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Grammitical edits to question header on science desk causing offence

Copied across from Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Reptile's_sense_of_time :

Some pedant has altered my title twice. 92.29.126.166 (talk) 08:24, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Correcting grammar is what editors do. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:27, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

No, see Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Guidelines#Don't edit others' questions or answers 87.102.23.18 (talk) 15:59, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

But not to other people's questions. I've altered my question title back, for the third time. There is plenty of other less than pedanticly-perfect grammar on these pages, go and interfere with them, not me please. 92.29.124.254 (talk) 15:54, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

The article Apostrophe explains the rôle of this punctuation mark in marking of possessives, as in the cat's whiskers. Editors have corrected the title of this question to Reptiles' sense of time. The title is not the question. When necessary, editors frequently correct a missing or faulty title. This is done so that the question and its responses can be properly archived. The guidelines[1] allow additions to titles that are lacking. Trovatare correctly punctuated [2] [3] the title. @92.15.12.165 your edit[4] moves the apostrophe from plural to singular possessive but Trovatore notes in edit summary[5] that the plural possessive is called for here. I think you should note that Trovatore whom you describe as "Some pedant" is a volunteer who answered[6] your question. I agree with Trovatore and advise you to observe the WP:3RR rule. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:21, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Its a great breach of etiquette to interfere with other people's wording. In any case, I'm only referring to one reptile, although I dont have to justify myself. I've changed it for the fourth time. Stop trolling. And I refer you to the link given by 87.102.23.18 above. 92.29.124.253 (talk) 18:29, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Please observe that I linked to exactly the same guideline as 87.102.23.18. You are now wilfully in breach of the WP:3RR ruling. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:53, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

This can be avoided by following "Do not correct spelling or presumed typos" as per the reference desk guidelines, linked above. I thought we all knew not to alter other peoples questions in this manner. If you feel strongly about spelling/grammar I would suggest mentioning the correct form, not unilaterally correcting. Don't forget that changing a section heading can break links to it as well.94.72.242.84 (talk) 19:09, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Personally I think that since the questioneer asked not to have their title change, and the guidlines are clearly on their side, then Cuddyable is in the wrong here - especially in terms of continuing to edit war after a clear request not to.94.72.242.84 (talk) 19:16, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

There have been loads of discussions on this, and they always end the same: don't edit other peoples comments, that includes section titles. The only time its appropriate to edit titles is if they're either too long as disrupt the page layout, or too short like "question". Theres nothing stopping you from pointing out peoples spelling errors if thats your thing. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 19:18, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean THERE'S, PEOPLE'S and THAT'S ? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:32, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I did not change anything in the question. I changed only the section heading. I would not have changed anything in your running text.

Section headings are often changed; I admit I haven't checked to see what the guidelines say about this. The fact that changing a heading can break links is precisely why I changed it immediately, without waiting. --Trovatore (talk) 19:18, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

A proper citing of the referenced guideline[7] would note that it says about questions or answers (not titles): Do not correct spelling or presumed typos, or anything that might change the meaning of the question." Titles are considered separately. I remain with Trovatore here. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:24, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Come on, the title is an extension of the question and should be considered as such. The whole reason for not editing peoples questions (and indeed any comment) is that you could inadvertently change the meaning of it. Editing titles also runs the risk of changing what the OP meant. Either way, the guidelines only say it's ok to edit section titles if they're "non-descriptive" or disruptive (very long for example). Nit-picking over typos isn't a reason to edit someone elses words. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 19:34, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

If a title were ambiguous, I would change it, but otherwise I don't see the point. Especially if the OP objects. It just isn't worth fighting over. Is this a candidate for WP:LAME? --Tango (talk) 19:41, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

If the title is ambiguous, how could you possibly know which disambiguation to change it to? Since you can't possibly know that, you can't "fix" the title and doing so would be very wrong because it might result in the OP being given an incorrect answer rather than people asking for clarification or answering the question both ways. If the title is sufficiently unambiguous, then we can all figure out what it was supposed to say and there is no point in correcting it (unless of course you think you're smarter than the rest of us...and therein lies the problem!). Either way, it's wrong to do so. SteveBaker (talk) 14:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I usually find out what a question is about by reading the question, Steve. --Tango (talk) 22:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I posted that without having scrolled down to see the rest of this section. I now regret posting at all... what the hell is going on, guys? --Tango (talk) 22:27, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

It is not worth fighting over, that is true. --Trovatore (talk) 19:43, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with both the above. And a reminder that the above discussion should have never taken place on the main page. and that you have to make a big effort to get into WP:LAME, let's not make that effort :) 94.72.242.84 (talk) 19:49, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

This discussion should be the mayor of WP:LAME. --Sean 17:14, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

It's getting there. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 21:05, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Cuddlyable3's role as resident grammar/punctuation nazi is well established - and I do my best to ignore the continual petty jibes we get about tiny typos and irrelevant grammar "rules". The English language is in a state of continual evolution - and the "correct" use of the apostrophe is one of those things that's evolving the fastest. That's all wonderfully debatable - BUT what is certainly NOT debatable is that we have a very clear guideline about not editing other people's posts - which means that this time Cuddlyable3 has gone beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior. So let's make this very clear: Our guidelines say that you do not edit other people's' post's's...OK? If you can't stand the occasional misplaced apostrophe - then bite your tongue and let it slide. If you can't do that then get the hell off of the ref desk and find someone else to annoy - it's not like we can't cope without your contributions. This behavior is not clever, it's not smart, it doesn't impress anyone, it sure as hell doesn't improve anyone's grammar - it just pisses people off and gets in the way of a smooth running operation and a friendly environment. So give it up and apologize to our OP for your unacceptable behavior. SteveBaker (talk) 19:53, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

SteveBaker is fond of citing Godwin's Law. This is what the nazis did. Calling me a nazi discredits everything else you say. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

To be fair here, I was the one who changed it the first time, and then changed it to the plural when it was changed to singular. I do regret the outcome, but I am not sure I can sincerely apologize. I find it very strange that the OP would deliberately insist on incorrect punctuation, and it is not clear at all that the guideline applies to section headings. --Trovatore (talk) 19:59, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I've apologised on our behalf to the OP User_talk:92.29.126.166. (Actually they did eventually change the heading to "reptile's" instead of "reptiles'" which shows the subtle problems inherent in this. 94.72.242.84 (talk) 20:05, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the OPs issue was with the punctuation, it was with someone changing (for good or bad) what they'd written. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 20:13, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Indeed...and rightly so. We have these guidelines for a reason. If the OP misplaces an apostrophe and gets the wrong answer as a result of genuine grammatical confusion, then that's their own silly fault and they have no one to blame but themselves. But if rearranging the punctuation of a question (and potentially changing its meaning) causes a question to be answered incorrectly or misleadingly - then that's a very bad thing. It's actually rather useful to note when a question is poorly written because in extreme cases, it might imply that the answer should be given in a more simplistic manner - or using simpler language because the OP may be a young child or a non-English speaker.

"Cleaning up" the grammar provides zero benefit. After all, if Cuddlyable can divine what the mis-written text was supposed to say - so can I - so it's not like Cuddlyable is helping us all out somehow or that he has some god-given telepathic means to know what the OP really meant. If the question is truly ambiguous then Cuddlyable cannot fix it - if the question is unambiguous despite grammatical errors, then there is no value in correcting it and all it does is subtract from the information that we have about the OP.

So the rule is that we don't change other people's posts (questions OR answers) except when it disrupts the flow of the page (like a missing </small> tag or something) - or when the questioner used a useless title like "Question?" in contravention of our request at the top of the page for a clear title. That's an excellent rule - and a cornerstone of how we make progress here. If we let people simply go and edit other people's posts, that's a recipe for chaos. It's exceedingly rare for revert wars to break out on the RD - and the reason this one did is precisely because Cuddlyable3 ignored a clearly stated guideline. The consequence was entirely predictable.

SteveBaker (talk) 20:46, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Steve, it has yet to be demonstrated that there is a rule about changing the section heading. Please do not conflate "section heading" with "question". It's true that the heading will normally state summarize the question, but the question properly speaking should be the initial post, not the heading. Also I am uncomfortable with you blaming Cuddlyable for my actions. --Trovatore (talk) 20:52, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I get the impression that the consensus would be that we include the section heading in the "do not edit others posts" rule if we had to clarify that rule. As for Cuddyable's role - the above (top) segment cut from the main page shows them not being sympathetic to the OP's issues. I haven't checked the full edit history, but it looks as if they were the ones exasperating (sic) the problem. 94.72.242.84 (talk) 21:23, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

There's no rule specifically about changing section headings, it's true: because they're part of the OP's entry, and thus should not be edited, per the general rule. There are two exceptions to the general rule that pertain to section headings:

1. It's fine to "to fix formatting errors that interfere with readability", and these are particularly frequent with section headers.
2. "If there is no title to a question, add one. You may also add to a non-descriptive title".

But if neither of those exceptions apply, for goodness' sake, just leave the OP's title alone. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:40, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Links to section headings have problems with these five characters: [ ] { | }.

• User:Wavelength/About Wikipedia/Link test page one
• User:Wavelength/About Wikipedia/Link test page two

—Wavelength (talk) 03:11, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

So you wish to add Wikilawyering to the charges of grammar nazi-ism? Come on! It's 100% clear that if both questions and answers and "posts" in general should not be edited - then the title (which is probably a question - and was certainly "posted") falls into that category. Claiming otherwise is really just a pathetic effort to worm ones way out of an abundantly clear guideline. If you truly think it was deliberately intended that the guidelines intended to allow you to do whatever you like to any title - then I think you would have to concede that we'd have said so explicitly because it's such a strange exception to such an otherwise clear rule. I don't believe you truly think that - you're just looking for a loophole to get yourself out of a tight corner. I know that and you know that - so let's stop pretending, OK? Well forget it - we're not impressed by Wikilawyering. See Wikipedia:Wikilawyering - especially clause (2). SteveBaker (talk) 14:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Not a lawyer thing at all! I hadn't even looked up the text of the actual guideline. I really do not think of the section headings as being on the same level as the actual discussion. This is quite normal on talk pages, which is what the refdesks are. --Trovatore (talk) 19:01, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

My opinion is that grammar titles should only be changed if they will prevent the functionality of the archive search. Questions should not be changed; if they are unclear, ask the OP politely "What do you mean?". I have my share of people speaking... lets call it beginner English and most of the time you can understand what they are saying. If you cannot, a polite word of correction or question would be in line. For example if someone writes "Bdoy temperature of retpiles" I would correct it because it would disrupt the search and make the section hard to link to. But if it is "Body temperature of reptile's" it should still be easy to find in the archives and I wouldn't correct it. I occasionally correct broken links such as someone calling sodium hypochlorite sodium hypochloride. It helps them to see what articles they are linking to.

For this example; I think that the header change was unnecessary, and the big deal about the change was unnecessary. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 23:28, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

The archive search doesn't only search the headings - it searches the body text too. If you think the title is wrong, you are perfectly at liberty to say:

"I think the title is wrong, didn't you mean sodium hypochloride?"

- and then the archive search will still find it - and you won't have to break the rules and piss off the OP if he really did mean 'hypochlorite' for some bizarre reason. Also, if you just silently correct the title, then nobody will come along and tell the OP why it's "ide" and not "ite". Also, the OP himself may search for the answer to his post - and he'll be unable to find it if you've 'corrected' it. So, no - you don't have a good reason to do that. SteveBaker (talk) 14:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Steve, I believe you have swapped -ide/-ite in your discussion above. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:46, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah - but now you have to ask yourself: Did he do it by accident or was it done deliberately to make some kind of abstruse/ironic point? SteveBaker (talk) 18:21, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

(No, it was an accident) SteveBaker (talk) 18:21, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not in favour of changing any headers unless the text somehow breaks the page or if it's simply "Question" or "Query", which would be of little use to anyone. As I've mentioned here before, I make frequent use of my My Contributions special page which allows me to click directly to the question - and changing the name breaks the hyperlink for me. It is also my opinion that, unlike discussions on the talk page, the headers to questions asked on the RefDesk are indeed the "property" of the OP; they asked the question, the thread is theirs barring contraventions of WP:SOAPBOX, etc. I'm also not in favour of jumping on anybody due to typos or spelling errors and I try not to even point it out unless it actually interferes with comprehension or it is otherwise germane. And speaking of hyper-correction, am I the only one puzzled by the exchange taking place here? Matt Deres (talk) 23:56, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Dunno, world's gone crazy if you ask me. By the way did anyone else notice that the OP's corrected grammar appears more correct, and not the other editor's corrections eg [8] since the question begins Would a reptile (singular) ie if the title had begun "A reptile's .." which the following question seems to imply, and frankly I imagine the OP knows what they meant better than anyone else.............................94.72.242.84 (talk) 00:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Bare singular nouns are not ordinarily used in that way in English. Had it been "A reptile's...", then yes, but just "Reptile's" is weird. Unless of course he had a specific reptile in mind, say his pet iguana. But there was no indication of that. --Trovatore (talk) 03:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

It is common to drop articles in headlines and similar contexts (email subjects, RD section headings, etc.) where brevity is valued. -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:45, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

This isn't about whether the question heading was right or wrong - or whether the OP is or is not able to defend what (s)he wrote. It's that you aren't supposed to edit other people's post. It's rude, it's unhelpful, it's contrary to our guidelines...we do not permit it. SteveBaker (talk) 14:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

But if they're wrong for multiple reasons, it's best to address all of them. Defense in depth, or something. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:46, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Fixed the issue with offtopicness on that question Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#What_bridge_is_this? : [9] 94.72.242.84 (talk) 01:27, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it's clear that the consensus is not to edit titles to avoid problems. Can someone please close this discussion with one of those nice boxes, and we can Wikipedia:Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. Thanks.94.72.242.84 (talk) 14:41, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I have removed the stupid boxing - a discussion isn't over until it's over - and when it's over it doesn't need to be hidden. Who made you ruler of the discussion page with the right to close off discussions at will? Maybe I should just stick boxes around all of your comments so people don't read them? Argh! SteveBaker (talk) 18:23, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Jesus, I suggested that we stop this pointless discussion. Cuddyable boxed it [10] one action of theirs with which I do agree. Maybe we should just stick a cork in your mouth too?77.86.6.186 (talk) 19:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Steve is right. This is the talk page; there's no reason to conceal discussions here. And please remain civil. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:58, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I never asked the discussion to be hidden, just one of those nice pastel shaded boxes be put round it so we can walk away and do other things. But if the horse is still twitching it's still alive; keep hitting it with the big stick. (joke).77.86.6.186 (talk) 20:03, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, Cuddyable didn't do exactly what I had in mind - I meant like this Wikipedia:Closing_discussions#Example_of_a_closed_discussion.77.86.6.186 (talk) 20:06, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Closing_discussions says (amongst other things: "Observe however that intervening to close a discussion where this mode of resolution is not customary may prove to be incendiary instead of clarifying. "...so that should not have come as a surprise. Discussions that should be formally closed are those that have a time-critical deadline - or those for which a clear consensus has been reached. Closing a discussion just because you personally have had enough is completely unacceptable. Hiding it all (especially when you are the person whom we're debating the actions of) is unacceptable. SteveBaker (talk) 23:02, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I've noticed on other pages discussions are closed by an independant person, with a summary at the top, giving a basic overview of the consensus (if any) reached .. it's helpful for future reference. I would expect the person to close the discussion to be neutral and an administrator, or of impeccable credentials.77.86.6.186 (talk) 23:41, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Apology offered to SteveBaker about cork suggestion.77.86.6.186 (talk) 20:11, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Accepted. SteveBaker (talk) 23:02, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

• For fuck's sake, you guys—this is such a petty issue. Perhaps the header shouldn't have been edited, although the alteration was undoubtedly made in the very best of faith. The same cannot be said for the revert: I genuinely cannot think of a single acceptable reason for anybody to restore grammatical errors onto any Wikipedia page, at all. Now can we all move on? ╟─TreasuryTag►high seas─╢ 20:03, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  I'm not convinced it was an error in the first place. However, it's best not to mess with section headers unless they're disruptive, because it breaks a type of link that apparently many editors use. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:08, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  I absolutely agree that there was no need to tinker with the title, and that the tinkering should not have taken place. However, there are grave problems with rewriting time, and since the adjustment was made, there was no good reason to revert it. I think the lesson of this story is "just cope." ╟─TreasuryTag►presiding officer─╢ 20:10, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  Reverting it would restore the link that was destroyed by changing it, right? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:13, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Usually would. Don't think there ever was a link to it, but yes, probably.77.86.6.186 (talk) 20:40, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

• Since the question begins "Would A reptile..." the heading saying "Reptile's" seems acceptable. If he had headed it "A reptile's sense of time", there would be no debate. Which also goes to demonstrate why it's risky trying to "correct" an OP's heading or question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:12, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  I do not care about the grammar. At all. The change should not have been made; nor should it have been reverted. End of. How anyone managed to produce an entire page of debate about this is beyond me. ╟─TreasuryTag►Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster─╢ 20:18, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  The grammar was fine in the original, and reverting it would fix the link that "correcting" it broke, yes? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:27, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

  The grammar was fine in the original—do you really find, I do not care about the grammar. At all, difficult to comprehend? And as for the second half of your message, I genuinely don't have a clue what it means. ╟─TreasuryTag►Tellers' wands─╢ 20:28, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

(respond to Bugs) Actually the original was reptiles (wrong grammar), it was then changed (in good faith by Trovatore as we all accept) to reptiles', the OP then changed it to reptile's - signifying what they had originally intended it to mean I think.. .. Then that change was reverted (not sure why), then all hell broke loose unsurprisingly. 77.86.6.186 (talk) 20:35, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

As I've been told a number of times here by other editors, any change to the section heading breaks a link. So the heading should not have been messed with, and should be reverted to its original status, even if it's "grammitically" incorrect. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:39, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I didn't know about it either until someone explained it. Look at an article's history or your contrib list. Off to the right is the edit summary. In front of it is a little arrow, which if you hover over it, tells you what the link was at the time. If the section heading is changed, that link is lost. That's the primary reason not to mess with section headings, especially on a talk page, or something like a talk page which is what the ref desks are. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:45, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, I just changed the title of this section, to test the theory, and they were telling me correctly. If you look at the history, the only little-arrow-link that works is for the change I just made. Since I broke the link, the other arrows only take you to the top of the page rather than to the specific section. If you think this is petty, some regulars lectured me about this awhile back. I don't use that arrow, but others do. So DON'T MESS WITH IT. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:47, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I changed it back to "grammitical", and now all the links work again except for the one change I had made. If you all think this is petty, don't gripe to me, gripe to the ones who griped to me about it some months back. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:51, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I added a null section just above this one, so that both links now take you to about the right place. I did likewise with the reptiles / reptiles' / reptile's thing on the science ref desk. Hopefully, this will bring home the point not to mess with headings, for practical reasons. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:04, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Here [11] is where I learned about this "link" stuff a couple of months ago. I was unaware of it until then. I'm guessing some of the editors in the above section were likewise unaware of it. It doesn't exactly jump out at you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:07, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that info, I had no idea the little arrow hyperlinked to a section, (in fact I'm not sure I knew it did anything) I would have expected it to include a "#section heading" in the pop-up that appears.. Put an outdent in, hope I don't get into trouble for that. 77.86.6.186 (talk) 21:12, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

If you hover over the arrow, the article and section names appear in the bar at the bottom of the screen (or wherever). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:27, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

We've discussed this before and I'm not going to bother to read this whole long discussion but FWIW, I wouldn't edit the title of someone else's question to correct grammar/punctuation/spelling unless it is likely to cause confusion. I definitely wouldn't advise edit warring over a title if the OP objects without a very good reason (and grammar isn't one of them). However previous discussions and policy outside the RD has established that as the title isn't signed, editing it is quite different from editing a signed comment and personally I wouldn't usually mind people correcting any titles where I definitely made a mistake (but would still discourage it because few people are likely to get annoyed if you don't do it, but some will if you do). Of course a better and more important reason (then the idea that they belong to the OP) not to edit titles is because as BB mentioned editing them does break links. On the other hand I do agree it's silly for an OP to edit war to keep a title with a mistake just because they don't like someone else correcting them or the way it was done (I'm not sure if that's what happened here or the OP genuinely feels their title was not a mistake or was making a pun or whatever else) and breaking the 3RR is definitely not acceptable. Nil Einne (talk) 00:10, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Between messing with the OP's entry and breaking the link, I would go so far as to say that what was done by the "pedant" was unwitting vandalism, and hence 3RR does not apply. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:39, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

BTW in case anyone is interested the relevant parts of Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines say

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.

