showing up. Since they look (and possibly are) perfectly good questions, we're going to answer them because we don't know when the OP is a sock of a banned user. That means that the "only-tool-you-have-is-a-hammer" Admins will still swoop in and semi-protect the Ref Desk - and probably delete answers that have cost some of us an hour of research to answer properly. This proposal (although good as far as it goes) won't scratch the surface of that problem. So - IMHO - we still need something better...some means to separate out the act of asking a question so it happens out of the view of most of the public - that way we can kill 'bad' questions before it becomes a public act and therefore becomes troll-bait. SteveBaker (talk) 17:26, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

• oppose as written this proposal requires us to go to ANI or somewhere else to remove serious BLP violations or copyvios something which is followed basically no where else on the encylopaedia and goes against fundamental wikipedia policy and at least in the former, foundation directives. It's often necessary to involve admins in such cases anyway particularly since they should normally be deleted from the edit history, but it should not required if it's gauged as unnecessary and it particularly should not be required to wait for some admin somewhere else to take notice. In fact even WP:Oversight generally suggests the quiet removal of problems before reporting them there. Note also we're proposing to limit ANI to admin acting only, I doubt we can do that without a consensus at ANI even with a widely advertised RFC here. P.S. Technically it only requires it in case where it can be called trolling, but that's still an unacceptable limit. Nil Einne (talk) 17:48, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

• Excellent point. Please see the clarification I added at the end of the above proposal. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:17, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose - I've noticed that when the chatter dies down on the talk page, the trolling seems to die down too. So, why are you dredging this up yet again? Just let the admins do their jobs, and otherwise leave well enough alone. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:37, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
• Support as worth trying. Nothing really risked, we can always revert to the status quo. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:00, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
• "That never works" So, oppose. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:57, March 30, 2016 (UTC)
• A little more opposed after clarification. Just more rules to remember. Consequently, more answers to forget. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:32, March 30, 2016 (UTC)
• Weak support. I'm in complete agreement with all the premises. I'm not sure this experiment is the right way to demonstrate them, but I suppose it can't hurt. —Steve Summit (talk) 13:53, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
• Support The Ref Desks might be less filled with hatting, unhatting, and in-house squabbling. There might be less squabbling on the talk page. Sadly, my experience has been that when you raise some question on another regular's talk page about what they did on the Ref Desk,in a civil way, they reject the comment and become hostile. Edison (talk) 16:35, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose unless "absolutely forbidden" is clarified and not very bad. As this is way out of the ordinary, a person might forget, or not read every last little syllable, and then you have to decide what to do to him. If what you do is only to revert and notify, then I might support; but if there is a possibility of long-term drama arising out of violating the terms of a short-term experiment then I have to pass. Wnt (talk) 22:26, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

• You make a good point. Clearly we don't want anything bad to happen to the person you describe, or even to someone who gets pissed off at the trolls and lashes out once or twice. On the other hand, we know that we have some regulars who will take the position of "screw your stupic experiment, I am going to do what I want to do" and completely invalidate the experiment. For those individuals only, we need an RfC with overwhelming support (thus showing the will of the community) and an admin or two who are willing to enforce the clear will of the community. Do you have any suggestions as to how best to word the RfC so that it meets both goals? --Guy Macon (talk) 10:00, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

