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Archives

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RD Guidelines

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This page has archives. Sections older than 7 days may be automatically archived by when more than 4 sections are present.

Suggestion for Time Increase

I once again suggest that the archiving system be changed so that posts are archived after 14 days rather than the current practice of archiving after just 7 days. Pablothepenguin (talk) 15:55, 6 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I support your idea; seven days just seems like too short a time. Occasionally, it takes me that long to notice a query (suppose it's on the 6th day), think about it, formulate an answer in my head, check sources (or dates or spellings), and then post what I hope is a coherent, accurate, informative and pertinent reply. The drawbacks of cluttering the Table of Contents are somewhat counteracted by having enough different topics that nearly every reader will find at least a couple that match his or her interests, expertise or prior exploration. —— Shakescene (talk) 16:56, 6 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's been 10 years since I last visited the Ref Desk, good to see you are all still here. This place hasn't changed at all haha! MahouAvril (talk) 01:47, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers MahouAvril (Was this you 15 years ago?)!

Anyway, there used to be more traffic at the desks, and devices/browsers used to be less capable of handling long pages, but now I think Pablothepenguin's suggestion deserves to be implemented. If there are problems we can always change back to 7 days again. Pinging Steve Summit. ---Sluzzelin talk 20:32, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm traveling for the next week, with imperfect internet access (meaning normal archiving may not happen at all), but when I get back, I'll try increasing the interval. In the meantime, if anyone has any objections, speak up! —scs (talk) 03:06, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, done. It's a one-line change to the script, and it means the script won't archive any of the ref desks for the next week (whether I run it or not!).

As Sluzzelin said, if this causes any problems, it's easy to change back. (Also there's always the option of using different archiving intervals for different desks, as we once did.) —scs (talk) 15:16, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Steve! ---Sluzzelin talk 11:28, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Where are the archives for Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. Where are the archives for those discussions? --Timeshifter (talk) 08:06, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are monthly index pages at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/[Month]_[Year], e.g. Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/December_2023. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:26, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I missed your reply. Thanks for replying. Where are the archives listed at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. I mean how did you find the link you provided? --Timeshifter (talk) 16:05, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Archiving for the next few weeks

scsbot, which archives these desks, has never been a fully-automated bot. I invoke it manually, and I eyeball its log messages for errors, which it still occasionally makes.

However! I'll be traveling for the next two weeks, with no internet access at all. So, unless there are objections, the bot will be going fully automatic, for pretty much the first time in its 16-year lifetime.

I don't expect too many problems — the bot has been pretty reliable lately — but if anything goes wrong, I won't be around to help it. If it makes a mistake, someone may have to notice and fix it. If it gets stuck and stops archiving a desk, someone may have to archive that desk manually. And if (this is super unlikely; I mention it only for completeness) the bot runs amok, someone may have to ask an admin to block it.

I'll be returning to the real world (or, at least, the Internet-connected world) on February 26, and I'll start picking up any pieces then.

This notice (that is, this change in the automaticity of archiving) also applies to the Help and Articles For Creation desks. —scs (talk) 22:30, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Village Pump thread

RefDesk contributors may wish to take part in this discussion on adding a new RefDesk. Matt Deres (talk) 20:37, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dave Bristol

Why doesn't Dave Bristol's biography list that he was also a teacher at Murphy, North Carolina, doesn't list his wife or if he had any children, is he is still alive? 2600:6C55:600:6B6A:6500:AF33:4D9C:3C19 (talk) 16:18, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This page is for discussing improvements to the Reference Desk; the correct place to discuss improvements to the article on Dave Bristol is on the associated talk page, here. Broadly speaking, articles are incomplete because YOU haven't fixed them. We are all volunteers here and the only reason anything gets done is that someone just like YOU decided to improve things. See here for steps on getting started. Matt Deres (talk) 16:50, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and as for whether he's still alive, this site does not provide a death date, so I assume he's still alive, but that kind of material may be less well maintained than the statistics. This shows he was still alive in 2020. Matt Deres (talk) 16:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Banned user showing up again

I believe that user IP 172.56.186.104 who has started asking convoluted questions on the Humanities desk, is banned user Futurist110. This is from the style of his questions, and from the fact he randomly left a question on my user talk page, just like Futurist110 used to do. Could someone look into this? Xuxl (talk) 12:44, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]