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ANI regarding Medeis

See [1]. Thanks, IBE (talk) 09:23, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Now available at [2]. Thanks, IBE (talk) 03:59, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Not the first, won't be the last. The problem with ANI for this issue is that it only ever looks at the latest incident, not the years of disruption. SteveBaker's suggestion that we put together a set of rules that will stop it seems like the only workable approach - IF we can enforce a topic ban WHEN the rules are broken. It's this last point which seems to be the major obstacle from my point of view. Tevildo (talk) 23:07, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Medeis herself has proposed a more drastic and effective remedy - "only an admin can hat or delete a discussion". This definitely gets my !vote. Shall we turn it into a formal proposal? If so, is RFC the way to go? Let's get this show on the road, folks! Tevildo (talk) 23:18, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I think it's quite a reasonable idea, but be careful to specify that it is a separate issue. The debate at ANI there has been weirdly sidetracked into a lot of other issues. You'll have to fight to keep people on topic. So yes, please go ahead, not least because people can then find the appropriate place for that discussion, instead of including it in the ANI that I started. IBE (talk) 05:23, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

The ANI debate has been "weirdly sidetracked" because there are few clear, widely supported rules in this area. As is often the case, the community has tolerated shootdown artists who are skilled at killing any chance of consensus by attacking the imperfections of any proposed solution, while never bringing forth any viable, constructive solutions of their own. I support this RfC as such a constructive proposal, although I will oppose and I think it will fail on its merits. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:49, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Wow, that was really angry, and yet you have a very good point there, amidst the welter of strong feelings. Yes, you are right about people pointing out these imperfections, yet is there any chance you could express this more reasonably in the future? "Shootdown artists", "skilled at killing any chance" - this is what I call argument by characterisation. You characterise people in a certain way, which stands for any reasonable analysis. The only thing we can do, please, is to fight for the middle ground, as well as our own proposals/ opinions or whatever. I agree that you have highlighted a real problem, but you will lose me quickly if you express yourself in such a way as to suggest it is wilful behaviour. We have to preserve the middle ground so that people (like the ones you are referring to) have a chance to find it. If they find it and demonstrably reject it, we can expose their tendentious behaviour. IBE (talk) 14:55, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I learned very early in my time here not to post when I'm angry. Being justifiably resentful is a different thing, and it's something that doesn't go away when you sleep on it. By blocking any progress on anything of significance, the pattern of behavior I described is destructive to the project (willful or not, it doesn't matter), and, yes, I have very strong feelings about that. I doubt I'm alone in that. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:30, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Are we entirely sure Medeis is even one person? What if (s)he's just a computer in a public cafe somewhere that never logs off? It would explain why it sometimes hats things and sometimes doesn't. Sometimes pleasant, sometimes un. I'm not trying to weirdly sidetrack anyone. Just something to think about. InedibleHulk (talk) 07:37, February 23, 2015 (UTC)

I think that's rather unlikely - Medeis' prose style is very consistent between postings. Tevildo (talk) 01:23, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Neat. Tevildo compares me to a mass murderer, InedibleHulk gratuitously insults me, and the above ANI fails with the opposition of more than half a dozen uninvolved admins. I have to say I am disappointed, but not pretending our perennial troll problem, especially violations of such policies as WP:BLP, etc., is one user's fault. μηδείς (talk) 04:17, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Can you point us to these "more than half a dozen uninvolved admins"? IBE (talk) 14:33, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

(...Sound of Crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 09:28, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Alternative Proposal

I would support the proposal by Medeis that only admins be allowed to hat or delete original questions or whole threads if it were formally made. It isn't the best of solutions, but it may be the simplest to state and enforce. We tried recently to discuss a flowchart for when and how to respond to Reference Desk threads. While I disagreed with the way that the flowchart was organized in two parts, it seemed better than no rules. Unfortunately, Medeis didn't offer any constructive comments, but didn't offer to stop acting as a part-time policewoman for the Reference Desk. A rule that only admins be allowed to hat or delete questions or threads would at least save Medeis from the burden of thinking that she has to police the Reference Desk, and the rest of the Reference Desk regulars from Medeis policing the Reference Desk unpredictably. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:21, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Please don't presume to speak on my behalf, I don't speak on yours. Your patronizing remarks and sarcastic insults speak for themselves without you attributing them to me. μηδείς (talk) 04:05, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I see no such presumption. The sarcasm expresses what many people think, although we recognise the need to treat some people with kid gloves. IBE (talk) 04:19, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Great idea, and I would thoroughly support it, but we have to be careful about who has the authority to make such a rule (as someone said in the ANI). It would lead to the awkward circumstance that an editor who mainly makes contributions to mainspace could venture towards the ref desk, hat a silly reply, then get told off for the violation of procedure. We'd have to be careful about gaining the authority to make such a decision, and perhaps it would have to be bumped up a level. Otherwise, yes, great idea. IBE (talk) 04:19, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

There is plenty of precedent for WikiProjects (which is more or less what we are) establishing their own local rules and guidelines above and beyond those more widely used throughout Wikipedia. So long as there is a consensus to apply them and they don't outright contravene normal Wikipedia rules - it's acceptable, and even enforceable under the general principles of disruptive editing. If we make a rule, with good consensus support, document it carefully and apply it uniformly and fairly - then if someone repeatedly violates it, then they are clearly disrupting our work here - and even if they aren't breaking any other Wikipedia rule, they would be guilty of disruptive editing - and that's definitely a punishable offense that any decent Admin would be happy to deal with accordingly. SteveBaker (talk) 04:36, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Hatting, deleting, and nicknames

"This glorification of vandalism through infamy encourages Internet memes through reinforcement, where users imitate notorious or unique vandalism methods for amusement, to share in the infamy, or for the thrill of defying authority and/or interfering in other users' work. Denying recognition and infamy neutralizes common primary motivators for vandalism and disruption." WP:DENY

Okay, I really thought there was clear community consensus on this, but I could be wrong. Could we have some comment, and maybe a !vote on this? I would prefer not to bring in specific cases, as I don't want it to become about discussing individuals or glorifying trolls. I have laid out what I consider the main points where we may diverge, to try to work out what the consensus is.

Thank you for your constructive comments. 109.157.242.32 (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Many of these questions seem to assume that there is an agreement about what constitutes trolling. The main problem, in my view, is the disagreement and discussions about whether particular questions and edits are trolling or not. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:16, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

The purpose of any action taken with respect to vandals and trolls is aimed at reducing disruption to the project.

Agree

• I thought this was clearly agreed. 109.157.242.32 (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Obviously. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:17, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agreed and I like that the OP is looking to set forward clear-cut definitions. When people write formal contracts one of the first things done is to create s definitions section so as to remove any possible ambiguity. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 5 Adar 5775 20:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agree - although we do have to consider the wider Wikipedia. So if we did something that disrupted the rest of Wikipedia in order to create more calm here - that would be A Bad Thing(tm). SteveBaker (talk) 21:31, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Clearly. So obvious one would think it doesn't need saying -- except that so many of the actions we do seem to end up taking here are outrageously disruptive, so this is a point that does need highlighting and working on, after all. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
• Yes, clearly. Although I'd prefer to say "The purpose ... is to reduce disruption to the project". Actions may be aimed at something, but purposes are just something. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:08, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Of course any action about trolls should be aimed at minimizing disruption. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:23, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Disagree

Comment

Trolls are motivated by a desire for recognition and a visible impact.

Agree

• Experience, and general discussions online including on Wikipedia, made me think this was universally agreed109.157.242.32 (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• To the extent that troll psychology is interesting, it is probably true that they want their disruption to be noticed, since ignoring trolls has proved to be the way to go. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:23, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Disagree

• You're missing the critical part, that they want to cause disruption. Wanting recognition and to make a visible impact are not bad things. StuRat (talk) 19:18, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• StuRat is correct...at least for some subset of trolls.
• We can't know what really motivates any given troll, nor make generalizations about all trolls. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I would agree with you that based on human nature (we're all different) it doesn't make sense to stereotype save for one thing. Most trolls are carbon copies of others using tried and true methods guaranteed to offend (at least if done right). Most new memes and trolls (as in methods of trolling) are done to death soon after they come out and still copied for a long time afterwards. It's unusual to run into a truly original troll and unlikely they'd troll here as there's much bigger fish. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Adar 5775 12:11, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• And, you know, I've been thinking about this some more, and regardless of what motivates the trolls, it's pretty clear that our beloved Reference Desks, in their current state, are an absolute troll magnet. Endless drama here on the talk page. Endless drama right on the desks themselves. A rampant collective case of autoimmune response, that makes certain first responders incapable of not rising to the bait, and then a whole host of second and third responders incapable of not arguing with the first responders and each other. What a circus! —Steve Summit (talk) 14:23, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

• My imagery is that of a large room full of people all screaming QUIET!!! at the top of their lungs. All thinking they are part of the solution when they are in fact part of the problem. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:30, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

• Disagree as per above posters, but this is irrelevant. What trolls want is not important. What we want is to minimize disruption. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:24, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Comment

• See Troll (Internet). There is no need to reinvent the wheel here. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:12, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Use of cute nicknames, insulting terms, and general recognition that a specific troll is remembered and talked about as an individual, encourages trolls

Agree

• WP:Do not insult the vandals, and all that. 109.157.242.32 (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC) To be clearer, I would consider calling a troll by a cute nickname on the desks a clear violation of WP:DENY. 109.157.242.32 (talk) 19:03, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Yes, and I think that trying to associate particular edits with particular trolls to the extent that is done on this talk page, is counterproductive. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:32, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Yes, but unfortunately Baseball Bugs is one of our "best" "troll hunters," and he seems to really like giving them names. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:26, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Well, instead of "Toron-troll", I could say "IP-hopping Toronto-based troll whose sole purpose is to foment debates" each time the subject comes up. Do you like that better? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:44, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Doing something to increase notoriety would be bad. Let's give them long, boring serial numbers instead of names. SteveBaker (talk) 21:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Actually, what would be best is trusting the judgment of the regular editors who know a troll's M.O. when they see it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:46, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Careful with that joke, Steve, I don't care and found it funny, but it could very easily be interpreted as a Holocaust joke (for reasons I don't have to explain). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Adar 5775 01:44, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
    • And who will decide who is "trusted" and who not? We'd need a process...fortunately, we have such a process - it's called Admin-ship. If you're a wannabe troll hunter - head over to WP:RFA and get yourself qualified, with a bright shiney toolkit to handle this stuff properly. What ain't gonna work (and is demonstrably NOT working) is self-nominated troll hunters. SteveBaker (talk) 01:24, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
      • That's one of the silliest comments I've seen here. Us peons have always been assistants to the admins in alerting them to trolls. Which you would know, if you paid attention. And if you don't trust the regulars and do trust the trolls, you took a wrong turn somewhere. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:26, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Agree. This shows the troll that they've won. It can best be illustrated by this page on KnowYourMeme. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Adar 5775 01:44, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agree. We should deny trolls recognition wherever possible. (Although, inevitably, there are tradeoffs, because we have to be able to talk about what we're doing, because we don't all trust each other enough to act invisibly and unilaterally.) —Steve Summit (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
• Weak agree. Not sure why this matters. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:25, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Disagree

Comment

• Yes, but we do need to say we think this is a troll, and link to the talk page where we list our evidence. StuRat (talk) 19:16, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
  • True, but we don't have to give them cool nicknames in the process...as I said above, ten digit randomly generated serial numbers would work better! SteveBaker (talk) 21:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
    • See my comment above, good sir. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Adar 5775 01:44, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
    • StuRat is one of the major troll-enablers here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:46, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

• This does not aid our discussion IMHO. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Adar 5775 01:44, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Obvious trolling, or known banned users, can be simply deleted with little notice given. The reason is that the trolling is obviously disruptive, or the user is surely known

Agree

• This denies them what they want, but should only be used where there is no doubt. This is not the same as everyone having no doubt, but there may be a few reliable people who are trusted to know. This may involve checkuser. 109.157.242.32 (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Surely, if the troll is truly well-known and recognizable, and if the editor doing the summary removal is trustworthy. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
• Absolutely. There should be no need to reward trolls just because we want to look smarter than everyone else, because we came up with some way to answer their trolling question. Delete it and move on. If someone did answer in good faith, too bad, so sad, tough shit. Just delete the question and make no comment. --Jayron32 16:32, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Disagree

• Unfortunately, we have regulars here like Medeis who seem to be incapable of exercising good judgement, so we can't allow this. Of course, if a post isn't actually a Q, but just a rant, then we can remove it for not being a Q.StuRat (talk) 19:13, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• We have seen, again and again, that what is obvious trolling to one user, may be a reasonable question to others. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:38, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agree with Norwegian Blue. I have noticed the same thing over a long time, and it would cause friction among us if implemented. This IMHO would feed the trolls. I thought the idea with known trolls was that they should be banned, and admins had responsibility for banned users. Identifying them from their MO alone sounds terribly suspect to me, and beyond our scope. IBE (talk) 03:33, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• I would consider agreeing - but for three things:
  1. We first have to unambiguously determine that this is definitely a troll. If just one individual makes that decision (eg Medeis) then they'll very often be wrong - or at least others here may wish to debate the matter...which gives the troll the kick they need. So the criterion for deletion would have to be sufficiently mechanically determined to allow the action to be performed with minimal debate. That's tough to do....but having some guidelines here would help.
  2. In the event that there is cause for doubt, then deletion is problematic because it leaves room for deletion without oversight. If we can't see the original post - and if we're trying not to debate it, then a rogue editor can (and past history says, will) start deleting questions that they merely don't like. This is not acceptable.
  3. It is arguable, that the troll would see deletion as an active response from us - which may in itself encourage the troll to post over and over in a cascade of whack-a-mole deletions that would possibly constitute recognition.