• SNOW Oppose for more reasons than I can count, but principally because this directly conflicts with actual community consensus and policy regarding where it is appropriate to remove, hat, or alter the comments of other users in discussion spaces. WP:TPG applies here as surely as any other discussion page and attempts to force the above approach via WP:ANI will certainly A) fail spectauclarly, B) generate more drama, distraction and wasted editorial effort for the community than it can possibly preserved, here or broadly, and C) will lead to yet more consideration in the broader community that the desks are a lightning rod for disruption and acrimony and that they may be more trouble than they are worth or at the very least require regulation from the outside. Genuinely meaning no offense to the well-intentioned editor proposing this, but this is perhaps the most ill-considered "solution" to trolling that has been bandied here yet, and that's quite a contest. Snow ^{let's rap} 21:25, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Additional comment: There's also the matter of this solution being an ill-fitting carpet-bomb of an approach to a problem that can be tackled much more precisely and surgically. We all know, as is indeed reflected in comments above and every other variation of this topic that has occurred here in the last few years, that we're discussing this matter not because there is an endemic problem with regard to people overreacting to trolls, but because there are just a couple of regulars who behave in this manner. The workable solution is to decide amongst ourselves whether these parties are considered a net benefit to the desks, factoring in these behaviours. If the answer is no, then we should make it known our patience has run out, and should the behaviour continue, take those specific editors to AN/ANI for a topic ban removing them from the desks or an editing restriction preventing them from deleting the content of another editor in this space, without exception. And afterall, if we can't get community support for that much narrower sanction, what hope would we have of convincing the community and an uninvolved admin at ANI to institute blocks or bans for users because we made an idiosyncratic rule here which we want to enforce, even though it conflicts with community wide vandalism and talk space standards? Snow ^{let's rap} 21:43, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

To @Nil Einne: and others who might share that reasoning: this proto-proposal does not say anything about BLP and copyvio, only trolling. Whilst I suppose a ne'er-do-well could incorporate trolling, BLP and copyvio in to a single post, they are usually separate issues here. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:06, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

No as I already mention trolling is a concern. They have definitely have been guilty of BLP violations before although perhaps not serious ones. And I'm not sure about the case you helped deal with above as I didn't see the part which was deleted, from what I read about it, it could very well qualify as a serious BLP vio and all the evidence points to it being trolling albeit originating from some other wiki. Trolls are probably the biggest concern from a serious BLP standpoint because anyone who makes a serious BLP either quickly learns not to do so, or is indefed. There would be a small number of one time good faith editors who may make BLP vios, but they aren't really the biggest concern, copyvios are less common and possibly one time editors would be a bigger problem here (still not long term editors since they need to learn or be blocked). There's also the question of how you define trolling. If you're going to use a very restrictive definition of trolling (excluding for example WickWack, Bowei Huang and Vote X as trolls and therefore the deletion of their comments as not being affected by this proposal), I don't see that what this proposal achieves. And even if you did use such a definition, it's unhelpful that someone doing a good thing is going to risk penalty because someone is going to argue that it's trolling. Isn't the whole point of this proposal that it's not helpful to have arguments over whether something is trolling anyway? So the way I see it, you'd need to include any blocked or banned editor as a troll. Nil Einne (talk) 19:21, 30 March 2016 (UTC)See modified version below:

I agree that we can't (and shouldn't) prevent removal of material that violates Wikipedia guidelines such as WP:BLP, WP:NPA, etc. This proposal should be amended to make it clear that the removals it's talking about here are removals due to actual or suspected trolling. SteveBaker (talk) 19:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I was making some changes to my comment but you already replied so I've included a modified version below and kept the above version intact. Nil Einne (talk) 19:36, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

No as I already mention trolling is a concern. They have definitely have been guilty of BLP violations before although perhaps not serious ones. And I'm not sure about the case you helped deal with above as I didn't see the part which was deleted, from what I read about it, it could very well qualify as a serious BLP vio and all the evidence points to it being trolling albeit originating from some other wiki. Trolls are probably the biggest concern from a serious BLP standpoint because anyone who makes a serious BLP either quickly learns not to do so, or is indefed. There would be a small number of one time good faith editors who may make BLP vios, but they aren't really the biggest concern. Copyvios are less common and possibly one time editors would be a bigger problem here (still not long term editors since they need to learn or be blocked).

There's also the question of how you define trolling. If you're going to use a very restrictive definition of trolling (excluding for example WickWack, Bowei Huang and Vote X as trolls and therefore the deletion of their comments as not being affected by this proposal), I don't see that what this proposal achieves particularly since if someone starts an antisemitic question of someone from NSW asks about the relationship between God, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Dawkins, environmentalism particularly global warming, poverty and world hunger and the bible; you're I'm sure you'll get arguments over whether it's the same editor as we always get, or some other editor. Isn't the whole point of this proposal that it's not helpful to have arguments over whether something is trolling anyway? So the way I see it, you'd need to include any blocked or banned editor as a troll which was my assumption when replying.

