Wikipedia talk:Reference desk

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Search Bar Location

I noticed that the welcome text/instructions at the top of the reference desk says "Entering search terms in the box to the left may locate useful articles in Wikipedia", but users participating in the Beta will have their search bar near the top-right of the page. Chances are the users who have entered the Beta will be able to figure out where the search bar is, but it's still kind of incorrect. I can't think of a way to make it more clear (it seems to me that changing it to include both options will just make it more confusing), unless there's a way to show Beta users a different message. -Pete5x5 (talk) 15:51, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Your last comment has the right answer: Show Beta users a different message. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:57, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Instead of giving explicit (and potentially complicated or confusing) instructions on how to locate the search box in different skins, perhaps we should just link to Help:Searching and let readers go from there. (That page might be a good place to provide detailed instructions and/or screenshots showing how to find the search box in the common skins.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:31, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. Anything we can say without requiring the user to follow a link will make it far simpler for them. StuRat (talk) 20:52, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

This has come up at least twice before, see here and here. Nothing was done about it on those occasions and I suspect nothing will be done now either. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:32, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Removed ... something.

I removed this. I'm not even sure what it is, but I'm pretty sure it's not a question. APL (talk) 03:32, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Yea, looks like the ravings of a paranoid schizophrenic to me. Either that or it's the TRUTH and you are the evil CIA agent sent to silence him. :-) StuRat (talk) 03:57, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

what are you guys talking about - seems clear as day to me. the answer is "Greta Garbo". --Ludwigs2 04:00, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

You guys read the whole thing? I got bored at the third nonsensical sentence about Carl Sagan. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:48, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I think it should be moved to the Language desk in hopes someone can translate it into English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:10, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

heck, I'd be happy if they just translated it into language --Ludwigs2 15:52, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

You got that far? Nil Einne (talk) 10:35, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

OMG! Wikipedia is a part of the conspiracy - I posted a long question there - AND IT JUST VANISHED!!!!!!! How can this be a coincidence???!?!?

SteveBaker (talk) 06:15, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

This is just getting mean spirited. It was a good removal, and now let's drop it. Buddy431 (talk) 15:03, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Buddy431: well said, thanks. -- Scray (talk) 17:47, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

For further information, please check this reference. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:58, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, do the words "In particular, don't poke fun at a poorly written question" mean anything to anyone? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:25, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

The only thing resembling a question within that essay also answers itself: "Who said an 'universe exists' not needing to be created was Carl Sagan, adding, 'I wonder if you can.' " I don't see any other questions within it, although I merely skimmed it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:31, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

That's a handy argument: "It wasn't in the form of a question as such, so none of the rules apply". What about civility? What about not biting newcomers? This talk page is just as open to questioners as it is to respondents. It's fine to remove an inappropriate post, but to then descend into a childish jokefest about it is not the way to go. If that's the way you get your joy, you need to get out more. StuRat's comment about "the ravings of a paranoid schizophrenic" was pretty off, I must say. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:02, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I get it, we're playing Jeopardy. "I'll take Conspiracy Theories for 1,000 razzbuckniks, Alex... [Alex reads the rant] ...What is Mein Megillah, by I.M. Meshugge?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:04, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

This doesn't merit a response, as Stu has already struck the post in question. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:31, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

(Unindenting.) That part wasn't meant as a joke, Jack, I really do suspect that something isn't right with the mental state of people who leave posts like that. I see your point about them reading it, though, so will strike my post. StuRat (talk) 20:22, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

best not to engage in clinical diagnoses (over the net, mind you) without a license. diagnostic categories were not invented for casual or pejorative use. --Ludwigs2 20:39, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, we do need to make some type of judgment. I would normally say that if somebody makes an inappropriate post, we should explain to them exactly what was wrong with it and make suggestions as to how they could improve it. However, I suspect (and I bet I'm not alone) that any attempt at communication with this individual will only cause further trouble. StuRat (talk) 20:47, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe boxing it with a heading "inappropriate post" would have worked? I am continually amazed that no consensus can ever seem to be reached about how to handle such goofy stuff. It's been debated time after time here, with no agreement. And that ain't no joke. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:46, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Thanks, Stu. The same thought crossed my mind, but we're in no position to diagnose this condition. Even if we were, sufferers of it deserve treatment and support, not ridicule. Psychiatrists don't have private conversations in which they crack jokes at the expense of their clients. We're professionals too; and if we're not, we have no business being here. I have too-close-to-home real world experience of paranoid schizophrenia - but I think I'd feel this way even if that were not the case. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:55, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

First, how do you know they don't? Second, the OP here (APL) should have just zapped it with a brief edit summary and let it be, rather than bringing it here. It doesn't require anybody else's permission to clobber such obvious nonsense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:59, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Some people want feedback on their actions. If you remove something wrongly, and no-one notices, you don't get told, and you don't learn. I've only made a removal once and I was quick to come here and check with everyone that I'd done it right. Vimescarrot (talk) 21:17, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

And he got feedback in spades. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:26, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

As desperate as you are for the last word, you must still surely realise that by acknowledging my response, you're conceding that I'm right and that, by extension, you're wrong? Vimescarrot (talk) 21:37, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. You're fully, totally, 100 percent right. OK, can I have my 1,000 razzbuckniks now? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:42, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

"They did it (or you can't prove they didn't), so why can't I" - is that your standard of behaviour, Bugs? As for clobbering: this is the second time in the last 3 threads where you've been more than happy to be involved in chatting about a post, then you tell us that chat should not have happened. In this case, first you tell us it "should be moved to the Language desk in hopes someone can translate it into English", but now it should have been removed outright without discussion - a discussion to which you yourself were a party. How is anyone supposed to keep up with your constantly shifting positions? You seem to want to be all things to all men. Hail, Caesar Baseballicus! -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:31, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I am now thoroughly convinced that when God was issuing the sense of humor, you were out to lunch. Unless you're also being funny with the above? Regarding the Caesar bit, I was Caesar once, but no longer - that was in my salad days. :) I was institutionalized for awhile - they locked me in the Caesarian section, with a berth. :) I was once with a pal at lunch during a time when food was rationed. I caught him double-dipping. I asked him, "Et two, Brute?" :) Ironically, it was a Kaiser roll. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:35, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

And I am thoroughly convinced that you have a pathological addiction to making jokes, no matter what the subject (not that I'm making a formal diagnosis, mind you; I'm just a simple layman - but I do have eyes). Just because it's possible to find humour in any subject, doesn't mean you actually have to do that in every possible case. Time and place, mate, time and place. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:11, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't "have to" do anything, I choose to. But didn't you find that rant funny? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:32, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Then can you please sometimes (or often, even) exercise your powers of choice, and choose NOT to make a joke. You don't have to be a slave to your urges. Anyone who's followed my progress around here for the past 6 years knows that I have a very well-developed sense of humour; but they also know that I use it sparingly, and judiciously. Humour around here is the exception, not the rule; but you generally honour that approach in the breach rather than the observance. Always having chocolate cake leads to a lessening of desire for it. (And no, I didn't get a laugh out of it; mainly because I twigged, as most people would have, that it was from someone who needs help, and not from someone who came here to be laughed at.) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 23:07, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I am not a slave to my urges. I freely choose my actions, and restrain myself more than you might imagine. And in this particular case, I would rather have communicated with the OP to find out more about what he was trying to get at. I didn't jump to any conclusion about his mental state, like some of y'all did - I concluded only that he was trying to get at something but not saying it very clearly. It's still soapboxing and doesn't belong on the ref desk, but maybe it belongs somewhere (I've seen worse rants on user pages). Going through the history of the ref desk the other day was eye-opening, as I could see that a corps of you guys have been supporting the ref desk for 6-odd years and have arrived at the mistaken notion that you own it. Ownership is not allowed in wikipedia. Furthermore, you were having the same kinds of debates 6 years ago. Maybe it's time to head off some of these problems at the pass, by setting up and agreeing upon some rules, instead of having the same debates over and over again (as noted below) - unless you enjoy those debates? Hopefully not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:20, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't know where on earth you got that idea about ownership from. "Setting up and agreeing upon some rules" - how about checking in @ Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines once in a while, particularly at "Content and tone". Them's the rules around here, which everyone is expected to abide by. Sure, they're guidelines rather than iron-clad rules, so there's flexibility. Sure, they were settled more than a couple of years ago now, and more recent arrivals may not be aware of the colossal amount of work that went into getting them to that stage. But nothing's set in stone here, and if you want to change some rule or guideline, you know the process for proposing it. I for one am always open to good ideas, and have no sense of proprietorship. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 23:52, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Then why was there a need for this thread in the first place, calling undue attention to that rant? Just zap it and be done with it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:28, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, APL deleted it and came here to check he/she'd done the right thing. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Then the weirdness started straight away. Then two editors said it was going off the rails. Then you virtually accused them of being killjoys. Then I reminded you of the guidelines about not poking fun at poorly worded questions. Then you went off the rails, as you so often do. And here we are. And here I say goodbye. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 03:24, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't necessary to ask about it. It was obviously junk. Asking about it was not necessary, but within the rules; but by calling attention to it, it invited other comments because of its total weirdness. And if the nannies hadn't stepped in, the sarcasm would have run its course earlier. Although when you (apparently) took seriously my comment about posting it on the language page, I didn't know what to think. It's obviously English, it's just gobbledygook, posted here for no apparent reason. And it did not contain a question. It was merely a rambling lecture about several topics. On any other page, it would have been zapped without question. So how about a separate sub-page for removals, or a separate section, or something? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:14, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I told you why people bring things like this to the talk page before, and you admitted I was right. I'm confused as to why you're still asking about it. Vimescarrot (talk) 09:43, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

You're confused, Vimescarrot? We've now had the same editor telling us:

• it should have been moved to the Language ref desk for a translation (this was apparently meant to be taken as a joke, although not marked as such)
• it should have been boxed with the heading "inappropriate post"
• it should have been zapped without further ado
• he would have liked to communicate with the OP to find out more
• it was obviously junk and gobbledygook
• it was wrong to do anything to draw attention to it

so it's no wonder the rest of us are confused as to what his actual viewpoint is. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 19:23, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

The "moving it to the Language Desk" part was obviously a joke, at least to me. StuRat (talk) 20:00, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Bugs marks most of his posts with a smiley, and most of them are jokes, so there's a correspondence there. That one was not marked, so it was reasonable to conclude he meant it seriously. He did later clarify that, though. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:28, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I only use the smiley, myself, when the joke might be mistakenly taken seriously. StuRat (talk) 20:45, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

The right way to handle it was the way you would on any other page. It's not a question at all, it's a rant; at best, a rant aimed at the wrong page. So delete it, and in the edit summary specify WP:SOAP. Voila, she is done. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:03, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I do think that removals should be posted here. Otherwise people start removing things right and left, even things they have no good reason to remove, like this one: Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk#Israel_and_the_Palestinians.2C_responses_removed. StuRat (talk) 22:18, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, now you're talking. A "standard" of some kind. How about this: A separate sub-page, called "Removals", or some such, where any text removed can be re-posted or referenced, and see if there are any objections. That would be a more formalized approach than the current seemingly haphazard approach of trying to decide whether to zap it, box it, or chide the OP for posting something that's inappropriate or (gasp!) to the wrong desk. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:27, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Or we can just post notices of removals here like we have been. Keep it simple. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

And a link to the "diff" of the removal is fine, no need to post it all directly here, as sometimes it's a huge amount. StuRat (talk) 19:56, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Slightly off-topic here, but can I just asy that this is one of the most fun talkpages I've seen on Wikipedia. And that's saying something.--Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 10:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Music questions at Entertainment Desk

Recently, the following comment was made on this page: "On the contrary, the Entertainment desk doesn't get that much traffic, and could be merged into Humanities." However, there have been some music questions posted at the Humanities Desk: Bach cantatas and Why is music from the Baroque period so good? are two recent examples. It seems to me that music is a topic for the Entertainment Desk.
-- Wavelength (talk) 19:23, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

You can always move them and leave a forward pointer to the new location. I'd predict though that those interested in classical music (includes me) might cavil at the distinction. The first example is trivial and can be answered anywhere. The second example, once evolved, seems to be very much a Humanities-style answer. Entertainment seems like much more of a place to address "pop culture" questions, so attempting to shoehorn material into it for the purpose of achieving a traffic quota may be ill-advised. Franamax (talk) 21:00, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

::That's a bit insulting to those of us who think of those distinctions in high and low culture as snobbiness. How is classical music and literature "better" than pop culture? Magic Flute wasn't exactly high-brow in its time, and neither was Shakespeare. (Aaronite at a different IP) 72.2.54.34 (talk) 00:02, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Just one of the reasons why the Ent desk should go. This false distinction between "high" and "low" culture is completely against the spirit of Wikipedia. Matt Deres (talk) 23:36, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

As the author of the Baroque question, I felt that it would get more and better attention in the Humanities forum. And besides, don't you think that classical composition is on rather a higher plane than Family Matters or Harry Potter? It certainly has a long history of religious affiliation, which I am not sure is true of Steve Urkel. Vranak (talk) 05:10, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

What the heck does religious affiliation have to do with anything? So questions about My Sweet Lord should go to Humanities while questions about Maybe I'm Amazed go to Entertainment? Ludicrous! The distinction between High and Low Culture is a false dichotomy. To keep with the theme, I suppose a question about I Want to Hold Your Hand would have to go to the lowly Ent. desk, while perhaps Strawberry Fields Forever would be allowed into the rarefied air of Humanities? Questions about something Jack Kirby drew would be Entertainment, unless Roy Lichtenstein had done a copy of it, in which case it would be promoted? "The Fellowship of the Ring" would go in Humanities, while "The Fellowship of the Rings" might or might not make the cut, while of course "The Fellowship of the Ring" would pretty much have to get stuck in the Entertainment ghetto.

Further, I am of the belief that questions asked on the Ent desk do not get the best possible answer there. The nub of the problem is that lack of popularity for a desk is a vicious cycle. The entertainment desk gets fewer questions (and replies) than any other desk except Math and by a large margin. I don't think anyone is debating that. Fewer questions leads to fewer people bothering to check it, which leads to less substantial answers which leads to people asking their questions on another desk. Round and round we go.

This lack of eyeballs would be a major problem for any desk, but may in fact be even more troublesome at the Ent. desk. I don't have a reference to back it up, but it seems to me that, other than perhaps the Math and Computing Desks, Ent is the desk where people most want a very specific answer to a very specific question. If I want to know who played Dracula in a particular commercial or who played banjo in some band, those are questions that have no half-answers - you either know or don't know. In contrast, a question about history will often allow for multiple avenues of attack; a question about science may allow for similar papers or theories to be recalled.

These specificity-laden Ent. questions require someone who knows a particular answer, not someone who has a general understanding of a topic. To state it broadly, my knowledge of archaeology would allow me to make reasonable work of any archaeology questions, even if I hadn't studied the particular topic at hand; I could research the question and be better able to interpret the answer than most lay people. On the other hand, my knowledge of Led Zeppelin and The Beatles would do no good when attempting to answer a question about The Who.

Now let's look at the other extreme - Math and Computing. They also require specific answers. Why aren't I in favour of removing them? Those disciplines tend to pose questions that require someone with a great deal of prior knowledge. A question about C++ can often only be answered by someone who is extremely well-versed in it, so showing the question to more eyeballs would do no good, because only a relatively small subset of eyeballs sit in front a brain able to answer the question intelligently.

So on the one hand, Ent. questions require more eyeballs, while on the other hand, you don't need to have worked in the field for a decade just to understand the question. Anyone passing through might happen to know that one little nugget of information the OP is looking for. The OP is looking for a specific answer while any person reading might happen to be the perfect respondent. Clearly that arrangement is best met by allowing Ent. questions to get wide exposure (i.e. get placed on desks that get more traffic, like Humanities and Misc. My proposal is to simply kill the already half-dead Ent. desk and rename Humanities to "Arts and Humanities". If the OP really doesn't think her question qualifies as an "art", then she can post it to Misc, where the question will at least get a respectable viewing. Matt Deres (talk) 13:38, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

You appear to have very strong opinions on this matter, Matt, so I will leave well-enough alone. What it comes down to for me though, is that the more learned regulars will frequent the Humanities board more than the Entertainment board. One knows where to go for more insightful, intelligent discussion. Vranak (talk) 13:45, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

So if you ask a question about the Britney Spears answered, but you want a thoughtful answer, put it in humanities? See my small print above: It's snobby to differentiate between "culture" and pop art. Beethoven is 'not' better then ABBA, other than in opinion. I think ABBA was brilliant. Benny and Bjorn knew exactly which emotional buttons to push to get a reaction and become hugely successful. They had a major impact on the whole world culture and everyone knows who they are, be they European, American or Asian. How is that not more than "mere entertainment"? I work in a library, and it infuriates me to see parents pull this on their children, forcing them to read the classics which are totally inappropriate or irrelevant to the age of the child, and denies the quality of modern works, all in the name of art versus "pop culture ruining our lives". They said the same about all art, at one point or another. Aaronite (talk) 18:19, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

You say snobby, I say discriminate. Anyway if we really must draw a line, I propose that dead composers go in Humanities, and live ones, in Entertainment. But no, I am not seriously proposing that. PS - ABBA is awesome, I agree. Vranak (talk) 20:24, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, same difference: I'm a snob about pop culture, I suppose. That is to say, I hold it in higher regard. I don't mean it offensively, though obviously it comes across that way. Aaronite (talk) 23:05, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, to bring this full circle, my question pertained to the social cirumstances that formed the dirt for Baroque music to flourish. Definitely more along the lines of Humanities, than asking who played Screech on Saved by the Bell! Vranak (talk) 02:04, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

They may not be as different as you think (if you consider Baroque music to be a diamond in the dust). StuRat (talk) 03:09, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Well I'm sure you're right Stu. Anyway I have my answers, so if Wavelength wants to move the question over the entertainment, or even expunge it entirely, I will not argue. Vranak (talk) 03:42, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Except that the vast majority of people posting here don't don't really know what each desk is about other than the title, and just pop their question wherever they feel like it, regardless of where we feel it belongs. The current system seems to work well enough. Buddy431 (talk) 20:49, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I have all seven reference desks on my watchlist, so that I can notice on any of them a question that I might be able to answer. However, it is important that it have an informative heading, because usually the Language Reference Desk is the only one which I keep open continually. I wish to encourage all editors to have all reference desks on their watchlists. Also, I wish to encourage all editors to be sure to choose informative headings.