I've added some IMHO relevant emphasis Nil Einne (talk) 00:19, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

It would seem that whoever wrote that guideline was also unaware of that obscure arrow link thing or else didn't care about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:30, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Should add that from memory most previous discussions concerned titles in this talk page, not the RD itself. Nil Einne (talk) 00:48, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

We've got a fundamental dilemma, in that the guideline ignores the existence of those little arrow thingies. A couple of months ago they were telling me not to change headings on talk pages because it would break the links. The ref desk is essentially a set of talk pages. Obviously, you have to have flexibility in articles, and you have to be able to modify section headings if they violate policy in some way. But in general, they should be left alone. If the "corrector" understands whatever mistake was made, presumably the rest of us do also, so no "correction" is needed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:52, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Wow. Even Vranak didn't get this much attention... Aaronite (talk) 01:51, 7 July 2010 (UTC) Yeah, everyone come stare at the traffic accident.77.86.6.186 (talk) 02:22, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Not quite that dramatic. More like staring at a car with mismatched hubcaps. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:25, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I have un-buried this section. Cuddyable3, this thread is not yours to close as you see fit; obviously, people still wish to comment. I can appreciate that you're just trying to stop this from spiralling further out of control, but that's not how things work here - closing a discussion after one day prevents people from registering their opinions. Mediation sounds like a great idea (though I think it's mostly used for content disputes), but this is not simply between you and SteveBaker; there are at least a half-dozen folks who have registered their opinions and some of those do not fall into either camp. Matt Deres (talk) 20:16, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Forgetting the nannyism of fixing someone else's spelling, the larger issue would seem to be, how important are those little link-arrows, which will be "broken" if someone messes with a section heading? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:55, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Um, Bugs, I think you've mentioned the arrows 8 times so far. Someone else responded once. It was worth raising, but I think you've provided enough emphasis of that point. -- Scray (talk) 01:42, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs has identified a bug in the Wiki software that fails to track title changes. AFAIK search engines are blind to punctuation so I wonder does moving an apostrophe break links? The OP doesn't even want to keep their first title version so we can deduce that they were as unaware as most of us were of what Bugs would reveal. The issue is not directly relevant in this thread which started about an alleged offence, not a defective function. If anyone likes to discuss the links dilemma it should be in a new section. I cannot claim any active involvement in the subject since the title of the question about lizards had been changed repeatedly before I re-corrected it. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:34, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The reason I brought it up about 8 times is that subsequent posters appeared to ignore it. So the question still remains, how important are those little arrows? To me personally, they are of no importance whatsoever, since I never use them. But other users, specifically Matt Deres and TOAT, lectured me that they are important to some users. So any discussion of this matter should take that issue into consideration. It doesn't stand alone. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:21, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

How many is about 8? Having WP:AGF one is assured that users read carefully what is posted and hold their peace unless they can post something constructive, since to do so otherwise is to seem foolish. Some others post to prove it. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:07, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I raised the concern about the arrows, and others commented as if they had not read it. I'm still waiting for someone here to indicate whether those little arrows matter or not. To me, they matter not at all, but I got lectured by your fellow regulars on this subject, I'm merely passing it along. Don't yell at me, yell at them! If you don't agree with them, speak up! I can't read your mind. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the arrows matter to me. (And I wish they could magically follow a question into the archives, actually.) -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:27, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. If the arrows matter to a significant number of users, then this entire thread can be archived, because the headers should not be messed with, period, end of story. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:40, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The arrows are relevant to me as well. I have no idea how widespread this is, though. My suggestion is that when the headers are sufficiently unambiguous (i.e. not "question"), they should be left alone. However, edit-warring over whether or not the headers should be restored to a previous state is also LAME. Where the guidelines are more lenient towards editing headers (again, "question" and the like), the arrows are also often useless as-is, so I don't see a problem with that practice. — Lomn 15:59, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Humanities section

Does anyone else feel that Geography should be listed in the Humanities link? And if not, can someone explain to me why it's not there? -- Jack?! 22:12, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, here is one earlier discussion on the topic. I still feel it is one of the integrated disciplines that can fit several desks, depending on the exact question, and hence shouldn't be featured at only one desk. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:01, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

From our article ...modern geography is an all-encompassing discipline that foremost seeks to understand the Earth and all of its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. So questions could come to the Science Desk or perhaps the Math Desk, like Sluzzelin said. hydnjo (talk) 02:04, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Science I could see but how would the math desk be relevant for geography? Except for where someone pedantically states that you can not know the length of a coastline because of some kind of fractal theory. Googlemeister (talk) 14:01, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, some silly question related to this perhaps? hydnjo (talk) 22:06, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

You just replied to someone talking about the coastline problem to suggest the coastline problem as an example... why did you do that? --Tango (talk) 22:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not pedantic. It's true. Any statement of the length of a coastline is completely meaningless without giving the scale at which it was measured and the choice of scale is, in most cases, completely arbitrary. --Tango (talk) 22:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I was just turning around "someone pedantically states" into a possible question about the subject from someone seeking information and chose the Math desk to do so, geesh. hydnjo (talk) 23:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are trying to say. --Tango (talk) 00:15, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Neither do I apparently. hydnjo (talk) 00:37, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Hydnjo please provide a diff to help us understand! Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

It was purely a hypothetical speculation as to how a geography question might be posted at the Math desk so, no diff. hydnjo (talk) 13:48, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Besides the coastline problem, consider questions like: How do you calculate great circle distance on a sphere from the lat/lon of the endpoints? On an ellipsoid? What is the area of a "square state" whose borders are lines of constant latitude and longitude? These area calculations I'm doing fail when the region contains a pole; how can I fix them? -- Coneslayer (talk) 13:53, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Purpose creep

This is why opinions don't really have a place on the ref desk. There are some solid responses buried under a lot of statements of personal preference and counterstatements. But can we really say that most of the banter helped answer the OP's question, or bettered Wikipedia? If anything, it makes the good responses needles in a subjective haystack: the extraneous discussion does a disservice to editors whose useful contributions have been obscured.

Would it be possible for all regular and semi-regular contributors to agree to something? A mutually-agreed short period (e.g. three days to a week) where:

• First replies must contain a link or reference to a helpful article, book or external website.
• Users whose questions cannot be answered objectively are politely directed to a relevant forum.
• Subsequent posts must either:
  

1) build uncontroversially on a previous post, or

2) offer further links or references to illustrate a different point of interest, in the same way that first-repliers justify their response.

The goal of this is to see whether a conscious effort to get back to basics would improve the productivity, and quality of advice, of the reference desks. Ideally everyone would give this a spin for the brief duration of the experiment (as little as 72 teensy hours). We could put a banner up at the top of the RD pages so all editors could see we are trying a different approach to answering questions.

Do people think that this would be a worthwhile effort? Brammers (talk/c) 10:01, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Hey man we're all volunteers here, giving our own free time to Wikipedia for nothing in return. If the OP isn't happy with our free help, they can go and pay a professional service. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.176.16.252 (talk) 10:36, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

No, it would not be possible for all regular and semi-regular contributors to agree to something. -- Coneslayer (talk) 11:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

How about a majority of the most active contributors? It would probably still make a difference. And I accidentally made my question unclear: I meant to say "Would you try this out" rather than "Do you think we could rope everyone else into it". Brammers (talk/c) 11:33, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we could all agree that we would never agree. -- kainaw™ 11:21, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, so we're never going to get 100% participation: this was a best-case target and deliberately set high to try to get as many people as possible involved. I was hoping that some of the big guns would all agree to pull in the same direction for a spell, but I guess the weight of opinion is that this won't happen. Oh well. Brammers (talk/c) 11:37, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Like herding cats! hydnjo (talk) 11:50, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

Unresolved

This cat likes Brammers' intention. But this cat doesn't want to substitute instruction creep for PURRpose creep. This cat suggests that we should mark every question within 24 hours with either one of Resolved or Unresolved. Like Mae West's explanation why she had a mirror in her bedroom ceiling, this helps us see how we are doing. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:01, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

When cats start marking around here, I'm gone... -- Coneslayer (talk) 13:08, 8 July 2010 (UTC) Good luck Tom, maybe you'll catch a pretty one. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 21:51, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with anyone except the OP marking questions as "resolved", since only the OP knows if their question has been answered to their satisfaction. I would however agree with encouraging questioners to use the resolved tags more often themselves, perhaps this could be included into the "how to ask questions" guide at the top of each desk. Also, what the hell is going on in this thread? OP raises some valid points and almost every reply is nonconstructive or a joke about cats? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 13:55, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

A large percentage of questions are posted by drive-bys who make only that one entry, or who never get back to it to acknowledge that it's resolved. I've also heard that the "resolved" tags have some technological issues, like causing the page to open more slowly or something. Maybe the tech-sperts here could speak to that? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:18, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Please don't refer to people as "drive bys", it has very negative connotations. While you are right that some people may never check back on their questions, it still doesn't seem appropriate to presume they got the answer they were looking and mark it resolved without confirmation from them, except in very, very obvious situations where it's a yes or no type question. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 14:39, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

It's the unvarnished truth, and if the unvarnished truth bothers you, that's your problem, not mine. And if someone feels insulted by themselves being called a drive-by, they are free to complain to me about it directly, as my talk page is not protected. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:41, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

It is NOT the truth. Calling infrequent or one time editors "drive bys" implies they came here with an intent to cause harm or disruption. "a drive-by is a form of hit-and-run tactic, a personal attack carried out by an individual or individuals from a moving or momentarily stopped vehicle." "Hit-and-run tactics is a tactical doctrine where the purpose of the combat involved is not to seize control of territory, but to inflict damage on a target and immediately exit the area to avoid the enemy's defense and/or retaliation." 82.43.90.93 (talk) 15:56, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

That's your interpretation, for sure. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you trying to claim the term "drive-by" doesn't have negative connotations? Have you actually even read the article drive by?? Calling people "drive-bys" clearly shows you think they're trying to cause harm or disruption, that's what the term means by it's very definition. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 17:57, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean ITS very definition? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:33, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, your right. Thank's for corecting that for me. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 10:19, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

You failed to misspell a few words in the above comment. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I cannot share 82's strong disagreement because no one is obliged to satisfy the OP, instead we individually volunteer what we think is helpful and is our best effort. Often the Resolved status becomes obvious and placing the tag can both save reading time and discourage excessive OT diversions. Anyone who thinks the tag was placed prematurely is free to change it to Unresolved, hopefully with an explanation why. The OP here has agreed that their proposal is dead. Let's call them visitors not drive-bys. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Is there, in fact, a technical issue that would recommend not posting that "resolved" tag? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:22, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Any template forces the pre-processor to expand it, query the DB for the template page, substitute the template arguments, etc. In this case, an image is also used so that has to be retrieved/cache-checked as well. Also, when the page is saved, the what-links-here table has to be updated for the template. So yes, there is some (small) load. It's not really an issue for the reader using default settings, but for editors with non-default preferences there will be some latency while the parser renders their particular combination. The problem can get worse with a large number of templates, but I've seen the complaint more often arise with complex templates like {{convert}}. I personally just use a Unicode tick-mark: ✓ when I need to mark something resolved (which I wouldn't do on the RD's though). Franamax (talk) 18:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

And even that is imperfect. I don't see a check-mark (or whatever); all I see is a small box with the numbers 2713 in it. Matt Deres (talk) 22:45, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh wise-guy eh? Why I oughta...woop-woop-woop! :) Indeed, venturing beyond the absolute minimum font load of Windows and/or OS/X is fraught with peril. You are only one MS charset download away from the green tickmark - but have provided a lesson to me that I should become known as the guy who closes threads with the notation U+2713, abandon hope all ye who enter here... food for thought, that. Franamax (talk) 01:26, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Que? I thought it was a SVG ie this File:Yes check.svg , or am having obscure sense of humour failure? 87.102.42.55 (talk) 02:12, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

It is indeed an image in {{resolved}}. I was smart enough to figure out a much less system-intensive way of showing a tick-mark using just a Unicode character and some markup language - but not smart enough to realize that if you don't have international language support loaded on your system, it just shows up as a squiggly. Your humour ability is safe (for now). Franamax (talk) 10:57, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

While RefDesk regulars might not have any qualms about changing an "Unresolved" to "Resolved", for someone new to the place (e.g. those who would be termed "drive bys" by Bugs), that "Resolved" tag seems pretty final. (It has a "Your question has been answered to our satisfaction. We don't want to deal with it further. We don't care what you think. Now GTFO."-ish feel to it.) If I was a new user, I doubt I would change it - I'd probably take the brusqueness as a hint and move on. Given how snippy Wikipedia users can be about procedural issues (e.g. the heading-changing thing above), I can just imagine a future exchange where there's an edit war where one user keeps re-opening the question, and another keeps re-closing it, claiming that insufficient evidence was given that the provided answer wasn't sufficient. -- 140.142.20.229 (talk) 17:29, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

In some - perhaps many - cases, there's no real telling when the question has been resolved, even by the questioner. We often correct one another, sometimes even late in the thread, "Oh, yeah, forgot about that detail..." kind of thing. If the OP prematurely marks their thread as resolved or similar, it may prevent another respondent down the road from checking the question and correcting the answer. Of course, sometimes (not often!) my opinion swings the other way and I think it would be best for OPs to archive their thread as soon as they're satisfied with their answer to reduce drawn out joke threads and such. Matt Deres (talk) 16:37, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Matt Deres. I've seen questions being marked as resolved with incomplete or even inaccurate replies (which is why the "resolved" tag doesn't stop me from posting, if I so see fit). The OP will be able to glean the signal from the noise. I do agree that long off-topic debates etc. can be confusing, even annoying, but the solution is for us to restrain ourselves when we have nothing relevant to add, not for questions to be marked as resolved. (That being said, I wouldn't remove a "resolved" tag added by the OP, but I might revert one posted by someone else). ---Sluzzelin talk 16:47, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Matt has the right idea. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. While I don't post often, I do look all the time. I try and post when I have something relevant to add. (All to often, it's a goofy comment, but I try.) We would be best to only contribute when there is info to add or correct, as needed. Aaronite (talk) 18:16, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The whole purpose of Brammer's suggestion is to improve the signal-to-noise ratio on the desk. Specific dictums or mandates requiring citations are tough to enforce (just from experience, some questions don't work that way). But every contributor should think about every contribution: "am I adding signal or adding noise?" before hitting submit. Nimur (talk) 18:26, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Was looking for the up-vote button, then I realized I'm not on StackOverflow. I love that paradigm for Q&A. -- Scray (talk) 20:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Thanks Nimur - you've got it in one. I was never going to suggest "compulsory" citations - firstly, as you say, they are not always appropriate and secondly there is no point restricting the freedom of contributors. A drive to see how we can maximise the signal:noise ratio through scrutinising each action we take might benefit the desks long after it's stopped.
I'm not asking everyone to agree to it on behalf of everyone else. I'm asking each user to say "Count me in." and step forward for themselves. Brammers (talk/c) 20:57, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to intentionally reduce the quality of the service I provide by restricting myself like that. It is certainly wise to consider whether a post is adding anything to a discussion before posting it, but specific rules, even self-imposed ones, are unwise. --Tango (talk) 22:34, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Is it time for

Resolved

? Hee hee. Aaronite (talk) 19:03, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I too totally agree with Nimur's "Signal to Noise Ratio Metric", it's an excellent personal guideline, we could do with a essay subpage such as we have with the excellent Kainaw's medical advice criterion. Obviously we can't legislate effectively for this, but +1 or whatever.87.102.42.55 (talk) 22:05, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

"Noise"? We might find noise annoying, having to scroll down through so many layers of crud. However, the OP might find meaningful discussion, point dissection, and side points interesting and either learn from it or be more motivated about the subject, all of which seems to fit the mission of this very website. There is no noise but that which the OP indicateth. Let's give them the tools they need to guide discussion and put ourselves on the sidelines. SamuelRiv (talk) 09:13, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

The guidelines for the ref desks suggest that wikiversity:Wikiversity:Help Desk is the place for debate. However, these are only guidelines and also quite dusty. Perhaps it is time to redraft them. Giving them a thorough read, it seems that this bit is similar to my proposals - maybe they just surfaced in my mind after being tucked away months ago. There are also a lot of points in the guidelines that touch on contentious subjects that are frequently discussed here. Brammers (talk/c) 18:23, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

There are certain editors here who think of themselves as the owners of the ref desks, and want to exercise pedantic control over how it's to be used. As you may have noticed, the slightest transgression (in some of their eyes) will result in page after page of discussion here - typically with no resolution. I used to find it frustrating, but more often now I just find it entertaining. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:55, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I love Nimur's "am I adding signal or am I adding noise" comment. I've suggested requiring references before for all answerers, because this is a Reference Desk, but Nimur's comment is simpler and probably more useful, especially when it comes to the Computing desk, where, as SteveBaker has commented, it's generally impossible to find a reference telling the querent they have to click on the thingie and then scroll down to the bottom and choose "Purge" from the Edit menu. PS: The "Resolved" template sucks. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:27, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

How could the template be improved? Brammers (talk/c) 19:32, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

This is another tangent, but since you ask: I am of those who don't think the "Resolved" template belongs on the Reference Desk. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:35, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I, for one, would like to commend Brammers on an eminently reasonable proposal. It's too bad that (a) it hasn't seen more support and (b) 90% of the above discussion has been on silly tangents ('resolved' templates, 'drive-by' terminology) rather than the substance of the proposal.

It's especially dismaying to see several variations on the sentiment of "we're all volunteers here, so we can do anything we want; no one can tell us what to do." That's quite false, for a number of reasons. This is a structured, purposeful community, not a chat room or a free-for-all.

It's useful to remember that the purposes of the Ref Desks, in order, are to (1) improve the encyclopedia, (2) help the questioners, and (3) have fun. As I read Brammers's proposal, it's a reminder that when #3 gets in the way of the other two, it must give way. —Steve Summit (talk) 20:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Sooo...how about we actually discuss this proposal?

• First replies must contain a link or reference to a helpful article, book or external website. -- Very often a link doesn't help. In many cases the question requires an explanation of the material in question - or perhaps lots of arithmetic or (on the computing desk) a little computer program. On the language desks, people translate stuff from one language to another - linking that kind of answer is impossible. Links are not the only way we help...they are but one of many tools we have to help the end user. Also, why should the person who happens to arrive at the question first have to follow different rules to subsequent contributors. I understand what you're trying to say here - but sometimes the best answers don't benefit from having links embedded in them.

• Users whose questions cannot be answered objectively are politely directed to a relevant forum. -- The problem here is that we seem to have wildly different ideas of what constitutes an 'objective' answer. Some people will (for example) say that a question that asks for an opinion is entirely invalid. Others will say that providing you can provide the reasoning behind an opinion - and present both sides of an opinionated situation, then the questioner will come away more informed than otherwise.

• Subsequent posts must either:
  1. build uncontroversially on a previous post, or
  2. offer further links or references to illustrate a different point of interest, in the same way that first-repliers justify their response.

-- This is really an over-simplification. Responses are not always either an uncontroversial expansion or a downright denial of the previous answer. We often have to temper a previous answer by indicating that, while correct, it only explains a minor part of the previous question. Quite often I don't disagree with any of the previous answers - but merely feel that the information they contain could be better presented as a coherent story and I might well want to explain things from a 'controversial' direction.

The bottom line here is that (I think) everyone is actually doing their best here. The problem is that some of us are simply not very good at it - which is unfortunate...but those are not the people who are going to follow your rules here. My conclusion is that while I agree that these ideas represent a worthy effort to improve the reference desks, they are unlikely to do so because they impose limits on some of the people who are very well able to provide great answers without the rules - and they don't do anything to prevent screwups by the careless and the people who's motives for being here are not to help the OP's.

The people who need to pay attention to these rules are not going to.

So, sadly, I won't be changing my editing style as a result of this proposal.

What I wish we could do would be (with Admin support) to make people whose answers our community finds unacceptable obey these rules - or be blocked from editing here. When folks like User:Vranak start posting junk answers - we would discuss that here and if there is consensus, I'd hope that we could ask some resident Admin to advise that person that they must obey "The Brammers Directive" for the next 30 days (or whatever) - or be blocked from editing WP:RD pages for 30 days. If, by the end of that time, they aren't producing better answers - then we perma-block them and call it a day.

That would cause these basic principles to be upheld by the bottom 5% of our editors - without adding 'rule creep' to the lives of perfectly good editors.

SteveBaker (talk) 06:44, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it's far easier to identify and get agreement about what's NOT ok, than what IS ok. Some practices do need to be stamped out quick smart; but as for how we go about participating on the ref desks for a positive outcome - that's as individual as each one of us is, and there should never be only one acceptable way of operating. Trying to make unnecessary rules about this is just a needlessly bureaucratic waste of everyone's time. Live and let live - unless there's some line-crossing happening. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 07:27, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanking answerers

Thanking editors for their answers to my questions involves a judgement of timing. If I thank them too early, other editors might be dissuaded from adding their answers. If I wait too long, the discussion could go to the archives before I do so. If I say that I appreciate the answers (or some of them) so far, but that I would still appreciate additional answers, I might appear to be greedy. At other times, the answers (or some of them) have been unsatisfactory, and thanking editors might be equivalent to tipping for poor service. Therefore, I have only seldom thanked editors for their answers, although my appreciation for answers exceeds the quantity of my expressions about it.—Wavelength (talk) 23:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I often choose the greedy option. I guess I just enjoy thanking people. I certainly never interpret lack of feedback as a lack of appreciation. If everyone thanked the way I do, it might clutter up the desks. I'd continue doing whatever feels comfortable to you. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:32, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes I'm too exuberant with my thank yous and they get reverted :( 82.43.90.93 (talk) 23:49, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess I wouldn't continue whatever feels comfortable to YOU (but I wouldn't have reverted you either). ---Sluzzelin talk 23:55, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure TT meant well, but he apparently failed to observe that you were also the OP. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:01, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

What you call "greedy" I'd call gracious both to the answerer and to others who have not yet arrived/answered. I find "resolved" tags and thank-yous that sound final to be too stifling for alternative answers - no one should cut off the discussion, and the OP should be sensitive to the reality that once they've posted it, they don't own the question anymore (neither does any answerer). Go ahead and be gracious, but keep the door open. -- Scray (talk) 00:23, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

It depends on the question. On the entertainment desk, someone might ask, "What's this song/movie/book" or whatever, and once the right answer is posted, that's pretty much it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:57, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Even after a correct answer to a simple question has been given, someone might provide an internal or external link to a page where answers to many questions of that type can be found.—Wavelength (talk) 14:50, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Good point. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it's great when people thank us - it's good for morale aside from anything else. I like barnstars too - they are great when a particularly outstanding answer has been given...when someone pulls off an incredible piece of google-fu for example.

What I like more than that is when the OP indicates whether the answer helped or not. Tell us whether there was some part that was not completely clear - did we aim the level of the answer too high? Did we actually help you in some material fashion? Feedback (good or bad) can only help us to get better.

I do slightly worry that when an OP offers thanks - not that we'll be dissuaded from adding more answers - but that the OP may not return to read subsequent answers. That is a scarey prospect because I'd say that seemingly good early answers are quite often wrong and need to be corrected - it's all too easy for someone to be over-zealous about getting in the first answer to a seemingly easy question - and then to be incorrect an hour or so later. It's generally at least one day - sometimes two - before you can really be certain that we're all in reasonable agreement with what was posted. However, I'd hope that none of us are dissuaded from adding more information after a "Thank you!" (I'm certainly not).