  I would prefer to simply stop replying to them. Do **NOTHING** whatever. This denies recognition at least as effectively as deletion...and it allows each of us individually to make our own determination of whether the question was "real" or "trollish". That said, if an administrative decision elsewhere in Wikipedia has formally identified this username or IP address as an evil-doer - then I see no particular problem with delete-on-sight...in that case, there ought to be no doubt. SteveBaker (talk) 04:42, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

  • Who are you? Please sign and date your posts. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:16, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
    • Sorry - it was me, I was answering many of these questions and missed a signature! SteveBaker (talk) 04:42, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
• Disagree as per Norwegian Blue and other posters, and because we cannot always be sure that a post is from a particular banned user. The proper means for identifying banned users normally is SPI. The ducks don't always quack as expected. Also, deleting a post that appears to one editor to be an obvious troll or a banned user may not be obvious to someone else, and the resulting argument is disruptive. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:31, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Comment

A troll will generally be disappointed with a brief, boring, referenced answer, and this the best response to any borderline cases

Agree

• I would consider this the ideal. 109.157.242.32 (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agreed. StuRat (talk) 19:11, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agreed. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:39, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Strong agree. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 5 Adar 5775 19:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• YES SemanticMantis (talk) 21:22, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• I agree with the sentiment, which I have usually called "playing a straight bat". Just answer the question literally, as asked, without getting into side issues such as our outrage. But such responses do not have to be brief to be effective; it depends on the context. Also, I have never been guilty of writing anything boring in my life, and don't intend to start now. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:24, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agree. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:32, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
• Agree. It's the debates that are disruptive. Either answer the question dispassionately, or delete it. But don't argue with others who do one or the other, and don't reprimand in public, get in debates, or otherwise generate drama. If someone is trolling, THAT'S what they want. Instead, either delete it (as above) or answer it, or ignore it. Those should be the only three choices. Nowhere should "reprimand" or "hat" or "call out" or "debate" be in there. --Jayron32 16:34, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Disagree

• Strong Disagree. I don't think we can create boring enough answers efficiently enough. The troll may take joy in causing us to waste countless hours researching dumb, stupid questions in order to come up with those answers. "Don't Feed The Trolls" is the correct thing to do. Simply do not answer at all. I appreciate that this may be difficult - but it's the only thing thats been proven to work. Just pretend that the question doesn't exist. No mention of it, no discussion of it, no reply to it. If someone does respond to an obvious troll, then maybe issue a short, standardized template warning to the responders' talk page. "I think you replied to a troll - you may wish to retract your response."...that's far enough away from the WP:RD page that the troll may not have the energy to go and look to see if (s)he caused disruption there...and if they do, a simple template with no additional commentary is the least interesting thing we can do. SteveBaker (talk) 21:53, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

• Note that the statement addressed borderline cases, i.e. cases where there you are in doubt whether the question was serious or not. If I considered the question interesting enough for me to spend time researching it, and had time available to do so, I wouldn't really care what the motivation of the questioner was, and I don't think I would create any disruption by providing a referenced answer. The answer would be boring to the OP if the question was an attempt at trolling, and hopefully interesting to the OP and others if the question was made in good faith. If the question was uninteresting and suspect, I would ignore it. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 23:04, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

If we make our referenced responses boring, the trolls win. Let's just not make them inflammatory. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:50, February 25, 2015 (UTC)

I think the the idea behind boring wasn't so much dry, but rather not expressing any strong negative emotions over the topic. The Israel Palestine topic from two days ago for instance as targeted to provoke strong reaction if it was a troll post. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Adar 5775 04:43, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

It did sort of provoke me. But I refrained from mentioning specific unspeakable acts. And deflected the urge into improving the rocket article's accuracy and range a bit. Trolls can be used to support the bridges they live beneath. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:50, February 25, 2015 (UTC)

You saw though how there started to be back-and-forths over it though. The regulars started arguing over the nature of the Conflict because they feel strongly about it for one reason or another. Were it a troll post, the OP would have harvested the lulz from everyone getting so hot and bothered, and the ref desk regulars might not even realised they've been trolled. They'd just think about how horrible that other person on refdesk is for thinking they can honestly justify the actions of whichever side they support (as most foreigners are polarised on this particular issue).

Another example was the autism thread where even I lost my cool (I'd like to think I've a thick netskin, but clearly not always the case) because I find the level of ignorance that was displayed in the original question offensive (unapologetic ignorance is something that annoys me). Should have seen that as a red flag. We all had some nice arguments there and if the OP was trolling, they got ample lulz out of it. When people lose their composure, the troll wins. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Adar 5775 14:41, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Weak disagree, because I don't think we can say anything general about the troll's psychology or satisfaction level, so I can't agree that this is the "best" response in every situation. (Though it can indeed be a perfectly fine response in some situations.) —Steve Summit (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Per what I said above, I would normally agree with you as people are different from person to person, but in the case of most trolls except for the really good ones, I must respectfully disagree. Your average troll is a copycat of other trolls mimicking older, more experienced, trolls and using tired old trolling methods. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Adar 5775 14:41, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment

• A dispassionate reply to a troll post is very effective. It will either anger the troll and cause them to leave after a while or defuse them as they feel outgunned. Either way their confidence is bruised and they're gone (at least for a while). I used to do this with trolls on IRC who liked to use heavy-duty holocaust jokes on me and I always either talked about stuff calmly (or in certain cases one upped them) and this always defused them. I even managed to become friendly with an Austrian neo-Nazi who liked me because of archaeology. The other solution I found back then was to counter-troll a troll until they would beg for mercy, and then after it was granted, they'd be docile, but that only works on minor to moderate trolls and is thoroughly unacceptable behaviour on Wikipedia (and you feel bad about it after a while). So I feel the above approach is best. (It's known that the /lit/[erature]section of 4chan is impossible to troll because this is how they deal with trolls. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 5 Adar 5775 19:54, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Yep, we of course shouldn't troll the trolls here, but keeping our cool and ignoring or giving calm referenced answers is the best. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:22, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I disagree. Many trolls would take great joy in asking which porn star has the biggest dick and watching us go off and carefully research the matter, providing copious carefully referenced answers. Having us run in circles trying to answer this kind of question is PRECISELY the kind of thing that trolls love to see. This is a really, REALLY terrible idea! SteveBaker (talk) 21:53, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Of course, SemanticMantis. Sorry, I should have specified that the dispassionate answers is what I was advocating. I was just putting it in context of other effective methods. It's also been quite some time since I wrecked a troll and it takes a lot of apathy and practice which none of us should engage in as our time is better spent helping people out (it also only works on lesser trolls). Ignoring is nice in theory, but practice has shown that someone will always answer (either out of anger at them question or pity because the post is being ignored). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Adar 5775 00:59, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

A terrible idea, says you. I think you just don't have the experience in teaching that some of us do. So let me tell you: calmly answering questions with facts is what works, not telling people they aren't allowed to ask. If someone asks us about pornstar penises and some of us want to provide references, I don't think that's feeding trolls. There's nothing wrong with asking about penises, WP:NOTCENSORED, so that's a non starter. So we're left with the your idea of "great joy" - you seem to be saying this would be troll feeding because the asker might like the fact that we did research for them? That's INSANE. That's tantamount to saying that we can only answer questions if we are pretty sure the OP won't like it or perhaps at best they have no feeling. But certainly not pleasure. That would be terrible. Do you see how crazy that sounds? Aren't we here to help people, and presumably give them the pleasure of answering their questions? That's what I'm here for anyway, though a lot of respondents just like to talk a lot and not give references... Us fighting about whether or not we can answer the question is feeding trolls, IMO.

In short, you're missing the point, and the beauty of this concept: your plan only works if we ALL agree on what is trolling. This way, giving referenced answers, means it doesn't matter if one user thinks it is a troll question and another doesn't. You are of course free to ignore something that you think is trolling, and I should be free to give AGF, referenced answers anywhere I want, even if it is about porn stars' penises. That really is a REALLY TERRIBLE example! SemanticMantis (talk) 22:41, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't mean any offence by this, but I think you might be presenting an overly-simplistic view of what trolling is and what trolls are after, SteveBaker. I'm not saying I'm at all an expert, but I'll give my opinions on the matter. For one thing, trolls, just like regular people, really vary in complexity. You have garden variety obvious trolls (who run the gambit from pitiful to rage-inducing) who you can tell are trying to cause controversy or annoy people, but you also have opportunistic and concern trolls whose skills are much more developed. They're also very difficult to tell from a genuinely concerned individual (and the ensuing debate over whether or not they're a troll can be a pre-calculated form of trolling in and of itself).

Hypothetically, and I'm not saying this is at all the case, and so I hope the OP won't take offence, but hypothetically this entire topic could be one massive brilliant troll (the kind that honesty earns a beer IRL even if it's not cool overall) to cause disagreement and fighting amongst the users on this talk page. It would fuel itself and all the originator would have to do is gently guide it back towards fighting should it calm down, but we, ourselves, would fuel it for the most part. Trolls thrive on negativity above all else.

Again, not saying this is at all the case, but this is just one example and there is such trolling. If you have time, I recommend doing some background research on Encyclopædia Dramatica (sort of like /b/'s version of Wikipedia—do not view the Offended page under any circumstances). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Adar 5775 00:59, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Mantis. Defining trolling is incredibly tricky and oftentimes people will call valid arguments trolling just because they don't like it. (A terrible problem in the annoying realm of politics) It's a huge mess made even worse by placing constricting rules and standards on everything. The more rules you have, the more people will want to break them.

The most cool-headed place I've ever seen on the net is RoyalHookahForum. They have no real rules there save for not being a complete ass. There'll be light hearted insults, along with sage advice and everyone gets on really well. Now obviously we can't have an almost rules free environment here as this is first and foremost an encyclopedia, but making things very restrictive is not the way to go.