• Microcontent: Headlines and Subject Lines (Alertbox)
• First 2 Words: A Signal for the Scanning Eye (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
• F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
  

Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Editing comments (permanent link here), sub-subsection "Others' comments", point 12 of 18, says the following.

• Section headings: Because threads are shared by multiple editors (regardless how many have posted so far), no one, including the original poster, "owns" a talk page discussion or its heading. It is generally acceptable to change headings when a better header is appropriate, e.g. one more descriptive of the content of the discussion or the issue discussed, less one-sided, more appropriate for accessibility reasons, etc. To avoid disputes it is best to discuss a heading change with the editor who started the thread, if possible, when a change is likely to be controversial. It can also sometimes be appropriate to merge entire sections under one heading (often preserving the later one as a subheading) if their discussions are redundant. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Can I also just point out that changing the number of desks + archives to an odd number would also present some layout problems for the main page. I do think that a general distinction between "humanities" and "entertainment" is defendable from both theoretical and practical standpoint, even if one acknowledges that the distinction between high and low culture is arbitrary and porous. One does tend to get different types of questions in each desk and most posters can figure out the distinction quite readily. (And the consequences for being "wrong" are very low.) --Mr.98 (talk) 16:16, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I am a fan of both classical and pop music and I see nothing wrong with putting the former in Humanities and the latter in Ents. The distinction between high and low culture makes perfect sense to me. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Headaches and medical advice

Moved from Science Desk, since it doesn't help the OP

I think the most reasonable assumption is that the OP has a headache and wants advice on getting rid of it. As your reply indicates, the question doesn't have a simple answer. There are all kinds of possible complicating factors that we can't possibly know about, which is why the OP needs to see a medical professional. --Tango (talk) 13:56, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

As reasonable as it is, it is still an assumption. People in this desk need to better understand the difference between medical advice and medical information. The latter one is allowed . Dauto (talk) 15:27, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

That the OP doesn't have a headache is also an assumption, and a less reasonable one. How the question is literally worded is irrelevant, you have to actually use your brain and work out what the OP most likely wants. In this case, the OP most likely wants advice on treating a headache. --Tango (talk) 15:32, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

All we have to go on are the words placed on screen. Every other assumption is equally valid since it's going by our own reasoning. Who's to say this isn't a non-English speaking student asking for information on headaches and influenza? The assumption isn't ours to make. A simple epilogue stating "see a doctor if this applies to you" would do, rather than refusing to answer the question outright. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  17:44, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. StuRat (talk) 17:49, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh for Christ's sake, you don't need to give medical advice to answer this question. The OP is asking for a known cure for headache and flu. It's not "Please give me advice on how to get rid of my headache and flu". Who are we to say this isn't a strictly curious question?

Headache's vary significantly in type, but are usually relieved by some sort of analgesic (such as paracetamol) if they're minor. More serious types of headaches exist and depending on the type, various types of drugs can be given such as stronger analgesics or vasodilators. Sometimes headaches are indications of further, more serious diseases and act as a diagnosis aid. Influenza is a virus which is usually unpleasant but killed off by your immune system, and thus does not usually require treatment. However, in immunocompromised individuals (that is to say, those with a weaker immune system such as the elderly, AIDS patients, transplant patients etc) are often at greater risk because their immune systems may not be able to deal with the rapid replication of the virus. In such cases, doctors prescribe antivirals specific to the current influenza virus to try and boost your immune systems removal of the virus. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  10:59, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Main discussion

---

The idea that all assumptions are equally valid is nonsense. I could assume the OP was actually talking about an aching toe and typed the wrong word - that assumption would not be as valid as the assumption that "headace" meant "headache". We can't just add a disclaimer to our medical advice saying to see a doctor if it applies to you. That doesn't actually achieve anything. It would be like those toothpaste adverts that tell you to talk to your dentist - they just add that to make using their toothpaste seem like a better solution in comparison, nobody actually goes and talks to their dentist and the advertisers know that. We cannot give medical advice, full stop. --Tango (talk) 19:27, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

But this isn't medical advice: nowhere did Cyclonenim advise Mr. Newton on what to do. He listed a couple of different ways that headaches are treated (all found in our Headache article), and did the same for the flu, again found in our influenza article. If Cyclonenim had said to "pop two aspirin and see how you feel tomorrow", it would be a different story. Per Kainaw's criterion (which is not policy, but is pretty a pretty good rule of thumb), this question can be completely answered without giving a diagnosis or proscribing treatment. Buddy431 (talk) 20:46, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

We always proscribe treatment here.Matt Deres (talk) 20:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

You'll note I didn't remove Cyclonenim's response. I don't think it really did constitute advice, I think it was just unhelpful. The OP almost certainly had either a tension headache or sinus congestion and wanted to know how to get rid of it and didn't need to know about all the possible causes of a headache, they needed to know that they should take paracetamol, which was the advice I removed. --Tango (talk) 21:23, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Again, assumption. You can't say with any certainty whatsoever that he/she was suffering from a tension headache or sinus congestion. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  10:08, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I think those quoting Kainaw's criterion in defense of answering this question ought to read it first. It says "Can the question be answered completely without providing a diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment advice?". When the OP asks "Whats known cure for head ac(h)e and flu?" - then any answer we're likely to give is necessarily offering treatment advice - and per Kainaw, that's not allowed. That's why this thread needed to be removed. SteveBaker (talk) 20:57, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

@Steve: There's a big difference between "whats known cure for headace [sic] and flu" and "can someone give me tips on how to get rid of my headache and flu". I'm not giving specific treatment advice, I'm answering (scientifically) the treatments that are commonly used in the treatment of headache and influenza. If I had given specific information on how to cure this patients illness, then I would be in breach of Kainaw's criterion. Since I didn't, I'm not. Quite simple.

@Tango: Clearly you can extrapolate a little too far on common sense. When I said all assumptions are valid, I meant with respect to common sense assumptions pertaining to the actual question. In this case, there are two possibilities: the OP is asking for medical advice to cure an ailment, or the OP is asking for advice of another sort (i.e. for research, for curiosity). The idea that the OP is requesting information for the latter is equally likely as the former. Where is your proof that the former was the OP's intent? There is no explicit mention of the intent, and just because the question was written with bad grammar doesn't mean its an idiot asking for advice on how to get rid of his flu. It could just mean it's a non-English speaking person putting together the best words they can to try and get information on influenza and headaches. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  21:12, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

There is no big difference between asking for a cure for something and asking for tips on curing something. They are essentially the same question. Your two possibilities are not equally likely. It is far more likely that he has a headache and wanted to know how to treat it. Lots of people get headaches and would like to treat them. Very few people have idle curiosity about treating headaches. The quality of English isn't the main clue that this person is an idiot (to use your word, I think actually they are probably just very young) - that fact that they don't know the answer to such a simple question is the main clue. --Tango (talk) 21:23, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm with Cyclonenim here, if you can assume a Q about headaches is a request for treatment advice by the OP, then any medical Q at all can be assumed to be a request for medical advice. If someone asks the normal heart rate for people, you can assume theirs is either too fast or too slow and that they want medical advice. If someone asks about the normal number of teeth in the adult human mouth, you can assume they have a dental problem and refuse to answer. If someone asks what astigmatism is, you can refuse to answer and send them to an eye doctor. Slippery slope indeed. StuRat (talk)

This isn't "a question about headaches". It is someone asking about how to cure headaches. It is completely different to your examples. If someone asks how to treat a headache the most reasonable assumption is that they have a headache they want to treat (the second most likely assumption is that someone they know has a headache they want to treat, which is no better). --Tango (talk) 22:15, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

As has already been said, you don't need to make any assumptions, just answer the Q, unless it's an explicit request for medical advice. StuRat (talk) 22:20, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

You're missing the point, no one's disputing it's about headaches + influenza, we're disputing that it's asking for advice on personal/friend/family/whatever treatment of headaches + influenza. Asking "how can I cure a headache and flu?" is different to "how do doctors treat headaches and flu?". The original question ("Whats known cure for head ace and flu") does not in any way suggest that the OP is asking for advice regarding their headache and flu. It's asking for information regarding headache and flu treatment. How you can then extrapolate that into them asking for advice for their personal ailment is what I'm confused about. I also disagree with your above statement about them not knowing how to answer such a simple question. Not everyone, regardless of intelligence, knows the specifics regarding headache and influenza treatment. Yes, they may be aware of analgesics like paracetamol and simple terms like viruses, but they may not know that vasoconstrictors or benzodiazapines are used in their treatment. The chance that the OP was here to ask about their headache, or to get information generally on headaches, is very, very similar indeed. I know you disagree with that point, but it's kind of irrelevant since we have no idea which reason applies. You can assume he's here for personal treatment advice, but you have no way of proving that. Summed up in one sentence, read StuRats just above. Don't make the assumption, just answer the question unless you can prove he's here asking for personal advice. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  22:28, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict with above, 2x) Come on. Cyclonenim hasn't said anything that wasn't in our articles on the subjects. He hasn't attempted to diagnose Mr. Newton's condition, and he isn't recommending any form of treatment. I think the whole argument about why Mr. Newman asked this question is irrelevant. If he knew more about Wikipedia, he could find exactly the same information in the Headache and Influenza article. That's what a reference desk is for: people who know how to find and use references help out those who don't. If Mr. Newton had asked "what're the known cures for leukemia", we would have directed him to leukemia and said that depending on the case, it can be treated with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and sometimes a bone marrow transplant, and if you have it, you should see a doctor. This question is no different in this regard. Buddy431 (talk) 22:16, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

All these complicated arguments! This is very simple: How is "Headache's...are usually relieved by some sort of analgesic (such as paracetamol)" not "treatment advice"? This is advice about which drug to use to "relieve" a headache. How can that possibly not be treatment advice? SteveBaker (talk) 02:56, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Cyclonenim passed no judgement on whether or not that was the correct or best treatment for a headache, but rather that that is what's typically done. If we're going to be strict about this, I at least linked to the appropriate articles so the OP can wade through, find the section labeled treatment, and read for himself what Cyclonenim had summarized. Buddy431 (talk) 04:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Advice is "An opinion recommended or offered, as worthy to be followed" (Wiktionary) or "recommendation regarding a decision or course of conduct" (Merriam Webster) sorry I don't have access to the OED at the moment. A recommendation is a commendation or endorsement (Wiktionary, also MW). "Advice" implies that that someone is saying that <doing something> is a good thing. Simple statements of fact are not advice, as long as they aren't presented with the intention of endorsing a particular course of action. "Headache's...are usually relieved by some sort of analgesic (such as paracetamol)" is not treatment advice the same way "Leukemia .. is frequently treated by chemotherapeutic agents (such as doxorubicin)" is not treatment advice. The writer is in no way suggesting that the reader get up from his chair, run down to the store and pick up some doxorubicin. Telling someone that paracetamol can be used to relieve a headache is very different from saying that it should be used. -- 174.31.194.126 (talk) 04:40, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Steve, I'm afraid you are simply mistaken in this case. There is a line, albeit a fine one, between giving advice and giving statements of fact. We are an encyclopaedia, do you propose I go right ahead and remove all information pertaining to treatment of disease because it could be used by some self-help neurotic? Judging by your reasoning, that would all breach the medical disclaimer would it not? This is the flaw in your argument, as well as the misunderstanding between giving advice and giving information that isn't intended for the OPs use. We are a reference desk, I am allowed to summarise information from our articles and respond to OPs with that information. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  09:27, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you agree that there's a difference between a map and driving directions? No matter how neutrally you attempt to provide instructions to find City Hall, you're providing an opinion as to the appropriate route. Within the context of medical questions, we've decided that we're not allowed to say even the equivalent of "Yeah, City Hall is two blocks north of here; you can see the flag." All we can do is provide the map. That's why our articles can provide more detailed information - it's just a map. The question should have been answered with, "Here are our articles on headache and influenza. If you're looking for advice, see a medical professional, like a medical doctor or pharmacist." There are times I find it aggravating as well, but this is one of the rules we live by here. Matt Deres (talk) 11:19, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree that there are times when our guidelines about not offering medical advice are annoying. Certainly at first sight, the idea that we can't tell someone with a headache to take a tylanol seems pretty silly. However, we have had FAR too many cases when an OP has come along and described some potentially life-threatening conditions and some random person on the Internet has given them disasterously stupid advice...sometimes in ill-thought-out jest...sometimes in all honesty. Since the consequences for our OP, for Wikipedia and for us as individuals are potentially so serious, we have to draw a bright line that provides clear guidance on these matters without ikky borderline cases. We also have to have that line err on the safe side of this matter. There is consensus that the no-medical-advice directive is a good one - and widespread acceptance of Kainaw's criterion as a useful way to interpret that rule. If someone genuinely has nothing more than a simple headache then the consequences of us telling them that we won't answer their question is essentially zero. If someone has a chest pain and someone says "Don't worry it's probably just indigestion" - then that could kill someone...and we have had answers here that have been at least that stupid in the past! In either case, it's just better that we don't answer. Even pointing them to an article may be dubious. If someone complains of chest pain - and we point them to chest pain - then that's probably OK - but if we point them to indigestion - then we're back in the realms of killing people through good intentions. But even in this case - how do we know that the OP isn't a precocious 8 year old child who has been left alone in the house? We recommend taking a tylanol - and since the minimum age for taking such things is 12 years, we've made a HORRIBLE misdiagnosis with possibly serious health implications. Is that really so unlikely in this case? We have someone with terrible spelling (could be a child) who doesn't know the standard remedy for a headache?!? It could very easily be a young child. So we have a 'bright line' rule - and we stick to it, even if it means that someone has to suffer through a headache once in a while. SteveBaker (talk) 13:39, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

@Matt, yes I see that, but I also see all the information that I said on our medical pages. The idea of saying "see headache" instead of listing specific information about headaches 'which is found on that page is about the stupidest thing I've heard this year. If you assume that what I said on the reference desk could harm the individual in any way, you must also accept that the information on our headache page is equally dangerous, and should be removed. Yet I see no boycott to do so, why? Because the information isn't harmful! It's not our responsibility to restrict information unless it's absolutely clear that the OPs intention could harm them. In this case, it simply isn't that clear (as can be shown by our disagreement to what the words mean...)

@Steve: Not once have I said that I think that Kainaw's criterion is bad, not useful or whatever. I agree that our words here to direct medical advice questions could have potential serious consequences, that's a given. The point you have not yet answered is where the idea of thinking this person wants personal advice is coming from. You said "We have someone with terrible spelling (could be a child) who doesn't know the standard remedy for a headache?!?", at which point in the question does it ask for a standard remedy? Headache's are far more complicated than most people realise, they are diagnostic of many other illnesses and there are many, many types with different treatment methods. Therefore, asking about cures for headaches is a much more complicated question than it first seems. At no point in the question is there any evidence for their intent of asking the question. Assuming this is either a child or suffering person is silly, just as silly as it is to assume my idea that they could be a student. No proof of intent = no reason to not provide the answer. This person could be looking for cures of complicated headaches for research, we don't know. Sure, potentially this person could then go out and overdose on some paracetamol, but that's not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to answer the question at hand UNLESS there is clear intent of asking for relief of a personal ailment of some kind.

To continue with analogies, this is similar to a librarian refusing to show someone where a medical book on treatment of headaches and influenza is in the library, on the grounds that they are looking for personal treatment advice. Would that ever happen? Hell, would it. I think we'll end up agreeing to disagree here. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  14:18, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Your analogy is broken. As I said (above) I have no problem linking to chest pain if the OP asks about chest pain - or headache if that's what he's talking about. That's not doing anything except helping someone who doesn't know how to use a search engine. But when you linked to paracetamol - you're offering treatment advice...and that's crossing the bright line rule. I'd be very surprised indeed if a "real" reference librarian would offer books about paracetamol in response to a question about headache treatment. But even if they would - that's neither here nor there because we have our own rules that may well be different from those of your local library. SteveBaker (talk) 18:37, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

So I best delete this entire section, then? After all, it does say paracetamol is used to treat headaches. Please answer why we are allowed to place that in an article and say "see headache", but I am not allowed to say "use paracetamol" even if it's in the article? You can't pick and choose how to apply the medical disclaimer, and consensus seems to agree with me here. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  19:26, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

@Steve: so is our policy to not answer any medical related questions at all? Because that's how I'm reading your comment: If we tell someone something about medicine or disease, they might act on it, so we shouldn't do it. My interpretation of our medical guidelines is that we can provide information in a general sense on different diseases, and the related treatments, but with the clear understanding that these general statements should in no way be applied to an individual case. Obviously, we need to clarify our guidelines so that there's more agreement. Buddy431 (talk) 15:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

No, it's not. Kainaw's criterion is very specific on what we're not allowed do to: No diagnosing from symptoms. No advice on treatments. No predicting of outcomes. Everything else should be OK. So if someone had asked:

• What are the causes of headaches? -- we could answer that by saying "Brain cancer, dehydration, eating ice-cream too quickly, being hit on the head with a large iron bar, arguing about Kainaw's criterion on the RD...", and so on - all without diagnosing, prognosing or suggesting a treatment.
• How is influenza spread? -- we could say "By people sneezing on each other"...or whatever the right answer is.
• Is influenza bacterial, viral or fungal in nature? -- we're on solid ground if we say something like "It's caused by a virus."

I'm sure there are many other categories of medical questions we can answer without breaking the rules. What Kainaw's criterion says is that you can't answer are things like:

• What disease is responsible for <some symptom>? -- Providing a diagnosis is not allowed. You cannot provide a connection from a list of symptoms to a medical cause.
• How long will someone live if they have <some fatal condition>? -- Providing a prognosis is not allowed. You cannot tell someone what the outcome of a particular medical condition might be.
• How is <some disease> cured? -- Providing treatment advice is not allowed. You cannot tell people how to treat a particular medical condition.