The thing that annoys me the most is when someone (either the OP or one of the respondents) sticks a silly:

Resolved

...template onto the page. How can anyone - OP or respondent - possibly know that the answer is perfect? Either one of them could be sadly mistaken about the quality of the answers given so far. The matter can only be considered resolved (to the best of our abilities) when nobody posts any more follow-ups. But that may not happen until the question scrolls off the top of the page. SteveBaker (talk) 06:09, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

A simple suggestion is when you offering thanks, do it in a way that suggests you will continue to read the thread. I myself will probably be less likely to add answers if someone says something which suggests they may not check it out anymore although when I feel my answer is important enough I may try to notify the OP. Of course in the same vein if you aren't likely to check the answers anymore, then feel free to make this clear as well. For example in such a case if someone feels there's something missing they may try to inform you via your talk page or whatever. And unlike SB, I actually have no problems with OPs sticking resolved templates. As much as anything it indicated the OP may not check the answers anymore and in particular, I should try to inform the OP if I feel there is something majorly wrong with the existing answers. Nil Einne (talk) 14:26, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Fixing grammar, general bitterness

This is also why we don't fix a poster's title grammar unless within a couple minutes after the fact, and if it's obviously a mistake and unironic (and even then I'd be cautious). I think there is one idea we need to consider: barring vandals and trolls, the OP is always right. They are the ones asking the question - they are the ones who seek knowledge from us who volunteer as knowledge-givers - they are the ones upon whom it befalls to successfully convey to us what knowledge they seek, and sometimes there are indeed unknown unknowns that must be revealed through discussion. Point is, unless it's obvious the OP can't communicate too well in English, don't change their grammar - these aren't articles here. SamuelRiv (talk) 09:22, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

It was done by Ludwig here [12] and should have been immediately reverted, if anyone had caught it, and the user should have been pointed to the megillah about it on this page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:48, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I informed Ludwig of this discussion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:52, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I support Luwig Ludwig because this is English Wikipedia. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 11:47, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

That's a complete non-sequitur, Cuddlyable3. Do you, in real life, go around correcting the words people speak? Well, maybe you do; but observing passively the behaviour of others without getting caught up in it is a good discipline to adopt. It's even worse if one does that here, a la Ludwig, because it doesn't just comment after the event on what an editor has written, it actually changes what they wrote in the first place, which is intellectual theft and typographical fraud. Sometimes it's appropriate, even necessary, to make some comment on the spelling or grammar of what an editor has written, but it's never OK to make them say what we think they ought to have said. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 12:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Cuddlyable3, who is "Luwig"? I am completely and utterly unable to understand your comment, because I don't know who Luwig is. Unlike most people, I cannot understand writing with simple mistakes, so I insist you clarify your meaning. -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:09, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Before I say another word, I apologise to Ludwig for my misspelling. It is corrected. Then I thank Coneslayer for correcting me. No less is demanded by this adage: The wise one loves correction, knowing that it guides to Perfection. The fool merely defends its error-making. The following explains my support of anyone who helps another to use English correctly and Ludwig in particular. This is English Wikipedia. As a courtesy to whichever side of the Atlantic is not our home side we accommodate both American and British flavours of English. If someone is moved to start a Wikipedia in a new speech form, such as (but not limited to) Pigin, phonetics, Ebonics, rap grunting, let's-revolutionise-how-the-apostrophe-works-ese or dumbed-down semiliteracy-ese, then all Wikipedians should encourage them. Just please don't do it here. If you are a visitor whose English is not good then we will help you by answering in correct English though there are good reasons for not rewording your question. The following is controversial to some: the title (section heading) should be used to categorise the question, not to express it. It is a good act to fix a poor title properly. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:32, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

The comment, about the wise loving to be corrected, merely reinforces the I'm-better-than-you-are attitude that most folks see in those doing the correcting. You should correct your children's English, for sure, since that's part of your job as a parent. You should only correct other adults' grammar when they've made a critical mistake... Unless you've got a desire to make as many enemies as possible. Or enjoy hearing someone say "F.U." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:05, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Since you are such a fan of correction, I will use this opportunity to correct not only your spelling of "accommodate", but more importantly your etiquette: Authorities on the topic generally agree that it is poor manners to habitually correct the grammar of others. I would advise you to devote your talents to copyediting article space, where nobody has ownership of their words, and where we should indeed strive to maintain high standards of written English. -- Coneslayer (talk) 13:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC) PS: In your edit summary, you wrote "Muphrys law struck. Fixed." That should be "Murphy's". Maybe Oversight can fix that one.

See Muphry's law, a variety of Murphy's law. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:00, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, WHAAOE for sure. I amend my correction to point out the missing apostrophe in the edit summary. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:05, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

@Coneslayer thank you for showing me that I was in this misguided company. I corrected "accommodate". The two "generally agree" links you give are not Authorities. They are a Hack writer cum blogger "Miss Conduct" and the sales blurb for a juvenile nonfiction book that claims the eponymous "Miss Manners" to be America's foremost authority on civilized behavior. (Google books couldn't find any reviews of the latter alleged household name.) It was helpful of Sluzzelin to point you to Muphry's law which catches one when one least expects it. It's also ironic that I can't change my edit summary. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:13, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I guess the Miss Manners link isn't working for you, despite my testing in multiple browsers, because it is intended to show Page 78 of the book, in which Judith Martin (described as an authority in our article) writes, "Yes, it is rude to correct other people's speech. You are supposed to be too interested in the content to notice the form." But I doubt it matters, because you really don't care. Grammatical perfection, always and everywhere, even if it means pissing off volunteers who are lending their expertise to this venture. -- Coneslayer (talk) 18:36, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I see now that Judith Martin (71) is not to be inderratedunderrated as a source for quote mining since "...when the Day of Judgment comes, Miss Manners will have etiquette rules to apply to that, as well.[13]". She is also known to be sarcastic. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:09, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

"Inderrated", eh? Hmmm. What ever could you mean? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:22, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Underrated. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:31, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

As an aside, beyond the issues of etiquette amply explored above there are also good technical reasons why we try to avoid changing a section header unless it is absolutely unavoidable. If the original poster – or any other editor, for that matter – attempts to revisit a thread using the little blue 'link to section' right arrow found in their contributions log or in the page history, it will only work if the section title hasn't been altered. It will also break links to the section which have been created elsewhere on the project, though I suspect this is a relatively rare problem. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:50, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I pointed that out about ten times in this discussion, and mostly it's been like talking to a brick wall. Maybe they'll respect you enough to pay attention now.

You along with Matt Deres brought this to my attention a couple months ago. The problem right now is that there is nothing about it in the guidelines about modifying section headings. That needs to be brought up there, and help avoid this left-hand-doesn't-know-what-the-right-is-doing situation in the future. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:01, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Technically, you brought it up 10 times in an earlier, yet remarkably similar, discussion... apparently we're feeling refreshed enough to start over. -- Coneslayer (talk) 15:05, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

It's all the same topic, except it's two-pronged: Correcting headings just to pedantically correct spelling mistakes is pointless; and it also breaks links. So there are two reasons not to do it. Why some keep arguing in favor of such corrections is a mystery at this point. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:07, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

On User talk:Ludwigs2‎, Xeno is saying there is a template called "anchor" which can be used when headings are changed and which will preserve the links while keeping the erroneous heading invisible. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:39, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Eye doughnut C wut all duh fus iz... seriously, though, the problem here is not that some editor got his grammar corrected. The problem here is that when that 'correctee' objected, the 'corrector' insisted, and unpleasantness ensued. I personally don't see an issue with correcting grammar or spelling (and think the technical issue is inconsequential), but if someone decides to revert me on it I'm not going to fight over it. I'll just explain the problem on their talk page and drop it. And if someone's feelings get hurt because I corrected their grammar... well, all I can say to that is that anyone who has enough pride in their work to be offended about a correction ought to have enough pride in their work not to need too much correction in the first place. One cannot claim the respect due a craftsman when one has the skills of a neophyte.

P.s. I was aiming for snooty with that last line : did I make it? This is not a big issue unless both sides make it a big issue - I think if we all self-impose a 1-revert principle on grammar corrections we should be ok. --Ludwigs2 15:45, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

The technical issues may be 'inconsequential' to you, but a lot of other editors rely on those links when they help out here. (I am one of them, and I get the impression that Bugs is another.) Please don't do things when it's been explained to you how they will inconvenience other volunteers. If you would like to offer corrections, feel free to do so in your comments. ("Did you mean blah?"; or "I suspect that's a typo; it probably should be blah".) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:36, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't fix grammar or spelling errors, ever. The querent may remember they asked a question about "chikpeas" and when they try to find their question on the page with the browser's "Find" function and they look for "chikpeas", they won't ever find their question if the spelling has been corrected. Secondly, as SteveBaker has pointed out in the past, you may be inadvertently changing the question because you don't know the jargon of the field — SteveBaker's example was that if his intentional use of "automagically" were corrected by say, Cuddlyable3, someone to "automatically", this would be a definite change in meaning, and might make SteveBaker look bad for giving a wrong answer. Thirdly, errors in the querent's grammar and spelling sometimes actually end up helping us answer — we have all seen the very badly written queries about how to write a cover letter for a resume, and if Cuddlyable3 corrects all the spelling and grammar, the querent is never going to get the answer "Your spelling and grammar are quite bad, so you must have your cover letter proofread by a friend" or the like. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:23, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Comet Tuttle I object to your abusing my name in your conjectures about me allegedly altering an OP's question. I have corrected by striking and substituting a neutral "someone" in your post. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:26, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow, Cuddlyable3, what the hell? Modifying my comments about you on this talk page? That's strictly not allowed. Stop altering my posts. I'm reverting back. I am utilizing your name as an example because of your history of correcting others' grammar. Sorry you don't like my example, but it's my post and you've no right to alter it. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:32, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Please maintain civility. Your personal opinion of another person's history is your own affair. I have objected to your abusing my name. It seems you plan to continue that regardless. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:50, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Since you enjoy being corrected (or at least aspire to), I would like to point out that editing someone else's posts like you just did are unquestionably a violation of policy. (see : WP:TALK) If you had Removed CT's post you might have claimed that it was a "personal attack" and therefore an acceptable application of "Removing harmful posts", but I think that would have been hard to defend, and regardless that's not what you did. APL (talk) 23:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Should that not be "editing....is" not "editing...are" in your post? I do claim that making up little stories and putting my name in them as Comet Tuttle does above is a personal attack. I don't know why you are speculating pro's and con's about WP:RPA because regardless that's not what I did.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 07:46, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Could be. It was my intent only to communicate clearly, not with with absolute grammatical precision.

However, I may have failed even in that. I was speculating on ways that your edit of Tuttle's post might have fallen into wikipedia's guidelines on editing other people's posts on talk pages. (WP:TPO) I did this to illustrate that I had thought the matter through logically before accusing you of violating them. APL (talk) 16:22, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Obviously a section heading might need to be changed, for example if it violates policy in some way, like if it said "Comet Tuttle is a silly pudding" or maybe something worse. In that case, as noted below, use the "anchor" template to retain the old title so that the arrow links still work. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:36, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the only two paths we should consider are removal and no-change. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:34, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I will keep my own counsel about when and if to copyedit a section header, and if I do, I will use the {{anchor}} template that I have just learned about (thanks Xeno!). I don't edit people's posts (except occasionally to decap someone who's shouting), but I make exceptions for section headers because section headers with atrocious grammar bug the crap out of me. worse than leisure suits, even. Don't worry though, I don't feel the urge to do it that often. --Ludwigs2 21:14, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I am startled by the implication that you treat people's leisure suits the same way, and change them without asking. 81.131.51.105 (talk) 00:43, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

The problem with that is that leisure suits are the logic fore-runners of track suits, making the people who wear them particularly difficult to catch. --Ludwigs2 01:16, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Well excuse me, I look good in 2-piece purple with white shoes [14]. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 07:54, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

It occurs to me that, in the spirit of completeness, there's one more case to mention. Occasionally we get posters who use no title at all (not even the deprecated "Question" or "Query"). But the RD-archiving bot won't always archive something that doesn't have a level-2 heading to demarcate it as an archivable entry. So when this happens, I unceremoniously make up a decently-descriptive heading and add it. (And since this generally happens after the bot has completed its work for the day in question, the entry therefore doesn't end up showing up in the daily summaries on the per-month archive index. See Archives/Computing/2010 June 6 vs. Archives/Computing/June 2010 for the most recent example [15] of this.) —Steve Summit (talk) 19:50, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Search boxes

The page Wikipedia:Reference_desk has two search boxes, both of which search Wikipedia. It would be more useful if the second one was a box to "Search reference desk archives", like at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives. 213.122.64.50 (talk) 15:30, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I thought that was there already. I'll look into adding it. --Ludwigs2 16:17, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

This has been suggested three times before that I'm aware of. No-one ever seems to bother. Here's hoping! 90.193.232.32 (talk) 23:06, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I've been through the torturous code that defines these things a bit, so I'll manage to get it done (sysops willing). just give me a bit on it. --Ludwigs2 23:54, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Nicely done! Vimescarrot (talk) 23:18, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

My pleasure. --Ludwigs2 23:22, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Hey, you did it! Though I see you left the old search box in, so the page still has two search boxes which do the same thing. (I just checked this by using them both to search for "redundant engineering".) *Shrug* I guess more options never hurt anybody. ...ooh, and you put more options on the individual desks, too. Very pleasing. 213.122.62.82 (talk) 00:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Title2

Testing the "anchor" template. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:28, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

IT WORKS

OK, can we get agreement that IF a title needs to be changed in a ref desk page, THEN use the "anchor" template so as not to break the links? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:31, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

No, I can't imagine a case where it's acceptable to change a section header. Disruptive content can be removed, but other than that, no changes at all. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:28, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

So if the heading is unacceptable (i.e. it violates policy), regardless of the quality of the question, we should simply zap the section? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:33, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Tuttle, It would make sense (to me) to edit a section header that was in violation of RefDesk guidelines, but containing a question that was not otherwise disruptive. Such as "Question", or "Please Answer", or simply a question that had no header. APL (talk) 23:10, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Well done Bugs. It's a good solution. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:40, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

You should thank Xeno for putting me onto it. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:46, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

We needed you to test it and you came through! Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:55, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I merely followed the programmer's creed: "If it works, it's production; otherwise, it's just a test." :) But beware - I intend to follow up this success with a demand that my current salary here be doubled every day for the next 30 days. >:) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:59, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a reasonably good idea, but I would hate to see it used as an excuse to suddenly start messing with other people's (intelligible, but mildly or obscurely incorrect) subject headers just for the sake of doing it. (Without first consulting with the header-creator like WP:TALK recommends, of course.) APL (talk) 22:49, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

As a point of interest, the original obsolete, but magically still functional link is here. APL (talk) 23:10, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Good find, well done bugs. I can use Template:anchor in mainspace too. Can it be added to Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Guidelines#Don't_edit_others'_questions_or_answers as something to do if the heading must be changed. (That page seems fairly official so I'm no going to make the change myself).87.102.83.66 (talk) 00:33, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

(NO! You most certainly are not! Changing a guideline requires a full debate and consensus agreement to change.)SteveBaker (talk) 05:43, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Gasp what horror! We cannot have people being bold and editing things before SteveBaker has even had a chance to give a long lecture with scarcely any reference to a Wikipedia article but with gratuitous stuff such as calling me a nazi and demolishing all the world's religions at a stroke with his atheism. He does that so well, really well. Perhaps not well enough to contribute much worthwhile in mainspace but he is well informed, if not about apostrophes to judge by the mistakes on his website. @87.102.83.66 the worst that can happen to the bold is change-->revert-->discuss. If you see something that can be improved, improve it! Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:17, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that this is helpful at all - it merely serves as another incitement to mangling of the OP's question:

1. It allows the user to find the question in a Wiki search operation - but it doesn't help if the OP is merely visually inspecting the index at the top of the page. We know that most of our OP's are congenitally unable to use search functions efficiently - so the odds are strong that they are simply scrolling down the page, looking for the title of their question. For those people, using this 'band-aid' to patch up an illicit edit is completely useless.
2. It doesn't resolve my major objection to editing one single word of what the OP or any of the respondents said - which is that you may, without even realizing it, totally change the meaning of the question - or destroy some valuable clue that might help us produce a better answer. I don't want to see what YOU think the question should have been! That's of zero use to me. I want to see what the OP actually asked...right or wrong.
3. It doesn't change the rules - which are that you're not allowed to edit posts except to fix formatting or to replace titles like "Question" that the OP should know are not acceptable here. Until you have a proper discussion and consensus to change the guidelines, it doesn't matter a damn what technological wizardry you've dreamed up - it's still not allowed.

Again:

• If the question is unambiguous but has some minor problem (spelling, punctuation, whatever), then you are in no better position to fix it than me or anyone else here. That being the case, I'm just as capable of figuring out what it meant to say as you are (actually, more so judging by the usual quality of your responses here). So I neither want nor need your "fix".
• If the question is ambiguous then I most certainly don't want you to "fix" the ambiguity because you are then imposing only one of the two or more possible meanings of the question. If it's genuinely ambiguous, you cannot possibly know how to fix it - so you have at best only a 50/50 chance of not screwing up. In that case, I need to see the ambiguous question in exactly it's original form so that I can either ask the OP which (s)he meant - or perhaps answer the question both ways.
• Even more than that - if you DO have some crucial observation to make about the phrasing of the question (like, maybe that it's ambiguous and none of the rest of us have noticed that) - then you can simply say so - in your own post, underneath the question.

There is no benefit to be gained whatever from you changing the original post or it's title in any way - EXCEPT to fix formatting where the actual content is unchanged and we make any disruption of the rest of the page go away - OR to replace missing titles or titles like "Question" that violate our rules.

So you see, aside from those two very particular situations, in no possible case does your "fixing" the title or any other part of the post help the reference desk in any way whatever...to the contrary - every single thing you change has the potential to fuck things up, cause confusion and result in our customers getting worse service than they do now.

The reference desk is a process for answering people's questions. Having the pages read like beautifully typeset, grammatically perfect prose is not part of our mission here - but squeezing every drop of meaning from that question is what it's all about.

So be a good chap - read and obey the guidelines and understand that they were carefully thought out and put there for an excellent reason.

SteveBaker (talk) 05:42, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

An OP's actual question should not be in the heading at all. If it is, that's a kind of formatting error. When we see that error, it is reasonable to push the question down into the place for it. Not a word from the OP is thereby changed. If you understand the question then you can give it a proper title, otherwise leave it alone and let someone else do the job. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 08:28, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Theoretically, yes, as the guideline says "write a few words that briefly tell the volunteers the subject of the question." That raises the question, are we here to lecture questioners about the use of the ref desk, or are we here to try to answer good-faith questions? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:32, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

People's spelling, punctuation, grammar etc are all part of their online persona. By changing that you're changing the person the rest of us see. For example, I've met three Germans on Omegle, and I was able to identify them before they told me simply by the way they talked (superior English skills to everyone else, specific phrases and choice of words, etc). I appreciate that's not the best example because Germans are particularly easy to identify. But in any case, changing something someone else says destroys what it is we see of them... Vimescarrot (talk) 09:33, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Permit me Vimescarrot to make you the subject of my experiment. I have changed the indent of your whole post. You may say that I manipulated it without your permission and I have indeed caused a movement of every character. But not a word of what you said have I distorted and all is exactly as you typed it. I hope you don't find any reason to take offence at what I did but it would be interesting to hear about it if you do. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:25, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't responding to your post directly (just the subject of the discussion in general), so I don't believe that level of indentation is appropriate...plus, I don't think we're talking about formatting here. We're talking about SPG. Vimescarrot (talk) 12:57, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

The rules allow reformatting of indentions and such, provided it does not distort things. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:28, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I take Vimescarrot's point and have restored the intended indentation. SPG means Spelling Punctuation and Grammar which have not been changed. Thank you Vimescarrot and Baseball Bugs for being here in an exercise in what can be done without shame, offence or bitterness on anyone's part. I shall offer a second experiment below. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:48, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the reason Vimescarrot mentioned SPG is because these are the kind of changes we have been discussing and, no matter how justified they may seem from a language prescriptivist point of view, these are the changes which are met with resistance by a significant part of the people posting here. On the other hand, no one seems to be opposed to changes of format or indentation (as long as these changes make sense and are warranted, of course). ---Sluzzelin talk 14:00, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

That's right. Vimescarrot (talk) 15:21, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Look, this isn't the thread for it (see Fixing grammar, general bitterness above) but I do believe we've got consensus on this. In general, on Talk or Talk-like pages (such as the Reference Desks), do not edit the postings of others. In particular, do not edit their posts for spelling, punctuation, or grammar. In particular, this includes their Subject/Title lines as well as the rest of their text. I know we don't have unanimous agreement on these points, but as I say, I do believe we have consensus. —Steve Summit (talk) 15:44, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I've been lurking, but this seems a good time to say that I support Steve Summit's statement. -- Scray (talk) 17:57, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I, too, support Steve Summit's statement. Comet Tuttle (talk) 02:38, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with Steve Summit's statement. Obviously. OP's own their questions but not their title lines. A title line such as 'i wunder bout this' in the example below is useless. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:54, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, that title ("i wunder bout this", your example) would be (i) familiar to the OP who wrote it, (ii) familiar to others once read by them, (iii) a link to the question from the page history, etc. Clearly, "useless" is factually incorrect; perhaps not as useful as it could be, but that's subjective, argumentative, and not possible to optimize fully. -- Scray (talk) 20:08, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not "useless" although such bad English might invite a few snickers. But there's no reason to alter it, because if the one altering understands it, there's a good chance everyone else reading it understands it also - hence changing it is not procedurally necessary, it's just copping an attitude with the OP - which is something we are constantly told not to do. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:25, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

But 'i wunder bout this' might just be the latest internet meme that's shorthand for some complicated back-story that adds immensely to the question. You may not personally realize that "I can haz cheezburger?" has something to do with cats - or that "Orly?" refers to owls or "All your base are belong to us!" refers to old Japanese computer games. You might then go on to "correct" them to "Might I please have a Cheeseburger?", "Oh really?" and "All of your bases belong to us" and thereby utterly destroy those connections. If the remainder of the question is about cute pictures of cats but doesn't explicitly say so, then you just destroyed the one chance we might have had to pull a great answer out of a confusing mess. So, no, you must not change one single character of the title (except to fix formatting issues). I can't comprehend why this is such a hard concept for some people! SteveBaker (talk) 15:31, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

If it's consensus time, I'll weigh in then. The RD guidelines are local and generally work well. The overarching guidance derives from the guidelines that say though - no-one owns a section title, anywhere. But no-one has the right to change a title either, without consensus. To me the fairly obvious solution is to always hesitate to change someone else's text (basic respect for your fellow editor) and if you ever do, always always place a user talk note to explain your change (basic respect, IP user or not) and either invite or forbid the editor to make another change or revert. Your TP note will link the new section name in the diff (no fancy templates!). If they change it back, so be it, unless it violates something big. Every guideline page has that little bit at the top: "use common sense"... Franamax (talk) 21:40, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Franamax Nil Einne (talk) 12:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it's time to end this entire discussion - so I'm going to add my personal summary and call it a day.