Also, there have been more than a few questions I've wanted to ask, but haven't because I feel like there might be backlash to what I, at least, consider perfectly reasonable questions, even if a bit tricky. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 6 Adar 5775 00:59, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussing trolling on the desks themselves, rather than here, is unprofessional and encourages trolling

Agree

• I thought this was clearly agreed, but maybe the desks are no longer considered 'customer facing'? 109.157.242.32 (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agreed. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:41, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agreed. Though if someone else says "this is a troll" on the desk, I will still reply there if I reply at all. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:28, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Strongly agree. SteveBaker (talk) 21:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Clearly. Very bad form. Whether or not it encourages the troll, it maximizes the disruption. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agree. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:26, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agree. Do not discuss trolls on the Reference Desks. Either reply to the trolls or ignore them. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:33, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
• Damn skippy. --Jayron32 16:35, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Disagree

Comment

• Yes, but we do need to give a statement that we believe it to be trolling, and a link to the talk page discussion. StuRat (talk) 19:10, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
  • If we do (and I'm not sure we do), it has to be UTTERLY minimal, boring formulaic, repetitive and not give any impression that we went to a lot of trouble to produce it. No response whatever is the best answer. SteveBaker (talk) 21:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussing it here is just as encouraging. Westboro Baptist Church didn't so much care about the immediate drama from angry funeral goers as it wanted the months of consequent long-winded opinion articles elsewhere on the planet. Can't look at this huge talk page and believe we haven't been trolled. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:56, February 25, 2015 (UTC)

Unprofessional comments that encourage trolling may be deleted from the desks

Agree

• This is where I expect less consensus. 109.157.242.32 (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Disagree

• We can't give editors with poor judgement the power to make such calls alone, or they are likely to decide that any answer which disagrees with them is "unprofessional" and delete it. StuRat (talk) 19:08, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• When we can't agree on whether a particular edit is trolling or not, we cannot possibly hope for agreement about whether a comment might encourage trolling. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:45, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• I would like to agree - but then we're back to random editors choosing to be judge, jury and executioner. Only an admin should have the power to do this. If we had a set of clear guidelines that stated what kinds of thing were "unprofessional" in this context - then I might agree. But we'd need some kind of bright line criterion. SteveBaker (talk) 21:57, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

• I don't see Admins as being above making bad decisions (and removing their Admin status if they do make bad decisions seems almost impossible). This is why we need consensus to delete. StuRat (talk) 22:05, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

• The rule that we don't edit each others' comments is pretty ironclad. (And breaking it inevitably leads to muchas drama, and drama = disruption.) —Steve Summit (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
• No, as noted by previous posters. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:40, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Comment

Hatting can be useful for collapsing long information, or preventing further comments in an unproductive conversation

Agree

• I expect most agree with this now. 109.157.242.32 (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Yes, but be careful not to hat actual answers. StuRat (talk) 19:07, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agree with original statement. Also agree with StuRat that there may be cases when actual answers could be preserved. However, in the usual tangled mess of some information, some meta-discussion about whether the question is appropriate or not and some jokes, I wouldn't mind if the whole thing is hatted. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:06, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agreed, with a note for terminology - a hat [3] produces a message to "please do not modify" - so it shouldn't be used for organizational purposes. It also clearly states that it should only be applied by uninvolved editors. In contrast, the cot/cob template [4] also collapses, but does not say the thread is closed by default (though there is an option to do so). So cot/cob should be used to box up things like off-topic discussion or long examples. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:32, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Yup. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
• Weak agree as to threads that have become unproductive, but not as to questions. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:39, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
• Agree to use hatting as a means to shut down regulars who have gone off the rails, and taken unproductive tangents. See below, we should NOT use hatting to memorialize trolls. --Jayron32 16:35, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Disagree

• I disagree. Trolls know how to hit the "SHOW" button - and I'm fairly sure a lot of people are curious about WHY something was hatted - so it might even result in more people reading it than if it had just been left alone. it's just annoying...and it in no way solves the underlying problem of preventing people from arguing about whether the hat was appropriate or not. SteveBaker (talk) 22:00, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment

Hatting is not an appropriate response to trolling, as it preserves the trolling and draws attention to it

Agree

• This is where I now expect more discussion. 109.157.242.32 (talk) 18:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• I agree, for reasons explained earlier. SteveBaker (talk) 22:10, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
• Agree. —Steve Summit (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
• Strongly agree. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:28, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Strongly agree that troll questions should not be hatted. In certain cases, a response that is controversial may need hatting. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:35, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
• Agree. If the trolling is worth hatting, it is worth deleting. There are reasons to hat a discussion or parts of it, but any bad-faith trolling should be deleted without comment. --Jayron32 00:41, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Disagree

• The alternative, deletion, gives too much power to people who lack the judgement to make such calls without consensus. StuRat (talk) 19:06, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

  That's not true, we can always get deleted stuff back from the edit history...it's not much harder than removing a hat. SteveBaker (talk) 22:10, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

  That would require regularly searching the history of each Ref Desk for deleted entries, which is far more work than unhatting. So much work, in fact, that I doubt if anyone would do it. StuRat (talk) 01:18, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

• It is often better to ignore trolling (this is especially effective when you want someone else to deal with it), delete it when appropriate, or to give poker-face responses (preferably with references). That said, in what ever way trolls happen to be dealt with (which is often a thankless job whether one has a mop or not), they often tend to trigger or engage in unproductive discussions which might get hatted per above. -Modocc (talk) 13:39, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment

• As others have said here previously, the real problem isn't the questions, it's the answers. If everyone could just refrain from responding to or policing questions they perceive as trolling, and refrain from starting meta-discussions when others have assumed good faith and given reasonable, referenced answers, the desks would be a better place. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:22, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

  I agree. It's long been known, since before the RD, before Wikipedia, indeed before the Internet itself...dating all the way back to Usenet and news groups...that the only way to deal with a troll is to deny recognition. Any recognition. All recognition. Simply pretend they don't exist. It's hard to understand the motivation of trolls - so putting yourself into their position and trying to decide whether a hat or a delete or a serious telling off or a long, carefully researched and referenced answer will solve the problem doesn't work. They don't think like you or I. So do what people have been doing for the last 25 years...DON'T FEED THE TROLL - it's a technique that's long been known to work. The only problem is in getting everyone to do it - and THAT is what we need to do here. Educate each other. Quietly inform each other of who we think the trolls are - who not to answer...don't make a big show of it. Use back-channels, individual talk pages, email. Also, trolls need to be reported through the usual Wikipedia channels - ANI, etc. If there are admins here, then please use your powers and your best judgement where you can. SteveBaker (talk) 22:10, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

     Responding just 
     encourages them! 
            \ 
             >') 
             ( \ 
              ^^` 
     --Guy Macon (talk) 14:54, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

BRD in practice

I undid Bug's hatting of this thread [5]. I don't care who asked the question, it is IMO a valid ref desk question "Is this a fair depiction of universities in the USA?" is the core question. Many of us have provided referenced responses, and not argued or debated anything. As I understand WP:BRD, Bugs was Bold, I Reverted, and now we Discuss before any further action is taken. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:21, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

(For the sake of clarity, the exact quote from the thread is "Is this article accurate in its portrayal of the state of American academia?") SemanticMantis (talk)

You are enabling the Toron-troll. Way to go. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:28, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

BRD, my old friend! Ah, what a relief it is! Oppose the hat per OP and (singular) their troll philosophy, which I interpret as judge the question not the questioner. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:35, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

You are clearly unaware of the Toron-troll's M.O. However, this is a good example of why I so seldom hat or delete stuff. You enablers will come along and trash any such efforts. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:37, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Judge the question, not the questioner or their M.O. SM has elaborated the reasoning multiple times elsewhere. Trolls want to be recognized and treated as trolls, so we'll deprive them of that satisfaction by treating them as good-faith questioners, provided the question is somewhat reasonable. We'll deflate their power and avoid unnecessary conflict at the same time. And we'll provide good responses for future searchers of the archives as well. Do I have that somewhat right, SM? ―Mandruss ☎ 21:48, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Banned users are not allowed to edit. And even if the Toron-troll is not a banned user, they are still violating the rules by constantly trying to provoke debates. But this is why I'm now proposing NO hats or deletes for the next week. According to the theories here, that should deprive them of a great deal of attention. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:51, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

This is the main issue, as I see it. Is the user in question actually banned? Is there an AN/I thread we can refer to where the ban was issued? If there is, your actions were correct. If there isn't, they weren't. Tevildo (talk) 22:00, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

They've been blocked often enough that they are defacto banned. It's frequently suggested there's no point having a ban discussion on someone who is already defacto banned. In this particular case, I think a request to ban the editor at ANI is likely to go down even more poorly, I suspect many there would ask why we even need to discuss whether an editor who goes asking contributors how it feels to be "negress" since their "race genetically has average 85 IQ" who has been blocked several times is defacto banned. Nil Einne (talk) 05:05, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Agree with unhatting, and especially with getting rid of the attention-grabbing advertisment of a troll name/nickname that the banner created. I see this question as a rather obvious invitation to a forum-like diskussion. The main problem was that so many of us responded. The first response was reasonable, but then everybody wanted to take part in the discussion. An ideal early response would have been one that pointed out that this is not a forum, and discuraged further discussion. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:46, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Hence hatting rather than deleting. If you don't like "Toron-troll", I could post a long sentence explaining in more detail, to try to give the enablers a clue. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:49, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, not all that long: Discussion outside the scope of the reference desk closed. See "What the reference desk is not". would suffice. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:30, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Personally I disagree with the unhatting, particularly since when the unhatting happened, the IP had already asked that ridiculous Swedish question but I'm not going to bother to debate it. Particularly since I partially agree with NorwegianBlue here, namely that this question, and in fact most questions by this troll aren't really that suitable for the RD anyway. I'm not saying this alone justifies their removal or hatting, rather the fact they aren't RD questions means there's less imperative to hat them since if people answer them they should already know to some extent what they're getting in to. The other point, is that I'm not completely sure the editor is a troll, even if I've often used that term in reference to this specific editor myself. I suspect they are, the way they were praising μηδείς until they purportedly suddenly found out about μηδείς's heritage suggests to me a troll. However from the little I've seen (well that I recall I've seen), it's a bit difficult to rule out them simply being a racist who's attempts at debate and to prove the inferiority of whatever "race" are genuine. Of course them being a troll doesn't rule them out being genuinely racist either, but the point is if they are genuine in the questions, even if their questions are inappropriate and often flawed, editors aren't being fooled by the editor. (This compares to for example, the editor I mentioned below from Argentina who pretended to be from a lot of different countries, who from their questions was at least partially not being genuine.) Of course as I said above, either way the editor is still unwelcome on the RD, or anywhere on wikipedia. Being racist isn't in itself something sanctionable. Going around calling others offensive names and asking offensive stuff of them is. Nil Einne (talk) 06:14, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion

How about declaring a moratorium on hatting and deleting? No hats or deletes at all for the next week, regardless of where the questions came from and what the content is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:41, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

• I fully support that as an interesting experiment. Maybe WP will fall and crumble to a wasteland of trolls and vandals, or maybe things will be just fine. Of course we still can't give medical advice etc. Maybe it would be better to try out a moratorium on hatting or deleting questions. Either way though, I'm all for it. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:49, 24 February 2015 (UTC) (But I really hope I can AGF that none of our regulars will get WP:POINTY and start trolling themselves in an attempt to prove that we need deletions.)
  • No. No exceptions. There are users here who don't recognize a request for medical advice when they see it, and others who don't believe in that rule. No hatting or deleting. Just factual responses, or ignoring, as so many reasonably argue here. With all the commentary above, it seems possible to starve the trolls by giving them too little attention. My real goal is to have the ref desk talk page go silent for a week, which would be a nice change. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:55, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
    • As I said, I'm fine either way, but I think phrasing it that broadly makes it less likely to gain consensus, especially from users who are afraid that we would be exposing WP to liability, along the lines of Tevildo's comment below. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:02, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
      • It has been stated countless times that WP can't be held liable for something that some individual editor has posted. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:13, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
        • I know, and I believe that. But not everybody does... Let's just wait and see if anyone else goes for it. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:16, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

With the caveat that anything coming under WP:LOP#Legal is still to be deleted, I would support this. But I doubt that this will be the majority viewpoint, or, indeed, that Bugs seriously means it. Tevildo (talk) 21:58, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm happy to WP:AGF with Bugs. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:02, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

The problem with trying to allow exceptions is that we'll be right back at the talk page arguing over whether a question and/or a response violates the rules against asking for and/or giving professional advice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:06, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's not a case of "allowing exceptions", it's a case of our not being able to prevent deletion of material which is actually illegal or which violates WP:TOS (_not_ merely the guidelines). I've never seen an example of this sort of thing on the reference desks, but saying "nothing is to be deleted" is not legally possible for us to implement. Tevildo (talk) 00:04, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• fully supportPhoenixia1177 (talk) 08:25, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Abstain InedibleHulk (talk) 12:11, February 25, 2015 (UTC)

Amazing Grace...