Anyway it's unhelpful that someone doing a good thing is going to risk penalty because someone is going to argue that it's trolling.

If you are going to allow the deletion of BLP violations, copyvios even if by trolls that wasn't stated. There remains the question over how far you're going. What about vandalism? Soapboxing? Banned editors? Removing all of these is acceptable under existing wikipedia policy, guidelines and general practice which ultimately applies to the RD; if you want to carve out specific exemptions, you should specify what exactly.

The last (banned editors) is probably a key one which seems to be most debated. When I remove Bowei Huang or Wickwack's comments it's because they're defacto or topic banned respectively, not because they're a troll (since under my definition I'm not sure they are). Likewise while I'm not involved much in Vote X, I'm not sure whether they're trolling or not but I still occasionally remove their comments as they're community or defacto banned. (The Canadian bigot is the only one I'm fairly confident is trolling although even that I'm not entirely certain.) From previous discussions, I strongly suspect this proposal was intended to prevent such unilateral removals. If it's only intended to apply to trolling which doesn't have any other problems (including from a banned editor) then this should be stated. As hinted at in my !vote, for these reason I'm not supporting this proposal as worded, I reserve judgement for any reformed proposal.

Nil Einne (talk) 19:46, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

To Bugs: you've supported virtually this exact same idea in the past. Why the change of heart? SemanticMantis (talk) 19:06, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Because I have come to see the wisdom of taking a low-key approach. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:20, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

So why keep harassing editors whom you suspect are trolls?--178.101.224.162 (talk) 00:20, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Where? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:34, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I have not noticed that at all - I don't think it's true. Do you have numbers to back that up? Is your observation a statistically viable sample or just one data point? And, of course, correlation does not equal causation. SteveBaker (talk) 19:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

I could be biased, in that I have pretty much stopped caring about the trolls. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:33, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Right, this is a low-key approach - it's saying we should do nothing in most cases. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:14, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Threatening sincere editors with blocks is not "low-key". Low-key would be to have not made this proposal in the first place. Just leave it be, and let the admins do their jobs. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:20, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

And how has that been working out for you? Has the trolling stopped? Alas, we need everyone to stop feeding the trolls, which means that a small but vocal minority will have to be forced to stop feeding the trolls, which cannot happen unless administrators enforce the no trollfeeding rule. The administrators can not do this unless the no trollfeeding rule is [A] in the behavioral guidelines for the refdesks and [B] supported by a strong consensus at an RfC. That last bit, by the way, is what makes the difference between Guy or Bugs trying to control other people's behavior (bad) and the entire Wikipedia community trying to control other people's behavior (good). --Guy Macon (talk) 22:59, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

For me it's working out very well. You should try it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:10, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Everyone can't stop feeding trolls till everyone agrees on what trolls like to eat. And I'm still seeing plenty of "the community" believing trolls like everything on the table, and plenty thinking they leave the Cronkite-solemn stuff for the freegans and seagulls (literally, the people who browse the desks, just looking to learn something new). We're allowed to feed them. Sort of supposed to. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:11, March 30, 2016 (UTC)

"Feeding" the non-trolls (literally, the people who browse the desks, just looking to learn something new) is allowed and encouraged by the "Answer the question asked with a deadpan serious answer to the question asked, acting as if we never noticed that it was an attempt to disrupt the helpdesks" part of my proposal. You don't even have to figure out who is and isn't a troll. Just give the same deadpan serious answer either way. Or ignore the question if you prefer. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:28, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Ah, right. My bad. It's a lot of proposal to take in. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:34, March 30, 2016 (UTC)

If you will pardon my advocacy of my own proposal, keep in mind that I am proposing a limited-time experiment only. Once the experiment ends, we go back to what we are doing now no matter how well it worked. I am 100% opposed to any limited-time experiment being changed to being permanent as was done with pending changes. There needs to be a new RfC for that. Otherwise we are betraying the trust of those who don't like the proposal but !voted yes because they thought that the experiment was worth trying, if only to show everyone how bad it is. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:46, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

How long is a limited time? InedibleHulk (talk) 00:09, March 31, 2016 (UTC)