Personal summary about the guidelines: What we have works. We just need editors to obey our stated guidelines. C3's assertion that the title isn't a part of the question and may therefore be edited in any way he sees fit is clearly incorrect. Our guidelines say that quite clearly: "If there is no title to a question, add one. You may also add to a non-descriptive title (such as "question"), but it is best to keep the original title as a portion of the new one, as it may be used by the questioner to find the question." - nowhere in there does it say that you can correct spelling or grammar or anything like that. There are excellent reasons why we don't want editors to do that. Any change you make from what the OP wrote can only possibly subtract information that respondents may need to know. The guideline doesn't grant permission to change a single character that the OP typed (although we do make exception for fixing 'disruptive formatting'). It explicitly states that even in those cases where a non-descriptive title needs improvement, you may only "add to" the title. "ADD TO" does not mean "CHANGE" or "SUBTRACT". In the case of descriptive titles (even if misspelled, grammatically incorrect, ambiguous or just plain wrong) - you aren't allowed to change a thing. The adverse consequences of changing a title have been amply demonstrated (below) and the benefits of "improving" a title have neither been explained nor demonstrated - and are (IMHO) nebulous. That said, the guidelines do not prevent people from adding a post to the thread to say that the question/title is flawed...although we are required not to insult or demean the poster for poorly written posts and that's a fine line to tread.

Personal philsophy about fixing grammar: For me, personally, there is a deeper reason to refuse to allow people to edit other peoples contributions (questions, answers or titles). When we 'speak' online, nobody knows anything about us beyond what we write. Our personalities, our reputations, stand or fall on this thin stream of ASCII text. Changing what someone writes is a distortion of that. Sure, I make grammar, punctuation, spelling and typing mistakes (actually, we all do - but at widely varying frequencies) - but that's who I am. I don't want even well-meaning people "fixing" my speech.

Now - having said that - this DOES NOT APPLY to formal writing in article space. When I write an article for Wikipedia, I take a lot of extra care - and I encourage people to come in behind me and fix my little 'oopsies'. In such cases, my signature does not appear on the text - my reputation isn't particularly involved, it is the reputation of Wikipedia that is at stake - and we should all be vigilant about that. But when I sign my writing - I am certifying "This is what Steve Baker wrote - right or wrong" - and if someone alters that, they are misrepresenting me. Sometimes I mis-write things for a reason - humor, self-deprecation, because I want British-English spelling or US-English spelling. It's not the business of other editors to "fix" that. If they really feel the need to add commentary about my post in a post of their own, I suppose that's OK - they should be aware that it's not going to change anything though. In the specific case of the RD, continually nagging people about spelling and grammar in such posts is disruptive, annoying and wildly off-topic...UNLESS it serves to highlight a potential and important ambiguity. Generally, it is just more polite to bite your tongue and let the crappy spelling say what it does about the poster - feel free to feel smug about how much better you are than me. You're probably right.

There is some history here: A few years ago, before we had the "no editing other people's posts" guideline, some contributor decided it would be funny to change the wording of some of my posts such a way as to mangle the meaning into something they considered humorous. I went ballistic and demanded a change to the guidelines - when there was no consensus for that, I decided that I could not tolerate contributing to a forum where my signed words could be legitimately mangled. So I stopped contributing to the reference desk for nearly a year - and was only persuaded to return when it was pointed out that the present guidelines were firmly in place and that maintaining them was now the consensus view.

This is an important matter of moral principle. It goes far beyond issues of where the apostrophe goes.

SteveBaker (talk) 18:54, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

i wunder bout this

If you have like two numbers,say their both 2 wots it called when yu do sumthing with them and you get 4? Ain't there something I can read about that? This is a test question. If you saw this question on the Ref. Desk how would you handle it? [16]

Many here would suggest subtracting it. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:45, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

See the articles Addition and Multiplication. Bielle (talk) 14:43, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

... and exponentiation. More generally, see operation (mathematics). (Note: I normally wouldn't handle this question at all, and leave it to our excellent mathematical minds. I most certainly would ignore potential problems with spelling, grammar, and punctuation, as the question is intelligible to me). ---Sluzzelin talk 14:45, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

And I, good Sluzzelin, only think I can answer some mathematical questions, but end up doing just a part of the job. (There is a lesson of another sort somewhere in all this, too.) Thanks for your expansion, in the finest tradition of the Ref Desks. Bielle (talk) 14:56, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I would ignore it. Aaronite (talk) 15:27, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

This is an easy question so you should know how to handle it if you ever plan to answer a real question on the Ref. Desks. Does anyone notice that this OP is clearly poor at English writing, the heading they provided is useless (or would you let it go into the archive the way it is?) and the question is a very simple mathematical one. Do you "help" the OP by sending him/her to read an article that inter alia presents "Addition in set theory and category theory"? Bielle understands that there can be two answers but will the OP understand that? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:45, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

"See addition"; my terse notes to on-the-border questions are typical. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 15:48, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) We often cannot know whether the OP will understand our answers or the articles we link to (and I admit that some of the scientific and mathematical articles are written for scientists and mathematicians, not for laypeople). In these cases we can only make an assumption as to the OP's understanding, and hope for them to request a simpler (or more complex) answer when we missed the mark. I usually don't base my assumptions regarding the OP's level of understanding on their level of grammar or spelling, however. ---Sluzzelin talk 15:52, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

You should estimate what will help the OP and, as Comet Tuttle wrote, "errors in the querent's grammar and spelling sometimes actually end up helping us answer". Giving your best-effort answer demands some flexibility and a dose of humility. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 16:17, 10 July 2010 (UTC)SteveBaker wrote "squeezing every drop of meaning from that question is what it's all about". Sometimes even nazi-calling SteveBaker speaks sensibly. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 16:28, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, and the same two qualities apply to giving your best-effort reading of the question and other people's comments. (What you wrote in small font is just, well, inflammatory) ---Sluzzelin talk 16:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

While I would answer as I have done, I would be thinking that this is likely a troll. The poor English is inconsistently so, and demonstrates the patterns of a native, though faked, "illiterate" speaker of English. That such a person could genuinely find their way to the Ref Desk to ask such a question is unlikely (to me) in the extreme. If I had thought the question real, I would have explained in the "2 oranges plus 2 oranges" style, and then linked to articles on WP or on Simple. Bielle (talk) 16:50, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Mea culpa I did a poor job of faking illiteracy when I made up the question. I promise to try harder (joke). Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:34, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I would read such a question not as someone having poor English but more as someone with decent English trying? to speak in a 'cool' or to be blunt lazy fashion that is unfortunately not too uncommon on the internet. I personally have far less tolerance for such people then for people with genuinely poor English and am less likely to bother and work out what they're saying. Nil Einne (talk) 11:52, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, are we done yet? This is now well beyond petty. I suggest we all go to a library and ask this kind of question, and then base our answering styles on how they deal with it. 24.83.104.78 (talk) 18:16, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

While I understand people being bothered by long off-topic discussions on the desks themselves, I never quite understand why one would get fed up with discussions on this page. After all, that's what this page is for. The discussions are usually of little consequence, except for exchanging our views. If you don't like that, don't read it. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:20, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not the discussion itself, it's the tone of the discussion. Civility comes first, but these discussinos are jsut getting petty. No one is paid to do this, and everyone is trying their best to do it right in an unpoliced environment. 24.83.104.78 (talk) 19:07, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I agree about the best efforts and am against policing too. I'm also an advocate of pluralism at the desks. Yet sometimes we need to exchange our dearly-held individual notions of the desks' purpose in order to understand certain behavioural patterns and interact more harmoniously. Not only aren't we paid, we are passionate amateurs and humans. Sometimes we need to "take it outside". This talk page is sufficiently far away from the desks. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:36, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Adding numbers

i wunder bout this. If you have like two numbers,say their both 2 wots it called when yu do sumthing with them and you get 4? Ain't there something I can read about that? This is the test question exactly as written with a new meaningful title. Links to the old title still work thanks to the anchor tag.

You get 4 when you add 2 and 2. See the article about Arithmetic in Simple Wikipedia for an introduction. SomeEditor

You also get 4 when you multiply 2 by 2. Here are easy articles to explain addition and multiplication. SomeOtherEditor

Wikipedia has a comprehensive article Arithmetic. ThirdEditor

Above are some responses that are likely to help the OP at a beginner level. If this were a real question then jokes might come here.

Above is a good way to handle the test question. Note the change to a useful title. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:52, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

This is, ironically, a wonderful illustration of Steve Baker's point (made a couple of times above): you've changed the meaning of the question! You guessed the OP was asking about addition, but multiplication (2*2) and exponentiation (2²) also yield 4. Thanks for that. I'd be sorely tempted to revert, but I think it's such a stark example of the hazards of editing the title that I'll leave it be. -- Scray (talk) 01:10, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Exactly and well said. n.b. all. hydnjo (talk) 01:26, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The title attempts to answer its own question, and does so incorrectly. But it was only a test question anyway. If a "normal" OP had asked it that way, he would have got it wrong also, but it doesn't really matter as long as his actual question was readable. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:06, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I think Cuddlyable3 was trying to defend the benefit of changing the original title (i wunder bout this) to a cleaned up (Adding numbers) title. If that was his intention then this example failed to demonstrate any advantage at all - quite the contrary (see Scray 3 posts above). hydnjo (talk) 02:24, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

"I wonder about this" or any pseudo-English equivalent is essentially just another way to say "question". I'm not so sure changing it is necessary, although it could be helpful, provided it was changed to a more unique title, such as "question about numbers". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

I kinda agree with where you're going Bugs but it opens such a large can of worms - so now we become umpires. So much ambiguity of intent will surely lead to keystrokes galore here on the talk - let it be except as outlined by SteveBaker above. hydnjo (talk) 02:46, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

So, the OP says i wunder bout this then Editor C3 says no, Adding numbers is what the OP meant then editor BB says no no that's too narrow, he meant question about numbers and editor h says no, that's still too narrow and changes it to operation (mathematics)... etc. Let it be... hydnjo (talk) 03:05, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Using subsections instead of substitution, imagine the following pedantry:

OP: == i wunder bout this ==

C3: === Better title: Adding numbers ===

BB: === Even better title: Question about numbers ===

h: === Even better better title: Operation (mathematics) ===

Confucius: === Best title: 我不知道这 ===

So instead of responding as best as we can (per SteveBaker's suggestion) we start a pissing contest to mind-read the OP's intent? hydnjo (talk) 03:51, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Hahahahaha!!! Beautiful...truly beautiful! Bugs sets the trap - Cuddlyable3 walks right into it and our biggest proponent of editing posts demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt why we don't allow it! I'm quite looking forward to seeing what ridiculous argument Cuddlyable will put forward to worm his way out of this one...but quite honestly, the debate is over. Quod erat demonstrandum. I think I'm going to celebrate by ritually abusing some apostrophe's. SteveBaker (talk) 05:30, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Very few examples are like that, and I see this post as more of a taunt to C3 than anything else. This discussion is completely useless, other then people with minor differences picking at each other with no mercy because of this ('). I think some users deserve a short-term ban --Chemicalinterest (talk) 19:50, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Ouch, nice start ;-) hydnjo (talk) 04:43, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, Steve started a long time ago. He's made it a badge of honour to refuse to differentiate between the apostrophe-less possessive pronoun its and the apostrophe-containing abbreviation it's. His work here may well place him in the Messiah category, but what I see is a very naughty boy. :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 06:19, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

hey, if we do it too, does that make us his apostrals? --Ludwigs2 06:50, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Hah - were gonna need an Apostrals Creed. hydnjo (talk) 12:33, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Then fall on your knees and beg forgiveness for not following his example. He puts apostrophes in where they're not required; what you just did is leave one out where it is required. These errors do not cancel each other out, but combine to make something even worse than the sum of the parts.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 13:21, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

So sorry, Apostral's' Creed then? hydnjo (talk) 13:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you want "Apostrophic Creed". --Ludwigs2 18:38, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I was actually referring to "were" for "we're" .... -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:19, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

That's the one form of apostrophe abuse that drive's me crazy. There completely separate words! That's not a misplaced apostrophe, their homophones! I don't care much about apostrophe's, but I do try to rain in my homophone abuse. APL (talk) 16:57, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, good job BaseballBug's! APL (talk) 16:57, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I mentioned the talk page guidelines earlier. When reading the talk page I noticed an additional thing. The talk page guidelines also say Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page. This is an important point. If changing the header is likely to change the meaning of the question then of course changing the header should not be done. There is some discussion of this in relation to this example, but a far more obvious example would be something like if the header is George Bush and the question is 'when did he become the president of the USA?'. Changing the header to say George W. Bush or George H. W. Bush is NOT appropriate (let alone changing it to say Barack Hussein Obama) since it changes the meaning of the question. One of the problems of course is that people do sometimes leave part of the question in the header. While there's nothing we can do about this, it is something that IMHO is poor practice since it's not uncommon people won't read the header and therefore may misintepreted the question (definitely I've been involved in cases where reading the header substanially changed my understanding of the question) Nil Einne (talk) 14:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

In such a situation, it's quite appropriate to respond with something like, "Note the title - I think the OP's question refers to ..." or some other clarifying statement. That way, others can read more closely, and the OP gets the hint that they could have structured the question more clearly. Self-realization is a much more effective (at least polite) teacher than blunt correction. -- Scray (talk) 15:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you hydnjo for summarising the suggested titles. The OP did not ask for a list of all the ways to get 4, instead he/she asked "wots it called". SomeEditor gave the simplest alternative together with an introductory level reference that is appropriate where OP has low math skills. @Baseball Bugs, if every section heading had the form "Question about....." that would be a unnecessary and redundant repetition. That is why the heading of the Ref. Desk instructs Do not write 'Question' or 'Query' . A title "Operation (mathematics)" is correct. The title 我不知道这 is unacceptable because this is English Wikipedia and it would only provoke derision at ウィキペディア because it is dumb. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:28, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

This is not the place for private discussion or negotiation between editors. Taken to Cuddlyable3's talk.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
SteveBaker Taunting is not part of a civil discussion. SteveBaker can receive my answers to his concerns at a mediation. Since I have received no reply to my offer[17] to enter WP:MEDIATION which could spare this page for more toxic abuse, that offer shall be withdrawn in 48 hours from this post. I have lost interest in Argument from ignorance about Apostrophe or in taunting behaviour learned from Nelson Muntz (a character in a TV series that is viewable in Austin, Texas). Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:28, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Even if we assume that C3 guessed correctly and this is a question about addition, This still nicely demonstrates the danger of changing question section titles. The hypothetical question-asker (apparently) had no knowledge of the word "adding", and now you've gone and made it so its difficult for him to find his question unless he/she recognizes the word! What a frustrating experience you have created for the hypothetical question-asker! Apparently without even realizing you were doing it.APL (talk) 16:30, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

(In a more serious context, imagine if a question titled "what is this guy's name?" was replaced with the unarguably more descriptive "Question about Martin Van Buren" APL (talk) 16:36, 11 July 2010 (UTC))

Here's an idea: The primary purpose of the ref desk is to answer questions, right? Perhaps the headings should only be changed if the editor changing it is simultaneously providing the correct answer to the question? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:21, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

If that was a serious proposal, best you read SteveBaker's final post in the thread 2 up. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

He wrote a good summary, and of course the debate continued after that. And, yes, I was serious. There is no valid reason for messing with a heading unless the heading violates wikipedia policy such as making a personal attack or a legal threat or something. But if someone can't stand to see a spelling error in a heading (which was the rationale in the edit summary on a recent ref desk item), then either (1) take the page off the watch list; or (2) provide the definitive answer to the question, and THEN change the heading (and add the "anchored" template) if the misspelled heading is driving them nuts. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:54, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Nobody is infallible. How do you know that you've answered the question correctly?

I'm sure there isn't a single person here who hasn't at some time provided an answer that they thought answered the question, but which subsequently turned out to be misleading or flat out wrong. Consider this: Suppose I read (but misunderstand) the OP's poorly worded question. I provide what I consider to be a Grade A perfect answer...and then (by your rule) "fix up" his question to remove confusion. Now his question reads as if my answer actually is correct - when in fact it's totally wrong because I misinterpreted the question in the first place! This is PRECISELY the reason why we can't allow that. We need the possibility for a subsequent contributor to come along and say "Hey, Steve - you misread the OP's question! Here is the right answer..."...but if I'm allowed to "fix" the question, that can't happen and the OP will suffer.

It always comes down to the same thing. If the question was clear enough for you to be able to correct it - then it'll be equally clear to everyone else and you don't NEED to correct it. If the question wasn't clear - then you can't correct it reliably anyway.

Once again, if you feel the burning need to "correct" the question, you can merely add your own post to the thread that says "I think the question is misworded, it should say this." - that way you've passed on whatever clever insight you have - but you haven't destroyed the question so everyone else can decide for themselves whether they agree with your reformulation or not.

No, NO **NO** We do not edit the content of other people's posts...period. SteveBaker (talk) 15:20, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Good luck convincing the ones who can't stand seeing spelling and grammar errors in section headings. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:47, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Such as this one:[18] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:54, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

So, you guys are of the opinion that changing "Wut do other countries think of American footbal" to "What do other countries think of American football" somehow creates a different meaning for the question? You think that somehow creates a problem for wikipedia as an encyclopedia? I'm pretty well convinced that editing the question so that it reflects proper English grammar as opposed to writing that would embarrass a third-grader is a distinct improvement to the encyclopedia as a whole, but if you disagree can you at least give a non-hyperbolic reason for your disagreement.

You all seem to forget that only part of this reflects the needs and interests of the person asking the question. yes, obviously, we should answer the poster's question, but we should also remember that this is not a web forum, and that questions (as well as their answers) are there to help a wide range of other readers as well. Things are more relaxed here on the ref desk - I get that, and approve of it - but we still need to maintain some level of encyclopedic standards. Or do you disagree? --Ludwigs2 16:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. A reference desk is not expected to maintain encyclopedic standards. If a reference librarian insisted on correcting the grammar of every question he or she was asked I would not be surprised if they got a good number of complaints.

If, on the other hand, a reference librarian allowed patrons to ask him or her questions in less than proper english, I cannot imagine the other patrons complaining that the quality of the questions did not compare favorably to the writing found in the library's holdings. APL (talk) 18:41, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I have also prepared a sarcastic answer : Thank goodness you changed that. Before your edit I was completely unable to understand the question. That was absolutely worth potentially breaking the question-asker's bookmarks, obsoleting the question-asker's contributions page links, confusing the question asker's in-browser search, or generally irritating him by publicly correcting him! APL (talk) 18:41, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

well then, we will have to agree to disagree. and oddly, I happen to agree with what you've presented as sarcasm. strange world, isn't it? --Ludwigs2 18:56, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

The RD guidelines are clear - there is clearly no consensus to change them - so you're going to have to suck it up and leave other people's posts alone - no matter the grammar, spelling, punctuation or anything else. So don't do that. This discussion is over. SteveBaker (talk) 22:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

IAR. suck it up yourself. --Ludwigs2 23:02, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Nope. WP:IAR is used when a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining WP (in this case it's when a rule prevents you from answering questions on the RD). If you want to apply WP:IAR here, you first have to explain how the rule prevents you from answering the question. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 09:34, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

As I said before, copyediting headers so they are grammatical is an improvement to Wikipedia. All of the arguments you present against it are either personal or technological in nature. or did I miss the spot there someone explained how having badly written headers makes for a better encyclopedia? I may need to send an email to Britannica and let them know they've been doing it wrong all these years... --Ludwigs2 23:22, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

This is the refdesk, not the encyclopedia. Copyediting other people's posts (including headers) on the desks is not an improvement to WP and it's not an improvement to the refdesk. In fact, it causes more problems as APL explained. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 07:16, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Not a convincing argument. --Ludwigs2 14:57, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not the one promoting a violation of the guidelines so I'm not the one who has to do the convincing. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 18:35, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I should have recognized a long time ago that what this conversation needs is an old-style telephone hang up.

<click> --Ludwigs2 23:57, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Steve, I happen to agree with you on the substance of the issue. But please do not take it upon yourself to dictate when a discussion is over. It doesn't work anyway, as this and the previous post prove, so it's a rather hollow and empty diktat. If your arguments are compelling, they will win out on their own merits. Attempting to shut off any counter-arguments betrays some sort of fear of failure. (Jack of Oz =) -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 05:52, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Someone posted a post named "Nitroglycrine" which I renamed to "Nitroglycerin" (I'm American"). Since SineBot didn't sign the comment, it must have been another test by an established editor. Whenever I correct grammar, I always try to help the person to answer the question. No correcting without helping them.

This argument could go on forever with no point to it. Hyperbolism and emotionalism take the place of proper reasoning, which is when an argument should be terminated. There is obviously not a consensus to stop editing titles as Ludwigs2, me, Cuddlyable3, and possibly Travatore all agree that changing the titles is helpful at times.

I deal with people that do not know English very well and I correct then periodically, though not enough to give a better-than-you feeling. I could also make it humorous too when correcting their mistakes. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 11:08, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I couldn't find in the history of the reference desk the person who posted the question. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 11:11, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Incredible. Despite all this discussion, a change to a heading, which serves no purpose whatsoever.[19] - as well as lecturing the OP, which I get yelled at for all the time. Better you should have finished your research on who added the question, which was just the second entry below your first entry on the subject[20] and was entered by a user called Jon Ascton, who sometimes asks weird questions but he's been on here 3 years. Well, tell ya what... I have changed the section header back to its original title, and included the "anchor" template to the newer spelling so the links won't be broken. Go now, and wiki-sin no more! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:04, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I was looking for a /*Nitroglycrine:new section*/ in the edit history, but I didn't see it. I do not understand your first statement. And I am not wikisinning, just correcting an error. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 20:37, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

As noted AT GREAT LENGTH here, there is NO NEED to correct any supposed error in the section heading. So DON'T DO IT AGAIN, ya dig?