Do you guys realise how much energy and how many bytes have been expended on all this nonsense? If the Ref Desk spent as much time researching and answering questions as it did geolocating anon IPs and hatting so-called trolls, it could be a truly useful and usable resource. Stop all this right now, just answer questions that should be answered and ignore those which shouldn't. It's really simple. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:53, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I dunno, I tend to react negatively to commands like "stop all this right now". I was discharged from the military in 1977 and haven't looked back. Wikipedia is not a military organization and you are not a commander here. Thanks. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:58, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

The command is usually issued for your own good. The advice is in good faith, expend energy here improving the place, not whining about the place, creating endless conspiracy theories about IPs using the "geolocate" function etc etc etc, just get on with being a Ref Desk, not a pretend detective agency. As a former military person you should understand that wasting time is wasting time and that's not good. This is an encyclopedia. If our edits don't make the place more encyclopaedic then we should question why we made the edits... PPPPPPP. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:03, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I find it ironic that you invoke PPPPPPP here. What we need is precisely that - planning and preparation. Compiling a set of community-sanctioned guidelines that direct our future activities is planning and preparation - and it should indeed work toward preventing piss poor performance down the line. What you're advocating here is to curtail any planning and preparation and rush headlong over the trenches with fixed bayonets instead of thinking hard and designing some sort of tank. SteveBaker (talk) 22:24, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Nope, once again another who failed to read the opening post. We already have prior planning, it's BRD and RBI and right now all we see is a piss poor performance from many RD contributors who continually run to the talk page to whinge about so-called trolls etc. Stop doing that. It makes things worse. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:53, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

At least four editors here present don't feel we are wasting our time, and the thread is still young. It is not for you to declare that we are wasting time and order us to cease immediately. If you feel it's a waste of your time, then don't waste it. The door is that way. Sheesh! ―Mandruss ☎ 22:08, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I think you have missed the point. And as a military man, I think you've epically failed to read your instructions. Go back to my original request. This is a plea to stop all the ongoing and continual running to the talk page to discuss each and every hatting/closure/deletion of every dubious/medical/trolling thread. You should know, by know, that it's a waste of community resources. Stop doing it, and do something useful, like improve the encyclopedia. Sheesh!!! (whatever that means) The Rambling Man (talk) 22:16, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Mocking users' comments, very impressive. For your edification: [6]. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:57, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

You're still not reading it, are you? Never mind. Focus on the sheesh, not the crux of the matter. Run toward the bright light because that what you've been told, etc. Time to wake up and realise that this is an encyclopaedia and we should be improving it. Are you doing that? Is this thread doing that? Are the various whinging threads continually created here every time a troll visits doing that? I read three fat NOs. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:12, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I already stated that I have read it multiple times, so clearly I'm not the individual with WP:IDHT issues here. Apparently you feel that failure to see the obvious wisdom of your comments is evidence of willful failure to understand you. That is not the case. If you're here to collaborate, which is at the core of Wikipedia principles, welcome to the discussion. If you're here as the only smart person in the room, I have better things to do with my time, and I'm more than willing to ignore any further comments from you. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:26, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

As you like it. Failure to read properly seems a core issue with many people around these parts. The Rambling Man (talk) 05:44, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Full support to the Rambling man's suggestion. @Mandruss: please re-read The Rambling man's post, which to me reads like an earnest request for better practices, not like a military order. --NorwegianBlue ^talk

I read it multiple times and I disagree with it. How I choose to spend my unpaid time at Wikipedia is my business, up to the point where someone can show that I am WP:NOTHERE (not even close). We all welcome TRM to make suggestions, which may or may not be followed, the same as the rest of us. Aggressive attempts to control what happens here are NOT welcome, at least by me, I don't claim to speak for anyone else. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:20, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree that we should not be helping out the troll by arguing about them. I agree that time spend editing this page is time that's not being spend in helping people with their questions. BUT: I firmly believe that we DO need to set some policies in place for what we do with trolls, vandals, stupid kids, medical questions, annoying joke makers, judge-jury-and-executioner deletion/hatters and so forth. If we could just concentrate on getting consensus-driven policies in place effectively, then we'd spend less time doing this (ideally, no time at all doing it) - and we'd all have time for answering more questions. So while I agree with your sentiments, and I do try to stay out of these discussions, I believe that an investment in time for policy making will pay back in time down the road, and that's for the betterment of the RD's. SteveBaker (talk) 22:19, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd be interested in which editors here actually spend more time researching IPs etc than answering questions. Definitely while I've spend a fair amount of time on this and in discussion here, it's nothing compared to the amount of time I spend answering questions. Whether that time spend is productive or not may be up for debate, but it's hardly uncommon I can spend 2 or 3 hours researching and answering a question. In fact, the last time I spent anything like that on something related to the RD talk or on researching something unrelated to a question on the RD was in reference to μηδείς no IPs). μηδείς seems to be the biggest hatter, but they don't seem to spend much time discussing their hats, or on researching IPs (from what I've seen anyway). Perhaps BB is the only one this could apply to, but even BB doesn't seem to spend that much time on it. Nil Einne (talk) 06:22, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

BTW, as an interesting aside, there are currently 112 archive pages. The bot is currently set to limit archive size to 200k. As I understand the way bots in the past and present works this means most archives will generally end up a bit under 200k as the bot will add threads until adding another thread would push it over the limit. Of course manual archiving may violate this, and the settings could have changed, but in the historic and current example I looked at, both were under 200k. Still if I take the average size as 250k you end up with 112*250k=~28M. However I'm missing the guidelines discussion pages as well as any discussion which happens on the RD. So let's say a round 30M. From February 15 to February 21, we have 35,617, 25,646, 33,153, 27,417, 78,742, 4,863, 32,208 on the science archive pages. That's 237646 bytes. But some of it is header and stuff and a small amount of discussion which should be on talk pages. The header is currently about 1646 per page depending on what you count *around 12k for a week), and I don't think there's that much offtopic discussion but let's be generous, say that's 210k bytes per week on the science desk. For Humanities which I think is the next biggest desk from February 14 to 20 (21 hasn't been archived yet), we have 30,843 + 28,205 + 42,234 + 23,391 + 64,721 + 7,792 + 20,473 or 217659. So let's say 190k per week. Computing appears to be the next biggest, again 14 to 20 14,936 + 10,034 + 29,901 + 35,366 + 9,535 + 5,846 + 7,052 i.e. 112670, so lets say 90k per week. I can't be bothered with the other desks, let's say combined they only equal 90k per week. So thats 580k per week. With about 52 weeks per year, that's about 30M per year. So thats 30M per year compared to the over 10 years on the archives (first is 2004). Of course this has changes over time, I believe it has been established before the desks used to be more active. Perhaps we've gotten worse and there has been more discussion? 111 is the least completed archive. The last discussion there started and end around the end of January 2015. The beginning of archive 105 has stuff from early to mid January 2014. So that's 7 pages. Or 1.750M. Wasted effort? Perhaps some may believe so. But is not doing that going to significantly changed the 30M we may have written in the same period on the RD proper in that same period and make it a lot better? Probably not. And while I can't speak for others, other than for a few specific posts like this one, the vast majority of mine on the RD proper have more effort per byte. (I can't of course rule out being very lucky and the amount of bytes on the RD is a lot lower than 30M on average, but even if it's only 15M, we're still talking more or less an order of magnitude difference.) Nil Einne (talk) 07:24, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

You're confusing volume of text with time spent. It takes a lot longer to come up with a decent two paragraph answer to a tricky question than it does to write a page about the problems of the Ref Desk. So comparing the number of keystrokes in this talk page to the number in the reference desks themselves is an entirely useless comparison that adds nothing to the discussion here. SteveBaker (talk) 04:52, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you are approaching this the wrong way

I would like to call to everyone's attention to Wikipedia:Help desk, where we manage to get by just fine without any self-appointed sheriffs deleting or collapsing questions that they don't like. these include:

• Legal threats/BLP issues: Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 February 5#request for correction of errors and defamation
• Misplaced vandalism reports: Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 January 12#"Sickle"
• Misplaced content disputes: Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2014 December 20#"HANDS UP" FALSE NARRATIVE
• Requests for medical advice: Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2014 December 1#Audio illutions
• Questions written in other languages: Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2014 November 24#لماذا تم حذف صفحتي؟

What few content deletions we have are 100% uncontroversial and generate zero drama.[7] In all other cases, the question gets answered, even if the answer is "You are in the wrong place; the right place is X" or "That's not a question Wikipedia can answer".

Perhaps western civilization won't collapse if we all just stop deleting or collapsing questions/discussions that we don't like... I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:14, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

It won't be a surprise to many, but I agree completely. I edit all over Wikipedia and the Ref Desk is the only place where such events create so much drama on such a regular basis. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:18, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Me too. I've been a long-time regular here, but have been becoming less and less regular (maybe I need more roughage in my diet) over the past couple of years. I take less and less interest in participating in these back-room debates, because they almost never get anywhere, and life is too short. The last time there was a significant collaborative achievement was the Ref Desk Guidelines, which were hammered out in 2006 and have undergone only minimal revision since. The same cadre of editors who are addicted to arguing, to getting their own way, to self-promotion, to having something important to say about every conceivable topic, to providing detailed opinions without even a suspicion of a reference, and the rest of it, are in full control as ever. (I mention no names, but if you wonder whether I'm talking about you specifically, I very possibly am.) Whatever approach the Help desk takes seems to work well. Let us emulate it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:50, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

The ref desks began as a spinoff of the help desks. Maybe it's time to re-merge them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:14, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

If that implies the ref desks adopting the "answer the question or ignore it" culture of the help desk, it could work, but if it meant the help desk adopting the "try to control what questions get asked and what answers are given" culture of the ref desks, it would be a disaster. We could try, as an experiment, not deleting or hatting anything where doing so is even slightly controversial (see my help desk example above for a deletion no sane person could possibly dispute), waiting until the trolls get the point that they will no longer be able to create infinite drama with a well-crafted troll, and see how that works for us. Then we could revisit your merge idea later. Remember, there is no Wikipedia policy that forces anyone to delete or collapse someone else's comment. Doing nothing is always an option on Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:43, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I should have said that the help desk would resume control of the ref desks. And since I have already proposed a moratorium on hatting and deleting, obviously I concur with that part of your comment. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:48, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

These examples are interesting, but none of them are particularly similar to the trolling on the RD. In fact, the only one which is similar to anything which causes controversy on the RD, is the medical advice one, but even the example shown isn't likely to be something that would cause problems on the RD. Wrongly placed questions are normally dealt with without issue here. So are questions in another language. Well for all of these, except perhaps when User:μηδείς randomly goes off the deep end on question. If there's little trolling on the help desk (which isn't shown by these examples anyway), it's difficult to imagine this is entirely because of the help desk culture somehow discourages, more likely the nature of the type of stuff the help desk deals with isn't conducive to trolling (although there has definitely been trolling before, e.g. the person who came from many different countries often small island nations targeted both the help desk and RD). Actually, it seems to me there's a good chance someone who wants to ask about whether Sweden is dangerous linking to a racist image may sometimes be directed to the RD at the Help Desk. Although I don't think that particular closure was controversial (and I would hope the HD would simply ignore such a question rather than directing them to the RD), how to deal with less implicit trolling sometimes is. That IP also seems to target article talk pages with proposals for improvement, they could perhaps try taking some of these questions to the help desk, but the truth is it's fairly simple to tell someone to take it to the talk page so it's really no skin off anyones back doing so. Nil Einne (talk) 04:56, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I should perhaps clarify that I don't want to come across as completely negative. In particular, it's possible more normal medical advice questions are handled better there than here. If anyone has better examples, these would be interesting. OTOH, I can't help thinking there may be two issues here. One is what I was getting at earlier namely for any parts of the question which could be dealt with they may be directed to the RD anyway. The other is whether you even have people who'd give comments people feel are inappropriate. If you do, how do you deal with them? Do you just leave them? If you don't receive any, then while it's possible things may be somewhat better there, it seems there's only a small amount we can learn from there as to how we can improve things here when it comes to medical advice questions. Two of the big linked problems we have here when it comes to medical advice questions are:

1) What level of commentary is allowed when there is a medical advice question, in other words how far is too far in providing answers to questions which appear to be medical advice. For example, if someone says they get headaches after whatever and these headaches feel like whatever with whatever frequency, if someone says these are due to stress and the person should try and destress but otherwise there's nothing to worry about with links to a few articles is this acceptable? Many on the RD feel it isn't, is this sort of thing allowed on the help desk?

2) How to we prevent such inappropriate advice, and how do we deal with cases when there is what some feel is a inappropriate advice. Deleting the answers which are inappropriate is a common suggestion, and I'm all for it, but of course that's still deletion and is often equally a source of controversy, even in cases when most feel the comment was inappropriate. (And of course getting back to what I said earlier, it's ultimately impossible to know for sure whether others are going to feel the same unless you seek feedback somehow. So even if you feel something is inappropriate you either need to discuss it here, delete the answer and bring it here, or delete it and see if there is any discussion.)