Purposely undefined at this stage. If this goes to an RfC one of the questions will be the length. My guess is that it will end up somewhere in the range of one month to four months, but I could be wrong. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:29, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

A purposely undefined limited-time offer from a salesman guessing at his own proposal, without getting me drunk first? Pass. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:12, March 31, 2016 (UTC)

OK, sailor, I will buy you a drink... :) --Guy Macon (talk) 01:38, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Oh, boy! InedibleHulk (talk) 02:40, March 31, 2016 (UTC)

Just noticed that video is seven years old today. Trippy. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:42, March 31, 2016 (UTC)

Why dont ya all take a look at the RD talk pages from about 12, 5, 2, or even 1 year ago regarding the 'troll problem'. See any similar arguments/discussion?--178.101.224.162 (talk) 00:18, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

No need. I have read them all. In every one of them the refdesk regulars who are encouraging increased trolling by feeding the trolls refuse to accept the fact that they are trying to put out a fire by pouring petrol on it. That's why my proposal includes enforcement through warnings and then blocks. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:02, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

So after 12 or so years of the 'problem', you, and you alone have come up with the definitve answer, have you? You cant see that part of the attraction of the Rds is the Troll involvement, can you? If there were no trolls here, it would be a much less interesting place and dedicated troll hunters like BB and others would be rendered redundant. (After all this the only place BB ever posts). Sniff a troll; accuse a poster of being a troll; insult a suspected troll; detect a troll; report a troll; get a suspected troll banned: Success! Onto the next troll suspect. Reminds me a bit of foxhunting.Is that what you (and BB) really want?--178.101.224.162 (talk) 01:19, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Status Comment

I had !voted Weak Keep above, but I now notice that this is going on for a long time without being turned into an RFC. If it isn't turned into an RFC shortly, I will strike my !vote, since I think that the constant straw polls here are themselves a form of troll-feeding. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:29, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

I just finished replying to an excellent comment by Wnt. If I had rushed into posting an RfC, I would have made the mistake he pointed out. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:03, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Unless someone can respond to the latest comment by Snow Rise with something that I can turn into a proper RfC, I am going to start putting together an RfC (or possibly Arbcom request) with my proposal. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:27, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Been a bit busy with personal issues, hope to find time soon. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:38, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Request mainspacing of article

Please can someone mainspace an article that I began some time ago, User:Matty.007/sandbox/Frank Gregory-Smith, notability passed for having DSO and bar and DSC and bar. I would appreciate it if the misc. sources were commented out/left on the talk page. Thank you very much! Best, 109.149.222.250 (talk) 09:27, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

 Not done @109.149.222.250: This is an odd place to request that, and this is not a semi-protected edit request. However, I recommend submitting to AFC. Do this by putting {{subst:submit}} at the top of the article you want to submit. —  crh ₂₃  (Talk) 09:40, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Crh23 The humanities desk was semi protected so I couldn't edit it, hence the edit request. Given that I wrote the article as an experienced user please can you just move it to mainspace, if things are as they were when they left AFC have enough on their plate already. Best, 109.151.88.37 (talk) 13:00, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

You should (1) logon as your named account; and (2) make this request at Articles for Creation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:29, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

109.149.222.250 Why do you wish to make that request at the humanities desk rather than, say, Requested moves? Can you not access your account? E:additionally, the humanities desk doesn't appear semi-protected to me, did you mean somewhere else? —  crh ₂₃  (Talk) 14:25, 14 April 2016 (UTC), E: 14:33, 14 April 2016 (UTC), 17:23, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

The protection expired at 13:42. It was still in place when the OP posted. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:40, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

That explains my confusion, thanks —  crh ₂₃  (Talk) 17:23, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

@Crh23: Per WP:PING, IPs don't receive pings or other notifications, so you can save yourself that effort. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:17, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Cheers, didn't know that. —  crh ₂₃  (Talk) 17:23, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Reviewed and declined as not apparently meeting military notability guidelines. However, it still isn't clear why this was made as an edit-protected request. If the author wrote it as an experienced editor, they could have moved it to mainspace themselves. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:05, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