OK, the reason you couldn't find it directly is because sometimes editors will edit an existing section and simply add the heading inside it, at the end, which is what happened here. You can find out exactly where by doing kind of a "binary search" on the history, until you discover where it came from. And you can speed that up by noting what section it came after, and look for recent updates to that section. That's how I found it. Of course, it's easier if the OP would bother signing his posts. That's another story. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:31, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Question removed

[21] I assume this is LightCurrent or another banned user. I removed as per the actions I have observed from administrators in similar siuations.And Bugs - DNFTT includes you not feeding the .. as per WP:DENY which you often quote...178.78.64.206 (talk) 22:26, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Even by removing the questions without comment, we feed the troll. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:29, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Such is life.. Got signed out buddy - just to prove 178.78... [22] is me .. signed back in.. Sf5xeplus (talk) 22:32, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Just playing it safe. :) Ya know, even when saying wp:deny or wp:dnftt, we feed the troll. That's show biz. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:36, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

BB, sometimes just resist ;-) hydnjo (talk) 22:48, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I could delete it with no edit summary at all, if that would be an improvement. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

As regards Elsie in particular, I'm just trying to reach out, as she probably still feels stung from having been banned, and wants to edit. I'm not suggesting lifting her ban, though. That would require a formal process that she herself should initiate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:05, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Who's 'elsie' ? Not LC or Avril, did I miss a week? 178.78.64.206 (talk) 23:11, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Say "LC" out loud. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:14, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Careful BB, Elsie bites ;-) hydnjo (talk) 23:17, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Doh. eLL-see .. get it know. Sounds like you're getting superstitious, like actors and the Scottish Play.178.78.64.206 (talk) 23:23, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

What's with the tiny picture of a cow? At first I thought it was a rebus for "bull", but them's udders under there... Matt Deres (talk) 03:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Elsie the Cow, or an unreasonable facsimile. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:38, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

LC? Avril? Who are these people? 24.7.104.66 (talk) 23:28, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

They are all really just one guy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:36, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

that's very buddhist. --Ludwigs2 23:38, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

I always thought they were different.. but .. who cares ?? 178.78.64.206 (talk) 23:42, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

They are different. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 23:50, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Technically, they might be different. As a practical matter, they are all just the same guy. That's the essence of some wise, if not necessarily Buddhist, advice that an admin gave me awhile back. Rather than spending too much time chasing down socks and such, just think of them all as one lone jerk, and things go much easier. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:21, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

lol - the buddhist thought there would be that we are all that one lone jerk. sobering thought, that. namaste. --Ludwigs2 00:59, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Search the archives, or just wikipedia for User:Light current (you'll find endless discussions that aren't worth reading).. the "Avril Troll" used to make complicated edits to templates so that a massive picture of Avril Lavigne would appear on the reference desk and elsewhere eg Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2008_July_9#Vandalism_on_Gregory_Peck.3F .178.78.64.206 (talk) 23:42, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yes, the "Lone Jerk." Who was that masked editor? Edison (talk) 04:54, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

For those who may not be aware, Tiscali UK's DSL service uses two rather large blocks of IP addresses. IPs beginning with 79.75. or 79.76. and IPs beginning with 88.104. and 88.105. are all the same ISP, and on the Reference Desk are all the same banned user (yes, Light current). It is safe to apply WP:RBI to any Ref Desk edits from these ranges. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 00:33, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'll believe you, but I'm puzzled by how you can be so sure that Tiscali customer asking a silly question = banned user. Must be more to it than that. 213.122.62.82 (talk) 00:42, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

It fits the M.O. of the banned user, so we just automatically zap them. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:50, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, OK. I'll assume unsigned questions about dogs and chocolate are the M.O. ... or something. 213.122.62.82 (talk) 00:57, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec)There are a number of other identifying features. For what it's worth, a few months ago I did screen a year's worth of contributions to the Ref Desk from those ranges, and I was able to conclude that all but two edits were definitely from Light current. (Those last two might have been him as well, but he didn't give himself away conspicuously.) Reverting Tiscali contribs to the Ref Desk on sight (not to Wikipedia as a whole, just here) has a very low false positive rate. I'm afraid that I'm not prepared to give away details about how his contributions are detected. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:00, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I hope we're not just blocking all tiscali edits to this page - there might be someone legitimate who wants to ask a question. It's pretty obvious from the first post from a new IP whether or not it's him or not anyway.Sf5xeplus (talk) 01:14, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I take your analysis as gospel at this point. Thanks for tipping us off on the new IP range. Just more fish to fry! ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:01, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Just to answer User talk:213.122.62.82's point - it's not obvious from that question, obviously we don't randomly ban all anon Tiscali contibutors - a look at the contributions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/88.104.85.64 is the givaway - [23] [24] [25] confirms that the user has similar interests, bees-in-bonnet and humour to LightCurrent. Sf5xeplus (talk) 01:07, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, makes sense. I will cease being afraid for my hypothetical Tiscali-using friends who might one day discover the ref desks. 213.122.62.82 (talk) 01:14, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you have to look at the contrib list. If that were his only entry, he might have got away with it. But he can't resist doing stupid stuff (probably on purpose) to tip us off. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:14, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Restore answers, while leaving out question?

Some (well at least one) of the removed questions had some good answers. Is it possible to restore those, while leaving out the original question? Like if I were to pretend to ask the question myself, with new text, and a new section header, but leaving in the answers? I just don't like to see good answers removed, mainly because other people besides the original poster read them. Ariel. (talk) 01:43, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we should do anything that encourages banned users to get away with stuff. The question about chocolate is well-covered in google, I'm sure. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:07, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

As a contributor I don't mind my comment being removed. I didn't recognise the specific range as I'm used to the 79 ones. FWIW, I don't agree we should conflate the Avril troll with elsie. The Avril troll came back and was resonably constructive then went off the rails a while back after a fuss over signing posts then came back again and has been resonably constructive since. Elsie has never shown any signs of being constructive AFAIK. Nil Einne (talk) 03:02, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

This begs the question Which is more important to Wikipedia, making quality information available or erasing evidence of banned Users? I think Wikipedia should place higher priority on the former than on the latter. Providing a question (or a response) from an IP address does not contravene Wikipedia's policies on civility, profanity etc. and the question or response adds to the quality of the encyclopedia, the question or response should remain in the interests of making quality information available.

There will always be an element of doubt about the true identity behind an IP address. Imagine an IP address is banned for repeated violations of Wikipedia's policies, and then a reasonable question or response from that IP address appears on one of Wikipedia's Reference Desks. Who wrote that reasonable question or response - was it the person who has been banned, or someone else using the IP address? We will never know for certain, but given that the question or response was reasonable we should give the benefit of the doubt to readers of Wikipedia - leave the reasonable question or response in place. Everyone benefits. Dolphin (t) 03:10, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but no. Banned is banned. And as TOAT's research shows, all entries from that IP range are from this banned user. So, no. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:15, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

My edit has been erased. So too a number of others; none of which was written by a banned IP address. I will concede that, if a banned IP address posts a question, the question can be erased promptly. But if it is not erased promptly, and one or more reasonable responses are posted, it becomes a moot point as to whether it is reasonable to delete the whole thread. Deleting a mature, established thread looks to me like vandalism. The result is the same.

Wikipedia should have a mechanism to prevent, or immediately highlight, a post made by a banned IP addressee. The fact that such a mechanism is not in place does not make it reasonable to erase mature, established threads and then use the defense that the originator is banned. My edit was erased and I think that was vandalism. Are we running an encyclopedia or a reform school? Dolphin (t) 04:07, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict with above. I actually agree with Dolphin here, and my post should be taken as a response to this entire thread, and not to his comment) Hmm. So if we'd left this question up, only a handful of regulars would even know it's from a banned user (and one would have thought they'd be discrete enough to advertise that fact and feed the troll). But because we took it down, we have spawned a multi-section thread on the talk page... feeding the troll... I'm not saying but I'm just saying... Buddy431 (talk) 04:18, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Simple approach: If you see a comment of any kind from the IP ranges noted by TOAT, zap them on sight, without comment. Minimal feeding. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:21, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Point of clarification: Has there been an official, admin vetted, topic ban on the Tiscali IP range itself, per Wikipedia:Banning policy? Or is it simply that the user, who happens to edit from that particular IP range, has been banned? If the latter, it would be highly inappropriate for a de facto block on an entire ISP to be enacted by a small group of editors, acting on their own initiative without appropriate formal community consensus. Banning an entire IP block, especially one dynamically allocated by a commercial ISP, is a drastic step, and one that shouldn't be taken lightly, or without proper community support (support that goes beyond the Ref Desk pages) - and effecting the block manually doesn't mitigate the issue. (And, yes, while no non-vandal post were made in the past, that is no guarantee that no posts by non-vandals will be made in the future. Especially as there would be no indication, by design, to the naïve user as to why their RefDesk posts are being deleted. In fact, any attempt on their part to determine why that was the case, or even what they could do differently to avoid it, would instead be seen as confirming evidence that they were a vandal.) -- 174.24.195.56 (talk) 05:06, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

There are two types of ban: one is "a user is considered banned when no administrator is willing to unblock"; the other is "banned by community consensus". ArbCom bans are really of the first type. So is this ban, no admin is going to lift the block(s), so further posting by the same user is block/ban evasion. This is a very long-term pattern of abuse, some day someone might make the effort to gather it all together into a WP:LTA entry but not today. Administrators are selected via formal community consensus and expected to use their experience and judgement. It's unfortunate that there is an ongoing need to rehash the history endlessly, every single time, over and over - but that's the way it is. Franamax (talk) 05:31, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I think they were asking if there was a Wikipedia:Rangeblock#Range_blocks - to which the answer is no - since we still get edits from those ranges. It's possible that a rangeblock for these desks could be considered - though policy appears to disallow them as a permanent feature.77.86.94.156 (talk) 14:57, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

You miss my point. While further posting by the same user is ban evasion, it does not follow that all postings from the Tiscali UK IP range are by that user. It's the fallacy of the undistributed middle:

1. The user is banned
2. The user posts from the Tiscali IP range
3. Therefore, the Tiscali IP range is banned (... er ... No.)

The reason we rehash the history is that there hasn't been a clear consensus on how to handle things. Bugs is saying that simply posting on the Reference Desk from the Tiscali IP range is sufficient evidence that the poster is the banned user in question. There are others (myself included) that maintain that, although any posts by that user should be reverted, simply posting from the same IP range is not sufficient evidence that the post is by the same banned user.

I keep envisioning a situation where a teen in the UK hears about how great the Wikipedia Reference Desk is, and how it's so much better than Yahoo Answers. When he gets home, he posts his (valid, non-troll) question to the RefDesk via his parent's Tiscali internet service. Seconds later a valiant RefDesker springs into action "Aha! Banned user! Revert! Block! Ignore!". UK teen checks his question, and notice it's not up. Thinking there's been a mistake, he reposts it. The RefDesker says to himself "Reposting! It *is* the banned user!" Figuring out now that someone has been deleting his question, the well-intentioned UK teen takes it to the talk page, where he confronts the Kafkaesque situation where every attempt he makes trying to disavow any trollish intent is seen as further confirmation that he is some banned user who he never met and wouldn't know from Adam.

I'm not adverse to some sort of topic range block or range-specific semi-protect, but if we do go that route:

1. It should be done by clear consensus, through official means.
2. Innocent, good faith users shouldn't be forced to switch their ISP to post to the RefDesk
3. Enough easily accessible information should be provided such that innocent, good faith Tiscali users *can* straightforwardly post to the RefDesk, without having to be intimately familiar with Wikipedia policy.

Failing that, simply posting to the RefDesk from the same ISP, used by thousands of other people, is not sufficient evidence that a poster has been banned. It may lower the bar on the evidence needed, but something else about the post, besides its IP address, is needed to link it to a banned user. -- 174.24.195.56 (talk) 17:03, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you 174.24.195.56. A brilliant summary of the situation.Dolphin (t) 23:20, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

You left out the part about how every edit from that IP range is from the banned user. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:33, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Let's assume TOAT is correct and every edit in the past from that IP range has been from the banned User. No-one can state with confidence that every edit in the future from that IP range will also be from the banned User. Future edits from that IP range must be considered on their merits - if an edit is inappropriate it should be erased, but if it is reasonable it must be considered carefully. It is not sensible to erase a bunch of legitimate answers simply because the question might have been posed by a banned User. Dolphin (t) 02:58, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

No, you're wrong. All the edits from those IP ranges, past and present, are from the banned user; there's no evidence anyone else is using them; and the facts supporting that TOAT is right are a dead giveaway if you stop and think and observe. And the alleged quality of a banned user's edits ARE IRRELEVANT. It's looking for a foot in the door, and banned users are NOT ALLOWED TO EDIT. PERIOD. END OF STORY. The banned user has no interest in editing within wikipedia rules, and it constantly "plays" innocent souls like yourself in an effort to stir the pot and further his junior high school level game. Don't aid and abet him. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:34, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

"there's no evidence anyone else is using them" LOLWUT. Are you kidding? Thousands of people use Tiscali as their ISP, and you're trying to claim NO ONE of them will EVER edit the Reference Desk in the future??? The current evidence is entirely irrelevant, this isn't like a single range where there's a very low possibility of anyone else use those ips. This is an entire ISP we're talking about. I agree with Dolphin51 and 174.24.195.56 100%, there is every possibility that in the future someone else will edit the desks from Tiscali. The evidence clearly shows many different Tiscali users edit the mainspace and other areas of Wikipedia as it is. What is stopping a legit user from editing the reference desk in the future? Nothing. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 23:42, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

According to TOAT, the stats say otherwise. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:55, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

No they don't. Perhaps he could clarify, but my understanding of the evidence he presented last time was that Tiscali edits to the Wikipedia mainspace are from a large variety of different users. Only on the reference desk were the edits (presumed to be) from the same person, but this does not mean that in the future someone else can't edit the Reference Desk from Tiscali. Tiscali is a major ISP serving thousands of people, there is every possibility that someone else could edit from it. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 00:00, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

82, I don't know who you are, but you are assisting a notorious troll with his work, since what's happening here is the final way trolls can disrupt the project, by keeping us bickering among ourselves instead of doing real work.

The evidence is incontrovertible that virtually every edit from a Tiscali IP to the Reference Desks is by the same individual. Yes, it's possible that some day we may get another non-registered user from there, and if/when that happens, we won't be able to say so any more. But until then, it's nicely trivial to keep that particular troll perpetually quashed. So please, let us keep doing that, and don't waste our time with unnecessary second-guessing. —02:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

If/when that happens the other non-registered user will likely be reverted as a troll, everyone will pat themselves on the back for a job well done, and the innocent user will wonder what the hell just happened. It is not "unnecessary second-guessing". Tell me what is preventing a legitimate user from editing the Reference Desks from Tiscali? Nothing. So going around saying "every edit from Tiscali is the troll" etc is giving people the impression that it's perfectly fine to blindly revert anything from that ISP without considering the very real possibility that it could be a different person. I, and the other editors who voiced concern over this, are just trying to protect and safeguard the editing privileges of future legitimate editors who may edit the desks from Tiscali ISP. If people on the desks start reverting anything from that ISP just because it's from that ISP, that is assisting a notorious troll because you're punishing new and users over their choice of ISP. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 09:10, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You're right, nothing is preventing a legitimate user from editing the Reference Desks from Tiscali.

At the moment, because RD edits from Tiscali are so one-sided, an acceptable strategy is, "revert first, ask questions later".

If we ever discover a legitimate anonymous Tiscali editor, we'll obviously have to rethink this strategy. (But boy, will that editor be particularly strongly encouraged to register!)

In the meantime, please, AGF. The people doing the reverting are not mindless xenophobes, we're battle-scarred veterans. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:57, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I always assume good faith. I know people here are just trying to keep the desks clean, but I will also not just stand by and say nothing when there's a big risk of collateral damage. How exactly would a legitimate anonymous Tiscali editor be "discovered"? The strategy at the moment appears to be "if they edit from Tiscali, they are a troll". How would a legit editor go about proving they're legit? And, perhaps a better question, why should they have to? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 12:51, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Are you asking, "Why should they have to demonstrate good faith?" Keep in mind there is no constitutional right to edit wikipedia. If they were to create an account and pose nothing but good-faith questions and comments, that would be a good start. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:06, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes that's what I'm asking. WP:AGF says that everyone should assume good faith, not that people have to demonstrate it or prove they are acting in good faith. In the context of this discussion that means that each edit from a massive, country-wide ISP serving thousands of people should be considered on its own merit, not reverted on sight because it's from Tiscali. Please don't misunderstand, I understand the hard work that's going on here to keep the desks clean, and I'm not trying to berate anyone for anything. I just think we should be very candid with acknowledging the problems in this situation, one of them being the risk of reverting an innocent user, instead of putting on the WP:DENY hat and saying "they're all trolls revert revert revert!" In regards to your comment about a "constitutional right to edit wikipedia" and creating accounts; of course there's no legal "right" to edit Wikipedia, but in practice Wikipedia is open and editable to everyone. Please read Help:Five_pillars and the Founding_principles, specially number 2 "The ability of anyone to edit (most) articles without registration." 82.43.90.93 (talk) 14:27, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

When all the ref desk entries from a given IP range are from a banned user, they need to demonstrate good faith. The alleged "collateral damage" is way exaggerated. Most folks go to wikipedia to get information, so the information is what's important. But since you're such an advocate, perhaps you would like to assume the responsibility for reviewing ALL EDITS from the IP ranges in question? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Read WP:AGF again. No one needs to 'demonstrate good faith'; there is no requirement for anyone to prove they are not a banned user when editing. It is our job to prove they are. And in this situation if an acceptable edit is made to the desks from the Tiscali ISP (I repeat again, an ISP serving thousands of people from an entire country), one which no one would even think of reverting if it had come from another ip address, then it should not be reverted just because it might be the banned user. The risk of collateral damage is very real and not exaggerated. I also find your attitude that it's apparently fine to block entire ISPs from editing because they can still read offensive and against the very nature of Wikipedia. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 15:25, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Banned users have exhausted their quota of good faith, so the burden of proof shifts to them. The primary purpose of wikipedia is to provide information to honest users, not to aid and abet trolls (such as what you are doing by continuing this debate). And we have not "blocked" any ISP range here. So, are you volunteering to monitor all ref desk posts from that IP range, or are you going to just continue to help feed the troll? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:05, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You have, apparently, misunderstood entirely what we're talking about. We are not talking about banned users proving good faith, we are talking about innocent users who unfortunately share the same ISP as a banned user being caught up in the middle of a situation when they have done nothing wrong. Those innocent users should not have to prove they are innocent or risk being reverted. We, the people reverting, should have to prove they are guilty. And when a seemingly good faith edit comes from a massive ISP range, with no evidence is it from the banned user except for the fact they have the same ISP, the edit should not be reverted just because it might, possibly, maybe, be from the banned user. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 16:18, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Your answer, then, is that you will continue to feed the troll. And it's also obvious you have not looked at the alleged contributions of this troll's IP ranges. And your silence indicates you have no intention of helping counter this troll in any way. Thanks for clearing all that up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:26, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You've ignored every valid point I've made here, and now substituted your own warped interpretation of my intentions as fact. I looked at the evidence Ten of All Trades provided, and it shows, as I've said at least three times now, that many different people edit all areas of Wikipedia from Tiscali. On the Reference Desk it is presumed that most of the edits are from the banned user, but this DOES NOT mean that in the future an innocent, completely unrelated user won't make a valid edit to the reference desk. And the point of this entire discussion is that innocent user should be allowed to edit unhindered, and not be reverted and blocked for something they didn't do. If innocent users start being reverted because they share the same ISP as a banned user, in addition to the original trolling of the banned user, that is even more disruption to Wikipedia than before. That is what I, and the two other editors at the top of this discussion, are trying to highlight 82.43.90.93 (talk) 16:45, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

For the record, I believe you (82.43) have made a fair point to keep in mind. Not wishing to sound too beansy here, but this is not a master of disguise, and the identity usually shines through sooner rather than later. If he manages to fool us for a year (month, over even week) then all the better, as long as his contributions are useful and not disruptive. So far, in the course of over three years, this hasn't happened. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:52, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

82 keeps overlooking the obvious, and likewise for "beans" reasons I don't intend to say it out loud. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:31, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

You asked, "How would a legit editor go about proving they're legit? And, perhaps a better question, why should they have to?" You're right, they shouldn't have to.

As I said, "an acceptable strategy is, 'revert first, ask questions later'". I can't speak for everyone else here, but in my case, this means if I see an edit from a Tiscali IP, I'll typically (1) automatically consider it suspicious, (2) revert it, (3) double-check to make sure it was truly trolling, and then under vanishingly rare circumstances (4) revert my reversion if (1) and (2) were in error. (For a suspicious edit from any other IP, on the other hand, I'd typically do (3), then maybe (2), and never have to do (4)).