Any halfway decent doctor will tell you that without examining a patient, you can't be sure that you have been accurately given all of the symptoms so you can't offer an accurate diagnosis, you can't tell how far the disease has progressed so you can't offer a prognosis and without both of those things, you certainly can't offer a treatment. Since we cannot examine the patient, we can't do any of those things intelligently...even if we were medically qualified. We don't even have a way to tell if any particular person here is medically qualified or not! SteveBaker (talk) 18:18, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Every single example Kainaw gives, even the borderline cases, uses "I" or "my" in the Q, and this Q doesn't. That's why it doesn't qualify. StuRat (talk) 20:34, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

That's a rather literal reading of a criterion that is really just a handy guideline. The I/my problem is only part of the issue.

The main problem is that a "headache" is a symptom, and could be caused by a lot of things, all of which have different treatments. In order to know what the treatment is, you have to know what is causing the headache. Cyclonemin's answer kind of points that out, and I'd say that if one has to qualify the answer with "depending on the type," then the answer is straying into an area that should be avoided. If additional information is needed to answer a question, then we probably shouldn't answer it.

What if the OP asked "Whats known cure for fever?" You'd have to agree that in order to answer that question you need to know what is causing the fever. It would be crazy to just say "fever is usually treated with ibuprofen or paracetamol," even though it is technically correct that antipyretic medications would treat a fever, they just wouldn't treat the underlying cause... which requires a diagnosis and hence is out of our jurisdiction on the RD. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 21:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

@ StuRat: So your position is that everything depends on whether the person asks the question in the third person or not? That's crazy! We might as well change our stock medical question template with something that says "If you could just reword your question as a hypothetical, we'll be more than happy to let our crowd of random people diagnose your treatment and tell you exactly what drugs your should take."...the actual wording of the question is monumentally irrelevant. Again, the beauty of Kainaws' criterion is that it doesn't say anything whatever about the wording of the question - only about the nature of the responses. SteveBaker (talk) 23:56, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

It says a great deal about the wording of the Q, in the examples. And nothing could be more relevant in determining if a Q is for medical advice, than how it is worded. StuRat (talk) 09:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Rule clarification

OK, shall we now entertain some proposals on how we can make the rules more clear ?

I propose saying we "allow medical questions which are not explicit requests for medical advice". StuRat (talk) 17:22, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, that's always been the rule. We've always been allowed to answer medical questions so long as they aren't requests for advice. I don't think the rules even need clarifying, I just think people need to place more thought into whether a question is genuinely asking for advice or not. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  17:52, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this has always been the rule, but the fact that two regulars seem to think otherwise implies that we do need to clarify it, doesn't it ? StuRat (talk) 18:09, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that some people think that "How do I cure my headache?" and "How are headaches cured?" are somehow radically different questions. From a strictly linguistic standpoint, they are certainly very different - but from a practical perspective, a given OP might choose to phrase a request for personal diagnosis/prognosis/treatment either way. There is indeed strong evidence that some OP's who have learned that we don't answer medical questions are trying to 'game the system' and tune their questions to bypass our rules. Kainaws' criterion is a good way to look at the problem because it avoids the entire issue of precisely how the question is asked and focusses instead on the answers we give. SteveBaker (talk) 18:23, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

That "some people" you refer to appears to be the majority. StuRat (talk) 18:58, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Again, you're adding words to the question. You can't assume the OP asked "how do I cure my headache" when they ask "Whats known cure for headache". Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  19:26, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I think Kainaws' criterion has it well covered. It's elegant and simple and it already meets consensus. The problem (as I see it) is that people aren't reading what it actually says. "No treatment advice" means that you don't tell people how to cure a headache. You link to headache and you tell them that if they have serious concerns over their health, then go see a doctor. I think we're doing OK - we should expect to have to 'enforce' the rule once in a while and to have to deal with the resulting debate. There is no way we're going to be able to magically clarify things to the point where people who haven't even read the rules will obey them - and no matter how bright the line is, we're always going to have these kinds of debate in borderline cases. The point is that bad answers and unacceptable questions get cleaned up rapidly - and then possibly replaced if the consensus resulting from debate says that they should have been allowed. I don't think we need to change a thing. SteveBaker (talk) 18:18, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

The consensus appears to be that there was no problem with the response which was inappropriately removed, yet it hasn't been put back, in this case. Hence the problem. StuRat (talk) 18:58, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm too involved/biased to restore this myself, but I'd appreciate if someone else would. As far as I see this is simply a misinterpretation of Kainaws' criterion. Yes, we can't give treatment advice ("Go and take some paracetamol") but we can give facts about how headaches are treated ("Headaches are treated with paracetamol"). Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  19:26, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Restored, per consensus. StuRat (talk) 20:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I really see a consensus here. Just the same argument that happens every time a borderline medical advice question is posted. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 20:57, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

@ StuRat - you've been here for long enough - you should know better. A majority is not consensus - and I don't think you even have a majority (not that it matters). Go and read Wikipedia:What is consensus?. I don't see anything remotely close to a consensus yet. SteveBaker (talk) 23:44, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I see an overwhelming majority, everyone but you and Tango. StuRat (talk) 00:08, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Is "gaming the system" really a problem?

Apologies for coming in late. (It always amazes me how fast the discussion on a hot-button issue like this can explode, if you turn your head away for just a day.)

Is the consensus now that it is a problem if someone can "trick" us into giving what might otherwise be medical advice, as long as they're careful to phrase their question hypothetically?

At least twice before we've addressed this precise question and determined that it was not a problem. (Unfortunately I haven't managed to dredge out the two previous discussions I'm thinking of. They were probably one and two years ago or so.) —Steve Summit (talk) 18:50, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm late too. Rather than re-hash all the arguments, I'll just say that I agree with Cyclonenim's assessment and response to the original question. Axl ¤ [Talk] 19:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd appreciate if someone could readd my response to the main reference desk question if they feel it's appropriate, consensus seems clear here despite SteveBaker and Tango's objections. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  19:30, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I put it back, but left all the arguing about whether it's medical advice here. StuRat (talk) 19:41, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Seconded. —Steve Summit (talk) 03:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

What would be the reason behind that rule? The underlying principle here is "do no harm" (one mustn't take that entirely literally, of course, it's all about weighing things up and not doing harm that isn't worth it). The potential harm done by telling someone with a headache how to treat that headache is the same regardless of how cleverly they word the question or how cleverly you word the answer. --Tango (talk) 20:01, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

But Cyclonenim isn't "telling someone with a headache how to treat that headache". Axl ¤ [Talk] 20:07, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

YES!! Cycloenim absolutely IS telling someone how to treat headaches. None of our guidelines have all of this imagined nuanced subtlety to them. Go and read what they ACTUALLY say. SteveBaker (talk) 23:44, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Telling someone how to treat headaches is not "telling someone with a headache how to treat that headache", and you know this and are just choosing to be difficult. StuRat (talk) 00:11, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

You and Steve Baker seem bound and determined to misrepresent the OP as "someone with a headache". StuRat (talk) 20:09, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Because they probably did. Do you seriously think it is more likely that the OP was asking out of idle curiosity than because they had a headache? I'm not asking what you think would be the more convenient reality, but what you think is the actual reality. --Tango (talk) 21:37, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

...and even if this was just idle curiosity - shouldn't we err on the side of caution given a lack of sure knowledge? SteveBaker (talk) 23:44, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Well we need to ensure we don't repeat this debate again. Tango, the point is that each reality is as equal as the other whether you like it or not BECAUSE WE HAVE NO FURTHER INFORMATION TO GO ON. Gut instinct isn't enough, imagine if we used that in real research? "My gut instinct is that smoking doesn't cause cancer, but I have no evidence for that". Evidence is the foundation of everything, really, and there is no evidence to suggest that this had any personal intent. Simple as that, no if's, no but's. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  00:18, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Me, I'm not at all sure that the driving principle is (or should be) "do no harm". If that principle trumps all others, eventually we'll convince ourselves we can't give out any information about anything. —Steve Summit (talk) 20:30, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Yea, that reminds me of the computer system put in charge of the whole world, with the goal of "minimizing human suffering", which concluded that killing everyone immediately would best accomplish that goal. If doctors took the "do no harm" part of the oath to mean "don't do anything which could possible ever cause harm", they would all have to abandon their patients. A more reasonable goal is "don't do anything which will get us sued" (and even that has it's problems). StuRat (talk) 20:39, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I was just about to strike my comment, but now that you've responded to it, let me clarify. For our purposes (as opposed to, say, doctors) what's interesting about the "do no harm" principle is that we are not cutting people open or injecting them with chemicals. All we're doing is providing information. Nothing we do here can directly harm anyone; harm could occur only if/when some reader decides (of his own free will) to act on what we've written.

This does not mean that "do no harm" is irrelevant to us; one can do harm with words. (Cue arguments about shouting "Fire!" in crowded theaters, and recent sad cases about teenagers driven to suicide by incessant bullying.) But my point is that "do no harm" is not nearly as much an imperative for us as it is for doctors. "Do no harm" applies to us, I think, when someone asks for help building bombs or plotting murder. But I don't think it's our only, let alone our driving or underlying principle. —Steve Summit (talk) 20:57, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I already said you shouldn't take the principle literally. We all know what "do no harm" means as a principle, stop pretending you don't to be difficult. --Tango (talk) 21:37, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I saw your parenthetical belatedly; apologies for that. But I am most certainly not trying to be difficult. —Steve Summit (talk) 22:00, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, we have helped people plan a murder. I couldn't find any pipe bombs, but we've discussed fun stuff like thermite. But to the point, I think our guidelines about medical and other professional advice are fine. I also think that they should be narrowly interpreted, so that "no medical advice" actually means no medical advice, and not no medical information. Buddy431 (talk) 21:48, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it means "no advice" not "no information". I went to some trouble (above) to list questions that legitimately provide information and questions that violate Kainaws' criterion. SteveBaker (talk) 23:44, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

And I disagree with what you consider "legitimately providing information" vs. "giving medical advice". I do see the questions "How are headaches typically treated" and 'how should I treat my headache" as fundamentally different questions deserving different answers, while you see them both essentially the same. I can certainly understand where you're coming from, saying that someone who is asking about cures for headaches probably has a headache. However, to me, the first question is clearly asking about a general case: In our society, what types of drugs are given to treat headaches? The second question is asking about a specific case: How should a particular headache (i.e. mine) be treated? The second question cannot be answered, because it would require us to know more about what's causing a particular headache, and it would require us to advise a treatment (pass judgement on what form of treatment would be best). The first question can be answered (in my opinion), because it asks for general trends seen over large amounts of data, and does not requre advice of any kind. Saying that many headaches are treated with Tylenol in no way endorses the use of Tylenol to treat headaches. I could just as well say that ear candling is often used to try to remove ear wax, without advising anyone with excess earwax to try ear candling.Buddy431 (talk) 00:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes you did, but you failed to address the actual question. "whats known cure for headache" absolutely, in no way whatsoever, implies the OP had a headache. I could just as easily see someone asking for this information without having a headache. I simply do not see the logic in failing to provide information but instead providing links which link to that exact information. At no stage did I say "go and take paracetamol", I said something along the lines of "headaches are treated by analgesics". Very different things, and as childish as it sounds, you're wrong on this one. If you fail to see that, I don't know what else I can say. I do, unlike others, see consensus here (and no, not a simple majority). All you have linked to over and over is "Kainaw's criterion" which really doesn't apply one bit since the OP didn't ask for advice, they asked for facts, which is what we're here for. I don't like the idea of people running away and screaming "MEDICAL ADVICE. REMOVE IT." every time a remotely medically-related question pops up. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  00:16, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. And now that I have caught up with more of the thread, I can say that:

1. The original question, "Whats known cure for head ace and flu", is clearly not a request for medical advice of any kind. It's clearly a request for information; there's no suggestion that it's an advice question in disguise.

1. Cyclonenim's answer was very careful to give general, factual advice, without venturing any diagnoses. That he was able to do so proves that the question was (or could be construed as) an information question. And that he answered the question so well, carefully and cleanly within both the letter and the spirit of the medical-advice guidelines, reflects very well on him, I think. (If we could all do more of that, and less quibbling here, the Reference Desks would be a better place.) —Steve Summit (talk) 00:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

"Go and read what they ACTUALLY say."

— SteveBaker

Your patronising self-righteous attitude doesn't help your argument. I agree with Cyclonenim and you aren't going to persuade me otherwise. Axl ¤ [Talk] 07:25, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Cyclonenim et al. Another reason to keep this question is WP:AGF. If an OP asks for medical advice directly then we delete the question but if they ask for information (as this questioner did) we should assume that they know the rules and are interested in the hypothetical. To those who want to delete this question: how would you guys ask the reference desk to help you find information regarding common treatments for headaches (or any other illness)? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 09:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

How about this:-

"Whats known cure for head ace and flu. I solemnly declare that I do not have head ace or flu. Neither does any member of my family, nor any of my friends have head ace or flu. I shall not use any information posted here to provide treatment to any individual person." Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The only response acceptable or needed is "see our [article]s, or see a doctor". Using paracetamol as a "such as" example puts that particular option front and centre. A bit amusing too, seeing that "[p]aracetamol hepatotoxicity is, by far, the most common cause of acute liver failure...", yeah they'll be consulting a medical professional soon enough. ;) I think often people here argue as much in defense of their own ability or desire to answer a/any question(s) responsibly and well. But you're also defending the ability of any random poster answering with their own opinion of what's right too, and the OP reading that before someone with more sense removes that "take two Tylenol and drink four beers" advice. And there's no slippery slope either, Kainaw's criteria are clear enough and like SteveBaker says above, if you must, err slightly on the side of caution. Why is that so difficult? Franamax (talk) 21:48, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not difficult, it's just unnecessary. It's not our responsibility to babysit every poster, and without due cause to suspect any personal ailment there is no reason to assume that they'll use our information for their own use. As explained many times, this outcome is just as likely as someone using the information for personal research since the actual question had NO information suggesting any intent, it just asks for facts about treatment scenarios. There is no need to err on the side of caution. People above such as Steve and Tango have suggested that the mere act of asking how to cure a headache is so simple that it suggests its a child. I see this more as proof that the OP was likely looking for further information rather than looking for a literal headache cure for their own use. If any random person comes and answers a medical question like "take twoTylenol and drink four beers", then clearly it would breach Kainaw's criterion and our medical disclaimer and should be removed. What I said is literally no different to saying "see headache", which as you just established is fine. It was answered professionally and responsibly with absolutely no relation to the OP. I, in no way, suggested that the OP should go and take paracetamol; instead, I said headaches are treated with analgesics SUCH AS paracetamol. These are very different concepts. Why is it fine, if saying it directly isn't? You're being hypocritical in your responses, and it's a question for which I am yet to get an answer despite asking several times. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  23:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

But why did you use paracetamol as an example? Why not ibuprofen (which works way better for headaches and relief of flu symptoms in my experience)? Could I have jumped in with my preference and extolled its superiority? Should I race with you to answer, so as to get my preferred choice in first? I'm not trying to troll you on this, I'm just cautious on where the natural instinct of a RD regular to answer intersects with the way those answers can cross the line as they develop in a thread. Franamax (talk) 02:59, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Because that's what the article says, if I said ibuprofen then I would indeed be offering a medical opinion which is not our place. We're supposed to reply with facts. I don't think any of us are dumb enough to place answering a question ahead of the OPs wellbeing. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  13:43, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Cyclonemin, you gave a very reasonable answer, and I don't see anyone arguing that it was somehow reckless or potentially harmful. The problem is that the question, as posed by the OP, should have been answered with a very simple response (something like "Read our articles on headache and influenza and then return if you have more specific questions on the topic" which is basically what Buddy431 eventually said). I don't think there would have been any hullaballoo and we would not be having this endless discussion. Kainaw asks "can the question be answered completely without providing a diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment advice?" To answer the OP's questions completely you must first know "what kind of headache?" and "what kind of flu?" (DIAGNOSIS) and then explicitly provide information about a "cure" (TREATMENT). Thus, we should not try to answer the question. I agree that it may seem silly and overly cautious, but IMHO the correct response is to simply point to the articles and ask that the OP be more specific about what they want to know. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 01:02, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Again, no one has answered my key question but still address it. I shall put it in bold. Why am I allowed to suggest "read headache" but not allowed to say "headaches are usually treated by analgesics paracetamol" (which is what the headache article says)? How is that any less hamrful? If you're arguing for this, you have to be arguing for the removal of all treatment information from Wikipedia as they are one in the same thing.Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  08:52, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

To me, this question is the equivalent of someone asking "where can I find information about the treatment of headache and flu?" To which my answer would be, "Try our articles on headache and influenza." If the same question were posed to a librarian, he/she would undoubtedly point the OP in the direction of medical textbooks, NOT answer the question with a specific drug. The difference is that by giving specific examples of treatments, even with the appropriate qualifying statements, one must make some type of judgment (akin to a diagnosis) about what the OP specifically wants to know. It is a very different thing to show someone WHERE to find information than to give them specific information about what you think they are looking for. No one is arguing against medical information being freely available. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 13:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I do see your point, but if the information they point to is identical and well referenced, then where is the harm? That's the case we're discussing. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  17:44, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I guess I don't understand Kainaw's criterion, then. Remember, the OP did not ask, "what is a way to cure my headache?" or "what is a way to cure my flu?" Ergo, it was not necessary to know which specific kind, or to engage in anything remotely like a diagnosis. Ergo, it was possible to give a generic answer (as indeed Cyclonenim did).