Nil Einne (talk) 05:51, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

There is a basic assumption in the above which is "we get undesirable questions and answers and thus must react by doing X" (followed by a discussion about whether to start doing Y as well or abandoning X and Y and doing Z). I am questioning that basic assumption. I believe based on what happens in dozens of other places on Wikipedia,that you have cause and effect reversed, and that the reason you have so many undesirable questions and answers is because you do X, Y, or Z. You are fighting fire with gasoline/petrol.

To answer your specific questions:

• For example, if someone says they get headaches after whatever and these headaches feel like whatever with whatever frequency, if someone says these are due to stress and the person should try and destress but otherwise there's nothing to worry about with links to a few articles: Ignore the answer, or give what you think is a better answer, or simply reply by saying that Wikipedia does not give medical advice with a link to the policy that says that. If you believe that not giving medical advice on Wikipedia is forbidden, put a warning template on the user page of the person giving the medical advice (can't find warning template for that? Either you are wrong about what is forbidden or you need to create a new warning template) If the behavior repeats, report it at WP:ANI.
• How to we prevent such inappropriate advice, and how do we deal with cases when there is what some feel is a inappropriate advice.: You don't prevent what you see as user misbehavior. That's not your job. Your job is to let the administrators deal with user misbehavior. Your role is posting warning templates and reporting behavior after being warned to the appropriate noticeboard.

The basic problem here is that everyone who deletes or hats a question or discussion that they don't like is trying to do the job of a Wikipedia Administrator (controlling the behavior of others here) without bothering to go through the admin election process and without the tools (page protection, blocking users, removing material from the page history) that we give admins so they can effectively control user behavior. So stop. Just stop. Let this be handled exactly the way user misbehavior (real or imagined) is handled everywhere else on Wikipedia. The deleting and hatting is clearly not working, and another million words on this talk page will not cause it to suddenly start working. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:15, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the basic assumption is correct. It's definitely not an assumption I'm making. Who do you feel is making that assumption? Perhaps BB is making that assumption but I'm not sure of that. Nor μηδείς either (they just seem to do random stuff for random poorly thought out reasons). Nil Einne (talk) 07:29, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

As for the either only admins are supposed to deal with editor misbehaviour, that doesn't seem to be supported by any policy or guideline, and has been implicitly rejected by many discussions in many places. In fact, your own comment seemed to acknowledge this since you mentioned warning templates etc. It's true that admins are given a specific set of tools, and in some cases these tools are needed to deal with misbehaviour but in plenty of times they aren't. In some cases, it may not be clear what should be done in a specific situation, in that case there generally needs to be discussion at an appropriate place such as ANI or sometimes the page talk page. Any editor in good standing is welcome to participate in such a discussion, and someone, probably an admin, but it doesn't have to be, will close the discussion and take any action that discussion called for based on policy back consensus. In some cases, the misbehaviour is more complex, and the use of templates would generally be frowned upon as opposed to talking about the problems (probably directly with the editor, but not always depending on the situation). (In the past, in more complex cases even after plenty of discussion with the editor, you would sometimes be pointed to WP:RfC/U but that was abandoned as not working well.) As for the more general methods, definitely in many other places, threads are closed or removed by ordinary editors for various violations like WP:FORUM, WP:BLP, WP:DEADHORSE and sometimes even WP:NPA. How often this happens is quite variable, depending significantly on stuff like how frequent the problem is, how serious the problem is, and who encounters it. For example, in talk pages with little active discussion, most FORUM violations are ignored. For ones with very active discussion like a recent event, there tends to be far more control over the talk page due the problems excessive inappropriate discussion results in. WP:BLP is of course generally treated much more serious than the reason. And of course whatever reason, sometimes it also fails there, where you get editors complaining about censorship, or reversing deletions or hatting, and discussion therefore of. Sometimes it's simply a case of BR and no discussion since the person who did it doesn't feel strongly enough about it. Nil Einne (talk) 07:36, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Finally, can you give an example where the behaviour you highlighted regarding medical advice was actually implemented on the Help Desk? Nil Einne (talk) 07:38, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

P.S. I should clarify that I was never intending to deny the possibility of cause and effect and the stuff we do sometimes making stuff worse. I just think the evidence for it being the primary cause of problems here is minimal, and comparing to other places where the stuff is dealt with differently because it's different is often not that illustrative. To give an example from elsewhere, I think the way some people have dealt with stuff at Gamergate related articles hasn't helped, but it's hard to believe that's the primary cause of problems there. Nil Einne (talk) 07:42, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

I think Guy has a point. Much of the drama here swirls around attempts to find, or disputes about the proper application of, some magic combination of responses which would somehow prevent any more bad behavior. But that's not how Wikipedia works. We are, for better or worse, reactive to bad behavior, not preventative of it. (And there's a good reason for this: the more rules and restrictions you put in place in an attempt to prevent bad behavior, the more restrictive the place feels and the more you deter good, productive, free-spirited positive contributors.)

There will always be vandalism on Wikipedia. We clean it up and move on. There will always be troll questions on an open question board. Let's deal with them and move on. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:11, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

• Agreed This may be the best post I've seen on Wikipedia in a long time. --Dweller (talk) 11:29, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• I have a huge issue with something Guy says above. The only jobs of a Wikipedia administrator is to use the specific tools they have activated for them: the job of deleting articles, the job of blocking accounts and IP addresses, the job of protecting pages, the job of handing out some user rights. If a person has the technical ability to do something at Wikipedia, it is not verboten to them. It is NOT forbidden for people who aren't administrators to do any task that doesn't require the admin tools to do. Period. Now, the discussion of whether any person should or shouldn't do one of those things because it is a) needed or b) the specific person in question has shown such poor judgement they shouldn't do it anymore is a different discussion. But our default should ALWAYS be "everyone is allowed to do it", and we should only remove those rights from people who have demonstrated poor judgement, and not the other way around, excepting those specific editing tools available to admins. That does NOT mean we shouldn't remove those rights from people who don't know how to exercise them with good judgement, but we should not be setting aside admins as a special class of Wikipedian with special social standing that makes them "better" than anyone else. --Jayron32 15:31, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

• I pretty much agree with the above. Perhaps we are saying the same thing using different words. You have the technical ability to remove my signature from this comment and replace it with yours, yet doing that is most definitely verboten to you. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:16, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• I think, Jayron, you've forgotten that Wikipedia has loads of "special class" Wikipedians, like "pending changes reviewer", "auto checked user", "account creator", "rollbacker", "file mover", "template editor" etc etc etc. These people can do things others can't, they're not admins either. I don't believe you're right in your spartan definition of what admins do either. Admins are tasked with the job of using their intelligence and experience to judge consensus, for instance. Non admins aren't forbidden but are strongly discouraged from some tasks that don't require admin tools, see Wikipedia:Non-admin closure for more details on that. But in any case, abstracting this to a sensible level, I return to my original point, "the Ref Desk is the only place where such events create so much drama on such a regular basis". Continuing to allow it to do so is a drain on resources, as evidenced by this and many, many, many other discussions all along the same theme. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:40, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

• I've been struggling against that for years. Wikipedia shouldn't deny any editor the right to close any discussion, merely because they aren't an admin. The other tools are special tools, but do not grant those users special social rights as "more important" or "better" or "whose opinion counts more" than other users, and neither do admins. Admins shouldn't have any extra rights excepting those granted by the technical side of their job. If you have the technical ability to do it, do it. If you do it wrong, someone else will be along shortly to correct your wrongness. THAT'S how Wikipedia is supposed to work. --Jayron32 02:42, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Jayron has it right. Any typical day at AIV or ANI illustrates that admins get lots of help from us worker bees. We bring issues to the admin pages, and they do something about it (or not, as they see fit.) The notion that only admins should be vigilant about trolls is silly. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:26, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

• That actually isn't exactly what I meant. What I meant is, if we need to remove the ability, by consensus discussion, of some individual Wikipedians from hatting/refactoring/closing/deleting discussions here or anywhere else, lets do that then. However, the idea that only admins should, by default, only be able to do these things is abhorrant to the collaborative nature of Wikipedia. If you can do it, and you've not otherwise proven yourself a problem when doing it, then do it. No need to be an admin. --Jayron32 02:35, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Right. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:57, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

That's how I see it as well. Sorry if I was unclear previously. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:27, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Continuation of Help Desk Comparison

Having read the above discussion, I strongly agree that the Help Desk illustrates that perhaps we at the Reference Desk have completely missed the mark in trying to formulate guidelines as to when we need to delete or hat inappropriate or troll questions. I never really wondered why the Help Desk and Reference Desk cultures were so different. More importantly perhaps, I never really asked whether they needed to be so different. Is there a reason why short businesslike answers are not appropriate responses to inappropriate questions? One inherent difference between HD and RD is that long threads are common at RD and are rare at HD, but that doesn't mean that we need to be hypervigilant here (when mere vigilance will suffice), let alone to hyperventilate about questionable posts. There are more trolls at RD than at HD, because some topics that are favorites for trolls, such as race, come up here more often, but there are trolls at HD also, and HD deals with them with less back-biting than RD. At the same time, what HD has more of than RD is flamers, posters who are angry about the editing of an article. The HD regulars typically look briefly at the article issue and advise the OP whether to try dispute resolution, AIV, or whatever, and often also advise the OP that being concise and civil is more likely to be productive. I agree with User:Guy Macon that perhaps we should follow the example of the Help Desk and provide short businesslike answers to difficult questions, rather than internally agonizing over how to deal with difficult questions. Is there any reason why dealing with RD trolls must be so much more complicated than dealing with HD flamers? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:18, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

To your last question - no. To "is there a reason...?" - also no. I suspect the cultures are different because there is a a notable difference in user bases. I agree with everything you say, and many of us do, but we can't mandate cultural change. The trolls vs. flamers comparison is very apt and interesting, and I also hadn't thought if it that way, so thanks for that. FWIW, I've been posting AGF, referenced answers to questionable posts for years now. Everything goes fine usually, but it's also hard for me to ignore other users interfering with my posts... but I'm working on ignoring that too ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 15:09, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

To continue the agreement, yes, there is a notable difference in user bases. The desks each actually have two main groups of users, questioners and regular answerers (regulars). The questioners are often one-time editors, and I think that both desks deal reasonably well with the one-time editors. Each desk has its "outlying" questioners. As I noted, the RD outlying questioners tend to go in the direction of being trolls, while the outlying questioners at the HD are more often flamers. (For the information of RD regulars who are not also HD regulars, one of the most recent posts at the Help Desk is by a flamer who doesn't seem to be able to say what is wrong except that he or she doesn't like it.) The HD does get trolls (at least one of whom is banned and uses sockpuppets), and the RD does get flamers. There does seem also to be a difference in the regulars in that the HD regulars all seem to agree on how to deal with unreasonable questioners (reasonably), while the RD regulars do not agree on how to deal with unreasonable questioners (reasonable terse answers? ignore them? hat them? delete them?). The Help Desk approach does seem to work, so maybe the RD regulars who think that a more complicated or more aggressive approach is needed could try following the Help Desk to see how it deals with flamers and trolls. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:33, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

What we are doing now isn't working very well. Perhaps we can talk the more aggressive Reference Desk Sherrifs into agreeing to a limited-time trial? --Guy Macon (talk) 11:38, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Sure, and referring to people as "more aggressive Reference Desk Sheriffs" is a great way to begin talking them into something. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:55, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

It's a good, descriptive term. And it wouldn't be seen as an insult if, like Wikipedia administrators, stewards, functionaries, etc., the community supported such a role. Besides, we all know that there is zero chance of the more aggressive Reference Desk Sheriffs ever agreeing to a limited-time trial of handling trolls on the reference desk the exact same way that the rest of Wikipedia handles them, so it doesn't matter what I call them. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:28, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Another take on tabulating posting guidelines

Following up on Steve Baker's earlier discussion attempting to more objectively encapsulate the precise guidelines for posting here, I'd like to offer a complementary approach. It's simply a table of things that might appear and how to respond to them appropriately. It should be pretty self-explanatory.

This is intended to represent what I think our pretty longstanding consensus on these issues is, but I've probably missed or let my own biases slip in once or twice, so we can iterate on this.

The third column is currently empty, but I'm pretty sure we've got a smattering of templates for expeditiously closing forbidden threads, so if anyone knows about those, please feel free to fill them in.