Remember, every edit to Wikipedia is open to public view, and the majority of them are actively reviewed. (Deletions, especially.) If there's ever an anonymous IP editor here from Tiscali who isn't the known troll, I'm comfortably certain that this will be discovered in short order and without undue collateral damage. —Steve Summit (talk) 01:41, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Struck, pending BB's approval - see comments below. Franamax (talk) 07:01, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying it's sufficient evidence, it's the admin TOAT who's saying that, based on actually studying the matter. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:17, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not Kafka-esque, it's the nature of the internet where people are afforded anonymity and decide to abuse it. Hopefully that teen or the next one will tell his parents and they'll ask Tiscali why the hell they can't edit Wikipedia. Tiscali will contact us, we'll give them the datestamps and IP addresses used, and they can blacklist whoever's internet account it is or at least properly subnet their address range instead of using such a huge DHCP pool. If you want to get this fixed, contact Tiscali. We're only reacting to a problem they facilitate. Franamax (talk) 22:27, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Ye Gods, why say "Elsie" (invoking images of a contented cow) due to fear of saying "Voldemort" (or "Light Current.") When did "Deny" turn into "Punish and ridicule?" Ratchet down the drama. Edison (talk) 04:51, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

What makes you think that Elsie was a contented cow? I've actually raised cows, so I'd be interested in your view from ad-space. Are you speaking of rumination? They will certainly have lots to chew over as they watch RD vomit up its gut contents yet again. The word "drama" appears precisely once on this page as I type, thanks for your labelling. You ate definitely helping with your stout defence of a banned editor. Now "sarcasm" can be an applicable word also. At least capitalize the username properly. Franamax (talk) 06:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I've struck portions of BB's (if he approves) and my own comments above. Whilst I disagree with Edison that the terminology of itself stirs drama, I now feel that the level of acrimony here is going too far. We can do better, myself included. Bugs, restore your own bit if you want, mine will stay struck. I've done my own extensive research through the various Special: pages, I can confirm the long-term problem - but I will stay non-rhetorical on this. Franamax (talk) 07:01, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Every time this subject comes up, in any way shape or form, it "stirs the pot". I know the users above mean well, but they just don't get it. Maybe, instead of going through this debate every time, there could be a page summarizing the findings, we could point skeptical users to it, and be done with it. I realize that would "memorialize" that character, but it would be better than going through this lengthy rehash every time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:26, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with edison (as well as much said by BaseballBugs and Franamax) - calling the banned editor "elsie" or comments such as "careful elsie bites" are not going to fix the problem, and may encourage it. Wikipedia:Revert, block, ignore mentions vandal paranoia themes are thus counterproductive, since they invite the vandal to see himself as a nemesis pitted against Wikipedia. The role-playing game may be enjoyed by the vandal and some Wikipedians alike – but the net effect is to undermine the boredom that will eventually drive the vandal away. Giving the vandal a nickname couldn't be more opposite to WP:DENY and may well magnify any nemesis pitted against Wikipedia themes in the vandal's head. Don't troll the trolls.

Sf5xeplus (talk) 14:53, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

The basic problem with the "fear" of feeding trolls is what I might call the Neville Chamberlain argument - "if you ignore them, they'll go away". I would very much like to ignore this one. But it's not possible. Not only won't he/she/it go away, but every time this IP address issue comes up, we have to re-explain it to the AGFers, and that process also enables and feeds the troll. And RBI doesn't work, because he's got a floating set of IP ranges. There's just no way around it. If you can't stop a bully, you have to stand up to he/she/it in some way. Pretending it's not there won't make it go away. And FYI, I have absolutely no fear of that character, despite its posting a threat of violence on my talk page yesterday. I called her "Elsie" because that's a homophone of "LC", and because that user seems to have an obsession with cowpies and such. If you would rather I simply invoke the user name "Light current" every time, I can do that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:00, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

change to add archive search, slight restructuring

{{editprotected}} per a request on the ref desk talk page Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk#Search_boxes, I'm suggesting this edit, which adds an input box to search the archives and some cosmetic changes. This affects the first two rows of the table (the first 13/14 lines, excluding the noinclude for the protected icon and the header bar): — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ludwigs2 (talk • contribs)

I've moved your proposed code to the /sandbox. Can you confirm that this is what you want? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:34, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I've removed a duplicate line in the sandbox, but essentially yes. there's more white-space than I'd like under the title, but it seems to be a bit resistant to CSS changes, and it's a minor issue. maybe removing the break after the 'shortcut:' label would fix it, though it would change the look of the shortcut box. --Ludwigs2 08:38, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

The title and shortcut are currently in a separate row of the table, so removing the line break doesn't change anything. By the way, this only seems to be used by the main Wikipedia:Reference desk currently. Is a template even needed? I suppose there was the intention to use the same header for all the reference desks at some point. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:34, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

removing the break changes the shortcut box from a rough square to a longer, thinner rectangle, which then reduces the height of the first table row and gets rid of some of the excess whitespace under the title. it would be prettier to get the title to center itself vertically in the box, I think, but try as I might I can't quite seem to get it to render that way.

The whole ref-desk header thing is over-engineered. I suspect the original thought was (a) to make it easy to add new desks at need, and (b) to put static material on separate pages so they could be locked (keeps down vandalism and silly mistakes on a set of pages with a lot of new-user/IP traffic). In this case, though, I can't see any reason not to move the entire template onto the reference desk main-page and lock that (no one ever edits that page anyway). --Ludwigs2 19:04, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

P.s. - I just remembered as well that all of the reference desk talk pages are redirected to the main reference desk talk page, so discussions like this one (about the page itself) would get mixed in with discussions about reference desk subpage issues. Not sure it that's a problem, mind you, just saying what is. --Ludwigs2 00:11, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay I have now substituted this template on Wikipedia:Reference desk as you suggested. This template is not needed now so I may look into getting it deleted. I think we can just move the threads on this page onto Wikipedia talk:Reference desk. I don't think that's a problem either. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:57, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

ok, but you substituted the current version, rather than the sandboxed version? I'm guessing you forgot where the thread started (mostly because I do that all the time myself), but if you still think it needs more discussion... --Ludwigs2 21:50, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Lol, yeah I forgot what we were doing at the start. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

For those who might be confused by the sudden appearance of odd-looking old threads...

The template that created the ref desk page was merged into the ref desk page itself, which means the talk page got merged in as well. Miszabot should archive the old threads in a day or two. --Ludwigs2 16:40, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I thought I'd just selectively insane and missed a week or so of discussions, but only on WT:RD. Most amusing. Vimescarrot (talk) 19:40, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Hehe, I think they've all gone now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:15, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

RD Header

In the RD header, there is a link to Google for performing a web search. I personally use Google whenever searching the web, but I prefer not to take sides in the Google vs. Bing battle. I feel that Wikipedia shouldn't either. Is there a better alternative than shoving users directly to Google? It would be cool if there was a page that provided a simple search box and your choice of search engine - randomized - so a user could easily search for what they want using the search engine they want to use or a default "top 10" engine if they don't want to pick one. -- kainaw™ 12:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I just threw this together to show what I mean. It simply lets you search a random "top 5" engine or choose the one you like. -- kainaw™ 13:08, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

My browser is caching the random choice (was stuck on Ask until I did a ctrl-F5). 213.122.15.186 (talk) 16:16, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

It is possible to use JavaScript to randomize the list. I can fix that. Regardless, I am not suggesting using my page. I just threw it together as an example of what I'm trying to explain. -- kainaw™ 16:20, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

OK - I added a javascript to randomize the search engine order when you hit reload and reload from cache (assuming you don't have javascripts blocked). -- kainaw™ 16:32, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't most internet users know how to get to Google or whatever by now? Why do we even need that redundant "internet search" item here? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:35, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec)I like the principle of the idea, though I'm worried the inclusion or exclusion of various engines will become a point of contention. For example, (according to our article) Bing powers the Yahoo search function, so it would seem redundant to use both. And if we want people to find answers to their questions (as opposed to using keyword searches, which can be an art), perhaps Wolfram Alpha should be included. That's just me thinking out loud, though; I'm generally in favour of what you're proposing. Matt Deres (talk) 16:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the top 5 or whatever search engines could be explicitly listed, instead of using just one? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:40, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Another issue is "How do we calculate the top 5?" I used this to get a list of the top 5 search engines when I made that search page. But, how do I know hitwise isn't on Google's payroll? -- kainaw™ 16:45, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd be interested in a stat that would show how people find their way to wikipedia yet don't know how to use a search engine. Considering that the link for wikipedia is not altogether obvious, I would expect most wikipedia users found wikipedia via a search engine. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:02, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) oy, what a nest. maybe just link the page through to list of search engines and let people decide for themselves.

That being said, I'm wondering if it's possible to make a simple pulldown menu on wikipedia. that way we could just throw a bunch into a big list (the top five or so at top, followed by a bunch of the minor ones, all in alphabetical order in their sections). I'll look into it. --Ludwigs2 17:06, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I greatly commend Kainaw's effort here. Yes, Wikipedia should not advocate one website, search engine, operating system, etc. Maybe we can avoid this issue by using the following:

"Please try searching the web using a web search engine."

This passes the buck to those Wikipedians who maintain the article(s) about search engines - but they are already very experienced in handling the debates and issues about promoting/advocating particular websites. Nimur (talk) 17:09, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I like that much more than shoving users to Google. I agree with BB that the users should know how to perform a search or they wouldn't be here in the first place. So, just telling them to search should be enough. -- kainaw™ 17:20, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Bugs, too; I don't think we need a search engine field on Wikipedia here in 2010. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:29, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

should we make an editrequest for this change? --Ludwigs2 01:26, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think that would be necessary. hydnjo (talk) 01:40, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree we shouldn't be recommending any specific search engine. I've actually commented on this before Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 55#google but no one else other then the OP seemed to care (it was close to the new year which may be didn't help and also perhaps got lost in the search archive box thing) so didn't push it. I feel my comment there still stands. If people really don't know what an internet search engine is then it seems better to direct them to our article which should teach them rather then one specific search engine. If they do already know, then it seems unnecessary to direct them to any search engine. In other words, something like what Nimur suggests would work well. Nil Einne (talk) 15:15, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Yep - Nimur's suggestion has been implemented. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 15:21, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Removed question

Diff. Feel free to revert. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 11:24, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Good removal. Just another entry from Trolls-R-Us. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:28, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Removed request for medical advice

Here I removed a request for medical advice. The request specified symptoms (unable to build muscle mass despite exercise and a healthy diet) and asked for 'opinions' about whether or not he should take a particular drug. My removal also removed responses (three, from two editors) which offered specific advice on whether or not he should take the drug, and also recommended dietary changes. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:59, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I have also moved the following meta-discussion here where it belongs, after it was placed on the Desk. I might have left it in place, but the comment again offered medical advice. Telling people whether or not they should take particular drugs is beyond our qualifications here, as is recommending dietary modifications. (And I'll note that the OP probably isn't asking how to merely gain weight, but also wants it to be muscle.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

---

That's ridiculous. Telling people to avoid drugs and to increase their caloric intake if they want to gain weight is not medical advice. Viriditas (talk) 13:47, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Make sure you delete any mention of advice from all of the articles too. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 13:58, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Articles don't offer advice to individuals. They offer general information that people can decide for themselves how to apply to their situation. That is very different to giving a specific individual advice on their specific situation. --Tango (talk) 16:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Telling people to avoid unknown supplements and to eat more to gain weight is not medical advice. Viriditas (talk) 22:12, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Of course it is. Just because it seems obvious doesn't change that. --Tango (talk) 22:27, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't see anything "medical" about it. Could you explain how being aware of the items you ingest and watching your calories is a "medical" topic? Basic nutrition and physiology information does not constitute medical advice. Viriditas (talk) 22:48, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

How is nutrition not part of medicine? --Tango (talk) 18:30, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

---

It most certainly IS a request for medical advice, and TOAT was right to remove it. Any significant weight gain/loss scenarios should ALWAYS be discussed with a doctor. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree, TOAT was right to remove it. --Tango (talk) 16:09, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I also agree with that. Matt Deres (talk) 16:47, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

How could this NOT be medical advice? It pertains to an individual who wants information on a drug which they have the intention to use. M-1-D (Methyldienolone) is very similar to M-1-T (Methyltrienolone, or Metribolone) and is likely very toxic to the liver, and because no proper clinical trials have been conducted, there is no telling how good or bad the effect could be, or in what doses it would be recommended (if at all!). It also has potential to fuck up your hormones, given it is an androgen which is a precursor for testosterone. I can't confirm much of this because there is a massive shortest on literature, and it's impossible to know whether this drug is safe or not. Therefore, it is immoral to go issuing advice to anyone wanting to go and use it. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  18:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

No immoral advice was given. User was already on a long-term exercise plan (which assumes physician approval) for some time and was trying to gain muscle mass with the use of an unknown drug that was temporarily pulled from the market for questions about its ingredients in the past. User was simply told, don't use drugs, increase your calories, which means "eat more". This same information can be found in the bodybuilding article. Could someone explain the potential danger of this information and why it should not have been given? Viriditas (talk) 22:12, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not the advice that is immoral, it's the giving of the advice. --Tango (talk) 22:27, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not "immoral" advice, it's incompetent advice. NO ONE HERE is qualified to diagnose the OP's situation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:53, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

No medical condition was under discussion and no diagnosis was given. I think the refdesk can discuss supplements, weight gain, muscle development, and bodybuilding in the same way we discuss learning and acquiring new languages, maintaining memory and brain health, and keeping your teeth healthy and white. None of this involves medical advice. Viriditas (talk) 23:01, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Except that the drug in the question DOES have the potential to cause harm. The wrong information could persuade the OP into the taking of the drug, which is by no means a safe drug to take (it's precursor was made illegal for this reason, and it's virtually identical in it's effects). The question asks for information that relates specifically to that individual, medically. We don't have to be talking about diagnoses or prognosis's. I'll show you exactly where the question went out of line with what we can answer: "would the drug be likely to boost my workout results?". At this point we are talking about the person individually, and we have no right (nor proof of training) to suggest it would or wouldn't. This is very clearly a medical question. Regards, --—Cyclonenim | Chat  23:12, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

That is true, but the full query was framed as a general question about the drug. The user was asking about whether the drug could help him with building muscle mass. Is this any different than someone asking about the efficacy of condoms to prevent STD's, or a user asking about whether a Christian side hug is an effective form of abstinence? Everything has risks, but you don't need to be a physician to acknowledge this risks and address the topic. Viriditas (talk) 00:39, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

As you said yourself, he was asking whether it could help HIM. We have know way to know what it will or won't do to or for HIM. He needs to consult a professional. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

The OP asked, "Does anyone know anything about this supposed wonder-drug?" That's a valid question and should have been addressed directly. The OP then went on to talk about himself and his workout regimen, ending with "would the drug be likely to boost my workout results?" I'm not seeing a medical problem that needs a diagnosis or treatment, but rather a question about a drug. Viriditas (talk) 01:51, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

He's asking about a specific steroid as a treatment for his perceived problem of low muscle mass. It is hardly a stretch to consider that an improper question looking for personal medical advice. That said, taken in isolation there was nothing wrong with the responses per se. If the question had been a generic inquiry, rather than a personal one, then the responses would have been fine. But we really can't permit questions about what drugs an individual ought to take. Dragons flight (talk) 02:25, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

We certainly do permit such questions. It's answers beyond "consult a doctor" that we don't permit. ("The reference desk does not answer (and will probably remove) requests for medical or legal advice" - the "will probably remove" bit doesn't mean the question itself was improper, just that we're not going to answer it, so there's no point leaving it there.) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 12:42, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

That's silly. We can't both "permit such questions" and "probably remove" them. In practice, certain classes of questions are not acceptable here and we remove them. Pretending otherwise is silly. Dragons flight (talk) 18:42, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Jack is making the point that it's OK to ask, but we can't answer, and it can be removed. That doesn't mean it has to be removed, but the rules do allow for removing it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:58, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

It's a pity we can't give advice since steroid abuse for bodybuilding is one great way to turn yourself into a paranoid psychotic.. I used to live in a shared house with a biology student who started using hormones to aid his workout regime - he got his stuff from the biology lab at a university - unfortunately all he had access to was mice pituatry extract - he got quite bossy after a bit - we had to 'squeek' (literally) at him to show his dominance, otherwise he became agressive.87.102.32.76 (talk) 00:13, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It's pretty much always OK to ask. Unless you're a banned user, in which case even the most innocuous and reasonable question is unaskable (in theory), because such people are not permitted to edit AT ALL. But even then, they are not physically prevented from accessing the site under another guise. To "not permit" certain questions implies us having some mechanism for screening questions before they're asked, to ascertain whether they're permitted or not. It's a bit like a lower rank saying to a sergeant-major "Permission to ask a question, sah?". That in itself is a question, but not his primary question; he may or may not be given permission to ask his primary question. I hope we're not running a wiki-army here. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 02:02, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The problem with these guidelines as I see it is that it's all too easy to get around them by rephrasing from the specific to the generic. In the case of this question, all the OP needs to do – and what I would strongly advise him to do, if he ever reads this – is to avoid all mention of himself, and to ask the question along the lines of "what evidence is there that methyl 1 d can increase muscle growth?" I'd love to see how the deletion-happy crew would respond to such a question. --Viennese Waltz ^talk 11:42, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

They would respond by directing the OP to some generic information on the subject. And if the guy sues wikipedia, the response would be, "He never said he was going to do this himself." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Exactly, and "generic information on the subject" is all the OP was asking for. Just goes to show, if you want to get some medical advice out of Wikipedia, it's not hard to do so provided you phrase your question carefully. --Viennese Waltz ^talk 18:04, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

He wasn't asking for generic information, he was asking "Will it help ME?" and there is no one here who is qualified to answer that question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:43, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

The distinction is entirely moot. He wanted to know whether taking a drug would help his muscle growth. Directing him to generic information on the subject is de facto answering the question. --Viennese Waltz ^talk 19:08, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

It is NOT moot. He's asking, "Will it help ME?" No one here can answer that question. If his question had been, "Where can I find something out about this stuff?", anyone here could answer that, by directing him to a source with generic information. Let me give you a simpler example. If someone asks, "Can aspirin cure a headache?" we could direct him to articles about aspirin and headaches. We could also offer friendly advice that headaches can indicate many things and that someone with a headache might need to see a doctor. If he asks, "WILL aspirin cure a headache", or "Will aspirin cure MY headache?", the response should be that no one here is qualified to answer those questions, and that he should seek a doctor's advice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:38, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Bad faith discussion

I collapsed this discussion because I didn't see the point in it. It seems no-one was interested in actually answering the question, all assuming Cuddlyable was going on some bad faith WP:POINT-making. Looking back (I didn't check who it was when I first answered the question) I can see why. Either way it looks like the question isn't going to get "real" answers. Oh, and saying "don't feed the troll" on a thread that a troll has posted on just feeds the troll.

I'd like to point out that I make no assumptions of Cuddlyable's intentions here, collapsing the discussion only because it did not, and would not, go anywhere. Vimescarrot (talk) 21:07, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

(I'm fairly sure that FisherQueen's answer was a correct example of usage meaning)

I've altered what you have done to remove unpleasant answers [26] Sf5xeplus (talk) my opinion is summarised in the edit summary - I think I'll take a break from these desks until sanity is restored.23:41, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Worldwide problem

When I adjust the window of my browser to the default width of Facebook (which is wider than YouTube, Yahoo!, or Twitter), the new look of the RDs fails to fit and there appears a horizontal scrollbar, and if I extend the window in width until the scrollbar disappears, the lines of this item of the header are still broken, making it appear twice as long down the page. Many users worldwide have monitors whose default resolution allows a maximum browser window width not very much greater than that of Facebook. This has been applying since the extra search bars were introduced. Shall we do anything? --Магьосник (talk) 04:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not seeing a problem. This kind of thing is usually caused by someone writing some really long sequence of characters without spaces (like "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA" but much longer) that then can't wrap onto a new line. Other parts of the page then expand to fill the extra space. Which desk was it on and is it still happening? Also, what version of what browser are you using? --Tango (talk) 06:10, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I use version 3.6.6 of Mozilla Firefox. I mean that:

This is too wide to fit a window set to the default width of any of many sites, e.g. Fb.

Welcome to the reference desk section of the Wikipedia reference desk. skip to bottom Select a section: Computing Entertainment Humanities Language Mathematics Science Miscellaneous Archives Want a faster answer? Main page: Help searching Wikipedia     How can I get my question answered? Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right). Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question. Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when. Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here. Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context. Note: We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice. We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate. We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point. We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need. Ready? Ask a new question! How do I answer a question? Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice. See also: Teahouse Help desk Village pump Help manual

It's still happening, on every RD. I can maximise my window to full-screen mode, since it is now not maximised, but I like not to do it, because until recently I was using, and many people now continue to use, a monitor which when set to its best screen resolution does not allow a width of Mozilla that exceeds by very much the width of Facebook (or of YouTube, or of this site). --Магьосник (talk) 06:57, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

How wide is Facebook? And how wide is the resolution you're thinking of that many people apparently use? Vimescarrot (talk) 10:46, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

A quick check confirms the page doesn't work with a full screen window at 800x600. While I still believe we should aim for 640x480 unless there is strong evidence of a disadvantage, I often feel I'm fighting a losing battle there. But definitely support for 800x600 as a minimum still remains the common consensus on wikipedia so it's not good that we aren't supporting that. The search boxes should be place one below the other, whether it has to always be like that or it's possible to gracefully fall back to a two layout config I don't know and will leave to the web designers. Nil Einne (talk) 11:31, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

For the record, 800x600 and below is only about 1% of the browser market. [27] Dragons flight (talk) 00:42, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

No as I've discussed in many places before that's bullshit. That's the people who visit w3schools. It's inherently unlikely to represent the general internet populance as even the website acknowledges (they suggest it's most useful for trends). If you want to look at trends, we see just 2 years ago it was 8% (more accurately up to 14%), it's easy to imagine the audience of w3schools being at least 2 years ahead of the rest of the internet (for starters we probably get less of a technical audience and a larger proportion of people from developed countries, people with old computers like children and seniors etc anyway).

Note that I can't remember if any info was ever provided of how exactly they were derived. Were they on a per hit basis? Was it per hit per IP? Per hit per IP per day? Was it only on their main page? All pages?

When this has been asked before I believe the foundation was unwilling to provide any statistics from the WMF logs which would be the ultimate test and while this is most accute on places like the main page as the RD by nature probably get far less of the people who will have such problems but it doesn't mean we should ignore them. As a caveat, I don't know if the usability initiative managed to get any statistics although I believe they did test at 800x600 or lower as a minimum.

Note there are plenty of other flaws in going by desktop resolution anyway. A user using 1024x768 without a full sized window could easily require horizontal scrolling if you need 1000 pixels for the horizontal. Similarly if you have poor eyesight or a small monitor so need to increase the zoom level or DPI even thought your desktop resolution is 1024x768.

P.S. You also should include 'unknown' in any analysis since you have no idea what they are, and no reason to presume they are going to be the same as general statistics (for example they may be people with old browsers which would suggest low resolution, they may be people who've displayed the reporting for privacy reasons which may suggest a high resolution), so really even for w3schools audience 4% 800x600 or lower should be your possible worst case scenario not 1%.