It appears that the original author has marked themselves as RETIRED. Either the requesting IP was the same person, not logged on, or a different person, not logged on. In any event, many experienced editors won't simply move a draft to mainspace based on the statement that it was written (in this case two years ago) by an experienced editor. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:11, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Guidelines

Why is it that the only two professions we are not allowed to anwer questions on are the medical profession and the legal profession? Are these two of greater standing than all the other professions? If so, why?--178.99.232.11 (talk) 23:57, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

You do realize, the rules would still exist even if we gave you a reason. I'm fully willing to provide reasons, but I'm not entirely certain it would do any good, since you'd just take the existence of those reasons as a right to ignore the rules... --Jayron32 00:04, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

The rules are arbitrary. Deny that if you can.--178.99.232.11 (talk) 00:16, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

The rules are established by the Wikimedia Foundation. They own the website, and they can do what they want with it. They are under no obligation to allow you to do whatever you want on their private website. Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer and Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer are established by the Foundation. I am not a member of the foundation, and have thus no other reason than 1) This is their website and 2) Those are their rules. If I come into your privately owned house and start doing things you don't want me to, you have the full legal authority to ask me to leave, and don't actually need a reason to control your own private property and do with it as you see fit, including removing people from your private home you don't want there, for any reason you want. Wikimedia Foundation owns this website, and has the same rights as that. If you want to convince them otherwise, you are free to contact them and start a discussion over it, to see if you can convince them to change their minds. But they are under no obligation to allow you to do anything on their own property. That you assert their arbitrariness by your own declaration is irrelevant. It's their house. It's their rules. You don't like them, you're not forced to be here. --Jayron32 00:27, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Simply: Because those two professions have very stringent rules for licensure, and very serious legal penalties accrue to those who practice those professions (i.e., publish medical or legal advice) without licenses. General Ization ^Talk 00:23, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

By the way, we are also, as a practical matter, unable to give certain types of financial advice, including tax advice, for the same reason. General Ization ^Talk 00:28, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice says: The Wikipedia reference desk is not an appropriate place to request medical, legal or other professional advice …. "Other professional advice" is a very wide catch-all expression. It could include financial advice, architectural advice, engineering advice, or anything for which a licence is required to practise professionally, and maybe even things for which no licence is required, depending on the jurisdiction. We are not professionals, and we cannot provide professional advice (*). We can provide references to what professionals have to say, including suggesting you find your own professionals to handle your own private affairs. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:45, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

(*) Even if we were professionals, we'd need to see you privately one-to-one, and charge an appropriate fee. Would you want that? Would you be willing to travel to the other side of the world to get advice from me? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:58, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Don't sell yourself short. Lots of people would travel to see you, I bet. For a beer and a chat, maybe. I'm sure advice comes along with that too... --Jayron32 02:19, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Beers, chats and advice are but a few of the "special services" we offer. Please refer to our brochure for a full list.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:37, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

• The OP's understanding of the guidelines (really written more like tips than rules) is that we don't do anything that violates any WP policy. Read the belinked disclaimer at the bottom of this page. It doesn't list medicine and law as the only things we don't do; it simply gives them as examples of professional things we don't do that require legal certification. Nor do we defame people WP:BLP or attack other users, and a whole list of things that are not mentioned at the top of the ref desk. In the meantime, why don't you go talk to a licensed physician/therapist/bartender/etc., about your actual problem, assuming you have one. The Truth Is Out There. μηδείς (talk) 03:09, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

We don't do people's homework either. Is that a Foundation rule? 80.5.88.48 (talk) 05:41, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Actually, that's merely a corollary of the main purpose of the reference desks. At the reference desks, our purpose is to provide people references to help them research answers to their questions. We aren't here to make authoritative pronouncements or provide "answers" to anything; it isn't our knowledge that matters, rather our ability to provide avenues for the OP to any question to research and develop their own answers. The homework thing is probably a red herring here. It would be best to say that the reference desks don't provide answers to questions period. It would reduce a lot of confusion. --Jayron32 12:06, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