If people agree on the content and find this tabular presentation useful, we can add it to the Guidelines or something.

questionable content	appropriate response	template
request for medical advice	state that Wikipedia cannot give medical advice	??
request for medical information	provide relevant, referenced information do not offer advice do not ask clarifying questions about "the questioner's specific situation"	??
request which is borderline between medical advice and information	if you are comfortable, provide relevant, referenced information remind the questioner that we cannot offer advice do not ask clarifying questions about "the questioner's specific situation" if you are not comfortable, ignore	??
request for legal advice	state that Wikipedia cannot give legal advice	??
request for legal information	provide relevant, referenced information do not offer advice do not ask clarifying questions about "the questioner's specific situation"	??
request for advice in other fields commonly practiced by licensed professionals (veterinary medicine, structural engineering, electrical wiring, etc.)	[this is a gray area: the guidelines do not specifically forbid professional questions other than medical and legal, but many editors believe such questions are or should be similarly prohibited, by extension] if you are comfortable, provide relevant, referenced information please do do not offer advice or ask clarifying questions if you are not comfortable, ignore	??
questions concerning illegal activities (not involving legal advice)	if you are comfortable, provide relevant information if you are not comfortable, ignore	??
questions concerning topics that are distasteful or otherwise make you uncomfortable	ignore	n/a
homework questions	remind the poster that we cannot answer these if you wish, ask clarifying questions or provide information to help questioner answer their own question otherwise ignore	??
questions that seek opinions or predictions, or invite debate	remind the poster that we cannot answer these refrain from rising to the bait if opinionating, predicting, or debate has already begun, hat if you simply must provide (what you feel to be) relevant information about the topic, beware that your response may be hatted	??
questions from known trolls or that are clearly trolling	delete question and answers if you can't help answering, beware that your answer may be deleted be very aware that your categorization of known trolls and your definition of "clear trolling" may not be shared by everyone [mention on talk page?]	n/a
questions on the borderline between trolling and just odd	if you wish, provide sober answers which would be useful to someone asking the question in good faith if you don't wish, ignore if you do answer, beware that your answer may be deleted you must AGF; do not publicly accuse the questioner of trolling	??
incoherent questions	if you are motivated, attempt to engage questioner to figure out and answer their actual question otherwise ignore	??
questions that you don't believe can reasonably be answered	ignore	n/a
questions or answers that provoke metadiscussion about the operation of the Desks, the applicability of its guidelines, or the behavior of its contributors	start thread on talk page, perhaps with a note on the actual desk that you have done so if significant on-desk metadiscussion ends up taking place, hat and/or move to talk page	??
wrong or otherwise imperfect answers	post a better answer. Please refrain from commenting on the poster of the answer you disagree with (that is, their motives, character, intelligence, etc.).	??

Many of the prescriptions above include the phrase "if you are comfortable". Additionally, it's important to note that all of the prescriptions contain an implicit qualifier, "if you want to help". And there are two key words there: if you want to help, and if you want to help. You don't have to do anything, so if you don't want to help, just ignore the question. And if you want to help, please make sure that what you want to do is truly helpful. If you want to complain, or make fun, or criticize, or if you're on a quest to find today's instance of the bad behavior that you know the Reference Desks are riddled with, please, just find something more constructive to do instead. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:09, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

As Marvin the Paranoid Android said, "I think ... I feel good about it". IBE (talk) 04:30, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

No, μηδείς (talk) 05:13, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd add another row saying something like "questions that you don't know the answer to... don't post anything under them." --Viennese Waltz 10:13, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I would support this, with one major change - "known trolls or that are clearly trolling" to "banned users". The problem is not with borderline medical advice questions, or anything else that's already covered by the guidelines - the problem is with different users' views on "clearly trolling". Unless a user is banned, they should be allowed to post here, and to be ignored if their questions are inappropriate or provocative. Tevildo (talk) 19:40, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd also like to see some good faith applied to IP editors rather than the current climate of geolocating them and then forming some kind of case against them, regardless of what they're asking. Some IPs contributions are far more significant and useful than some of our long-term registered editors, and given this is a version of a help desk, we should never treat anonymous editors differently. Like "Questions from IPs" should be "Treated like questions from registered editors". I also agree with User:Viennese Waltz in that we should encourage editors to answer questions they can help with, rather than ramble on using personal opinion and original research to just about every question posited. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:59, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I previously (last month) would have commented, and suggested tweaks. I no longer will suggest tweaks. I have concluded that the effort to develop detailed guidelines for what should be answered how is a waste of time. The flowchart effort, like this effort, appears to be an effort to develop consensus as to how to answer Reference Desk questions. The reason why we have tried to develop Reference Desk rules is the same as the reason why any such rules will not work: We have a few Reference Desk regulars who sometimes act aggressively to remove either improper questions or improper discussion, but have not themselves provided clear explanations of what they will and will not accept. An effort to involve one of those RD regulars in developing the consensus did not get a clear answer. So, the problem is not that we need clearer rules, but that a few editors have given themselves license to patrol the content of the Reference Desk and do not want clear guidelines. While the above proposal is largely just common sense, common sense isn't enough when the aggressive patrollers won't follow it. As a result, I mostly like the above table, but I Disagree with attempting to make it or any other set of procedures into policy. The real problem is loose cannon hatting and deletion. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:06, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

However, based on the experience of our colleagues at the Help Desk, I agree that we should have templates. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:08, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Robert McClenon's point - that being said, having a set of rules will (in theory) enable us to point to specific violations of those rules if sanctions are contemplated against such users. Most of us, I think, are agreed that "loose cannon hatting" is a problem, but there doesn't seem to be anything we can _do_ about it. Having a definite set of rules might change that. Tevildo (talk) 08:25, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I for one would like to see a bit more good faith extended to established users. The practice of kissing up to drive-bys while trashing regulars is offensive. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:32, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way, but I believe you are, in fact, just about the only one who wants this; I'm not sure anybody else is worried about this. —Steve Summit (talk) 03:05, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Some of the regulars would rather just continue to trash and scapegoat other regulars. That's been obvious for a long time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:35, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Again, I'm sorry that you feel that way, but I believe that most editors treat all editors with the respect they deserve, and that very few perceive (let alone practice) any kind of systematic "trashing of regulars". —Steve Summit (talk) 13:05, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Or at least that the ones you don't like "deserve". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:15, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree Steve, you earn respect. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:59, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

In the Scs world, trolling IP's are automatically accorded the highest respect, while regulars are regularly trashed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:13, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Thoroughly agree with Steve Summit. And further, treat certain established users with kid gloves, and their influence will wane, and maybe they will leave us alone. I try not to even read their posts, if I can avoid it. IBE (talk) 06:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

As long as the OP gets a useful answer, whether anyone else reads it is unimportant. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:37, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

"Homework questions" doesn't belong here. Bus stop (talk) 12:48, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

• The best way to handle a homwwork question is to point the questioner to an article and let them do their own research. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:42, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

• Yes, we are not "answering" the homework question if we merely point the person in the direction of an article that might shed light on the question, and this occurs relatively seamlessly. I oppose the abruptness of: we don't answer homework questions. This is different from legal or medical advice. If we suspect we are being asked a homework question, and we want to be helpful, we should engage in some sort of rapport with the person asking the question. Bus stop (talk) 14:03, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

@Bus stop: Are you suggesting that the row for homework doesn't belong in the table above? My intent was to provide a summary of all forms of problematic content (in particular, those mentioned in the Guidelines and in the notice at the top of the desks), not necessarily just the ones we've been arguing about lately. —Steve Summit (talk) 13:10, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

@Scs: In my opinion Wikipedia need not take a stance on that particular point. I think we can leave it up to individuals to respond to perceived "homework questions" as they see fit. I'm in favor of providing assistance which is also educational. The table you've created is great. I tend to dislike formulaic responses to such questions. Therefore I oppose such language as: "we don't answer homework questions". I would change the notation in the second column to read: help with homework questions is welcome but doing all the work for the student asking the question is probably not a good idea. I realize you are only trying to create a table, not argue every point. I just thought I'd voice my pet peeve. My pet peeve is a marmoset. He's pretty cute, isn't he? Bus stop (talk) 13:29, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Does this need to be said?

Does this need to be said by me?

Does this need to be said, by me, now? μηδείς (talk) 05:12, 4 March 2015 (UTC) [don't follow--is full show, not clip, for which see below - Medeis]

What needs to be said by you, now, is something to explain why you posted that video. I watched the first 5 minutes in good faith, but then gave up, having not seen anything of relevance to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:46, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Medeis likes to post links while giving no hints as to what they are about. I don't waste my time clicking on a link unless a summary is provided for me, and I decide that's something I'm interested in. StuRat (talk) 07:20, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

So we await your summary and explanation, Medeis. Suggest no further involvement until it arrives. IBE (talk) 13:59, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I find this fascinating. Why was any response at all necessary? Any baiting going on here, ya think? ―Mandruss ☎ 14:06, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

A given entry can only be "baiting" if its intended target audience has a clue what the point of it is. I soytenly don't. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:29, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps I wasn't clear. The initial post may have been a pointless and bewildering waste of a little space, but such things can be ignored by grownups. Instead, three users went out of their way to make an issue that did not previously exist, and where I come from that's called picking a fight, aka baiting. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:34, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Are you saying it's the three respondents who are doing the baiting? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:47, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the initial post did no real harm and could have been ignored. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:53, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Sure, and your post really improved things too. Bravo. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:38, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Does this make things clearer? InedibleHulk (talk) 22:45, March 4, 2015 (UTC)

Mandruss, if there's any baiting going on here, it's by Medeis, and the rest of us, including you, have all taken her bait. That you condemn us, and not her, is bewildering, but somehow not surprising. Sure, it was open to us to just ignore her post. But I operate in good faith and assume it of others, as we're constantly enjoined to do, so when the Self-Appointed Police Person of the Ref Desks (SAPPRD) says something, I assume it's said with serious intent and is worthy of consideration. That assumption may or may not turn out to be correct in any given case. In this case, it did not.

The upside, though, is that the next time the SAPPRD has something to say about trolls or the disruptive behaviour of others, as she surely will, we can remind her of this thread and tell her to go take a flying fuck because, unless it wasn't already clear, it is now crystal clear that one of the SAPPRD's other hats is that of the consistently worst offender when it comes to trollery and disruptive behaviour. Neat trick, that. That's Rescuer and Perpetrator covered. Next it'll be on to Victim, and the triangle of abuse will be complete. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:16, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Agree to disagree, thanks for the reply. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:20, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

There is no shortage of "wikicops" here, i.e. regulars eager to attack other regulars. In this case, a "What is this?" might have been a sufficient reply to the initial post. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:27, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

• ANSWER: It's the comedy bit at 48:10 that starts with the three questions, "Does this need to be said?", "Does this need to be said by me?", and "Does this need to be said by me now?" Your guess is as good as nine concerning what the actual point is. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:22, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Guy. μηδείς (talk) 01:13, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

The point is apparently to waste our time. StuRat (talk) 01:15, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, yes, Stu, assuming allowing you to draw your own conclusions is a waste of time, I agree with you that your opinion is useless. But myy interpretation is that each of us should judge the value of our own comments, and when we get comments along the line that a good faith established user's comments are the same as those of an incendiary bomber's, we've gone beyond commons sense and past malicious defamation. Of course I may be wrong, but I am not the one asserting that judging for oneself is proof of diabolic intent. I make mistakes. But I think Ferguson's comment after 48:00 is well worth contemplation. μηδείς (talk) 01:38, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Medeis, are you actually serious that you expected us to play through 48 minutes of the video before we finally found whatever it was you wanted us to see? How can that possibly be considered "good faith"? Those who have seen that part of the tape still can't understand what the point of it is. Time wasting and disruption still seem to be the point of your creation of this thread. I'm open to being persuaded otherwise. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:55, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

For the record, this edit summary does not persuade me, at all. The question of where on the tape the relevant bit was, was the very first response, but that call for clarification was ignored. It was left up to Guy Macon to trawl through it for 48 minutes before he found a likely candidate. But even Guy expressed complete lack of understanding of whatever the point was. That call for clarification also went unheeded. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:27, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

But see Medeis's post below, extremely belatedly. These two posts crossed in the mail. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:30, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I feel that the word "absurd" is overused here, but that's absurd, Stu. If anyone's time was wasted here, it's because they chose to waste it, and they can't then blame someone else for that fact. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:45, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I feel that in this instance perspective matters. It could be that we are not appreciative of the multiplicity of personality types that populate our ranks. Should we not celebrate our differences? Why get bogged down in quarrels that are bottomless? A little bit of wasted time could be a minor inconvenience in the fabric of human diversity. I would rather celebrate chicken wings than buffalo wings. Bus stop (talk) 02:04, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