I'm sorry that we're going back and forth on this; I fear there's some key argument I'm missing. It's clear to me that the OP's question was as close to a medical information question (and therefore as far from a medical advice question) as we could hope to get. So if this question can't be answered, I'm left with the conclusion that medical information questions are now forbidden. Yet that's not what our guidelines say, and indeed everyone in this thread has agreed that medical information questions are still permissible. So why not this one? —Steve Summit (talk) 01:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I don't think that Kainaw's criterion stipulates anything about the narrative mode of the question. The key argument, in my mind, is that in order to answer this particular question accurately, we ultimately have to know what kind of headache the OP is talking about (cluster headache? sinus headache? migraine headache? caffeine withdrawal? hangover? brain tumor?) before even considering what a "cure" might consist of. There are similar conditional answers to the flu part of the question. Cyclonemin's response even alludes to this fact ("depending on the type") which should be a clue that the question, in it's current form, should just be answered with simple links and asking the OP to clarify what it is that he/she really wants to know. --- Medical geneticist (talk) 02:21, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I think, since every one of Kainaw's examples uses either "I" or "my", that makes it clear that we should only be concerned about questions asked in that form. StuRat (talk) 02:27, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Meh. I actually disagree with that. If someone asks "What's the best way to cure a headache", we might be straying into advice (rather than information) in answering it. And we always need to be mindful of the responses; even if the question doesn't ask for medical advice, someone might give it anyway. Buddy431 (talk) 06:09, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

In those cases the guidelines say that we should delete the answers that provide advice - not the question which which doesn't ask for advice. It's perfectly possible to list common treatments for certain illnesses without providing advice. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Have I been watching a whole different show? Isn't this whole thing about how a specific mention of one certain treatment option was removed, then someone else decided to craft a response which managed to contain the same recommendation for treatment but in a more "neutral" format? Following which all hell broke loose on this page? Franamax (talk) 08:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear, I hope I haven't derailed this. I've been objecting to people who think this was an inappropriate question. I've just gone and read this (entire!) thread and I see that some people do believe that we shouldn't entertain this question. I think (and the guidelines agree) that we should answer this question, but do so without giving away any advice. I'm not an expert so I don't know if Cyclone's answer is technically correct but he didn't give away any advice. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 11:42, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

That was never what this was about; as far as I know my account was never actually questioned in accuracy. The 'problem' (I don't see it that way but nevermind) is that I answered, supposedly, a medical request for information. Some people are seeing it as me answering a request for medical advice, whereas the majority here are seeing it as an answer to a general medical question. Since there were no words to suggest the OPs request was for personal use, we see no harm in answering the question as it could just as legitimately be a request for information NOT for personal use, i.e. for research instead. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  17:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

MG, you are essentially repeating my main point. Saying "whats known cure for headache" could just be saying "what are the known cures for headaches" which, as you pointed out, would need a very complicated answer since headahces vary significantly in type. I don't agree with Tango above where he says this is most likely a "tension headache", where there is no proof the OP even has one. I don't agree with just posting overall links when we can just summarise the information IN those links for the OP. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  08:52, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Exactly! The question cannot be answered completely without further interpretation of the OP's meaning. However, a summary will by definition be incomplete and may leave out the exact information that the OP was actually looking for. With any other RD question, this is perfectly acceptable and part of the process, but opening up a question like this one is just asking for problems (hence this interminable discussion). --- Medical geneticist (talk) 13:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I still do not see the problem. How is "what are headache cures?" followed by a (possibly incomplete) list of headache cures, any different from "what are steelmaking processes?" followed by a (possibly incomplete) list of those? How is the question "just asking for problems"? I don't see any problem for the OP, any problem for the answerer, any problem for Wikipedia's liability. The only problem is that some people want to turn every medical information question into a medical advice question so that they can complain about it. —Steve Summit (talk) 14:04, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Distinguishing

Fwiw, the medical section of the RD guidelines provides an example which shows that this question is not a request for advice. Have a look at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Guidelines/Medical_advice#Distinguishing_between_what_is_and_what_is_not_acceptable. If you don't like that then we need to change the guidelines. If a question is posed as hypothetical, we should treat it as hypothetical. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 08:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. The example you point to does not in any way give carte blanche to answer medical-related questions simply because they are posed as a hypothetical. In the section just above that it clearly states "Any posted comment containing a diagnosis, a prognosis based on that diagnosis, or a suggested form of treatment or cure, in response to symptoms presented in a question, is considered inappropriate for the reference desk, as are questions that seem to be implicitly or explicitly requesting such advice." Headache (symptom) --> Paracetamol (treatment). QED.

ACK... MUST... GET... BACK... TO... WORK... :)

--- Medical geneticist (talk) 13:22, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

But, yet again, the examples of Q's and A's considered unacceptable use personal pronouns ("I", "I've", "you") while the acceptable Q does not. Combine this with the 6 examples from Kainaw and it really seems as simple as that, in every example so far. StuRat (talk) 13:56, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

We seem to be at an utter impasse. The posted question does not implicitly or explicitly request treatment suggestions in response to symptoms presented. Cyclonemin's answer does not offer diagnoses or prognoses in response to symptoms presented. And yet people keep asserting that there's something wrong with the question or the answer. —Steve Summit (talk) 14:06, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

so are hypothetical questions okay, or not?

Up above I asked, "Is 'gaming the system' really a problem?", and never got an answer. So I want to try again, because it seems like the objections to this question or the proffered answers seem to revolve around fears that the OP might secretly be asking for medical advice, or might wantonly use the proffered answers as part of some unsafe self-treatment attempt. Is this the main problem here, that people are objecting to? Or is it something else? —Steve Summit (talk) 14:23, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Seems to me that if someone says "Hypothetically if I had leukaemia then..." then Wikipedia has no liability if we answer. If the person uses the advice personally, against the idea of it being hypothetical, then that is their decision. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  17:41, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The right answer to a question worded that way, could be, "Hypothetically, go see your doctor." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

You're advising we get rid of the no-medical-advice policy, which is a terrible idea because of the unethical nature of an unqualified nonprofessional dispensing medical advice. Theoretical legal liability is a distant 2nd on the list of reasons why we don't give medical advice; a diagnosis and advice are supposed to be given by a doctor. The main reason is that we don't want the querents damaging their health by following incorrect advice. The actual subject under discussion is, I believe, whether the headache question inevitably leads to medical advice or not. (Personally I am undecided.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:03, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

The treatment for headaches can range from Tylenol or aspirin, to brain surgery, depending on the cause. If someone asks how to fix a headache, the only possible valid response is, "See your doctor". If there's an article on headache, we could point them to it for general info - and hope they don't draw self-diagnostic conclusions from it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:29, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Really? You think you know what I'm advising? When did I ever suggest we get rid of the no-medical-advice policy? The whole point of this discussion how the OP started the question, not getting rid of any policy whatsoever. This has nothing to do with diagnosis. We don't care any less for the wellbeing of to OP; we merely believe your hypotheses to be wrong. Comet Turtle is right in his/her last sentence. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  02:55, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Paratrooper Medical Advice

Removed. Diff. ShadowRanger already informed the OP, but I have removed the question per our guidelines. Hopefully this one is so far over the line that there's no need to debate ad-nauseum. Nimur (talk) 22:33, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate to provide a link to tramadol in this case (in case the 90.208 didn't know we had an article), or do we just not respond at all to the content of the question? Buddy431 (talk) 00:27, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

A link to tramadol would be good, but absolutely no medical advice on this one me thinks. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  09:44, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Removed highly questionable diagnosis

I actually noticed this earlier and should have dealt with it. But anyway I removed [1]. While I agree it's highly unlikely to be MRSA (and even if it were, there was no way you could diagnose it from the photo), we shouldn't be offering any diagnosis including saying it's not MRSA so simple removal of the first highly questionable (joke?) diagnosis is the best course of action rather then offering further diagnosis. Nil Einne (talk) 08:12, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you should have edited the comment from the IP saying "looks like MRSA" to just remove that one bit. The whole comment should have gone. Removing bits and pieces of posts is....untidy. I don't disagree with the removal, though. Vimescarrot (talk) 09:33, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Untidy or not, when it can be done without seemingly significantly changing the meaning of the answer, it generally avoids unnecessary disputes and edit wars that can come with removing an entire comment when only part of it is problematic and is a well accepted practice here and elsewhere. (This example isn't so bad and the OP perhaps wouldn't care but if we were to remove the entire question when an e-mail address is given for example that would cause a lot of controversy.) However on consideration I didn't make it clear enough where I removed the diagnosis from so I made a change [2] Nil Einne (talk) 01:09, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Feels like a bad habit, though. You can easily change the meaning of someone's post by selectively deleting parts of it. Even here, there's been a slight shift in meaning. From "See a doctor for treatment for MRSA." to "See a doctor for diagnosis." APL (talk) 15:50, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Relationship advice

I am not comfortable about the amount of "advice" being given concerning sexual relationships, the latest being the question entitled "Woman" at the Miscellaneous Desk on April 9th. This is a "reference" desk, which to my mind renders relationship advice inappropriate, however well meaning. Furthermore it opens the door for trolling and all sorts of opinionated and uninformed speculation from us random people, and while a few responses might be on target most of them seem to be jokey or speculative. I'd like to suggest we put these in the same category as medical advice questions, and replace them with a sympathetic boilerplate text. No doubt this topic has been discussed before, so I'd appreciate a link to any previous discussion.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:15, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

There are many books written that provide relationship advice, and in that sense it is well within the scope of a reference librarian. In other words, we could direct them to any number of sources that provide more information on relationship issues. However, as we are all familiar with relationships there is a temptation to offer lots of "original research" on questions like this. I can see some virtue in trying to discourage that and encourage more robust answers. However, I disagree that the category of question should be banned. Dragons flight (talk) 09:32, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

One way of approaching this would be to demand that we cite sources, though over at the Computing desk it's virtually impossible to find a source for telling a user that he has to delete file X and then rebuild his desktop by holding option-command-C at startup, so the demands for a source seem looser there. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:43, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Flame bait Ubuntu comment removed

I removed an unhelpful, flamebait Ubuntu recommendation from Stephan Schulz, from a help-with-Microsoft-Windows thread on the Computing desk:

Extended content
format C:, then see Ubuntu (operating system). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC) That's not a helpful response for the reference desk and does not help solve this problem. --Cameron Scott (talk) 20:54, 12 April 2010 (UTC) Why do you think I reverted it? I want a straight answer, not a flame war between bigots of different OSes. —Jeremy (v^_^v Dittobori) 20:57, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

We have decided at least once that "Use Ubuntu" or "Use Macintosh" or "Use Linux" or "Use Windows" are not acceptable answers on the Reference Desk when some poor computer user is just trying to get something working on his system. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:40, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

For those wondering the thread is [3] Nil Einne (talk) 18:04, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Music desk

Although I am not a great fan of music, but I think that a having one music desk would be better. --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 10:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Not really any need, since there aren't enough questions on music to justify a separate desk. See here for earlier discussion. Personally I favour the status quo – classical music questions go in Humanities, popular music questions in Entertainment. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 12:45, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

But, I think at least 6-7 questions come daily, probably?? And for music fans. --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 12:49, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

At the moment, I count 13 music questions (out of 33 total questions) on the seven (and a bit) visible days of the Entertainment desk — and I'm counting "What is Lil' Wayne's email address" as a 'music' question. Out of fifty-some questions on Humanities, just one is related to music — but it's counted under Entertainment because someone already moved it across to the other Desk (and left a suitable link behind). Misc has 3 (one about a YouTube video, one about a historical musical instrument, one about an a cappella group) out of 65 questions. It appears to me that we're getting about 2 music questions per day, on average: sixteen questions in a bit more than seven days.

So it looks like the traffic wouldn't justify another Desk, and it appears that our readers generally don't have trouble finding the correct category. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:07, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Just to build consensus... I agree. The current desks easily handle all music questions. -- kainaw™ 14:53, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree as well. I generally try to answer music questions when possible and I think the current layout is fine. 10draftsdeep (talk) 15:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

OK. --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 15:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that we don't need a Music Desk, both for the reasons listed above and because I couldn't, in good conscience, categorize the noise coming out of modern radio stations as "music". :-) StuRat (talk) 16:11, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I prefer to state it in a more polite way: Every generation will have their popular little boy band. They can't all have the Beatles. -- kainaw™ 00:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Richardrj: Not sure I agree with your division (classical music on Humanities but popular music on Entertainment). The legend directs all music questions to Entertainment. It would make little sense to fragment music in the way you suggest. Sure, we all have our likes and dislikes, but that doesn't make one genre more entertaining and another more arty-farty. They're equally entertaining, and they're equally worthy of serious academic study. But our convention here is to deal with them all on the Entertainment desk. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Linking to copyright-violating sites on the RD

See debate here. Further comments welcome. (I didn't know whether it was best to move, copy or link to the original dialogue.) --Richardrj ^{talk email} 14:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The title of this section is misleading. The Q isn't whether we should link to copyright-violating sites, but whether we should edit the posts of others, to remove links, without proof that they do violate a copyright. That is, without knowing if the original author gave permission to the linked site to post their material. StuRat (talk) 14:31, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

That may be what you're about, but it's not what I'm about. The website you linked to is clearly a copyvio website, it doesn't take a genius to work that out. Therefore the title is perfectly accurate. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 14:36, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

(ec with above) I'll copy what's been put on the desk here:

---

I removed the link to a copyvio lyrics site. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 12:55, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

And I've restored it. Copyright status gives us a reason to remove it from an article, but not a talk page like this, AFAIK. Do you have any policy that says you can do that ? If not, then the policy on not editing the talk page posts of others rules here. StuRat (talk) 13:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

here ---Sluzzelin talk 13:05, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The first sentence of that linked section talks about a "Wikipedia article", and there is no mention of talk pages in that section. StuRat (talk) 13:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) There is also WP:ELNEVER, which says much the same thing. StuRat's point, however, is that these policies only apply to article space, not to the reference desk. The point is moot, there is probably no guidance that explicitly refers to copyvio links on the RD, but the spirit of the thing is clear: no linking to copyvio sites. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

(Please use small text to indicate comments which aren't answers to the original Q.) Policy regarding articles is moot. If there's a policy on talk page links, then that would apply to the Ref Desk. If not, then there is no policy on links here. Also note that we have no indication that the band objects to their lyrics being posted at that site, as it's difficult to imagine how they suffer financial harm from it. Indeed, it may be considered free advertising for their music. Do you have any indication that they object ? StuRat (talk) 13:21, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) You seem to think that "moot" is a synonym of "irrelevant", which it is not. Anyway, lack of a policy on this is neither here nor there. Just because there is no policy on copyvio links on the RD, doesn't mean you can just go ahead and link to copyvio sites here regardless. Ask yourself whether the spirit of the ban on copyvio links in article space ought to apply here. If your answer is "yes" – and I don't see how it can't be – then you should not link to them, regardless of whether there is a policy on the matter. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:29, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary:moot does mean irrelevant, at least in North America. See def 2. When I ask myself if article rules should apply to talk pages like this, the answer is a resounding "no", since articles require a much higher standard. For comparison, first imagine if someone wrote "He's a retard" in an article about a person with limited mental abilities. It would be appropriate to change it to say "He's suffering from mental retardation". Now imagine that this was posted on the talk page for that article. Would it be appropriate to edit the post to change the wording ? No, although it would be fine to post a follow-up suggesting the proper term. The same thing applies here. If you want to post a follow-up saying that you believe that site violates copyright laws, that's fine, but don't change the posts of others, unless there's a policy specifically for talk pages that says you are allowed to do so. StuRat (talk) 13:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Can someone do that fancy show/hide thing on this subthread? I don't know how to do that. I disagree entirely – the same reasons for not copyvio-linking in article space should apply here, i.e. that directing others to copyvio material may be considered contributory copyright infringement and sheds a bad light on Wikipedia. On your last point – policy schmolicy, we always redact people's email addresses from here although there's no policy telling us to should do so. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:58, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

If you really feel this needs debating, take it to the ref desk talk page so that everyone can get involved. Vimescarrot (talk) 14:03, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Done, see here. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 14:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

---

The post in question is on the Entertainment desk on April 14, 2010, here Buddy431 (talk) 14:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I just want to note that the policy says "without exception". It does not specify that it only applies to the article namespace. The Ref Desk is not an article but site-wide policies (e.g. ones that would apply to talk pages) clearly hold. As for whether the site violates copyright or has it legitimately licensed, I think we can all use a little common sense. It is well-known enough that most generic lyrics sites are willfully engaging in copyright violation, so much so that it is discussed in our lyrics article. It is not much harder to just say, "if you Google the name of the song, it's lyrics come up pretty quickly," which indeed, involves one additional step on behalf of the answerer, but doesn't involve us in violating any Wikipedia rules. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:51, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The policy mentions "articles", but does not mention talk pages, like the Ref Desk, so I see no reason to think it would apply here. Most policies which apply to articles, like requiring sources, clearly do not apply to talk pages. Also, I disagree with the "many are guilty so we should just assume they all are" logic. StuRat (talk) 16:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The policy does not mention articles or talk pages, it says without exception. The page at Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking_to_copyrighted_works explicitly says not to link to lyrics sites. It does not draw a distinction between namespaces. The key issue here is that Wikipedia should not link to sites that are blatantly violating copyrights. Using a little common sense would apply that to the Ref Desk in all but the most exceptional of cases. I don't see any really compelling reason here to think that linking to a lyrics site is necessary. Choose your battles! --Mr.98 (talk) 22:34, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, so someone asks a question, and the only known answer is to an alleged "copyright violation". So, how do you answer the question? Maybe you say, "Gee, we'd like to answer, but that would force us to post a link to a copyright violation, so you're screwed!" Further enhancing wikipedia's reputation. NOT. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

No-one is suggesting anything of the sort. If someone says "what is the lyric to such and such a song", you could answer "Google it". Or, if they're just asking about a line or two, you could quote those lines in the answer, which wouldn't be a copyright violation. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:26, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It uses the word "article" right in the first sentence, but never uses the words "talk page" at all, leading me to think it's talking about articles and not talk pages, like the Ref Desk. StuRat (talk) 23:41, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's clear to me also, that they're only talking about articles. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear to me at all, quite the reverse in fact. I can only reiterate what I said upthread, namely that linking to copyvio sites may be considered contributory copyright infringement and sheds a bad light on Wikipedia. Please explain how, in your opinion, those factors apply only to articles, not to the RD. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:26, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The diff is that a post from an individual on a talk page like the Ref Desk is just one person talking, it's not "Wikipedia talking", like the articles are, since they are edited by many. It's like the difference between what a company puts out in an official press release versus what it's employees scribble on a bulletin board. One is official, the other is not. StuRat (talk) 23:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It starts by talking about "articles", and that's presumably "understood" later in the discussion. However, it could be stated better. Is this something Wales or Godwin could answer definitively, instead of us just trying to figure it out? And meanwhile, how do you answer a question whose answer requires using a "copyright-violating" link? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:26, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Side note, this also affects questions like the one last week when a questioner linked us to a torrent site that prominently advertised torrents claiming to feature Photoshop and Windows and such. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:32, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