That's getting a little unrealistic (we do lots of math calculations around here ... a few of them are even correct!). The problem in this case is that recommending a pharmaceutical drug to help with anxiety is not something you can really do with no knowledge of psychiatry and no knowledge of the patient. Oh sure, we can give "non-medical" advice like alcohol and MDMA - someone deleted it before I brainstormed Rohypnol "by an unusual route of administration" :) - but the joke there is that these things obviously turn out to be big problems for people - it may be advice, but it isn't really the kind of advice that is meant to help you. Anybody can grab the stick if you don't care where the plane crashes, but if you actually want to land you need a pilot on board. :) Wnt (talk) 12:14, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Medical advice and legal advice are more strictly regulated than most other kinds of advice. There is a reason. The consequences of bad medical advice and bad legal advice are worse than most kinds of bad advice. Bad medical advice can make you end up dead. Bad legal advice can make you end up in jail. Giving bad medical or legal advice could have repurcussions for the WMF for those reasons. So the reasons for rules against regulated advice have to do with the consequences of giving bad advice. Robert McClenon (talk) 13:22, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

...and yet bad engineering advice, which can potentially kill thousands ("now slowly feed the uranium hexaflouride into your gas centrifuge..." "your seawall design looks good enough to withstand a tsunami...") gets no special rules or regulations. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:44, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Maybe if instead of trying to nitpick rules, you just gave people references to reliable sources when they ask questions, or a quick explanation of why you can't direct them to such sources, if you can't. Having that mentality solves all disputes and ends all problems. The only disputed responses on this board come about ONLY when people try to tell question askers the "right answer" to whatever they are asking, instead of just directing them to where they can learn more about the topic at hand. --Jayron32 15:21, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

^^^^^ What I've been saying since I was just a pup. But it's so much more satisfying to actually provide the correct answer to the question—or to believe that we have done so. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:37, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Ah, yes, personal satisfaction. The ego. That's a challenge for all of us, because it really has little role to play here. If I decide (and it's always my choice whether or not to get involved in a particular question) to take on a question about, say, an obscure author, I can derive satisfaction from doing some searching and finding something of value to share with the OP. I've been of service to him, and that gives me enjoyment too. That's as far as it goes. It's not about being seen to be smart, or being seen to be the first one to come up with an answer, or anything like that. I'm sure most of us have been a bit miffed when we post an answer we thought nobody else would know, but get edit conflicted by someone who beat us to the buzzer. I can choose to just retire quietly at that point, because the OP (not to mention the rest of the ref desk confraternity) doesn't need to know that I knew the answer too. But the ego almost demands I still give my answer anyway, and it rationalises that the way I worded it was different from the way the first respondent did (as it is in most cases), so there's still something of value for the OP to see. Mostly, however, that rationalisation is hollow. I'm not sure whether that's what you were suggesting, but I'm just saying. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:19, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that the reference desk guidelines don't allow legal/medical advice even if the answer contains references to reliable sources. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:13, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

If that's a reference to what Jayron said, you misread him. He speaks of just-a-pointer, not an-answer-and-a-pointer. A pointer alone is not legal/medical advice. And my above comment didn't mean to advocate giving the answer, only to explain why "we" do so, sorry if that was unclear. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:39, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

The enforcement of this is usually overblown, but we should be clear that advice given here isn't to be relied on. I think we should resist those who try to shut down conversion when someone is aware that they are looking for references: "What kinds of drugs are used to treat social anxiety?" but not get tempted to imagine we can answer "what drug would you recommend I take for anxiety? Cuz we don't know that. I just wish we could agree to clarify and "sanitize" the question, then answer it in the abstract. Wnt (talk) 19:34, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, "we can't give advice, but here is a reference" should be fine. I'm still wondering why we see lots of questions deleted/removed, and almost never any responses removed. Maybe we should just change our guidelines, because nobody ever follows them, they just remove questions, and not responses. Currently, they say "Generally speaking, answers are more likely to be sanctioned than questions The purpose is to minimise disruption" [1]. But that's just not true anymore, if it ever was. I've quoted that guideline many times over the past few years, but nobody seems to want to follow it... SemanticMantis (talk) 20:05, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Who removes questions but leaves the responses intact? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:14, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Maybe you misunderstood, I haven't seen that. Let me try again: people sometimes ask questions that could be considered as requests for medical advice. Sometimes they are blatant requests for advice, sometimes it is less clear. Currently, they are usually removed, and that is not what the guideline I linked suggests. On the contrary, it says questions are less likely to be sanctioned, i.e. as last resort. What I do not see happening is what our guidelines do suggest: let the question stand, but don't let anyone give medical advice. If you see someone giving medical advice, remove it. If you see someone responding to the question in a way that is not giving medical advice, then let it stand, it might be useful to OP or anyone else who's reading along.