Nil Einne (talk) 05:47, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

@Vimescarrot: By "width" of Facebook I mean the minimum horizontal width of the browser window that doesn't need a horizontal scrollbar to appear. I'm bad at using computing terminology, let alone at doing that in English. --Магьосник (talk) 06:08, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I know what you mean, I just wanted to know the numbers. Vimescarrot (talk) 11:05, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

For the site linked above the 'minimum width' appears to be 1024, which makes sense.87.102.32.76 (talk) 18:14, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Has this been fixed since it seems ok now to me?87.102.32.76 (talk) 18:12, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Both the header and Facebook seem to require around 1000 pixels to avoid scroll bars. As far as I can see Facebook is actually slightly wider than we are here (also using Firefox 3.6.6). So I can't replicate that part of the complaint. If you have no choice but to use a low resolution screen, you might want to try using Firefox's built-in zooming. Firefox remembers your zoom level for individual sites, so it can be a convenient fix for many sites (not just ours). Dragons flight (talk) 00:47, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I suspect the problem has to do with the new search box table, which has a minimum width of 600px (plus the width of the navigation sidebar, which could easily push things over 1000px). I can change the could to be more flexible, if that would help. --Ludwigs2 01:00, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Please do. I finally upgraded my old monitor and now refdesk has been upgraded to still/again be too wide. Here's the thing (IMO): just because one's screen is X wide, why are we forcing/expecting users to use fullscreen for the wikipedia browser window? Especially as a responder at refdesk, I often want a few windows open along-side. Or want to pop over and read while keeping half an eye on some status windows of a long-running other job. DMacks (talk) 05:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Let me give some more sense to my posts above. I dug up my old monitor and I'm using it at the moment. It's a 17-inch one and its best screen resolution is 1024 by 768 pixels. I'm still using Firefox 3.6.6. The browser window is maximised to full screen. I'm currently viewing the preview of the "Worldwide problem" section of the present page, with the RD header above being collapsed. Under these circumstances, there is no horizontal scrollbar. But when I click the "[show]" button to produce what has been collapsed above, a scrollbar appears. There's one at every particular RD, too. On another tab, Facebook is fitting perfectly into the browser window, and so is the above linked sports news website. I hope I'm not causing too many problems with the present thread. --Магьосник (talk) 10:06, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Hidden posts

Please take a look at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Mathematics#Riddle_.28of_my_own.29 (you need to be on the edit page and scroll down to the bottom of the section). Opinions? --Tango (talk) 01:57, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to boldly (try to) close this discussion which is going nowhere. I judge a rough consensus that riddles and covert coding are discouraged as disruptive editing and subject to removal. Hopefully this will close a never-ending conversation about nothing-in-partikkelar... Franamax (talk) 00:23, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Closed discussion

I agree with Tango - hiding is inappropriate on the RD, and un-hiding is an acceptable exception to the guidelines. We have plenty of solutions for this issue (wanting to give users a chance to see the question before seeing the answers), including hat boxes and spoiler warnings (or a combination of those). -- Scray (talk) 02:10, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure you're not aware of the facts. I'm not interested in hiding posts at all. On the contrary. What happened was as follows: Somebody decided (for their own reasons which are irrelevant to your comment about me) to hide their answer to my question (which was presented as a riddle due to a reason which is irrelevant to your comment). I wanted to respond to them, but I didn't want to change their own post because I didn't want to violate Wikipedia rules, so the only option I had - was (in my opinion): to respond to this editor by a hidden response as well (just try to think about our page, if it had contained an unhidden response to a hidden post...). Then, a third person decided to remove the time delays from the first editor's post and also from my response to the first editor, so I answered this third editor that Wikipedia rules don't permit to edit other editors' posts. If you disagree with me and think that this third editor is allowed to edit other editors' posts in our specific circumstances, then your opinion is legitimate and should be discussed gravely solemnly and seriously, but it has nothing to do with what you wrongfully ascribed to me. HOOTmag (talk) 09:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

In fact, I was aware of that sequence of events. My post immediately above, to which you seem to be responding, did not mention you or that third "first" editor to whom you refer. -- Scray (talk) 15:39, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

On this page, you really did not mention any editor. However, on my talk page you informed me that "the hiding of some responses" is (in your opinion) "inconsistent with the RefDesk". If you had been aware of the sequence of events, then you would have found your comment (on my talk page about the "incosistency") irrelevant to this sequence of events of which you'd been aware. Note that I did not hide "some responses" (as you've put it), but rather responded to hidden responses, while I couldn't present my post as an unhidden response to a hidden one: just try to think about our page, if it had contained an unhidden response to a hidden post. On the other hand: the other alternative, i.e. removing the time delays from the post to which I responded, is not permitted by Wikipedia - in my opinion, and also in DMacks's opinion - as you can see below, on this thread. HOOTmag (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Preceding my post on your Talk page, Tango had removed the hiding script, which you restored it. This nascent controversy started the section in which we're now editing, prompting me to alert you. In addition, you had set this up with language including, "If even EmilJ won't respond by Monday morning, then I'll provide the solution. The riddle goes as follows:", which set conditions without which we wouldn't have seen this entire controversy. -- Scray (talk) 01:55, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, as you've indicated, Tango had removed the hiding script, which I restored. Then I had put them back, because in my opinion Wikipedia does not permit any user to change other users' posts, and the time delays remained there untill they ran out automatically (at 12:00). This is one aspect of the sequence of events, but there was another aspect, which your being aware of - would have made you realize that your comment on my talk page had been irrelevant. Note that on my talk page you informed me that "the hiding of some responses" is (in your opinion) "inconsistent with the RefDesk". Incosistent or not, I couldn't present my unhidden responses because they responded to hidden responses. Being aware of this fact, you wouldn't have notified that "the hiding of some responses" is (in your opinion) "inconsistent with the RefDesk", as if I had had any other choice, e.g. to respond by an unhidden response to a hidden response. HOOTmag (talk) 10:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

This is just the same user who wants to turn the RD into his personal discussion forum so everyone can discuss his riddles. I wish other users would simply stop responding to his stupid attempts at riddles. It is never anything except a confusion of semantics. Now, he is making up rules about hiding posts. It appears that he wants to shut down the entire RD and turn it into his riddle forum where he can control when answers are allowed to show up. In case it isn't obvious, I don't like it at all. -- kainaw™ 02:51, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

You're absolutely wrong with my intention.

1. "Confusion of semantics"? No, it's not. Note that - due to a constructive (unhidden) discussion on the talk page - the other editors who took a part in it agreed that my question is not semantical at all, but rather is "sensible" (as another editor indicated ibid.) and gave their own sophisticated positive solution, while another editor wrongfully thought that my question had no positive answer.

2. I've never wanted "to turn the RD into my personal discussion forum so everyone can discuss my riddles". What happened was as follows: I was (and am still) puzzled by a mathematical problem for which I haven't found an answer yet. So I decided to present a "riddle of my own" (for which I have some solutions though I'm still not sure whether there are other kinds of solutions) - in order to get inspired by other solutions (of other wikipedians'), which may hopefully help me get out of my embarrassment (whose details haven't been presented on the RD, although I may present them according to whether I'll receive other solutions).

3. I've never wanted "to shut down the entire RD and turn it into my riddle forum". I see myself as any other wikipedian. Who do you think prevents other Wikipedians from opening other discussions in any other topic?

4. I've never wanted to "control when answers are allowed to show up". On the contrary! I'm against hidden posts like you. I'm sure you're not aware of the facts. What happened was as follows: Somebody decided (for their own reasons which are irrelevant to your comment about me) to hide their answer to my question (which was presented as a riddle due to the reason mentioned above). I wanted to respond to them, but I didn't want to change their own post because I didn't want to violate Wikipedia rules, so the only option I had - was (in my opinion): to respond to this editor by a hidden response as well (just try to think about our page, if it had contained an unhidden response to a hidden post). Then, a third person decided to remove the time delays from the first editor's post and also from my response to the first editor, so I answered this third editor that Wikipedia rules don't permit to edit other editors' posts. If you disagree with me and think that this third editor is allowed to edit other editors' posts, then your opinion is legitimate and should be discussed gravely solemnly and seriously, but it has nothing to do with what you wrongfully ascribed to me.

HOOTmag (talk) 09:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe it should be zapped as being disruptive. Particularly, if the OP already knows the answer, he's jerking us around. Kind of like that one guy was some months back. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:55, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

"Disruptive"? "Jerking you around"? I have nothing to do with any other guy who has tried to "jerk you around". How can you speculate without knowing the very basic facts? What happened was as follows: I was (and am still) puzzled by a mathematical problem for which I haven't found an answer yet. So I decided to present a "riddle of my own" (for which I have some solutions though I'm still not sure whether there are other kinds of solutions) - in order to get inspired by other solutions (of other wikipedians'), which may hopefully help me get out of my embarrassment (whose details haven't been presented on the RD, although I may present them according to whether I'll receive other solutions). HOOTmag (talk) 09:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Then remove the "hiding" mechanism. It's not appropriate for the ref desk. We don't conduct contests on the ref desk. It should be removed regardless of who's posting it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Remove the "hiding" mechanism from whose posts?

1. From my posts only? Note that I responded to hidden responses, while I couldn't present my post as an unhidden response to a hidden one: just try to think about our page, if it had contained an unhidden response to a hidden post...
2. Did you advise me to remove the time delays from the other editors' posts to which I responded? In my opinion, I was not permitted by Wikipedia to do so, and this opinion - is not mine only - but is also what DMacks thinks, as you can see below, on this thread.

If you disagree with me (and with DMacks) and think that Wikipedia permits me to edit other editors' posts in our specific circumstances, then your opinion is legitimate and should be discussed gravely solemnly and seriously, but you cannot advise me to act in a way considered by me (and by another editor on this thread) as violating Wikipedia rules.

Anyways, your advice to remove the time delays is already not actual, since you advised me this after the time delays had expired (they expired at 12:00, i.e. more than four hours before your advice was given).

HOOTmag (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Certainly 'hiding' could be something that is disruptive to people's ability to read questions and answers - and therefore can be removed from other people's posts under the provision of our guidelines that permits editing of posts that are disruptive to RD layout. This certainly seems like an obnoxious user - and the best response is to stop feeding. SteveBaker (talk) 05:05, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

"Obnoxious"? I'm not sure if Wikipedia permits to use such personal expressions when talking about other Wikipedians, yet I am sure you're not aware of the facts. I'm not interested in hiding posts at all. On the contrary. What happened was as follows: Somebody decided (for their own reasons which are irrelevant to your comment about me) to hide their answer to my question (which was presented as a riddle due to a reason which is irrelevant to your comment). I wanted to respond to them, but I didn't want to change their own post because I didn't want to violate Wikipedia rules, so the only option I had - was (in my opinion): to respond to this editor by a hidden response as well (just try to think about our page, if it had contained an unhidden response to a hidden post...). Then, a third person decided to remove the time delays from the first editor's post and also from my response to the first editor, so I answered this third editor that Wikipedia rules don't permit to edit other editors' posts. If you disagree with me and think that this third editor is allowed to edit other editors' posts in our specific circumstances, then your opinion is legitimate and should be discussed gravely solemnly and seriously, but it has nothing to do with what you wrongfully ascribed to me. HOOTmag (talk) 09:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I have notified HOOTmag (talk · contribs) of this discussion. -- Scray (talk) 05:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you had done that before you were aware of the very basic facts. See above my response to you. HOOTmag (talk) 09:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I was fully aware of those facts; I notified you because the posts above, by other editors, were clearly referring to you and I thought you should be notified. -- Scray (talk) 15:42, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

You informed me, on my talk page, that "the hiding of some responses" is (in your opinion) "inconsistent with the RefDesk". If you had been aware of the facts, then you would have found your comment (on my talk page) irrelevant to the facts of which you'd been aware. Note that I did not hide "some responses" (as you've put it), but rather responded to hidden responses, while I couldn't present my post as an unhidden response to a hidden one: just try to think about our page, if it had contained an unhidden response to a hidden post. On the other hand: the other alternative, i.e. removing the time delays from the post to which I responded, is not permitted by Wikipedia - in my opinion, and also in DMacks's opinion - as you can see below, on this thread. HOOTmag (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

If it is in danger of stirring up the hornets nest on editing other people's posts, surely relevant time-delayed items could be quoted, leaving the original posts intact, while still spoiling the surprise and discouraging this user from abusing the ref-desks? APL (talk) 05:25, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

... That is, if there's reason not to simply remove these questions on sight. APL (talk) 05:28, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

"Abusing the ref-desks"? I'm sure you're not aware of the very basic facts:

1. I was (and am still) puzzled by a mathematical problem for which I haven't found an answer yet. So I decided to present a "riddle of my own" (for which I have some solutions though I'm still not sure whether there are other kinds of solutions) - in order to get inspired by other solutions (of other wikipedians'), which may hopefully help me get out of my embarrassment (whose details haven't been presented on the RD, although I may present them according to whether I'll receive other solutions).

2. Somebody decided (for their own reasons which are irrelevant to your comment about me) to hide their answer to my question (which was presented as a riddle due to the reason mentioned above). I wanted to respond to them, but I didn't want to change their own post because I didn't want to violate Wikipedia rules, so the only option I had - was (in my opinion): to respond to this editor by a hidden response as well (just try to think about our page, if it had contained an unhidden response to a hidden post). Then, a third person decided to remove the time delays from the first editor's post and also from my response to the first editor, so I answered this third editor that Wikipedia rules don't permit to edit other editors' posts. If you disagree with me and think that this third editor is allowed to edit other editors' posts, then your opinion is legitimate and should be discussed gravely solemnly and seriously, but it has nothing to do with what you wrongfully ascribed to me.

HOOTmag (talk) 09:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Didn't you specifically ask that user not to answer your question until a certain date because it would spoil the surprise? APL (talk) 17:35, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Spoil the surprise? Absolutely no. I didn't want this user to answer the question, because I knew that his solution would be identical (or similar) to mine, while I wanted other solutions, more creative than mine. If I, or the other user, had revealed the first solution, it would have biased other editors and would prevent them from thinking about more creative solutions I was looking for. HOOTmag (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Purely disruptive to have timed-changing of the content (revealing solution). Guidelines of WP discussion pages strongly discourage changing of one's comments, especially after others have responded. Purely disruptive to post treat this site as a personal trivia contst or video game. Again, as others have stated, this is a discussion and ref-desk for helping others. There are lots of websites for posting riddles and where readers can go to read riddles and discuss their solutions. Wikipedia ain't it. DMacks (talk) 05:41, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

1. I completely agree with you that "this is a discussion and ref-desk for helping others". Furthermore, I've never intended to "treat this site as a personal trivia contst or video game". I'm sure you're not aware of the very basic facts: I was (and am still) puzzled by a mathematical problem for which I haven't found an answer yet. So I decided to present a "riddle of my own" (for which I have some solutions though I'm still not sure whether there are other kinds of solutions) - in order to get inspired by other solutions (of other wikipedians'), which may hopefully help me get out of my embarrassment (whose details haven't been presented on the RD, although I may present them according to whether I'll receive other solutions).

2. I completely agree with you that it's "Purely disruptive to have timed-changing of the content (revealing solution)", and that "Guidelines of WP discussion pages strongly discourage changing of one's comments, especially after others have responded". What happened was as follows: Somebody decided (for their own reasons which are irrelevant to your comment about me) to hide their answer to my question (which was presented as a riddle due to the reason mentioned above). I wanted to respond to them, but I didn't want to change their own post because I didn't want to violate Wikipedia rules, so the only option I had - was (in my opinion): to respond to this editor by a hidden response as well (just try to think about our page, if it had contained an unhidden response to a hidden post). Then, a third person decided to remove the time delays from the first editor's post and also from my response to the first editor, so I answered this third editor that Wikipedia rules don't permit to edit other editors' posts. This is exactly what you think, right?

HOOTmag (talk) 09:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, everyone, for your comments. I think there is a clear consensus both against time-delayed posts and against questions where the OP already knows the answer. I propose that (1) we immediately un-hide such posts in future and (2) we immediately remove such questions in future. Given the amount of discussion that has taken place regarding the question in question, I suggest the second rule not be enforced retroactively. The first rule should be enforced retroactively. --Tango (talk) 13:43, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

There is really a concencus about posting questions where the OP already knows the answer, but this was not our case, since the OP knows a partial answer merely, i.e. he knows of some solutions but wants to get helped by more solutions, and the best way to get helped by other solutions is to refer to the help desk.

There is no concensus with regard to the time delays, because two editors (Dmacks and me) think that Wikipedia rules don't permit any editor to change other editors' posts without getting their permission.

Anyways, your second proposal, to un-hide hidden posts, was suggested too late, when it was already not actual, since the time delays expired more than one hour before your proposal was made.

HOOTmag (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Based on this consensus, I have removed the time stuff, and I have advised Hoot not to put them back. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:19, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

There is really a concencus about posting questions where the OP already knows the answer, but this was not our case, since the OP knows a partial answer merely, i.e. he knows of some solutions but wants to get helped by more solutions, and the best way to get helped by other solutions is to refer to the help desk. HOOTmag (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

There is no concensus with regard to the time delays, because two editors (Dmacks and me) think that Wikipedia rules don't permit any editor to change other editors' posts without getting their permission.

Anyways, your removing the time delays, was done too late, when it was already not actual, since the time delays expired more than four hours before you removed them.

Similarly, your advice not to put them back, was given too late, due to the same reason mentioned above.

HOOTmag (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Could someone post some diff links to show exactly what this discussion is about, because I can't find it in the history. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 14:50, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Here is Bug's removal of the hidden stuff. It's kind of clever. It was in this form :

{{#ifexpr:{{#time:U|now}}>={{#time:U|2010-07-18 12:00:00 +0000}}   HIDDEN TEXT HERE  }}

APL (talk) 17:32, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

It IS clever, and interesting. A good practical example of a date function. It just doesn't belong there. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:06, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Clever or not, I don't like hidden posts at all, but unfortunately I had to hide my response because it responded to a hidden response, while responding by an unhidden response to a hidden response - would be very unclever, and my un-hiding the other user's post I responded to - would violate Wikipedia rules, in my opinion, and also in DMacks's opinion. Anyways, the decision to remove the time delays - more than four hours after they had expired, was not clever as well, since such a removal was already not actual when it was made. HOOTmag (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks :) 82.43.90.93 (talk) 18:05, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

How about we just make this very clear for all concerned:

1. Don't ask questions to which you already know the answer to 'test' our volunteers (which includes riddles that you have invented or read elsewhere). That is a total waste of our time and we don't appreciate the challenge. We have genuine questions from people who really need an answer and that's challenge enough for our limited number of volunteer staff.
2. Please do not phrase legitimate questions in the form of a riddle. That won't get you a better answer or a quicker answer and it won't make us more 'interested' in the answer. It will, however, upset a large percentage of our volunteer 'staff' which can never end well.
3. If you have seen a riddle created by someone else that you can't solve by yourself, then be aware that asking us might be considered 'cheating'. If the answer actually matters to you and isn't just mild curiosity - then at least provide us with a link to where it came from - or carefully explain the context, because that often helps us to solve it. Also note, that most of us will probably just ignore annoying trivia questions like that...especially if you do this on more than one or two occasions.
4. Do not "hide" any part of your (or anyone else's) post for any reason other than those laid out in our guidelines. (We do sometimes 'hide' wildly off-topic diatribes or answers to medical/legal questions...although generally the latter are simply deleted).
5. If someone else has 'hidden' any part of the question or answer(s), you may (legitimately) remove the hiding commands on the grounds that it is formatting that is disruptive of the readability of the ref desk. If you prefer, you could merely quote the hidden parts openly - being sure to correctly attribute them to the original author.

SteveBaker (talk) 18:02, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Most of your summary is totally irrelevant to the specific case discussed on this thread (i.e. my case), due to the following reasons.

Regarding 1,3: I invented the riddle, but my aim was not to 'test' anybody, nor to present a 'trivia question' (as you've put it). I don't know the answer yet, but rather I know of a partial answer merely, i.e. I know of some solutions but want to get helped by more solutions, and the best way to get helped by other solutions - is to refer to the help desk.

Regarding 2: I called it a "riddle" - not in order to get a better or a quicker answer, nor in order to make you more 'interested' in the answer; I called it a "riddle" - because I know of some solutions to the question, so I found the term "riddle" appropriate here. Anyways, calling my legitimate question (whose full answer I don't know yet) a "riddle", is undoubtedly much more legitimate than calling a Wikipedian "obnoxious" - before knowing the facts. None of us is obnoxious (neither me nor you), and all of us have a good will to assist and to get assisted by the reference desk.

Regarding 4: I couldn't respond by an unhidden response, because I responded to a hidden post, and the page would have looked exceedingly bizzare if I had given an unhidden response to this hidden post.

Regarding 5: There is no concensus here with regard to removing the time delays, because two editors (Dmacks and me) think that Wikipedia rules don't permit any editor to change other editors' posts without getting their permission. Your proposal, to quote the hidden parts openly was unapplicable in my case, because I had to respond to a hidden post, so where should my response (quoting the other editor's post) have been standing? in the air? Or do you advise me to copy the other editor's post, including the signature, and then to respond to the copied post (which include the copied signature)? Sorry, but I find it totally unapplicable and/or violating Wilipedia rules.

HOOTmag (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

A consensus does not require every single user to agree completely. There will always be users who disagree with the consensus. As for your riddles, they are offensive because of the wording. You claim it is a riddle you made up. You know the answer. Anytime someone gives you an answer, you tell them they are wrong and challenge others to come up with the correct answer. So, you do know the answer. If you have a question that you want answers to, be honest. Don't make it a big obnoxious riddle game. State that you made up a math problem and got one answer (and explain what that answer is so nobody wastes time coming up with it) and then ask if there are other answers. Sometimes, it is best to avoid giving your own answer. I've done that in the past and stated that I have one answer but it is bad and I don't want others to go down the same path to a solution that I took - and then tell them the general idea of the solution so they can avoid it. However, it appears that you have a much more complicated math problem that you are working on and you want help with. So, ask. Explain the problem and what you don't understand. That is the purpose of the reference desk. Wasting everyone's time with silly riddles is for a discussion forum. -- kainaw™ 21:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Good summary. Hoot is making some false assumptions, the most glaring of which is that other users' posts are sacrosanct. That's often true, but formatting is not sacrosanct, nor are disruptive edits. As for when the time delay ran out, I did not give a "Hoot" when it ran out, it still did not belong, and was subject to removal. Hopefully Hoot has learned a few things from this exercise. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:10, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs's opinion about the sacrosanctness is legitimate, and should be discussed gravely solemnly and seriuosly, just as my opinion is legitimate and should be discussed gravely solemnly and seriuosly.