That had to do with sites posted by a questioner, and he was told they are doing things illegitimately. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:37, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, since I almost never shop in the web, and there's no article here on it, what's a "torrent site"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Among the popular torrents is BitTorrent. It's a method to deliver large files as quickly as possible, rather than a client-server download (which stresses the teeny pipe out from the server to the net) torrents uses a peer architecture where if you have just downloaded a chunk of video you also send it back out again to other people looking for the same thing. Franamax (talk) 23:47, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

On the proximate issue, why not link to a site with fully licensed lyrics like Gracenote or Metrolyrics? [4][5]The gracenote site has a huge cookie in the URL so it may not work as linked. :Problem solved. On the wider issue, I'm on the side where we don't link to obvious or reasonably-determined copyvios, we're talking a project page not a talk page. I generally remove copyvio links on sight. Franamax (talk) 00:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Let's suppose a questioner posts a youtube site and asks, "What song is playing at such-and-such minutes and seconds?" Too obscure to likely be able to find a valid reference as such. You look at the youtube and you recognize the song, and you also suspect it's a copyright violation. If I'm reading you correctly, that's not really an issue, because it's not being posted in an article. Right? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

There's a difference between what an OP links and what a responder links (IMO). A question could easily fall within fair-use comment if it links to a copyvio (unless, you know, 400 questions about Avril Lavigne lyrics show up). Responders should avoid copyvio'ing links in favour of general suggestions of where and how to search. The distinction here is between pages that have " talk:" in them (where wide latitude is often granted) and those which do not. Non-talk pages are the outside-facing part of the project and deserve extra scrutiny. Your hypothetical question is a tough one, since the only available answer might be a followup link to another copyvio Youtube video of the original band performance. I'll answer it with "bleaghh" and continue to favour the edit summary of "rmv link to copyvio site". :) Franamax (talk) 01:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above approach. I think when possible one should avoid linking to obviously copyvio sites. That seems to be pretty straightforward. But one has to use your judgment. On this sort of thing I do think it is important to "choose your battles," as I said earlier. If you don't really need to post the link to the obviously copyvio lyrics site, then don't. If you really really need to, then do. We are adults (for the most part) and we are reasonable (for the most part) and do things in good faith and with good intentions. If people disagree, well, that's what talk pages are for. We should feel free to disagree and to hash over boundary cases. But the general principle that avoiding links to obvious copyvio sites is a good one and a Wikipedia-wide one and should probably be observed more often than it is not. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:46, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Loss of session date

I was getting this message repeatedly when editing, then followed their advice to log out, then it wouldn't let me log back in, now I seem to be logged in without having done so. Is anyone else having similar probs with Wikipedia ? StuRat (talk) 14:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Not I, but a more useful place to ask this would be the Village Pump or WP:HELP, not here. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Trolling - "how many dando can you fit in a doorway??"

For the benefit of non-UK editors, this "question" is a clear reference to the murder of Jill Dando, just as the "questioner"'s earlier post above alluded to the death of Stuart Lubbock. I suggest those who know about the best procedures here take some necessary action. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Dandy Fleur (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - I have advised him to stop it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:26, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Hold on, what happened to his talk page and contributions? Did they get deleted? By who? I hate it when this stuff just disappears from the face of the Earth without any explanation. Buddy431 (talk) 01:41, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, typo. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Sweet, thanks. I see the posts got clobbered on the desk. Probably a good thing. Buddy431 (talk) 02:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

And he is now blocked. Matt Deres (talk) 01:06, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Ref Desk archive search function

I'm really impressed by this, but do have two requests:

1) While it finds the individual Q in question, picking the link doesn't take you to that section, but rather just the top of the relevant archive page. And, since you may not know the name of the section, this may require an additional in-page search (Control F). Could the search tool be altered to take us directly to the desired Q ?

2) The search function at the top of the "All" Ref Desk page (Wikipedia:Reference_desk) isn't the archive search, but just a general Wikipedia search (same as the one on lhe left side ?). Can we change this ? StuRat (talk) 16:37, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd definitely prefer switching around the ref desk search bar to be an archive search. Vimescarrot (talk) 20:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

"Fake Patient" diagnosis

We've got a request on the science desk (here) to diagnose a fake patient. Someone threw a "Do Your Own Homework" template up. I'm not so concerned about asking for help on homework (the OP has attempted to answer the question himself, but failed), but I do worry about giving medical advice, even for a "fake patient". It's pretty clear in this case that it really is a homework question in this case, but such a scenario could be used by someone trying to covertly solicit medical advice for themselves. So what do we do? Refuse to give any diagnosis, even for a fake patient? Give a possible diagnosis with a strict warning to see a doctor if these symptoms apply to a real person? Just refuse to answer it because it's homework? Input would be appreciated. Buddy432 (talk) 15:06, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Ask, Were thy on any medication prior to admittance? I'm thinking along the lines of discounting any adverse drug reaction, especially the rarer ones caused by to or more drugs. --Aspro (talk) 15:16, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

This is clearly a homework question. The "fake patient" thing is common. Doctors are trained by having fake patients come in with symptoms and the doctor tries to test and treat properly. What I find strange is that the question made it here. Normally, they are not allowed to jump on a computer to ask for help. -- kainaw™ 15:28, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it was a written homework question for someone not far enough along to deal with "real" fake patients? APL (talk) 16:11, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd say to treat it like a medical request...because that's what it is. Vimescarrot (talk) 16:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Either that or give them "fake answers", such as "You say he has terminal cancer? Give him some Tylenol. Couldn't hurt." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:50, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Or to really start an interesting discussion, say "Pray for him." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:51, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Giving fake answers is basically trolling. Don't do that. Did the #so are hypothetical questions okay, or not section further up the page reach a decision on dealing with hypothetical questions? 82.43.89.71 (talk) 17:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I should have pointed out that such a fake answer would be preceeded by a disclaimer, something like this: "In regard to your fake patient, here is a fake answer..." Or, you could just say, "Sorry, we are not doctors and cannot give medical advice, even for a fake patient." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:23, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I propose a new rule. Only fake doctors can give diagnoses for fake patients. Googlemeister (talk) 20:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

This is a request for homework advice, not a request for medical advice. Axl ¤ [Talk] 20:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

So either way, it's to be disregarded, right? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

What's the point of a "no medical advice" disclaimer if we have a sub-cluase "unless it's not for a real person"? Vimescarrot (talk) 23:09, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Precisely. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) What causes me to shudder is the thought that a presumed med-student is asking for advice on the Internet. That said, my (very experienced MD) sister has questioned me closely on the reliability of English Wikipedia, since she uses it as part of her research toolkit for obscure conditions. A better answer IMO would have been to further elucidate the chain of reasoning, specifically why other diagnoses could be excluded in favour of the leap to staph or strep. Taking the OP at face value, what they need help with is reasoning, not answers. Interesting intersection of homework and medadvice though. Franamax (talk) 23:25, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

No kidding. I would hate to be going under anesthetic and the last words I hear the doctor say are, "Bring up that Wikipedia ref desk question about this type of surgery." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Given the stories you hear about incompetent surgeons, I wouldn't object too strongly to having some of the Ref Desk regulars giving instructions on how to cut me open. Vimescarrot (talk) 00:35, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

As long as some wise guy doesn't make some subtle changes - for example, replacing all occurrences of "scalpel" with "can opener". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:15, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

"Some guy named "Bugs" told me how to perform this surgery. I just wish he hadn't used such small print, my eyes aren't what they used to be." APL (talk) 05:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Small-print instructions should only be given for pediatric surgery. Franamax (talk) 17:31, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Is it really so shocking to realize that a med student might not know everything there is to know about medicine? Isn't that why they're in med school? Ref desk answers can often be helpful, whether you're doing a physics problem set or a fake diagnosis, even with the implicit understanding in mind that answers from the internet should receive some scrutiny. I don't think there's anything to pooh-pooh here. Rckrone (talk) 17:51, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Geography desk

And what about geography desk? --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 15:39, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The same arguments put forth against the creation of a Music desk apply to this as well. See #Music desk 82.43.89.71 (talk) 15:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

You may also want to check out Wikipedia:Reference desk/How to create a new reference desk, which includes links to virtually all of the "we need a new X desk" discussions we've had over the years. Note that most discussions end with no new desk created. Unless you present a compelling argument for why questions being asked at the desk presently aren't being usefully addressed by the present desk structure (and why/how the proposed new desk would fix this), we're not likely to implement a new desk. — Lomn 16:20, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Humanities desk question

Why do we put up with this crap? Instead of a music desk or a geography desk, what's needed is a desk where BB can post all the useless drivel he's medically unable to stop himself from spewing all over people's questions. The dandelion thread gets off-track? It's no biggie; at least there's some kind of information being relayed. It happens and it's kind of cool, actually. But what the hell was the gain from this bullshit? And I'm the bad guy for wiping up the orthographic diarrhea? 64.235.97.146 (talk) 19:07, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Likewise, we have to put up with no end of nonsense from anonymous busybodies like yourself. The question had to do with raising a pheasant as a pet, so it's already obviously a joke, but he got a straight answer, which is to call his city government, as wikipedia is in no position to answer such a question. You want to mark it "done" or "resolved", fine. But it's not your place to be deleting other users' comments. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

And by the way, check out this equally "useful" "contribution" by the above IP when last heard from a month ago:[6] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Within the last hour, I've had at least one "thank you" and at least one "agree with", which is a total of at least two more compliments than the IP has had. So the IP should focus on trying to answer questions, instead of playing the nanny, or more bluntly, the troll, which are his only accomplishments so far today. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't see how someone asking if they are allowed to raise a pheasant as a pet is "obviously a joke". People have all sorts of animals as pets; snakes, horses, stick-insects, sheep etc. A pheasant isn't any stranger than those. Anyway, Baseball Bugs's first response was the correct one, the thread should have ended there. But I can understand the OPs frustration at seeing lots of people apparently cracking jokes at the expense of him. The abundance of small-tagged joke posts in that thread should be avoided.

Side note after edit conflict; Wikipedia isn't a popularity contest, the number of people who may or may not have complimented you within the last hour is completely irrelevant. And users are not required to answer questions before asking them. 82.43.89.71 (talk) 19:38, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The IP has only two entries in the last month, both of them negative and not geared toward answering a question in any way, shape or form, but rather geared toward attacking an editor. That's trolling. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:40, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

How is a question about an exotic pet "obviously a joke"? People have interests in all sorts of animals as unusual pets. APL (talk) 20:13, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

And I gave him a straight answer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

As I've suggested before, Bugs has a sufficiently slanted POV when it comes to IP editors that he really ought to disengage from this sort of behavior. — Lomn 20:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

If the IP had actually contributed something positive, I would have taken a different stance. The IP is purely trolling, serving no useful purpose here. And if you can't see that, then maybe you should disengage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I really wish you would stop making stupid jokes that add precisely nothing to these pages. If it was possible to ignore another user's posts, I'd have done it with you years ago, and I wouldn't have missed a thing. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 22:27, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

And I wish you would stop kissing up to trolling IP's. If I had ignored the one that started this section, I'd have also been better off. But I took the bait again. Silly me. But at least I am actually trying to contribute something to the ref desks, as are you. The IP who posted this has contributed nothing. Nada. Zilch. Except for aggravation, if that counts as a "contribution". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The reference desk is for Wikipedia's readers. They are absolutely not required or even encouraged to "contribute anything positive" before asking a question.

People don't have to join our club just to ask a question. That's the whole point.

Imagine if the local library's reference desk wouldn't treat your questions seriously until you volunteered and reshelved books for a few hours! APL (talk) 23:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

The IP in this case is not a "reader", he's a bloody troll. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:06, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The better analogy would be if I were behind the help desk at a library, and someone asked something, and I answered it, and then made a joke of some kind, and then some character came from out of nowhere and said, "I don't like the way you answered that person." That's being a busybody. A troll. Whatever. If the actual questioner has a problem with anything in any of the responses, he's free to speak up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:08, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I have a pet Bic pen. Bus stop (talk) 00:14, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I used to have a Pet Roc. My pet wolverine ate it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:34, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Who says he's a troll? Why do you insist on repeatedly calling him a troll? He's posting from an IP that had never before edited Wikipedia (just like the vast majority of Wikipedia readers.) and he asked on the reference desk a completely valid, legitimate question!

Not only are you completely failing to Assume Good Faith, I can't even tell what caused you to jump to this conclusion! APL (talk) 00:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

You're getting your IP's mixed up. I'm not talking about the OP that asked about the pheasant. I'm talking about the one who posted at the top of this section, whose first two edits in the last month were today, first to delete stuff, and then to complain about it here, after he was called out for being a busybody. That one is the troll. His only activity to that point demonstrates only bad faith - all negative, no useful contribution. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh. I assumed (Because you said that the question was "obviously a joke".) that all along you were talking about the question-asker. I assumed that you meant you would have "responded differently" by not joking about the question so much.

Sorry to misinterpret you. APL (talk) 00:38, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

'S all right. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:32, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't really see how someone trying to remove joke posts which shouldn't be there anyway is trolling. 82.43.89.71 (talk) 08:00, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Let me explain, then. On a talk page like the Ref Desk, you can't just go and remove anything you don't like, even if you feel it isn't helpful to the OP. At the very least, it needs to be a violation of some policy for it to be removed, and there's no blanket policy against jokes. StuRat (talk) 02:44, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to take a moment to pedantically speak out against the use of the word "Troll" as a generic catch-all for anyone who does anything inappropriate on the Internet. It has a much more more specific meaning, which doesn't seem, to me, to apply here. That is all. APL (talk) 05:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Bugs, you're labouring under a double misconception. First, you thought that the OP was making a joke post. A Google search nets more than 400,000 hits for "pet pheasant" including quite a number of hits for people who already engage in the activity. IOW, you were wrong, period. Second, you thought that this "joke post" thereby gave you permission to post several, increasingly ridiculous replies. How is that helpful to anyone? Park your ego back in the hangar and look at the diff I provided. Did your reversion improve the desk in even a minute way? Abso-fucking-lutely not. Your posts mocked the OP's question - and for what? Man up and do the right thing - remove or redact your joke posts and let the OP get an answer to his question that doesn't involve having to read between your posts. 64.235.97.146 (talk) 18:00, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

... for your positive, uplifting, civil comments, which I will be storing in an appropriate file. The guy asked about a pet pheasant, and I advised him to consult his local government to find out what the rules are. I also pointed out an advantage of a pheasant over, say, a dog or cat, in that if the critter proves to be ornery, the OP could have it for supper. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:40, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we just rename these pages "The Wikipedia Reference Desk and Improv Comedy Troupe"? APL (talk) 05:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Yesterday after Bugs posted another incorrect, unreferenced answer off the top of his head, without bothering to look at the references previously provided in the thread, I realized that since he treats this as a forum and not a Reference Desk, it would be a much better fit for him to hang out at the Straight Dope message boards, where it is looser, and he can give witty, unreferenced answers without continuously violating their policies. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

That's one option. Another is that you could keep your snippy trap shut except for trying to find sources to questions. For example, is there a source affirming all this licensing stuff that you claim WB goes through all the time, beyond "probably"? If you're getting bored, maybe you could pick on someone else for awhile, like this guy [7] who's lecturing the questioner about his apparent failure to google first. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:07, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Ooo! Is this another Bugs Bashing thread? I particularly like his answers to the time travel question on the humanities desk. How could a modern time traveler arrange to inconspicuously have spending money when he arrived in 1896? According to Bugs, he could join a circus and recite the digits of pi. Or he could claim to have invented the telephone a mere twenty years after Bell receives his patent on the device. APL (talk) 20:39, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It was someone else [Bus stop] who talked about a circus and pi. And I missed that he was hung up on 1896, as opposed to 1876. In any case, the OP was overlooking the obvious, namely that language alone would make you stand out like a sore thumb. The first time you said, "Cool, dude!" they'd probably lock you up as some sort of lunatic. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:58, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh yea, you're right. Still, it was a name that started with a B.

Anyway, the question-asker wasn't "overlooking" that, or at least you have no evidence that he overlooked it. For all you know whatever work of fiction he's creating could have four chapters that cover that in excruciating detail!

The idea that when you travel someplace, or somewhen, being inconspicuous means you need to blend in with the locals is blindingly obvious and understood even by small children. The question-asker was asking for help on a more factually difficult part of his story. It's not your duty to assume that the questioner is incompetent as a storyteller and to make sure he's got every part of his story "right", just answer the question asked! APL (talk) 21:16, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Let me try to explain why this bothers me with a hypothetical. Imagine I asked "I'm writing a story about a baseball player. I've got a question about the locker room .... " would you jump in and assume that I'd "overlooked" the fact that the most important part of being a baseball player is playing baseball? No. It's safe to assume that I've got a handle on that part of the story. In fact, I'd be rather insulted if you started lecturing me on the basic rules of the game. APL (talk) 21:21, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I got a year wrong and you got a user ID wrong. It appears that neither of us is/are perfect. :'( ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

If he's writing fiction, what does he need our advice for? And how is this kind of question appropriate for the ref desk anyway? Maybe we need a "help with creative writing" desk. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, presumably he needs help because he wants his historical sci-fi to be as accurate and believable as possible. Just moments ago you were complaining about historical sci-fi not being accurate and believable, so you can see that it's a noble goal.