The point of this short video is "I agree". InedibleHulk (talk) 18:13, March 5, 2015 (UTC)

• I have to apologize. I thought the point was easy enough to understand, and that it came much earlier in the performance. I'd certainly never have expected anyone to sit through the whole show. Here's the brief clip I wanted to share that makes the entire point in 2m40s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Ne_xQijhg. μηδείς (talk) 22:07, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't entirely understand. It appears that Medeis posted a Youtube link that may have been an hour long, with something at minute 48 that she thought was relevant to a discussion of the Reference Desk. It appears that there were requests for clarification, and that finally Medeis posted a shortened Youtube link. Is there some point that is being made by one of the speakers that is worth summarizing for the benefit of those Reference Desk editors who don't have good audio on our computers? Does this have to do with how to respond to questionable posts at the Reference Desk, a topic which we have been discussing, and where some of us think that we have tried to engage Medeis in discussion? Can Medeis summarize what the video says? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:04, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, and anyone else just joining us: This particular thread, top to bottom, is for all intents and purposes pure, unadulterated, irrelevant drama. You can safely ignore it in its entirety; it has no meaningful bearing on any actual RD thread or policy discussion. No need whatsoever to distract your attention or waste your time or ask for clarification on it. That is all. —Steve Summit (talk) 21:59, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

With all due respect to Steve, I'm generally opposed to any individual trying to suppress discussion that two or more others feel is worthwhile. I feel that's ownership of a talk space. Anyone can opt out of a discussion that they feel is a waste of time, and that can serve as their implicit negative comment. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:07, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't want to suppress discussion. Steve can ignore the drama, and choose not to tell me what it was about. If someone wants to explain the drama, on this talk page, without the use of video, that is also all right. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:13, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

My comment was a reply to Steve; I guess I should have indented it more. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:15, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I was not trying to suppress discussion and apologize that I seem to have given that impression. I now regret contributing to this thread, which I had intended not to. —Steve Summit (talk) 22:26, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Again, I made a mistake. I made the mistake. There was a short bit by Craig Ferguson about whether something needs to be said, whether one needs to say it oneself, and whether it needs to be said now. I googled "craig ferguson need to be said" and got as my first hit an almost hour-long video with that title. I assumed it was only the clip, it was midnight my time, I usually go to be around 1am. I posted the link. I didn't watch the video, I didn't realize the clip was at the end of the entire video. Please do ealize that I didn't catch my error until 18 hours later, at 6pm the following day my time, when a whole lot of posts had been made by justifiedly angry people who had been essentially sold a timeshare. My fault.

Ironic, given that I should have spent the time looking for just the excerpt, rather than say what I did then, although I do think CF is damn funny whatever he says. But nobody pung me during that 18 hours, so I was entirely unaware of the issue, and simply thanked Guy for pointing out the time stamp when I revisited the thread. I figured I must have seen this in a much shorter form at some point (the being chased by twin hamsters part was not part of my memory of the clip). Only then, after I realized what was going on did I spend 5 minutes searching youtube to find the exact excerpt I wanted was available. This was no attempt on my part to bulldoze Nimrud. I am sorry. I suggest someone hat this, since I doubt anyone who watches this page has missed the point I wanted to make, and the short clip is still available. μηδείς (talk) 22:40, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I still don't understand. Medeis: You are an editor who obviously has strong opinions about the Reference Desk, and with whom the other Reference Desk regulars often disagree, and some of the other Reference Desk regulars have suggested that you are sometimes so disruptive that you should be banned. I had thought that maybe you were trying to explain your position on something. I still don't understand. Are you trying to contribute something toward a better agreement on handling questionable Reference Desk posts? If so, what? If not, can you try to engage constructively with us about the Reference Desk, or do you just want some of us to think that you are a rogue regular? I still don't understand. Do want to explain something, or just to leave some of us puzzled? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:12, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I think "rogue regular" is a questionable concept. Bus stop (talk) 15:22, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. It made we wonder whether "regular rogue" is much different. Or whether the difference was like that between pirate ghosts and ghost pirates. "Rogue regular" would suggest that a rogue died, and became a regular, but a regular rogue is a regular that later made a conscious decision to be a rogue. Or no? InedibleHulk (talk) 22:56, March 7, 2015 (UTC)

Wait, what? You can have rogue regulars and rogue irregulars who form a militia of rogues, a rogue militia if you will. That's how I will conquer the help desk when I feel like it. In the mean time, it's Saturday and everyone should be debauching in the ways mentioned below if they're going to be editting. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 16 Adar 5775 23:05, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Every day's Saturday here lately, and getting stoned at the computer just sort of naturally makes me want to edit Wikipedia. Can't speak for these rogues' motives. I think I type slowly enough to pass on trying it with a woman in my lap and a teacup in the other hand, though. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:22, March 8, 2015 (UTC)

• What is all this? I do hope everyone has since taken a Wikibreak and gotten drunk/had some hookah/had some good tea/gotten laid/or a combination of these things as per WP:CALM. Remember that working the ref desks is something we've all chosen to do as a way to spend our free time and presumably to relax as well. We've all got different ways of going about this, some of which others may find productive or fun and others unproductive or even disruptive (my edits for instance are often the bare minimum of productive, if that), but remember that we're all here by choice and we're here to enjoy ourselves by helping others. With that in mind, surely we can all find a better way to handle our disagreements than these continued back-and-forths on the talk page? It can't be that anyone honestly enjoys these. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 16 Adar 5775 15:42, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Archive problem

Last night's archive run seems to have failed on the Entertainment desk, as there was a question without a header for February 24. I've restored the date header and added a question header - if there's something more that needs to be done, I'll leave it to someone who knows what they're doing. Tevildo (talk) 08:05, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing and mentioning that. The bot doesn't know how to deal with "naked" questions; it's pretty fixated on the level-two headers which it assumes each question will be preceded by. Some manual intervention (often by me) is always needed to deal with the aberrations. If anything's still amiss, the bot will probably complain about it tonight, and I'll do any more tidying that's necessary. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:46, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Moratorium on Deleting and Hatting

It was proposed that we have a one-week moratorium on deleting and hatting of questions. Can we agree that those RD regulars who have taken constructive part in the discussion about RD protocol can have a one-week moratorium on deleting and hatting of posts, even troll posts, and just ignore them? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:03, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Two regular posters have deleted a troll post at the Miscellaneous Reference Desk. When I first saw the history, I thought that the deletion was over-reaction. I still don't think that deletion was necessary, but the troll nature of the question is much more obvious now that I see that the unregistered editor has IP-hopped. I still don't think that it is mandatory that the most obvious troll posts be deleted, although this is an extreme case. I still think that a one-week moratorium on deleting and hatting is a reasonable experiment, even though a few RD editors (who have not taken constructive part in the discussion) will not agree to a moratorium. In this case the editors who deleted the troll post were among those who took constructive part in the discussion, because we didn't agree to the moratorium. Can those of us who have taken part in the discussion agree to the moratorium? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:21, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose general moratoriam. Would suggest a targeted indefinite moratorium on specific users who don't know what they are doing from hatting and deleting discussions. But no need to take everyone down for a few people with a long history of cluelessness. Craft a discussion where we make that decision, and I'll sign up. But plenty of people know how to do this correctly. We need to take everyone down because no one wants to deal with the elephant in the room. --Jayron32 19:24, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
  • So what's the elephant? NE Ent 11:15, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I believe, per other oblique comments including this one, that it refers to Medeis and/or her hatting/deletion practices. —Steve Summit (talk) 13:03, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

@Jayron32: Didn't we have exactly this here, just recently, and didn't you oppose it? Your quote sounds like it to me: "If and when Medeis closes a thread in good faith, if it is reopened Medeis should not close it a second time." I'm quite sure my ANI was a "targeted indefinite moratorium". What's going on? If it failed once, it will fail again. IBE (talk) 04:01, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support what looks like a harmless but possibly useful experiment. Oppose singling out users for failing to observe rules that exist only in the minds of some individuals, not in writing (general opposition to subjective consensuses). Support codifying such rules. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:35, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
• Comment - Replying to User:Jayron32 - First, we can't impose a targeted specific moratorium on specific users without going to WP:ANI or WP:AN. Does that mean that nothing can be done because of one or a few users? Second, my contention is that, if most of the RD regulars agree to a one-week (or two-week or three-week) moratorium on hatting and deleting, following the example of the Help Desk, even with a few holdouts, we will at least relieve ourselves of a job that doesn't need to be done, and possibly either make the "loose cannon" nature of certain posters obvious, or else demonstrate that we don't need to do a lot of hatting and deleting. I agree with Mandruss that codifying rules is probably good, but we may be overthinking the need for rules, because it may be that the best response to troll posts is to ignore them. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:14, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Perhaps we should avoid the word "rule", since many people seem to have a negative gut reaction to the word (never mind that rules are what keep complex and crowded societies from collapsing). I'm only saying that we should (1) reach a consensus, and (2) write it down for the benefit of others (and to supplement our own memories). If the consensus is that the best response to troll posts is to ignore them, then write that down. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:47, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose (I thought this was already in place) unless it means we simply delete rather than hatting. The fecal transplant question has been asked and closed before. perhaps it was lightcurrent or cuddlyable, or one of those weird people? I don't keep a list of trolls (maybe we should?) But we are not a medical how to, and the fact this has spread here and is the subject of two talk page threads says quite enough. μηδείς (talk) 23:58, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
• Note - The proposed moratorium will be pointless if admins start semi-protecting any of the pages - as they did this very talk page, just a bit ago. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:27, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support. The attempts to control other people have gotten out of hand. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:31, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support given the regularity with which threads similar to this are posted here (just a quick look here right now reinforces that there's a specific problem here), we could use an acid test, if only to demonstrate that the paranoia does nothing but encourage bad behaviour here. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:09, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support ONLY IF IT APPLIES TO EVERYONE - Scapegoating particular users is not appropriate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:00, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

A moratorium that does not apply to everyone is a contradiction in terms, or a misnomer. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:29, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

...and would result in someone asking an admin to invalidate it, based upon us !voting on a proposal that did not mention it not applying to everyone. Bugs has an excellent point; we cannot single out individuals or groups of people. That's the job of ANI. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:29, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

• Also, NO PAGE PROTECTIONS - Do the moratorium honestly, or don't do it at all. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:03, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

• Another excellent point. We can't prevent admins from doing this, but we can certainly ask. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:29, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: As far as I can tell, all the recent protecting of the ref desks has been the result of non-admins' requests at WP:RfPP. I don't think admins are likely to be protecting these pages sua sponte. (I'm certainly not.) Deor (talk) 00:55, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support per Bugs's arguments. I thought the moratorium agreement was for everyone. Reactions such as hatting, deleting, and especially page protections feed trolls (the last one because of the IP collateral damage). A show of apathy is best. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 16 Adar 5775 23:22, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support as per above. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:29, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

• Does this mean that violations of the disclaimer and BLP and other policies can't be taken to ANI, because the ref desk is special? And that mocking the OP is fine, since no one can close such comments as off topic? And that we can all post all the chat and requests for pedictions and invitation to debate that we like, without fear of blocking?

Or are special targets called "it", and "the" elephant in the room, or those compared with terrorist bombers to be subject to special rules, even though recent ANI's filed against such evil parties failed overwhelmingly in the last week, and every single time they have been brought up? Are evasions of IBANs to be ignored, and banned users to be allowed free rein?