Example: "What do I do if I have diabetes? I live in NYC. How do I cure it?" --OP

Current response: this question is removed/hatted as not appropriate

What our guideline suggests: 1) do nothing at first. 2) If you see a response like these:

"My mom cured her diabetes by snorting cat whiskers, it should work for you too" --A

"Diabetes is not a big problem don't worry about it" --B

--then remove things like that because they recommend a treatment or a prognosis, and thus constitute medical advice. If you see responses like these:

"Ask your doctor" --C

"Here is a list of diabetes doctors in NYC" --D

"Here is a research article on diabetes" --E

"We cannot give advice, but here is our article on diabetes and here [2] are some external sources you might find useful. --F

-- then you let those stand, because they are not giving any advice, they are not violating our guidelines, and they might just be helpful. It's also possible that the question just stands and nobody answers it. And that's totally ok too. So, that is how I would like for us to follow our own guideline. I'm not asking for any new policy; I'm asking for us follow the suggestion written into the guideline before I ever was active here. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:19, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

See, the problem is that there are always two sets of rules: de jure and de facto. You've summarized the de jure rules well, but you've blatantly overlooked the de facto mandate that the Reference Desks need moar drama. How can we have neverending arguments and edit wars here and on the desks with nincompoops like you spouting sensibility all the time? —Steve Summit (talk) 14:11, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Where are the Wikimedia Foundation guidelienes/rules listed? Id like to take a look at those.--178.99.232.11 (talk) 18:31, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer is a place to start for rules regarding medical advice. You'll notice the text in large, all-caps text in the center of the page. It's fairly unambiguous and unequivocal. Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer does the same for legal advice. If you wish for the foundation to allow you to start using its service to begin to offer medical or legal advice through it's service, you'd best contact their lawyers and ask them to change the rules to allow that. Here is the information on WMF's legal staff, and the general counsel is Geoff Brigham, located here. --Jayron32 19:23, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Remember, though, that there's a pretty profound difference of opinion on the interpretation of those disclaimers.

Suppose someone posts to the desks saying "I have a terrible headache, blurred vision, and ringing in my ears."

Suppose Steve Summit posts in response to say "You should take two aspirin and post here again in the morning."

Opinion #1 is that the Medical disclaimer says, "Steve Summit should not have given that medical advice; it should be removed and/or he should be sanctioned."

But opinion #2 is that the Medical disclaimer says, "Those words Steve Summit wrote were not medical advice; he's not a doctor nor does he play one on Wikipedia."

(And then there's opinion #3, which holds that even though opinion #2 is correct and opinion #1 is not, Steve Summit should per the Reference Desk guidelines not have given that advice.) —Steve Summit (talk) 19:54, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Well put. Of course we shouldn't give anything that seems like medical advice. That's the ethical thing to do. The disclaimer merely informs users that nothing we say constitutes medical advice, even if it might seem that way. I think Jayron is conflating what a disclaimer is with what a guideline is. I too, misunderstood our disclaimers at first. But that's slightly less relevant to my point. I want to stress that in my example above, none of the responses I marked as allowable even seem like medical advice. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:34, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Page protection template