I won't speak to whether it's an appropriate question for a reference desk, but I'll observe that no one else seems to mind, and he got a bunch of good answers. APL (talk) 21:44, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, then you've basically said that unsourced personal opinions are just fine, and that folks who gripe about that kind of thing are free to stick their gripes where the moon don't shine. Thanks for clarifying. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:17, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

You'll notice that in this particular instance the question is a request for suggestions. Again, I don't care to debate if that's appropriate, but it's clear that is very different than a request for facts and references. APL (talk) 22:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

"Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is with a bigger can." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Bugs, I will agree to keep my trap shut except for trying to find sources to questions, if you will agree to the same thing. (This act of yours would increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the Reference Desk by at least 10%, so I am hoping you will agree.) As for the source for my claim that you're flatly wrong, I'll post in the thread. I do have to correct my "WB regularly threatens to sue" claim; ASCAP and the Harry Fox Agency are the entities that make the royalty demands and collect payments, on behalf of WB. But they do demand and get payments, in the amount of about US$2 million per year. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

If you can find any evidence that the copyright owners have ever sued a kids' birthday party, only then can you call me "flatly wrong". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:07, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I think you'll find that if you re-read your original post on the subject you claimed that WB wouldn't try to sue anyone for fear of a publicity backlash. (You did add an "especially an ordinary family", but that's just emphasis, it doesn't change the underlying meaning of your claim.) Your unreferenced claim that WB's claim to the song is entirely toothless is far from self-evident because studios pay the royalty. The fact that no one can prove that they've done it so far, does not somehow validate your unreferenced claim that they won't do it in the future. APL (talk) 20:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The original question, as I recall, was about singing the song at family gatherings. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

More ref desks?

take it to Wikipedia talk:Reference desk
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
How can I go about campaigning for or why do we not have, a religion ref desk and a History ref desk but specifically a religion ref desk, imagine the interesting questions, and the funny answers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.172.58.82 (talk) 14:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC) Nope. The ref desk is not for stirring up controversy for its own sake. — Lomn 14:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC) The reference desk talk page is the place to raise suggestions on how to improve the reference desks. I'm not sure there is a need for 'more' desks, people seem happy to ask questions on the relevant (or sometime not relevant) desk, I doubt we get less 'religion' or 'history' questions because we don't have a desk specifically titled for them. infact a seemingly large number of the humanities-desk questions are history/religion related. Still if you want to campaign the talk-page is a good place to start194.221.133.226 (talk) 14:18, 15 April 2010 (UTC) Check out Wikipedia:Reference desk/How to create a new reference desk and use the Reference Desk talk page if you're still keen. --Sean 15:12, 15 April 2010 (UTC) It has been proposed before and well discussed. I have not seen any changes that would warrant me changing my opinion on the matter, but it would be erroneous to consider me alone as a statistically meaningful sample. Googlemeister (talk) 15:28, 15 April 2010 (UTC) Religion and History questions go to the Humanities desk. Unless that suddenly gets overwhelmed there's no point in splitting it up. (Adding new desks won't generate questions, obviously, just split up the ones we would have gotten anyway.) APL (talk) 16:08, 15 April 2010 (UTC) It's not at all obvious that having a separate desk won't generate questions. However, a specifically-religion desk could easily descend into a lightning rod of endless debates. Meanwhile, the "entertainment" desk could probably be folded back into the humanities desk (as it once was, if I recall correctly) as it doesn't really see a lot of traffic. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC) And to add to the above, the reference desks are not (always) about creating funny answers. --Ouro (blah blah) 16:50, 15 April 2010 (UTC) To give some sense of the OP's general seriousness, check this out:[8] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:55, 15 April 2010 (UTC) WTF?!?! 24.189.90.68 (talk) 17:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC) That was pretty much my reaction also. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:19, 15 April 2010 (UTC) Beware the Genetic fallacy. An IP address does not necessarily identify a single user. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC) True. And IP users almost never identify who they are. So unless they do, they bear the consequences of what they, or other individuals on the same IP, have done - especially when it's recent. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:53, 15 April 2010 (UTC) We wouldn't want a nasty thing to happen like a mob of Wikipedians all accidentally pinging 62.172.58.82 in Stevenage, would we BB ? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:23, 15 April 2010 (UTC) That would be bad. It could force their internet engine (i.e. their hamster on a spinwheel) to overload and shut down. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:28, 15 April 2010 (UTC) This entire discussion should be on the Talk page, as 194.221 said way up there. Those later entrants who couldn't help themselves from piping up here all know better. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:48, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Cuddlyable3, 16 April 2010

{{editprotected}} At the top right of the page Wikipedia talk:Reference desk there is a box called "Shortcut WP:RD". Please someone make it work because when I click on it I get only the same talk page. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The box is intended to be informative, not a link to elsewhere. WT:RD is shortcut lingo for this page. hydnjo (talk) 13:23, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) It's actually WT:RD, and it's intended as a shortcut to this page you are currently on. There is nothing wrong here. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 13:25, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

And it has two parts, the first being a link to "shortcut". Cuddlyable's point would be that we don't normally have self-referential links on pages. However, the same thing is done on the main page, as WP:RD. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:26, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Check the top of WP:RD :) hydnjo (talk) 13:31, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Or better, social science desk

I have read the guidance essay. Now, I strongly support for social science desk. Please make a case on the this and carry on the discussion. --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 16:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

You missed the most important part:

in any suggestion of a new lineup the burden of proof is on the suggester -- and not on those who support the consensus-based status quo -- that the current lineup is broken and needs to be corrected

So start provin'. --Sean 16:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

For starters, Social Sciences and Humanities are not the same thing so a split would be appropriate. But I haven't checked whether many Social Science questions end up on Misc or whether they get answered on Humanities currently. It would be nice if, in the process, Ents gets killed... Zain Ebrahim (talk) 16:54, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Does it really matter? It seems to be working just fine. 70.79.246.134 (talk) 17:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Correct, they get up mixed. This subject has a variety of common infields - history, geography, economics, arts, civics ..... In the humanities section, I don't understand why do we mix up like Misc. And Misc is probably not a good place to ask questions about such a common variety. All the above subjects are common and do not fit in any good category. That's why. --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 18:02, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

The question remains where do the questions currently go and why isn't it working? I believe humanities is currently the second most active desk after science so there may be merit to split if many of the questions currently end up on humanities and some of them may end up on science too like some geography and anthropology questions. However you're still going to have to demonstrate there are enough of them to warrant making a new desk. I would note that both humanities and social sciences list history as a subject, so it probably isn't a good example Nil Einne (talk) 11:48, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Extra999, this is the second third (oops, I missed #Geography desk) new Reference Desk section that you've proposed this week. Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to do some of your own research and data collection before you present another such proposal to the community? When you proposed a #Music desk a few days ago, I went through the Entertainment, Misc, and Humanities desks to see just how much traffic a music desk would draw; it turned out to be 'not much'. This time around, you're telling the other volunteers who help out at the Ref Desks to again do your work for you — to "make a case" for your suggestion. That isn't how we work here. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:49, 17 April 2010 (UTC) (amended 23:05, 17 April 2010 (UTC))

What exactly is the problem you are trying to fix? Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:13, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm curious to know the opposite question, and maybe the veterans here will know: The ref desk started as a single page. Why were multiple pages created? Was it getting too big, too unwieldy? Fairly often I'll see a comment about "you've posted on the wrong page". If you had just one page, obviously that kind of comment would not be needed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:46, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a 2005 discussion here. Going through the archives should pick up more information. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:17, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Some interesting discussion. Part of it has to do with trying to keep the pages small, due to issues with dialup, which is probably much less of a concern now than it was in 2005. There was also the prophetic caution about users having to figure out which page to go to - the main problem with that being when someone goes to the wrong page and gets lectured about it - blaming the user for misunderstanding wikipedia's own artificial construct. Funny how nobody here gets lectured about doing that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

This question (or variations on it) has come up repeatedly in the time I've been contributing to the reference desks. The frequency alone suggests that there may well be a problem. A year ago, I conducted a quick analysis of numbers of edits to the reference desks and found that (on average) a user would have to check his watchlist something like 20 times a day to have a reasonable chance of seeing each new question added to a desk. My point was that, because the number of desks is small, each page attracts so many questions that those who answer questions are likely to miss many postings. Wikiant (talk) 15:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Another argument in 2005 in favor of multiple pages was the "division of labor" theory. It seems that many editors are watching all or most of the pages, so that argument is not especially relevant. It's fair to say there are also probably a lot more editors now than there were 5 years ago. (That's a fact with attendance problems of its own, but that's another story.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:11, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

What bothers me most is the reluctance to try more desks. It's not like there is a huge fixed cost in creating more desks. Why not try more desks for a month or two and then take a survey on whether or not people believe that more is better. It makes no sense to me that we keep arm-chair theorizing when the cost of the experiment is so low. Wikiant (talk) 16:46, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree whole-heartedly. There's no harm in creating another desk, and there might be some benefit. I'd like to go even further, and make it a regular thing: we'd have like a "reference desk of the month" where we would encourage people to ask questions on a specific topic on a temporary desk. Most would be sort of novelty things ("seagull desk, etc.), but if we had one that did especially well, we could then discuss making a permanent addition. Buddy431 (talk) 18:10, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

This is partially a side-effect of the consensus system that Wikipedia uses to make decisions. Doing things on a "trial basis" is pretty much the same as doing them outright because once it's in place a consensus (which is harder to achieve than a majority) is needed to remove it. So if an experiment is tried and the majority of people feel it is a failure, it still might stay in place for a long time if a vocal minority supports it.

Therefore there is little advantage, and a significant disadvantage, to supporting a "trial" of any change in policy that you don't fully agree with. The result is that "Let's try it and see" feels like a trap. APL (talk) 21:05, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The logic cuts the other way also -- If the majority of people feel that the status quo is a failure, it still might stay in place for a long time if a vocal minority supports it. That the question of more desks keeps recurring suggests exactly that. Wikiant (talk) 22:54, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

The logic certainly does cut both ways just as you say. Though I'm uncertain about your second point. APL (talk) 00:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Tempmusic

Tempmusic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

WP is not supposed to be used as forum. Tempmusic (talk) 17:12, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

And all the questions are solvable with the use of any search engine, so anyone posting questions should just use their fingers to type in the necessary URL. Tempmusic (talk) 17:16, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

So let's just shut it all down then. 24.83.112.118 (talk) 17:57, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Riiight. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:28, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Starting an office pool now, to see how prophetic the OP's first syllable proves to be. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:44, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

No worries, User:Tempmusic is just one edit away from being blocked indefinitely. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:32, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

In fact, after further review, he gawn. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:19, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

He does have a good point though. Why do we have this reference desk. I'm not saying we shouldn't: I think it's very useful, and is related to Wikipedia's goals. But what's the history behind it: who proposed it, and how old is it? Buddy431 (talk) 21:32, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

You mean, Why does the ref desk exist at all? You'd have to ask its founders that question, from when it started 5 years ago or so. It may be that they were getting too many factual questions at the help desk (they still do get some) and thought it would be a good idea to separate out factual questions from "How do I do [whatever] in wikipedia?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:41, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. And I was hoping to get a response from one of the founders who was here when it started and actually knew why it was started, rather than someone who feels the need to respond to everything even when all he has is a guess off the top of his head. Do you know who any of the founders are that I could ask? Buddy431 (talk) 05:11, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, you could start with User:Larry Sanger, a wikipedia co-founder who still occasionally edits. Go to the Misc. ref desk history and you can see its genesis in the fall of 2001. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:54, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a 2005 discussion here. Going through the archives should pick up more information. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:17, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Did you mean this for BB's comment to the previous discussion? It seems more related to that then this Nil Einne (talk) 09:36, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, I'll copy it there. I thought it was a more helpful response here than referring it to Larry Sanger, but, whatever... Ghmyrtle (talk) 11:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you took offense, I wasn't trying to criticise you instead simply trying to be helpful as people do sometimes clearly make their comments to the wrong discussion, I've seen it myself in the RD proper and even moved some comments myself when they were clearly in the wrong place. As to why I felt that comment may have been intended for the earlier thread, that specific discussion concerns splitting up the RD, about 4 years after it was formed (where people may have some idea about why it was formed, but more likely if at all will just be commenting on why they feel it's useful at the time, which is of course no more nor any less meaningful then people commenting now why they feel the RD is useful) if I understood/understand this thread correctly, so you can hopefully understand why I thought that it may have been intended for the discussion about why the RD was split, rather then the discussion about why the RD was formed when we had two ongoing discussions on these related issues one just below the other. If you feel that it is helpful for this discussion, again let me repeat, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but I think it's entirely resonable for someone to think it may have been intended for the other discussion Nil Einne (talk) 04:08, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The history of the reference desk is under Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous as that is the name the original desk was moved to when Wikipedia:Reference_desk became a general front page. You can see here it seems to have been created in October 2001 by User:129.128.164.xxx with noted philosopher Larry Sanger 3 months and 11 edits later asking the important age old question "why do dogs eat other dogs' poop". Some random text for the benefit of quiet reflection, and meditation upon that question and in order to distance my sig from it. meltBanana 14:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

That's very interesting. I'm quite surprised that it was started so early (October 2001), considering that Wikipedia itself was only started in January 2001. I also find it interesting that it wasn't until 2005 that multiple desks were created. Do you know, is there any sort of discussion (probably archived elsewhere) about creating the first desk in 2001? Buddy431 (talk) 15:25, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

And in fact, looking at that October 25 reference desk, it's obvious that it's been around longer than that. Some of the questions are from as early as June 26. Buddy431 (talk) 15:29, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it started as a spinoff from the help desk. I'll take a look at that unless you beat me to it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:04, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Uh, no, apparently not. It seems that the help desk was a spinoff of the village pump, and from there I've lost the trail. Maybe a long-termer will know. It occurs to me that maybe wikipedia needs kind of a "history of itself" somewhere that would answer these questions - if there isn't one already. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:11, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I suggested a Wikipedia self-history project a few years ago but it was met with only lukewarm reception. Maybe people will be more up for it now that Wikipedia is older and has more history to it. Also I think there might have been a project like this somewhere, but it either got deleted along with the old wp:bjaodn pages or is inactive. 82.43.89.71 (talk) 16:43, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not enough of an old-timer to comment on why the desks were created in the first place, but here's a justification I wrote for them a few years ago. —Steve Summit (talk) 16:53, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Good summary. And in reference to what 82.43 said just above, maybe there could be a sub-page to the Wikipedia article that's called History of Wikipedia or something. If we the editors are interested in the evolution of this website in some depth, it's possible casual readers are also. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Or maybe Chronology of Wikipedia or Timeline of Wikipedia? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

This would be one thing that should be easy to research, as all's we have to do is find the diff's. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:04, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Look back up to the "poop" question: they were asking silly questions for no reason back then, too. Even if it was a luminary asking it... Aaronite (talk) 17:18, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

We've had rather sillier questions than that one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Please stop overusing <small>small print</small> on Wikipedia Ref.desks!

This is a spinn-off from, and subsection under, the #Zoning question.
--Seren-dipper (talk) 22:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC) ← The subheading was added by/on.

Actually, the question originated on a different desk:[9] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey! all you <small>print</small> users! Please stop using small print! As it is very hard to read for some people with poor eyesight! (Everything is Zoomed in already,and the screen does not have room for any more zooming even if it is on the bigest screen available. ;-(
If your comment is not worthy of ordinary size letters, then maybe it is better left unsaid?
Remember the “How to answer a question” on the top of each ref.desk page:

• Be concise, but not terse. Please write in a clear and easily understood manner. Keep your answer within the scope of the question as stated.

(I guess I should mention that I am not the OP).
--Seren-dipper (talk) 23:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

You can do CNTR++ in most browsers to size it up. I should know the answer to this, but is there a template for "CAN'T ANSWER LEGAL QUESTIONS" or perhaps for "NOT FOR OPINIONS" or something similar? Shadowjams (talk) 08:53, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

If you thought, Shadowjams, that someone with poor eyesight would not know, allready, that CTRL++ does zoom in, then you had better think again!
The problem is that even a big screen is too small a screen for the already gigantic size letters. Therefore even just a tiny little extra zooming tends to result in problematicly tiresome horizontal scrollbars. Therefore PLEASE do not use small text! 89.8.200.106 (talk) 11:04, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

The small text items are typically side discussions, and if they are too small to read, you can feel safe ignoring them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:11, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

One thing is ignoring that which you are able to see, if you had wanted to. Another thing is to be forced to, because of fellow ref.deskers' sloppy use of small font! (See my next entry, below).
--Seren-dipper (talk) 22:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but that is a ridiculous suggestion. The reason for SMALL is to allow people to follow the main discussion. As many of us know, if it weren't small, the main discussion would DISAPPEAR, it would not be continued, as you can see from discussions where text that SHOULD be small is full sized. The discussion just trails off in these cases. What you, with poor eye sight, need to do, is just copy and paste the text you can't read, or the whole thread, into notepad, then yhou can read it fine. Or you can just click "edit" in the section and read the original text as entered, without font adjustment. --Unsigned entry, which appeared some time before 18:09, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I disagree! It is not a ridiculous suggestion!

All is well, as long as the small print is used for:

• typhography edit notes
• grammar correction notes
• ref.desk policy enforcement notifications
• added: «--Unsigned entry» notes
  (As the one that I just added to the entry right above this one).

It might sometimes even be fine with small print in the extremely rare occasional use:

• when that which is said in small print, is somehow appropriate and relevant to the question at hand, but still is kept "aside" to avoid disrupting the flow of the "core" answer replies!
  Although this latter use of small print would, in many cases, be better achieved by putting that information (the “side discussions”) into a separate paragraph with a blank line above and below it, because in that way you keep in line with the esteemed principle of Universal design (i.e. making and building and keeping everything accessible to everyone, including handicapped people).

  The principle of Universal design is steadily gaining recognition, and is being implemented by law, by more and more of the governmental administrations around Europe and presumably the world.

  Well, Of course even :-) disabeled people will sometimes want to follow the side discussion!
  But apart from that, then:

The bothering use of <small>small print</small> starts when it is employed to almost legitimize "forgetting" that the Wikipedia Reference desks are not chatrooms^Guideline. Or to almost legitimize "forgetting" the guidelines from the top of each ref.desk page:
“How to answer a question”:

• Be concise, but not terse. Please write in a clear and easily understood manner. Keep your answer within the scope of the question as stated.
  --Seren-dipper (talk) 22:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Accessibility features of Firefox: Setting a minimum font size -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:17, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

If you can't see the small text on the screen, you need to:

A) Get a bigger screen.