Baseball Bugs, too, has made some false assumptions, the most glaring of which relates to the issue of assuming good faith. Another false assumption is his opinion that he is permitted to advise other wikipedians to act in a way considered by them as violating Wikipedia rules. It's a false assumtion: Baseball Bugs cannot advise them to act this way.

I, too, think that the time delays don't belong there - after they "ran out", but I also think that their removal was already not actual after they "ran out". Their removal was like drawing pictures in the air...

Hopefully Baseball Bugs has learned a few things from this exercise. :)

HOOTmag (talk) 23:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

@Kainaw,

1. Regarding the "concensus": I was talkning about ascribing a concensus to the legitimacy of changing other editors' post without getting their permission, and I indicated that the phrasing "consensus" is not appropriate in our case, where two Wikipedians have expressed their opinions against such an act, which violates (in their opinions) Wikipedia rules.
2. You claimed that I knew the answer, but it's not true. I know of a partial answer only.
3. You claimed that "Anytime someone gives" me "an answer", I "tell them they are wrong and challenge others to come up with the correct answer". Are you sure it's "anytime"? No, it's not. In the beginning, they misunderstood me, so explained the riddle again and again. When they eventually undersood the riddle, EmilJ proposed an answer, and it was very similar to the solution I was thinking about, so I answered him: "Excellent", and then I asked him to improve the answer. How does all of that fit your claim that "Anytime someone gives" me "an answer", I "tell them they are wrong"? Another user wrote that my riddle had no solution, then I answered him that it did have a solution, but I've never written that this solution is the only one, or that it's "the correct answer" (as you've put it). I'm looking for other solutions of which I don't know yet.
4. I disagree with your calling my question "silly riddle". Meanwhile, two users have tried to solve it. The first one had thought that it had had no solution, but later he understood the riddle and confessed that it was "sensible". The other user had thought that it had had no solution, but when I explained to him the first user's solution - then this (second) user confessed that the solution given by the first user was based on a "trick"; Anyways, he didn't think that it was a "silly" riddle, and I'm sure that if you tried to solve it you wouldn't think it's silly.
5. You propose that I "explain" the "more complicated math problem" that I'm "working on". Thank you for your trying to help, but I found it much easier to discuss just one aspect of my more complicated math problem - an aspect reflected by my riddle, than to discuss all of my more complicated math problem, which may exhaust the other wikipedians.
6. You also propose that I expose the specific solution I was thinking about. Thank you for trying to help me, but the way I've taken - seems (in my opinion) to be much more constructive. Your private case is not similar to mine, and I'm sure that if I had exposed my solution it would biased the other users and would prevent them from finding out more creative solutions I'm looking for.
7. Anyways, thank you again for your trying to help me. I appreciate that.

Take care, good luck. HOOTmag (talk) 23:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I think you are misinterpreting DMacks. He was talking about editing your own posts being inappropriate (since it makes the thread of conversation confusing), not other people's. The usual rule is that changing the formatting of other people's posts is acceptable (as long as you have a good reason), and the consensus here seems to be that unhiding something counts as changing formatting. --Tango (talk) 23:23, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

DMacks said nothing about changing the formatting.

How can you ascribe to DMacks - the opinion that I mustn't change my posts only, and that I am allowed to change other people's posts?

HOOTmag (talk) 23:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

You aren't supposed to change other users' posts unless they violate rules - but you can change formatting, for the sake of clarity, so zapping their "hiding" of information was OK. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:08, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, your opinion about the issue is well known, but I talked about DMacks, who said nothing about that. Take care, good luck. HOOTmag (talk) 01:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Dmacks seems to have it right. What's your lingering question at this point? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

1. Not Dmacks, but rather DMacks. 2. He said nothing about that. 3. Your opinion about DMacks's opinion is clear, although I disagree with your opinion about DMacks's opinion. 4. Take care, good luck. HOOTmag (talk) 01:14, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

DMack's statements:

"Purely disruptive to have timed-changing of the content (revealing solution)." Check.

"Guidelines of WP discussion pages strongly discourage changing of one's comments, especially after others have responded." Check.

"Purely disruptive to post treat this site as a personal trivia contst or video game." Check.

"Again, as others have stated, this is a discussion and ref-desk for helping others. There are lots of websites for posting riddles and where readers can go to read riddles and discuss their solutions. Wikipedia ain't it." Check.

So what's your lingering question? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:30, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

What a massive waste of time this all is. HOOTmag is clearly misusing Ref Desk resources and being a pain about it to boot. If you want to play games, go do it somewhere else. This really shouldn't even be a discussion, much less an extraordinarily long one. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

The only thing I can figure is that he's trying to find somebody to take his side. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:29, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not trying to find somebody, and I don't have to find such a person:

1. I'm not trying, because there is already somebody (DMacks) who has stated that no user is permitted to change their own post after it was responded to, so he (DMacks) can't think that Wikipedia permits any user to change other users' posts after they were responded to. This is pure logic.
2. I don't have to find such a person, because nothing concrete has came out - or may come out - of this discussion (as far as my case is concerned): The time delays (which were not my initiative) remained there untill they ran out automatically, so any removal of them would be too late, or rather: would be like drawing pictures in the air...

HOOTmag (talk) 10:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

@MR.98,

I accept your opinion that this all is a massive waste of time. The time delays (which were not my initiative) remained there untill they ran out automatically, and nothing concrete has came out - or may come out - of this discussion, as far as my case is concerned. However, I totally disagree with your opinion that I'm misusing Ref Desk. Had you been aware of the very basic historical facts (which I explained thoroughly), you wouldn't have said that, as an honest person (and you are an honest person). HOOTmag (talk) 10:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs,

Check? I don't have to: if you have read my response to DMacks, you can realize that I have already quoted all of the first three quotations, and I explained the historical facts DMacks was not aware of when he wrote all of this. Regarding the fourth quotation, I really didn't quote it, but if you have read the second paragraph of my response to DMacks you can realize that it refers also to the content of this fourth quotation.

Anyways, DMacks thinks like me, that no user is permitted to change their own post after it was responded to, so DMacks can't think that any user is permitted to change other users' posts after they were responded to. This is pure logic.

What "lingering question" of mine - are you talking about?

HOOTmag (talk) 10:01, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I'm truly amazed, it would have never occurred to me what amount of discussion can emerge from my using an innocent little trick. For the record, the intention was that HOOTmag asked me not to respond before Sunday morning, and since I knew I wouldn't be online until today, I posted my answer immediately, wrapped in a parser function ensuring it would only become visible on Sunday noon. In fact, I guess the fun of having an excuse to use this geeky device was probably my main motivation, otherwise I could just spare the world from my answer. I didn't expect it would stir such a controversy, or even become a problem at all, and I'd like to apologize for any inconvenience it might have caused to anyone. Though I can't help the impression that there's too many people here with too much spare time on their hands.—Emil J. 10:46, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I, too, am truly amazed (and no, I have no spare time, unfortunately) by the whole redundant discussion here (as far as our case is concerned), of which nothing concrete has came out - or may come out, after the time delays remained there untill they ran out automatically. HOOTmag (talk) 14:49, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Apparently HOOTmag (I'll AGF here) misinterpretted my comment. Dated-reveal is itself intrinsically a form of changing one's message later: what a reader sees some time later is not what a followup-writer was respondiong to at an earlier time. And it's intentioally doing so in a substantive way (completely different/added content, presumably with a "back-dated" signature, not just fixing a little typo or other "not changed meaning" fix). It's purely disruptive and is third-party correctable as such. DMacks (talk) 14:51, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your clarification. I appreciate it. I misinterpreted you, according to your testimony. I thought that your opinion was different, because you indicated that Wikipedia permitted no user to change (e.g. to make a dated-reveal) their own post after it had been responded to, so I inferred that you couldn't think that any third party was permitted to change other users' posts after they had been responded to. (that's why I didn't do that in other users' posts, although some users here advised me to do that).

Indeed, this is pure logic: Just think about the following hypothetical case: On Saturday, the first user posts a hidden post, which is going to be unhidden on Tuesday, automatically. On Sunday, another user responds. In your view, this case involves a prohibitted kind of changing the first user's post, because it's a hidden post on Sunday (when it has already been responded to), and it's an (automatically) unhidden post on Tuseday. Now, if a third party un-hides (according to your suggestion) the first user's post - before Tuesday, say on Monday, then we get to a second case being very similar to the first (prohibited) one: it's a hidden post on Sunday (when it has already been responded to), and it's an unhidden post on Monday (after it has already been un-hidden by the third party, who has done that according to your suggestion). Logically, one must infer the following: just as (in your opinion) the first case is prohibited because it involves a change between Sunday (when the post is hidden) and Tuesday (when it has already been unhidden automatically), so the second case must be prohibited because it involves a change between Sunday (when the post is hidden) and Monday (when it has already been unhidden by the third party). To sum up, both cases involves a prohibited act of changing a post after the post has already been responded to, although the second act was recommended by you. The only solution for this kind of cases, is: to replace the time-delays - by another mechanism, which will make the post hidden for ever, so that its status never changes (and by the way: Wikipedia has such a mechanism). HOOTmag (talk) 15:20, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Something concrete has come out of this discussion. There is a clear consensus on two points: no more riddles, no more time-delayed posts. I think this discussion is finished. --Tango (talk) 16:46, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I was clear enough: "nothing concrete has come out of this discussion - as far as our case is concerned". With regard to the future, you are right, but my case was treated by the Wikipedians here without their being aware of the basic facts (e.g. when they thought that I knew "the" answer, and when they thought that I could have given an un-hidden response to a hidden post, before any concensus had already been reached), so again: nothing concrete has come out of this discussion - as far as our case is concerned. HOOTmag (talk) 17:02, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I am beginning to suspect that Hoot is not a native speaker of English. For example, "Check" was not a request for him to check something - it's a commone English expression that basically means "Yes" - like putting a checkmark next to it. Meanwhile, although Dmacks has state explicitly that in his opinion the time-delay stuff is disruptive, Hoot seems to be continuing to argue otherwise. In short, no one has taken his side, which is probably why he thinks this thread has been unproductive. In contrast, it seems to me to have been educational in several ways. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:31, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm beginning to suspect that Bugs is not a native speaker of English. For example, he writes: "has state explicitly that", while the common English expression is: "has stated explicitly that". Additionally, I'm beginning to suspect that Bugs has got no sense of humour, because he thought that when I had written "Check? I don't have to" - I hadn't known that by "check" he'd meant something like "yes". Additionally, I'm beginning to suspect that Bugs hasn't read my response to DMacks, in which I clearly stated: "I misundersood you". I've also explained thoroughly (ibid.) why DMacks's opinion (according to his recent clarification) is illogical (see ibid.). Additionally, I'm beginning to suspect that Bugs hasn't read my response to Tango, in which I quoted my previous view that this discussion was unproductive "as far as our case is concerned", although it was productive for other cases in the future. Additionally, this discussion has been educational in several ways, e.g. it encourages everybody to assume good faith, and to be aware of the basic facts - before expressing one's opinion, and especially - before trying to draw pictures in the air (i.e. before removing time delays which have already run out). HOOTmag (talk) 18:50, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

You continue to argue narrow geometic logic instead of reasoning, so there's not much I can do for you. In any case, near as I can tell, all the questions you've had about your "contest" have been answered. If not, be sure and speak up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:15, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

You continue to ignore my purely logical reasonong, so there's not much I can do for you. In any case, near as I can tell, all the questions you've had about your "contest" have been answered. If not, be sure and speak up. As for my questions - I've never had any (on this thread), except for rhetorical ones, and except for a question of mine - about a question of yours - about a lingering question...:) My opinion has been stated by statements, not by questions. HOOTmag (talk) 20:12, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Everyone in this discussion speaks good enough English for our purposes, so it really doesn't matter. As for senses of humour, I interpreted your comment about not having to check in the same way Bugs did. If you are going to joke, you need to make your jokes clearer (a winking emoticon after them helps), or people are going to misunderstand you. --Tango (talk) 19:17, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

This is exactly what I meant in my response to Baseball Bugs's comment about the "Check": that everyone in this discussion speaks good enough English for our purposes, so it really doesn't matter. As for the way you interpreted my comment about not having to check: yes, you interpreted my comment quite well - just as I wanted it to be interpreted, i.e. that I don't have to "check"; I used the word "check" - as a response to Baseball Bugs's usage of the same word, although he meant "yes", of course. Finally, no: I'm not going to joke - unless I use a winking emoticon; I just said that if Baseball Bugs had had a sense of humour he would have correctly interpreted my intention regarding the relation between my usage of "check" and his usage of "check". HOOTmag (talk) 20:12, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

If I thought you had a sense of humor, things might have worked out differently. :) Now, do you have any remaining questions, are or we all just bantering at this point? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:47, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

If you had thought I'd had a sense of humor, things might have worked out differently; Similarly: if you had assumed good faith (as requested from you by Wikipedia), you'd have immediately realized that all of this thread had been redundant since the beginning - as far as my case is concerned. As for your repeated question about any remaining questions of mine, it seems like you haven't read my recent response to you, so let me quote from it: "As for my questions - I've never had any (on this thread), except for rhetorical ones, and except for a question of mine - about a question of yours - about a lingering question...:) My [clear] opinion has been stated by [clear] statements, not by questions". HOOTmag (talk) 22:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

So, in summary, all your questions have been answered, and everything is jake with you. Then we can box up this section, yes? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:11, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Again, it seems like you haven't read my responses to you. You cannot conclude that "all" my "questions have been answered", after I made it clear again and again that: As for my questions - I've never had any (on this thread), except for rhetorical ones, and except for a question of mine - about a question of yours - about a lingering question...:) My [clear] opinion has been stated by [clear] statements, not by questions". HOOTmag (talk) 22:26, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

So, do you still have any questions, concerns, issues, etc.? Or can this thread be closed? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:31, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Again, it seems like you haven't read my responses to you. You cannot ask whether I "still" have any "questions"...etc. (as if I'd ever had any questions on this thread), after I made it clear again and again that: "As for my questions - I've never had any (on this thread)...". As for your second question: I'm not the person who opened this thread, so I'm not the appropriate authority to let it be closed. I advise you to ask Tango. HOOTmag (talk) 23:31, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Would it be within your capability to provide a one-word (i.e. "Yes" or "No") answer to this question: "Do you have any concerns, problems, issues, questions, etc. regarding the matter posed by Tango?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:38, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't, because there's no one word for two different questions (the first one of which begins with "would", the second one beginning with "do"). Anyways, I don't understand why you ask me all of these questions while you don't ask the other users who have taken a part in this thread, mainly Tango who opened this thread. HOOTmag (talk) 23:53, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Because you're the guy who posed the riddle that started all this. And since you continue to talk in riddles, and won't answer a straight question... good night, and good luck. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:57, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec)What started all this - was not my riddle (whose mathematical issue is still being discussed between me and Tango at the mathematical Ref Desk). What started all this - was Tango's desire to ask here some questions about the time delays which were put (by a third person) in the mathematical thread which discusses my riddle. Anyways, my previous response to you seemed to be a riddle - just because you asked two questions while you were looking forward to a one-word answer, which is impossible, of course. Good night, and good luck. :) HOOTmag (talk) 00:38, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

This section is 48 kilobytes long - geesh :-) hydnjo (talk) 19:27, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe keeping it in small print will help? :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:33, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

This should be discussed gravely solemnly and seriously. I don't think GEOMETIC is a word, Bugs. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 19:49, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

GEOMETRIC might be. I know my spelling. It's the keyboard that's giving me grief. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:47, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

July 20

I'm somewhat disappointed that there are no WP:RD/S questions related to today's anniversary of the first manned moon landing. Nimur (talk) 20:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you want to open that can of worms, a guy could ask, "Did it really happen?" :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

After all, forty-one years is a significant milestone anniversary...? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:46, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Forty one years, eh. It seems like just yesterday. :) Actually, as I've discussed in another place, the date of the Moon landing is ill-defined. It can't be related to any time scale or calendar on Earth, because they have never been extended to extra-terrestrial bodies. I suppose I should mention that I appear to be a lone voice in this matter. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:01, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. Whether the date is July 20 or 21 is problematic because of UTC vs. Houston time; and even if that were well-defined, it's only a rough approximation of Earth solar-years to say we're at 41 integer-multiples of revolutions. As far Moon is concerned, it's been just another ordinary morning all week in the Mare Tranquilitatis... Nimur (talk) 22:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the support, Nimur. But just to labour the point, there are no weeks on the Moon either, unless we're prepared to accept a period of (7 x 28 =) 196 Earth days as the lunar week. Besides, what would they call Monday there? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 22:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

The way I figure... weeks aren't defined as 7 days strictly. They're defined as "closest-integer number of solar days that approximate 1/4th of a month," where a month is determined by "closest-number-of-integer-days-to-the-period-of-the-largest-satellite." So, Moon weeks would be 1/4th of the period of the largest satellite of the Moon - probably Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter [28]. I guess that makes a lunar week something like several hours? Calendars never did make any sense to me. Nimur (talk) 23:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Questionable removal

An IP editor performed this removal just now, and I don't think it should be removed. I read it as sincere and not trolling. Why not just reply with some references rebutting it, if you disagree? You might educate someone. (I must add as always that I'm more easily trolled than most, it seems.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:39, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I have some sympathy with this removal (it was likely to turn into an off-topic debate) but we have no consensus to remove good-faith responses like that (nor should we). Zain Ebrahim (talk) 20:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Everything after the first sentence was off-topic. The first sentence was on-topic, but hopelessly wrong factually and deserving of instant rebuttal (has this person never heard of male sex workers?). But we can't delete parts of editors' posts and let other parts remain; it's all or nothing, otherwise we turn ourselves into censors. On balance, it's better if the whole post is removed. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

It was an opionated and baiting comment, for sure, by an IP with a grand total of 4 entries; and it was removed by a one-shot drive-by. Sometimes things work out. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Don't call people "drive-bys", it is offensive. As for the removal, I fully agree with it. Whether the comment was trolling or not, it was complete nonsense and didn't address the OPs question. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 21:35, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

If you're not going to establish an identity, then don't tell me what to do. In fact, it was a one-time appearance by an IP address, and he deleted another user's edits. That qualifies, metaphorically, as a "drive-by shooting." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:00, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:Civil and WP:AGF are both policies all users must follow. Calling a user who made one edit (an edit obviously made in good faith and which has support here from several users, including you) a "drive-by" implies they came here to carry out an attack upon the Reference Desk, cause harm, or otherwise disrupt the project, which they obviously did not. In regards to you comment about "establishing an identity", I suggest you re-read the Founding_principles, specifically number 2, "The ability of anyone to edit (most) articles without registration." 82.43.90.93 (talk) 23:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

If that deletion was in "good faith", why did someone else bring it here? The IP made one entry which was a drive-by shooting of something he didn't happen to like. How does that square with policy? And where did I say anything about "registration"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:16, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

If the removal wasn't in good faith, why have several people including you agreed with it? Hmm? Obviously it's a bit of a touchy subject, but no one can claim the removed comment was anything but, in your own words, "opionated and baiting" and just plain wrong. It's removal was obviously in good faith regardless of whether the removal was actually right or not. I honestly don't see how you can debate that. As for "where did I say anything about "registration"?", please explain then what you meant by "If you're not going to establish an identity, then don't tell me what to do". What do you meant by "identity"? I presumed you meant registration, but if you didn't, please clarify exactly what you did mean. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 23:26, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't really belong, but it was NOT a one-shot IP's place to zap it. What I mean by "establishing an identity" is that if you have a floating IP, make it clear that you aren't a one-shot but that you have a floating range of IP's. IP's typically don't do that, of course, because it would undermine their ability to be "anonymous" and hence to be more belligerent than the average registered user. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Why was it not the ips place to remove a possibly trollish, non-helpful and factually wrong comment? This is a wiki, all users are allowed to edit equally; ip address, registered user and admin alike. In regards to "making it clear that you aren't a one-shot", I can find absolutely no policy whatsoever that requires users to announce the status of the internet connection in every comment, nor any logical reason why they should since how can you prove if they're actually a regular on a dynamic ip or not. This is why we have WP:AGF, so we don't have to keep guessing if someone is a regular or a new user - we simply treat all edits as good unless there is evidence to the contrary. So once again, please don't call users negative and offensive phrases like "drive-by". 82.43.90.93 (talk) 23:38, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Removing other people's talk page edits is against the rules unless the edit is a blatant violation of another rule, such as a BLP violation or a legal threat. And you're saying "possibly trollish". Where's your AGF for the IP that posted it? Don't be lecturing me about AGF or anything else until you fix your own flaws. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:44, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Talk page edits? What? This is the Reference Desk we're talking about, not talk pages. Comments are often being removed here, this entire page is filled with sections about removed comments because they're medial advice, trolling or unhelpful and wrong. And I always assume good faith, but no amount of good faith can make that bigoted comment any better than the backwards drivel it was. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 23:47, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the removal. It was a rant, not an answer. (I'm guilty of the same crime sometimes on topics I feel strongly about and I wouldn't contest my rants by removed if people felt strongly enough to do so.) --Tango (talk) 22:02, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

It's a stupid comment, but I don't see it as soapboxing -- I think we can assume good faith that the person was trying to make some point about society's expectations for men and women. So I don't think removal is in order. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:25, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Mwalcoff, and I actually did interpret the comment according to Mwalcoff's assumption of good faith. This is in fact a slippery slope, and we have slithered down it before. Some people might start removing stuff according to what they individually think is off-topic or irrelevant. Someone else will take offense at having his inane remark removed and look for an opportunity to remove something posted by the first remover. And so on. I guess I wouldn't restore this particular comment now, but I see problems if we start removing opinionated stuff rigorously. Let's only remove egregiously disruptive posts (personal attacks, hyperspamming, medical advice, whatever else there is). ---Sluzzelin talk 23:15, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

The one-shot IP was totally out of line, unilaterally zapping another editor's comment. I think you should restore it, along with a response that it's off-topic. Then the IP who actually posted it can decide what to do with it, if anything, and if he ever comes back. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:25, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I was that one-shot IP, and I agree with you, Bugs. I was too impetuous. It was probably inflammatory soapboxing, but good faith wins. Uh, should I put it back? 213.122.51.122 (talk) 23:33, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Consensus will decide whether to put it back or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:45, 22 July 2010 (UTC)