I'm beginning to get an inkling of the "pp" issue. Tell me if I'm wrong: There is a "pp-move-indef" inside the protected page stuff, but it's invisible until someone does an edit. That's why Duncan Hill and I have been adding it after a page is protected. Shouldn't that "pp" come automatically with page protection? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:18, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that the {{pp}} template is automatically removed by MusikBot when protection expires, so it always needs to be re-added manually. I'm not sure if it's possible to tell the bot to ignore the reference desks. Could I also remind anyone adding the template that there needs to be a blank line between it and the {{Wikipedia:Reference desk/header}} template, otherwise the top of the index box gets overwritten. Tevildo (talk) 23:14, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand why it can't be added automatically when protection is invoked. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:21, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Also, when Duncan added the "pp" template,[3] he left 2 blank lines after it, rather than one. Is that a problem? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:23, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

The problem in this case was the lack of a space between the "pp-move-indef" template and the refdesk header template. As I understand it, the template message box can be activated from either of the protection templates, but I've not looked into the mechanics in any detail. Tevildo (talk) 11:53, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

An admin named MusikAnimal (talk · contribs) has come up with a clever way to have the "pp" lock display only when the page is semi'd. It might be better to present the full text. But in any case, it seems to work: {{#ifeq:{{PROTECTIONLEVEL:edit}}|autoconfirmed|{{pp|small=yes}}}} ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:51, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

That looks like it'll be an acceptable permanent solution. DuncanHill will probably want to remove the "small=yes", but there shouldn't be any further need for manual monitoring of the situation. Tevildo (talk) 08:55, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

I will proceed to add it to all the pages. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:30, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

I started with this page. I need an expert to tell me if I did it the right way. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:32, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

(ec) Don't the protection templates have that functionality built in anyway? As far as I know, they all hide themselves automatically whenever a page becomes unprotected. As far as I'm concerned, we could leave the standard protection template on there all the time. The problem is that then some stupid bot comes round every time and removes it. Hope it won't do that on your new code too. Heck, if you come to think of it, this whole business of protection templates is an absurdity anyway – the whole task of informing users about protection status should simply be done automatically without any template at all, by the Wikimedia interface. There's literally not a single piece of information in the standard protecion templates that the Wikimedia interface couldn't easily be programmed to supply automatically. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:35, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

MusikAnimal told me that this should work fine. In fact, the removal bot is his. What I'm not clear on is whether it needs to be inside that "no include" thing. The reason for having it is to notify the casual editor before he hits "edit". That was Duncan's complaint. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:24, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

 Done ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:55, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 April 2016

Answer for the Humanities Desk question "which other ethnic groups immigrated *by the millions* to their/their ancestors' original homeland?" Thanks. 184.147.128.57 (talk) 21:33, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps the OP is referring to East Germans returning to the former East Germany after German reunification, though I question "millions". Other examples from List of diasporas include Estonians returning from Siberia after independence in 1991 and South Africans in recent years. Futurist, if you google "diaspora return" you'll find more, including an entire book on the subject. 184.147.128.57 (talk) 21:33, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

 Done SemanticMantis (talk) 14:31, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. 184.147.128.57 (talk) 16:30, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 April 2016

Question: Dubiousity of Das Kapital through a kyklos perspective

Dubiousity of Das Kapital through a kyklos perspective I was reading an old edition of Das Kapital, yet the dubious elements within many of Karl Marx's Das Kapital are the most curious of subjects. For example, Marx quoted: “Capital, therefore, announces from its first appearance a new epoch in the process of social production.” , yet to classify this thought as polemical, litigious or ructious represents a dogma of equalitarianism, which is dissatisfactory for the promotion of tenderheartedness amongst proletarian constructs. So my question is: Was collaboration a dubious element for insensate and unsympathetic circles of lumpenproletariat within the industrialist circles of apathetic voters, and could this be connected to the fruitlessness of kyklos in both Maoist thought, and post-1995 Marxism–Leninism–Maoism? --Augustous (talk) 21:44, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Augustous (talk) 21:44, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

 Not done: User has been indefinitely blocked. -- ToE 11:34, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

User name Tag issue

My tag name thing is not working again. Can someone forward this message to the right place please? Regards. -- Apostle (talk) 19:23, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

What tag name thing? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:51, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

[ [ User : Russell.mo ] ] - this one. -- Apostle (talk) 05:22, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 April 2016

My query is about James Robert Porter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Porter_(Catholic_priest). Which was his mother´s name? Thanks.

Daniel; April 24th, 2016. ≈≈≈