B) Use a screen magnifier, like ZoomText, which allows you to extend the window beyond the screen size, and pan across the window, using the mouse, once enlarged. In this way, you can look at even just one word at a time on the screen, yet still have the whole thing (virtually) displayed. StuRat (talk) 17:33, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Agree, small tags should be treated in a similar way that the over-use of bink and big tags are frowned upon because it reduces readability. I also want to echo what OP said; "If your comment is not worthy of ordinary size letters, then maybe it is better left unsaid?" 82.43.89.71 (talk) 17:35, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The side discussions are often more interesting than the original. StuRat (talk) 17:40, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

But entirely unhelpful to the original posters and not the point of the reference desk 82.43.89.71 (talk) 18:56, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

How do you know it's not helpful to the OP's? How many of them have said so? Very few. Just ref desk regulars, thinking they speak for the OP's. Meanwhile, sometimes the most sincere efforts are met by chippiness and attitude by the OP. Every one is different. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:12, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

How do I know? Because unless the OP came here to laugh at bad jokes, joke posts in small tags aren't helpful to anyone. 82.43.89.71 (talk) 17:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

On what basis do you presume to speak for everyone else, especially the OP? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:04, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

By definition, the small print text is not an answer to the original Q. However, that doesn't mean it's contrary to the purpose(s) of the Ref Desk. For example, we might make comments about not being able to find a somewhat related Wikipedia article, and someone else may then find it and add a redirect, accordingly. In the long term, this helps Wikipedia more than answering a given Q. StuRat (talk) 21:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

lol come on, be serious. No one is using the small tags for discussing the improvement of Wikipedia articles related to the OPs question. The small tags are currently being used solely for jokes and other nonsense. 82.43.89.71 (talk) 16:46, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

No, they are not solely used for that: [10]. StuRat (talk) 15:43, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Very little of the ref desk questions or answers has anything to do with improving articles. Sometimes it leads to improvements or even creation of new articles (which I myself have done occasionally) but that's not particularly the purpose of the ref desk. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:14, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Small? Bus stop (talk) 17:39, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

The small print isn't that small. If you can't read it even with maximum zoom, then you need to find another solution. There are various ways of getting greater zoom (try a different browser or a screen magnifier) or you can get a bigger monitor or you can use a screen reader. Ref deskers are all volunteers, so it is nice to make answering questions as enjoyable as possible. A few entertaining asides is part of that and using small tags is the best way to have those asides. I agree that we should try and make pages accessible to the disabled, but it is all a matter of balance. The harm to you of having to use a screen magnifier, or similar, is not sufficient to warrant the harm to everyone else of not being able to have side discussions. --Tango (talk) 17:54, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Tangential comments can be enclosed in square brackets [like this]. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:38, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Are you on your iphone or something? Googlemeister (talk) 20:22, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Googlemeister, are you asking me about being on an iPhone? By the way, I do not understand the relevance of your question.

-- Wavelength (talk) 20:48, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking that if the OP is on an iphone, the suggestions to get a larger screen are probably not that useful. Googlemeister (talk) 21:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I see. When you posted your question below my comment, and indented it by one more increment, you made it appear that your question was directed toward me. Please see Help:Talk page#Indentation. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:51, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty easy for people to configure their SMALL tags to act however they want on their own browsers; I should think that people with eye disabilities severe enough that it is a problem will have to figure out how to make text bigger in a browser, or to force SMALL tags to be ignored altogether. I also question the logic of saying that if the text is irrelevant and thus must be small, it should be removed, thus we should get rid of small tags... if the text is irrelevant, why strain to read it when it is small? The whole point of it being small is that it is potentially less relevant, and can be skipped. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:27, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Solution  : Add the following line to your monospace.css and/or your vector.css. (Found in your preference window.)

small { color:green;  font-size: 100%; font-style:italic; }

There. That will render "Small" text at normal size, but draw it as a green italic, so you know it's "supposed" to be small. APL (talk) 01:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

We literally cannot please everyone. Between people with varying grades of vision, different device resolutions and screen sizes - different viewing distances - interlaced displays, PAL, NTSC - hard-copy printout - there are portrait, landscape and wide-screen display - you might have anywhere between one and six screens making up your desktop...you name it. My niece has a peculiar vision problem - she needs green-colored backdrops and wears lavender tinted glasses - my son has color blindness issues that would make reading against a green backdrop almost impossible. You need larger text sizes - but when my wife uses her Android phone, she needs smaller text sizes. Some people might benefit from more color use for emphasis - but on my Amazon Kindle - I can't see any colors.

That's why the mantra for web design is "Trust The Browser". We say we want smaller text - and your browser is responsible for making it look how you, personally, want it to look. There are a bunch of different browsers out there - each with a bunch of plugins - and a bunch of configurable options. There are screen magnifiers of several kinds on each of the three major operating systems - there are 60"+ monitors out there and your graphics card can be run at lower resolutions. There are a wide range of ways for you to cope with reading the reference desk - even with <small> tags.

It is simply unreasonable to expect your vision limitations to inconvenience everyone else. That's not how the HTML system is intended to work. You can figure out a way around this - and you should - rather than selfishly demanding that the world adapt to your personal needs.

SteveBaker (talk) 02:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The important thing to keep in mind about small text is that it's not important. Either the small text is a joke or an off-topic discussion. The reason why it's in small text is so as not to detract from the main discussion. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 03:40, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't go that far. Often, the most important thing you get from a meeting is learned while chatting over coffee in the break, or networking before or after the meeting. Or the most important thing you learn about a colleague is not the work-related stuff he talks about, but the joke or personal aside he tells. It's not safe to ignore all small print around here simply on the basis of its size. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:41, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the small tags are useful, but if you need to read what's written, you can always hit edit to see it in normal size. And the collapse tags are good too. Vranak (talk) 14:38, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

New convention

I cant see anything in the guidelines, so Im assuming that the placing of asides, jokes etc in small print is a new (but voluntary) convention adopted by some editors but that no consensus on the matter has been reached.. Am I correct?--79.76.130.158 (talk) 14:29, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Correct. Some editors absolutely refuse to stop posting jokes. They have decided that if the jokes are in small print, it is acceptable to make as many jokes as you want. -- kainaw™ 14:31, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I read that whole business above, and I see this now. For me, the question is, what's wrong with levity? So long as it isn't inssulting. Aaronite (talk) 14:35, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The small text for side comments was suggested here, weeks ago, and now that it's become kind of an unofficial standard, some are objecting. Which is par for the course here. They can never agree. That's why there are constant arguments about how to handle questionable questions, for example. There will be "apparent" agreement that, yes, we should clobber a questionable question, then someone will do just that, and someone else will say, "No-no-no!" and then the argument resumes again. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:07, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The reasoning was that there would be small text for mankind but a giant leap for the Reference desk. Bus stop (talk) 15:42, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

At issue is the slippery-slope between a reference desk and a discussion forum. If the reference desk became a discussion forum, it would lose any value it had and just be another place with a few geeks who chat about things they like and chastise anyone new who tries to join in. Everyone has a different opinion about where the line should be drawn between the reference desk and a discussion forum because it isn't a clear line. It is a big gray area. So, wherever you draw your line, some will say you are too paranoid and others will say you are too strict. -- kainaw™ 16:15, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Meanwhile, you have one editor farther up the page saying that the OP asking for opinions and conjectures is just fine. Maybe you and he could come to some agreement on that point? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:24, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I actually oppose the use of small text on aesthetic grounds. I think judicious use of indenting can enhance appearance. But I find no way to integrate varying text sizes. Bus stop (talk) 17:27, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Which editor said that? APL (talk) 20:00, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

That would be YOU, at 22:52, 18 April 2010 (UTC). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:26, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

"You'll notice that in this particular instance the question is a request for suggestions. Again, I don't care to debate if that's appropriate, but it's clear that is very different than a request for facts and references." So no references are needed? That flies in the face of the continual complaints here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:30, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I spoke sloppily. While not asking for a specific reference, The question in question (heh) asked a pretty specific question. (What items from now will be more valuable in 1896 and can be sold inconspicuously?) That question does require a certain amount of creative thought, speculation, or "suggestions", if you like, but it's ultimately a request for facts.

Since you've brought it up, In that same thread you made three posts. The first included a factually incorrect answer to the question that should have been spotted as obviously wrong had you done the most basic of WP research and included a jab at people here. The second and third are an unrelated rant about how time travel is portrayed in mainstream fiction! APL (talk) 21:43, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Not unrelated at all. He asked about being inconspicuous. The most obvious thing to take back to 1896, then, would be knowledge of everyday language from 1896. For some reason, some of you saw fit to ridicule that idea, but I stand by it. Someone from 2010 would stand out like a sore thumb even in 1996, never mind 1896, and for two reasons: (1) Knowing too much about the future; and (2) Likelihood of falling back on modern idioms which would make no sense to someone from that era and would paint you as a weirdo. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:49, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

He or she asked specifically about bringing back items to sell for profit. You (and a couple of others, to be fair) went on to try to educate the question-asker about other, much more fundamental, aspects of his or her story. If someone asks for specific information, to lecture them on the basics of their craft feels rather insulting to me, which is why I keep harping on it. APL (talk) 21:58, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

If he doesn't consider the other aspects, and if we don't tell him about it, someone else might - like whoever he approaches for publishing it. The most persistent core clash on the ref desk seems to be inside-the-box thinking vs. outside-the-box thinking. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:01, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

That's silly, You could use that same logic to justify giving him a lecture on basic grammar, character development, or just about anything covered under the umbrella of writing fiction. APL (talk) 16:39, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

It should be pointed out the good reference often requires answers that go beyond the scope of the original question. FOr example, someone asks for a car repair manual. They tell you, my car won't start, I need to check the engine for problems. It is totally reasonable to ask if there is gas in the tank. In my experience, people don't usually ask the actual question they want answered, or don't even actually know what they want. Aaronite (talk) 15:30, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

It is not "Thinking outside the box" to Offer an obviously factually incorrect answer, then, when called on it, go off on a rant about an unrelated (but much easier) tangent.

I know it's a lot more fun to just re-define the question to something that's so easy you can answer it off the top of your head, but it's really irritating, not very useful, and occasionally rather insulting to the question-asker. (In this case, the implication is that Bugs assumes the question-asker is ignorant of the most basic aspects of story-telling.)

Sure, if someone describes an automotive problem and you can diagnose the underlying problem that's great, but that's not an open forum to talk about any car-related rant you happen to think of. APL (talk) 16:39, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

You have likewise gone well beyond whatever the original complaint was. If you griped about the behavior of trolling IP's even 1/10th as much as you do about my sincere if sometimes misguided efforts to provide information, things would be calmer. And I'm still waiting to see evidence that WB has ever sued a kids' birthday party. Or this:[11] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:10, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I never claimed WB ever sued a kids' birthday party or Marilyn Monroe, so, nice straw man. In my view, this kind of garbage you post is much more disruptive than any trolls have ever been. Please stop treating the Reference Desk like a forum. You do not need to chime in on every question. Just leave it alone and wait for a knowledgeable editor to answer. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:26, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Just on the last point, I'd have to agree. In the question on the immaculate conception of Elizabeth, your first contribution, Bugs, was this. I couldn’t agree with your last sentence more: But it would be better for a biblical expert to step in here. How much better it would have been if you had simply yielded the floor to others, and kept out of it from then on. But what we had from you, after Nunh-huh’s edit, was this, where you seem to be treating the ref desk as a conversation between you and the rest of the world. You clearly didn’t know the answer, because you kept on asking whether what you **thought** was the case was indeed the case. This is what OPs do – they proffer something they think might be true, and seek confirmation, or otherwise. But it’s not how respondents behave; their job is to provide answers, preferably with references. If they don’t know, that usually means they stay out of that particular thread entirely and let those who know what they're talking about take the running. If you want to ask a question, you're very welcome to put on your OP hat; I do it all the time. This is a reference desk, not your own personal blog or chat forum.

While I'm in gripe mood, can I also report how irritating it is to see you have numerous stabs at answering a question (I counted 13 in one thread recently), but each one is indented from the previous one, as if you're constantly assuming different personas and talking amongst yourselves. Can I ask you nicely to sit back, hands off the keyboard, and have a think about your answers, and not rush in with your first thoughts, only to have them superseded by your second, then third, .... then umpteenth thoughts on the subject? And if you do update your answer before anyone else has come along, please put it at the same indent level as your previous answer, because you're still talking to the OP or the previous respondent, not to yourself. Unless ..... -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 13:08, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Deletion proposal

I think the solution may be more aggressive deletion of off-topic, unreferenced material. This strategy keeps the detritus in check throughout the rest of the encyclopedia. If comments are unproductive, editors can remove them. The deletionism debate will always raise issues about grey-areas, but it seems silly that the Reference Desk should take a rigid anti-deletionist stance in this case. Editors: Remove unproductive noise. If the deletions are contentious, they will be reverted and discussed (just like everywhere else). If the material is tangential, but at least relevant, use "hidden" template as an intermediate level of action. If the comments are on-topic, just leave them alone, even if you don't like the author. Nimur (talk) 15:15, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

No. The Ref Desk is a talk page, not an article. Talk page guidelines clearly state that you can't just delete someone else's comments because you don't think they are helpful.

As a practical matter, this would lead to tit-for-tat deletions and endless arguments, many of them on the Ref Desk. Nobody needs that. This would be a case of the cure being far worse than the problem. StuRat (talk) 15:48, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with StuRat here (about the deleting, not whether the RD is a talk page). Any policy of high level deletions is likely to create more grief then it's worth. Other then clearcut trolling and posts from banned users which is usually uncontentious when deleted, the only posts on the RD we generally delete are requests for medical advise (we don't even try with homework questions, just stick a DYOH template) and look how contentious that often is. I don't know about tit-for-tat deletions, but a big problem is a lot of OT comments come because the earlier reply was also somewhat OT so deciding precisely where to draw the line is not easy and whereever you do it, you will often piss someone or probably multiple people off. And deleting a comment without discussion is usually a good way to annoy the poster, remembering that the big problem we're discussing here is from RD regulars so people who are aware of the rules and also are likely to notice if their reply disappears. Nil Einne (talk) 16:39, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The RD is not a talk page. Staecker (talk) 20:08, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes it is. You have signed, separated contributions of individuals, versus an article, which should have a single "collective voice". StuRat (talk) 20:41, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, Staecker. There seems to be a deliberately-cultivated misapprehension that any page on Wikipedia which is not an 'article' must be a 'talk page', and that there are only two types of Wikipedia pages with only two distinct sets of associated rules and conventions. In general, a Wikipedia 'talk page' is one in one of the 'Talk' namespaces, which is used to discuss the structure, content, or function of the associated non-Talk page (or, in the case of User Talk pages, to contact a particular Wikipedia editor).

The error here is trivially demonstrated by the presence of special-purpose non-'article' pages which have evolved a plethora of different page-specific guidelines, traditions, and statutes. Compare the distinct styles and structures of WP:Help desk or WP:Reference desk with those of WP:Requests for adminship, WP:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, or WP:Featured article candidates. All of those pages include some allowance for editors to offer signed comments on a range of topics and issues, but all are different in form and function from a genuine Wikipedia 'talk page' like Talk:Automobile or even this page, WT:Reference desk.

All of these special-purpose pages have adopted different standards for whom may comment where and on what topics, and how to handle excessive, inappropriate, or irrelevant commentary. Asserting that all editable pages may be classed as either 'talk' or 'article' (with attendant specific rules) is a tired old trope that StuRat has been trotting out from time to time ever since a number of disruptive editors (mostly now banned, thank goodness) forced us to create the Ref Desk Guidelines. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:01, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I admire your restraint Ten. hydnjo (talk) 22:48, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

What restraint ? It looked like a rant, to me. Or were you kidding ? StuRat (talk) 05:00, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Ten, many here seem to forever try to apply rules designed for articles, and the Ref Desk is a lot farther from being an article than it is from a talk page. And just how many of those non-article pages have a standard that allows anyone to delete anything they think "isn't helpful", without first discussing it ? StuRat (talk) 05:00, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

StuRat seems to have missed my point. He said that "The Ref Desk is a talk page, not an article", and went on to assert that Wikipedia's rules for talk pages therefore governed its operation. I corrected that false statement, for the benefit of anyone who hasn't seen him make this argument before. Suggesting that all non-article pages on Wikipedia are 'talk pages' is fallacious. I note that the Ref Desk itself has already developed standards for removing "unhelpful" material without prior discussion. In addition to the usual and customary pan-Wikipedia permission to remove vandalism, obvious trolling, and posts from blocked/banned editors (one of whom, incidentally, started this thread — but regrettably wasn't noticed soon enough), we specifically permit the removal of requests for (and responses offering) medical advice.

Similar processes exist on other pages, including the ones I mentioned above. Deeply-nested discussions in WP:RfA voting sections are regularly moved to the 'Comments' section; while off-topic and tangential discussion gets snipped to the associated RfA talk page. (Something similar happens from time to time when there is particularly egregious hijacking of discussions in other places as well, particularly on WP:AFD.) WP:AN/I has experimented recently with moving over-long threads to subpages and off the main noticeboard. AN/I, among others, endorses the 'boxing' or 'rolling up' of unhelpful and offtopic remarks and discussions. Significantly, none requires a prior discussion to remove these sorts of 'unhelpful' material. While I'm not familiar with the featured articles process or its in-process deletion rules, I will note that WP:FAC does do a number of non-standard things not part of usual 'talk' page process, including permitting multiple interleaved comments with a single signature ([12]), and encouraging editors to use strikethrough to indicate resolved issues ([13]).

Relying on the presence of signed comments to indicate that a page is a 'talk page' is apt to mislead. What is the purpose of a Wikipedia article? To present free, accurate, well-referenced, accessible, detailed, neutrally-described, reliable information to anyone who needs it. Now, what is our goal at the Reference Desk? Hm.... It is not anyone's intent to suggest that the Reference Desk ought to follow the format, structure, and editing rules of a Wikipedia article (that's absurd, despite StuRat's repetition). While our goals are very similar (albeit offering more personalized service) our style will always be different. However, it is worthwhile to consider the Desk's policies and practices in the light of its ultimate purpose and aims, and not just in terms of trying to fit it into a particular 'it's a talk page, so talk page rules apply' pigeonhole. That isn't to say that broadening the scope for deletion of comments is necessarily the best solution (or even a worthwhile solution) — but it shouldn't be discarded out of hand solely because it isn't in the 'talk page rules'. Solutions which have been applied on some other high-traffic pages have included user paroles and even editing bans for specific editors identified as offering a particularly low signal-to-noise ratio.

I've stated before that I find (re-)arguing the same points ad nauseam with StuRat tiresome, so if anyone requires any clarification of the points I've made, feel free to drop a line. As usual, I will only respond to StuRat's posts to correct material misstatements. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:21, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

More overly long and misleading statements, Ten. I asked about "a standard that allows anyone to delete anything they think 'isn't helpful'" and you instead reply with cases where specific categories of sub-threads may be moved, not deleted. That's entirely different from saying that anyone can delete anything, as you well know. And my point is that talk page guidelines are far more appropo to the Ref Desk, than article guidelines. For one, the statement and response form of the Ref Desk is like other talk pages, and chopping out chunks of such a conversation makes it difficult to follow the rest of the thread. StuRat (talk) 15:52, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

You have in the past described removal of text from the Ref Desk to this talk page (in toto or by diff or other reference) as 'deletion', including where it follows our established process for handing requests for medical advice. I also note that an "anyone can delete anything" proposal has only been imagined by StuRat. There were some more nuanced, reasoned, and uncaricatured ideas offered by other editors for discussion, however. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:24, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what ancient history you're trying to drag up, but I'm talking about the specific proposal by Nimur at the top of this thread (I just broke it off as a sub-section to make it easier to find): "I think the solution may be more aggressive deletion of off-topic, unreferenced material". This seems to be talking about deletion, plain and simple, not moving text.

As for me characterizing Nimur's proposal as "anyone can delete anything", that's exactly what it is. He certainly didn't limit who should do the deletions, so that means anyone can. He also said that it should be left to each editor to remove anything they find unproductive. As each editor will disagree on which responses are productive and unproductive, there's sure to be an editor out there who will find just about any response unproductive, especially if you include the OP, who often finds any response at odds with his world view to be unproductive. Thus, we have the "anything" part. I didn't think it necessary to explain all this.

As for me saying that some treat the Ref Desk like it should follow article rules, we have Nimur's statement about deletions: "This strategy keeps the detritus in check throughout the rest of the encyclopedia". I don't know of any place other than articles where such a strategy is used, so he's clearly applying article rules to the Ref Desk. StuRat (talk) 17:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Whatever the Reference Desk is, I don't think it's a good idea for editors to unilaterally make a judgement call and delete what they deem to be inappropriate answers or responses. I (and some other editors) have started to collapse stuff that gets off topic or is problematic for other reasons (i.e. our probable troll questions from Dandy Fleur the other day), and that seems to work pretty well at killing it, while still keeping it visible. Buddy431 (talk) 22:55, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

If you find something irrelevant and bothersome, just put it in collapse tags -- or talk to the author. Vranak (talk) 16:42, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

All of this while our OP sits back and chuckles - am I right <name withheld>? hydnjo (talk) 17:52, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Should we change wording on the Main Page

At the moment it says:
Reference desk – Serving as virtual librarians, Wikipedia volunteers tackle your questions on a wide range of subjects.

I suggest something like:

Reference desk – if yo u are unable to find what you are looking for via the left hand-side search box then Wikipedia volunteers serving as virtual librarians, will tackle your questions on a wide range of subjects.

I am going to take the chance, that I don't need to spell out why I think this change will leave time to answer the more challenging, obscure and esoteric questions in greater detail. However, in case I do, I will be watching out for your questions on Reference desk/Miscellaneous.--Aspro (talk) 15:32, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's a needed change. It already says "Search first" in the instructions. Making the instructions longer, by repeating ourselves, just means fewer people will read them. StuRat (talk) 15:40, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

That's just the point. 1) They have to arrived here before they can see that. 2) The first two instructions are in the wrong order. 3) Trying to search the reference desk archive is enough to make all but the masochistic give up. So people end up asking the most basic of questions --Aspro (talk) 16:01, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

If the instructions are out of order, we should fix that, instead. StuRat (talk) 16:08, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. If we are indeed serving as virtual librarians, we need to take the easy ones to get the hard ones. Do you know how many times we have to direct people to the bathroom in the library before someone asks a tough one? We can't refuse to answer or gripe if the questions are too easy. Remember: assume good faith. Maybe they zoned out or lack common sense or any other number of reasons that they just can't find it. Ultimately: don't like the question? Don't waste your time and leave it to someone else. Aaronite (talk) 17:32, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I suggest, for accuracy:

Reference desk – Post your questions and Wikipedia volunteers will crack jokes and post an array of witticisms at your expense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.142.39.71 (talk) 18:28, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a mix of jokes and factual answers my numeric friend. Googlemeister (talk) 19:11, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd support something like this, but I don't think people read our overlong text at the top as it is, so I predict the effect of the change will be 0. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:36, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Our top-text is too long. We should fix that. Brevity has value. Nimur (talk) 22:10, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree completely. I appreciate the attempt to make it welcoming, but it's too long to get read by new folks. I've been working on a shorter version here. Not perfect, but if anyone wants to use it as a starting point, please feel free to edit it at will. Matt Deres (talk) 00:09, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Some of you misunderstand me. It is not that some questions are too easy – which is a 'memory' dependant judgement. But some are too basic. Just asking the Five Ws (which is something young children can manage to do) can often provide the the search terms which yield the answers sort after. Therefore, there appears to be a user interface cognition awareness problem about how to use a wiki based encyclopaedia.--Aspro (talk) 23:35, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

The current phrasing is simpler, better, and less loaded with passive-aggressiveness. Vranak (talk) 14:35, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

We know that the vast majority of questions are either (a) obviously unanswerable or (b) trivially answerable by typing the keywords of the question into either the Wikipedia search box or Google. I don't think any form of words will ever change that. I agree that we need to keep it short, clear and welcoming - but we shouldn't be under any illusions: No matter what we say up there, the number and type of questions will not change in the slightest. So I wouldn't sweat too much about working up better versions - you are basically wasting your time. It is at best a cosmetic exercise. SteveBaker (talk) 07:25, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the "obviously unanswerable" Qs, we can usually contribute something toward the answer, even if we can't provide a definitive answer. StuRat (talk) 08:12, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Or make small talk  ;-) hydnjo (talk) 18:38, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

What's wrong with bots?

During the last hour or so, I added the signatures to numerous unsigned questions and comments on the RDs. What's wrong with the bot(s) that should be responsible for doing that? --Магьосник (talk) 03:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

SineBot is not functioning at present. I haven't yet been able to determine why. Algebraist 03:17, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Question removed

I have removed this question from the Reference_desk/Science

"If i wanted to explore Uranus, how big a probe would I need?--79.76.253.149 (talk) 11:30, 26 April 2010 (UTC)"

Seems a little bit...odd? I have been away from the ref desks for about a month, but I recall that 'trollish' questions were being removed before any one was tempted to answer? --220.101.28.25 (talk) 11:55, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Good removal. It's one of our banned jesters. I removed another two on the Misc desk. One by the same IP address. Another one by the same person registered under one of gazillions of sockpuppet accounts. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:04, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Sluzzelin. Saw your 'clean-up', I was just about to drop you a message! High five! ;-) --220.101.28.25 (talk) 12:09, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Good catch. Anything from an IP address that begins with 79.76. can be removed from the Ref Desk, no questions asked. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:50, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

How about this talk page? hydnjo (talk) 15:22, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Anything from an IP address that begins with 79.76. and seems like trolling, or is otherwise questionable with respect to the guidelines, can be removed from the Ref Desk, no questions asked. Genuine, good faith questions from 79.76.*.*, if such a rarity is ever encountered, are allowed to stay. However, given the edit history of that IP range, the bar is set pretty low - if you think it might be deletion worth, it probably is. I know that's probably the sense which TOAT meant, but I wanted to be explicit, lest some well-meaning-but-misguided editor gets the mistaken impression that everything from 79.76.*.* must be deleted on sight, without regard to content. -- 174.24.208.192 (talk) 15:27, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

For reference, I did actually check a year's worth of contributions for the entire 79.76 range not too long ago. Among hundreds of edits, there were only one or two that I couldn't link to the banned user with a high degree of confidence. (Not that I could rule them out as coming from him; I just couldn't confidently link them.) It should be noted that that analysis is confined to edits made to the Wikipedia: and Wikipedia Talk: namespaces; there is a much broader pool of anonymous editors who use Tiscali as their ISP for editing the mainspace, and many of those edits are both constructive and unrelated to the Ref Desk troll.

I will explicitly state that it is permitted and encouraged to remove any edits made from that range from the Reference Desk, its subpages, its talk pages, and its associated guidelines; admins should block the IP address (including restricting account creation and use of logged-in accounts) for 72 hours. He is banned, not merely banned-unless-he's-making-unsuspicious-edits. After years of abuse, it is reasonable to presume that all edits from that range are suspect. It is not unusual for him to make a few superficially-harmless edits first, escalating to increasingly abusive conduct (trolling, vandalism, personal attacks, threats of violence) if left alone — ignoring him doesn't seem to work; he will continue to be abusive until blocked. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:14, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Granted that this IP range is a known troll, and his earlier iteration of the question made his intentions clear ... but I'm a little concerned about 220.101.28.25's implication that we should ignore all questions about 1/8th of our solar system!

Questions about sending probes to Uranus, or the rings around Uranus, or the composition of the gasses of Uranus, or the size of Uranus, or where photographs of Uranus can be found, or the pressure in the deepest, darkest depths of Uranus, Or the color of Uranus, are all valid questions. While this removal may have been justified, we certainly shouldn't make a habit of eliminating these questions just because there is a chance that, somewhere, somehow, possibly, a child might be laughing. APL (talk) 15:56, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Please don't encourage him. He's not a child — which is unfortunate, because it might make his behaviour a little more understandable. Do be aware that he has shown little reluctance to create throwaway accounts to abuse the Ref Desk and its volunteers, and I think little harm is done to the Desk if we remove obvious Uranus trolling. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:14, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I said I agree with this particular instance. But 220.101.28.25 didn't mention the user's history. APL (talk) 21:35, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Heres a similar 'question' from 9 January 2010, Diff, and related RD/Talk discussion, Link. --220.101.28.25 (talk) 13:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the wording of this question made it fairly obvious it was not a serious search for 'enlightenment'. Plus the fact (I found afterwards) that the OP IPs' other 'questions' had been deleted. Put it here to be certain. Just being a little bold! I have nothing against our current outermost solar planet. ;-) 220.101.28.25 (talk) 19:40, 26 April 2010 (UTC).

I like Neptune as well. Googlemeister (talk) 21:20, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Good grief. That joke was already old when it was used in the 1982 film, E.T.. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:19, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

If every edit from that IP range is from a sock, has anyone considered asking for a permanent range-block? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:04, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It was discussed. Another permanently-banned user who uses an IP range to evade block stepped in and argued against it. She won consensus and the IP range was not blocked. -- kainaw™ 15:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The primary concern is that while virtually all (and possibly just plain 'all') of the edits to the Ref Desk from the 79.76.* IP range are from the same person, there are a large number of other individuals who use the same ISP to edit in the mainspace. While rangeblocks have been applied on a temporary basis to deal with particularly egregious spates of vandalism and trolling from Light current, we (as a project) would prefer to avoid blocking an entire ISP from editing the whole encyclopedia. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:57, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Can't you block that particular IP range and leave the rest of the ISP open? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:06, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Tiscali seems to assign IPs from large swathes of the /16 range in question. A given user doesn't appear to be confined to small blocks of IP addresses, and can obtain a fresh IP address quite readily (probably by resetting their modem). TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:32, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Resoring my comment removed, among others, by TenOfAllTrades

I'd like to point out that I don't understand what the harm would have been in letting my original, perfectly dull answer[14] stand. Everyone seems to be worried that our IP friend would have been giggling to himself or something, but ... so what? No harm in that. Maybe he'd even learn something about Uranus in the process. APL (talk) 15:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding reference desk regulars and their contribution to the encyclopedia at large, our contributions are quite significant. You can check our individual statistics, or you can compile aggregates; but most of the top regulars are also very active elsewhere in the encyclopedia. Nimur (talk) 16:51, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

And regarding your point about disruptive editors, you do have a valid point: we will never be able to stop you or anybody from disruption. But we will proactively dissuade people from disrupting Wikipedia, by making it more difficult for them. We will use both technical measures (WP:BLOCK) and non-technical measures (removing disruptive posts). In any case, if your point is that you will always find ways to be disruptive, that is fine: but do not prove it by example. Nimur (talk) 16:55, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protecting the ref desks would fix his wagon. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:59, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protection is only appropriate in the short term. For example, a few years ago the desks were getting bombed by a spambot for an hour or two a day, and the desks would get protected for a few hours during the spam. Even then, people were unhappy with this, and I remember an AN/I thread being made where many ref deskers asked the admins not to protect the desks in favor of reverting the spam manually, so that people could still post questions. Also remember, vast majority of questions are posted by ips and new users who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia and won't have auto-confirmed accounts to post with. 82.43.89.71 (talk) 18:28, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

There are ways of semi-protecting without affecting all the IP's. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:35, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

No there isn't. "Semi-protection prevents edits from anonymous users (IP addresses), as well as edits from any account that is not autoconfirmed" (WP:SILVERLOCK). 82.43.89.71 (talk) 18:40, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there is a way, but I don't want to discuss it here. The admins (or some of them) know what to do, if they choose to do so. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:33, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I've looked and I can't find what you're talking about. Please stop talking in riddles, this isn't a case of wp:beans since if what you're talking about exists it'll have a policy page, so please link to it. 82.43.89.71 (talk) 19:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm talking about what I would call targeted filtering. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:13, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I still don't understand. As far as I'm aware (and I'll admit I've not been keeping up to date with the latest mediawiki features so maybe I've missed something) there isn't a way to prevent an IP/range from editing an area of wikipedia, without either blocking the IP/range or protecting the page. The closest thing I can think of is a wp:topic ban, but this is not a technical feature of the wiki software. 82.43.89.71 (talk) 20:24, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Ask an admin. It can be done. If anyone thinks it's worth the time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:33, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Sigh. Wouldn't it just be easier if you told me directly or linked to the policy page, rather than making me ask an admin? 82.43.89.71 (talk) 21:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I posted a question about it here. Hopefully someone there can explain what you're talking about. 82.43.89.71 (talk) 21:05, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Edit filter ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:10, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The guy on the Help Desk beat you to it, but thanks! :) 82.43.89.71 (talk) 21:12, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

It can be done, but it's a little tricky, and should be discussed offline with an admin, so as not to totally give the game away to Elsie. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:35, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

For those who don't know, "LC" refers to the IP's account Light current (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who was indef'd over 3 years ago, and then banned, but still pops up occasionally. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:32, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Protein Question

I notice this question at wp:RD/Science#Protein has remained unanswered for about 11 hours:

1) What happens when someone does strength training and doesn't eat much protein afterward? How do the muscles repair themselves? Thanks. --Mudupie (talk) 23:33, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Is this regarded as a medical question? I have training in weight lifting instruction and exercise physiology, including basic nutrition. (though not experienced in those exact areas of exercise.) I am not certain of the 'correct' answer/s but I think I can give a 'educated' response, and direct the OP to other resources when I reach my limits. Comments please? --220.101.28.25 (talk) 10:35, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not medical advice (it's not diagnosis, prognosis or treatment), it's nutritional. Answer away. Vimescarrot (talk) 10:51, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, general health and nutrition answers are not medical advice. StuRat (talk) 18:30, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for quick feedback, Vimescarrot. Okay, I was just thinking that RD editors were holding off for some reason as 11 hours seems a long time unanswered. I've already started my reply, I'll see what I can come up with c/w references and links to relevant WP articles. I will recommend they also discuss the matter with a dietician or nutritionist. Perhaps they should eat some extra carrots?  ;-) (Oh, oh, theres an opening for BB!) --220.101.28.25 (talk) 11:17, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

In future I wouldn't read a delay as being equal to the question being unacceptable — usually an unacceptable question will receive a scolding rather than silence. Comet Tuttle (talk) 01:39, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree, it's not asking for medical advice. The question isn't "Do I need to eat protein when doing strength training?" it is a question about the technicalities of muscles. --Tango (talk) 21:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Homework question on WP:RD/H

Someone on the Humanities desk asked an obviously homework question. I was under the impression that the correct way to deal with such questions was to inform the OP that we don't answer homework questions, but not to remove the question or prevent others from answering. I disagree with User:TreasuryTags edit here where he boxed the question in an archive template. I have never seen this done before on the reference desk, and I can see it leading to anyone and everyone locking down discussions they deem to be "stupid" or have some other issue with. I unarchive and collapse the meta discussion, since I thought it was an accepted practice to collapse unrelated discussions that detract from questions. TreasuryTag then undid my edit. Please advise on this situation. 82.43.89.71 (talk) 20:29, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

You rather foolishly left off before describing how you then undid my edit [15] – ╟─TreasuryTag►Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster─╢ 20:51, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Someone instructed us to write him a sonnet within ten minutes because it was "a life or death situation" – I absolutely did "deem" this to be stupid, and I'm sure that anybody with half a brain would agree with that description, even if it weren't for the fact that the RefDesk clearly states the no-homework policy at the top.

Sealing off such drivel seemed the appropriate thing to do, and I maintain that it was the appropriate thing to do.

Because this IP has taken it upon themselves to edit-war over the closure, I have let them have their way because they don't deserve the indulgence, but I resent the suggestion that the thread's appropriateness is a matter of subjectivity. ╟─TreasuryTag►stannator─╢ 20:50, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

You misunderstood the IP, then said "it was the appropriate thing to do, and I will not be engaging in further discussion about it" as if you had any authority, then mocked the IP for his typo while using sarcasm instead of addressing his argument. It's very ironic that you accuse the IP, and not yourself, of being a troll. --99.237.234.104 (talk) 21:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)