In other words, "What is the new set of rules that everyone is supposed to either follow entirely voluntarily, or without exception?" μηδείς (talk) 00:42, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I realize you're just trying to make a point, but I'll play straight man and say: none of the other rules are changing; all of the behaviors you cite are precisely as discouraged and/or forbidden as they were before. Nobody is declaring "open season". The hypothesis being tested is simply that hattings and deletions are not particularly effective ways of enforcing those other rules. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:07, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Experience should tell you that what's obvious violation of a rule to some, is not obvious to another. So, NO HATTING OR DELETING, PERIOD. Bring it here for discussion first. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:05, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Totally support the moratorium, but I've hardly every hatted or deleted anything. I regard it as a measure for extreme cases, and a low form of wikilawyering otherwise. But I thoroughly support Bugs' excellent suggestion. I didn't think I was on the same page with Bugs anywhere. This would make him a hero in my mind, if we can support this one. IBE (talk) 06:50, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Clearly, whatever this "moratorium" actually is it has to be enshrined with some kind of statement at the top of the desks to notify newcomers, otherwise it's a pointless non-collaborative unenforceable rule change instigated by the renegade regulars... just saying that I won't be supporting this proposal, as is, without it being fleshed out first. In addition, it's my understanding that trolling posts are by definition bad-faith vandals' posts which are designed to disrupt collaboration and I've been around long enough and worked in other spaces (such as with the Obama biography) to know that disruptive posts do get hatted or deleted to prevent further disruption. Thus, since it is a norm to do so, and it works elsewhere, I don't see how this proposal can lead to anything productive. --Modocc (talk) 13:33, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose If passed, please be sure to publicize to all the trolls that their right to troll will be firmly protected for this week. If they want to post language that would make a sailor blush and the page be banned from every school in the world, that language will be assured. Want to post insults against racial groups that would get you arrested in some countries? Feel free. No one will do anything about it. This is to replace our current method of using common sense and being willing to discuss egregious abuse and handle it. RJFJR (talk) 14:15, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
  • What, you think they don't read this talk page? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:44, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
  • @RJFJR: I'm neither for it nor against it, but in the interest of accuracy I'd like to reinforce that this proposal is not intended to announce any kind of "open season" for trolls, or to suggest that we find their actions any less unacceptable. The proposal merely reflects the hypothesis (as yet unproved) that in this particular space, at this particular time, with these particular people involved, hatting and deletion might, on balance, do more harm than good. —Steve Summit (talk) 20:01, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
    • It's about scapegoating ONE particular user, unless there are others on your plural "people" list of hatters you consider overzealous, in which case you should name them. And since I very seldom do hatting or deleting anymore, my name had better not be there. So who else is on your plural-names list? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:07, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

"Scapegoating", "hatters", and "overzealous" are your words, not mine. Rather than "scapegoating" it would be just as accurate, I think, to characterize the proposal as being a voluntary disavowal by all of a particular technique, rather than singling out and forbidding it to just one user. And when I said "these particular people" I was very definitely talking about not only the person/people doing the hatting/deleting, but also the people reacting to and arguing about and trying to control it here (and occasionally at AN/I), which is at least as much of a problem. —Steve Summit (talk) 21:09, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

If you're also including the ones on the opposite side of the argument, then you're fine. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:15, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. This proposed 'moratorium' is unenforceable - it has no basis in policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:03, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

  Upon reflection, you're almost certainly right. We should just revert to type and allow Guy's Obergruppenführeren to sink the last nail in the coffin of this drama board. It's clear, given this talk page alone, that there's a persistent issue here, yet nothing is ever done about it and whether trolls are allowed or not, it somewhat undermines this portion of Wikipedia as a "reference desk" when it's simply a drama-magnet. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:00, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

The reason it is a 'drama-magnet' is because people insist on using it as a forum for off-topic 'jokes', political sniping, and all the other things a reference desk isn't supposed to be. If contributors confined their responses to directly answering legitimate questions, there would be a lot less trolling. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:13, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more, but nothing is ever done about this. Another issue is contributors attempting to "contribute" about things they no nothing yet to give their opinion. It's simply not what the Reference Desk was, is, or ever should be about. In fact, there ought to be a new proposal where respondents to questions at the RD actually provide either links to Wikipedia articles or links to reliable third-party sources, and not simply their own point of view, or worse, just a bunch of opinion which is not ever what a ref desk should be.... The Rambling Man (talk) 20:18, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

See below. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:46, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support because deletion/hating has basically become attention-trolling in and of itself. However, I do worry (as per AndyTheGrump) that it's a bit unenforceable. Anyone who opposes this need only delete one thing and, when it's inevitably reverted based on this !vote, go to ANI to beg for an appeal. APL (talk) 15:44, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

That controversial question from earlier....

Faecal transplantation between different species. I am neutral here.

But AGF appears to have been disregarded. What criteria did this question fall under to written off like that. And what checklists of protocols were referred to. Personal opinion shouldn't be allowed in wikipedia, right? Otherwise what's the point of policies, AGF, not censored etc.

Poster even tried to engage in dialogue. This was ignored and deleted. Why?

Result?

Edit war. Ref desk locked down. Who wins? Nobody. In hindsight, wouldn't it just be easier to explain why the Q is unacceptable than having to go through all the above.--86.171.167.235 (talk) 23:21, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

At this point I am convinced that this is all about the power to control others, and that those who have appointed themselves as Obergruppenführers will never voluntarily renounce that power. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:35, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you should trash admins so freely. They do the best they can. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:46, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I apologize for being unclear. I was not referring to administrators, which I thought was clear from "those who have appointed themselves" (admins are elected, not self-appointed). Nor was I referring to anyone who does uncontroversial hatting/deleting. I was referring to those who: [A] regularly delete questions and threads, [B] have never gone through a RfA asking the community if they trust them to control the behavior of of other editors, [C] Have received a substantial amount of criticism and pushback for doing so, and [D] persist anyway. Anyone who does not meet all four criteria is not an Obergruppenführer (literally, "person who is in control over the group"). Again, sorry if this was not clear from what I wrote. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:53, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Guy Macon's apology was unnecessary. It should have been clear that he wasn't referring to administrators, but to certain editors who are being discussed around. I agree with Bugs that the admins are doing the best that they can, but Guy Macon wasn't saying otherwise. If one particular editor is doing the best that she can, and I think that she is, I don't want to interact with her when she isn't doing the best that she can. (At this point, the question of whether the bizarre question should have been deleted or ignored is stale. The OP has gone out of its way to confirm its troll nature.) Robert McClenon (talk) 15:00, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

When he talks about users with "power", he can't be talking about anyone but admins. Us peons have no power to control others or anything else. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:58, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

No. He did not mean admins. He meant users who have given themselves unaccountable power by use and misuse of ordinary capabilities, such as hatting and deleting. He meant power that they have because there is no non-disruptive way to deal with users who won't engage in discussions about their use of power. If you have suggestions for the rest of us about ways to minimize the disruption of the Reference Desks by ordinary users who use their ordinary tools disruptively, please let us know. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:09, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

We have no such powers. That's in your imagination. As for minimizing disruption... Well, for starters, stop disrespecting the judgment of regular users when they recognize and deal with a troll. And stop treating vandals like established users, and stop treating established users like vandals. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:03, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree, it was abundantly clear that Guy was not discussing administrators. I think his summary of those to whom he did refer is spot on. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:11, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Peeps... so... this discussion is really just another example of out-of-context unproductive sniping of editors... I'm bouncing up and down from the shrapnel from the collateral damage meant for the intended victims... It's enough to make my head explode and when that happens I get a bit crazy myself and have to ask "does this need to be said?" (and I almost posted to the desks a funny Totally Awesome video, so it can be difficult to refrain from these actions). Anyway, the OP here was certainly only complaining about the actions against them and not the AGF of the actions of others elsewhere. -Modocc (talk) 15:46, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

For the record, the OP's question [8] is back now [9]. -Modocc (talk) 16:36, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

For the record, it was user Ian.thomson who had repeatedly deleted it. Now the real test: To see if the "don't delete it, just ignore it" folks put their money wheir mouths are. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:43, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Given that we are symbiotic creatures, it's not a bad question. --Modocc (talk) 18:01, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

It's obviously a trolling question. But I'm honoring my proposed moratorium, even if no one else is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:09, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs, I guess my money must be where my mouth is because I saw the question and neither deleted nor hatted it. No muss, no fuss. 2A01:E34:EF5E:4640:70B8:58F7:2D0B:C07A (talk) 20:12, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Very good. Tell that to the ones who did respond to the troll. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:16, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

So, another user restored it, then moved it to the Science desk, and now an admin has deleted it again. So the troll has us playing Ping-Pong now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:30, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

• Fecal transplants are a cutting edge medical treatment that many people are interested in. A few recipients have had dramatic and life-changing recoveries following treatment. Why are people so sure this is trolling? I honestly have no idea. Is it because it is about poop? Poop is scientifically fascinating, and research on gut flora/ human microbiome is growing at a staggering pace. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:47, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Proposal: Require links to Wikipedia articles or to reliable third-party sources

In a section concerning an unrelated proposal, The Rambling Man wrote: "[T]here ought to be a new proposal where respondents to questions at the Reference Desk actually provide either links to Wikipedia articles or links to reliable third-party sources." This is that proposal. If it passes, it will be added to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines.

PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT ON HOW THIS OR ANY OTHER RULE SHOULD BE ENFORCED. THAT IS ALREADY BEING DISCUSSED ELSEWHERE.

Posted by Guy Macon (talk) 21:46, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Support

• Support. well obviously. This is Wikipedia's Reference Desk. We have the gift of wikilinks to direct our readers to our own articles. If we don't have information sourced in our own articles we could provide links to reliable third-party sources. What we shouldn't be doing is giving our own opinions or points of view on particular questions if we don't have the ability to provide referenced answers. That bad habit, the one where people try to "answer" every question despite not having any real ability to do so, must stop. Unless it's a point of explicit clarification with respect to the original question, those who are just speculating and offering opinion should edit elsewhere. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:49, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support. This would be an obvious improvement. For those who really want opinions, I suggest Reddit. That site was designed for that sort of thing. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:31, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

• After reading the reasoning of the oppose !votes, I am now convinced that another, more carefully crafted proposal that is more restrictive than the chaos we have now and less restrictive than this proposal is needed. I am striking my support !vote but not withdrawing the proposal, because I dislike early closes that don't let people who take vacations get a say. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:54, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support - It's called reference desk, not "Ask-an-expert" (and we are rarely experts on these topics in any case). ―Mandruss ☎ 23:24, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support. Absolutely positively so. This isn't a "Tell people stuff I think is common sense, so I don't have to prove anything i say" desk. With the caveat that sometimes questions are so misinformed that they cannot be answered; but we should at least direct people to explanations as to why they can't be answered. --Jayron32 00:14, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
  • The response you gave on the Science desk at 00:09, 9 March 2015, is in direct contradiction to what you've just agreed to above, 5 minutes after that response. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:35, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
    • See wikt:caveat, definition #2. If you need further explanation, I'll see what I can do to help clear up your misunderstanding. --Jayron32 01:16, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
      • Would the two of you be so kind as to move your threaded discussion to the threaded discussion section? (And then you have my permission to delete this.) I would prefer the support section not become a wall of TLDR text. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:26, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Guy. Jayron, by all means put Bugs in his place, but drop the self-important condescension, please, for goodness' sake. IBE (talk) 14:38, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

• Support, subject to the notes below re maths and 'there is no answer' etc. --Dweller (talk) 17:04, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose. Too restrictive - it would probably exclude half the legitimate answers on the maths ref desk, and sometimes the appropriate answer to a question is "nobody knows" - which is self-evidently incapable of being sourced. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:05, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

  I agree, the maths desk should be able to offer legit answers without a source if it's deriving equations, solutions etc. If someone says "nobody knows" then that's obviously fine too. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:55, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Completely agree with Andy. Plus, we would most likely have some people insisting on doing their own thing, and time has told us there is not much we can do about sanctioning them. IBE (talk) 14:31, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

  Correct, some people keep "insisting on doing their own thing" despite being asked for months and months not to do so. We can sanction them, we just need the balls. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:55, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. First, there are questions like "What did I do wrong in solving this math/science problem" where the answer is to simply spot the error the student had in their posted solution. Giving them a link to geometry, say, would be quite pointless and not at all helpful. Second, sometimes the first answerer doesn't know the term, but can describe it, and a second answerer knows the term being described and thus finds the link (example: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015_February_16#Help_writing_a_hacker_character_who_is_realistic). If we didn't allow the first response, we'd never get to the link, so that's self-defeating. Third, there are often non-answer responses which are necessary to get to the answer, such as clarification questions. Fourth, we already get quite enough useless links, like if the Q is on the highest paid shortstop in baseball history, somebody will provide a link to baseball, as if that would answer the Q. Requiring links will just lead to more of this. StuRat (talk) 16:35, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

  Yes, accepted there are student questions, but I'm suddenly unclear as to when the "Reference Desk" became a "homework help desk"? Secondly, we're not here to interpret uninterpretable questions. Thirdly, clarification questions are fine, obviously, we're not suggesting some kind of Nazi attitude. Fourthly the links are supposed to be helpful and reliable, per the instructions. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:55, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Since real libraries are full of unreliable primary sources, the proposed sourcing requirement is too strict, per my questions below [10]. Modocc (talk) 18:23, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

  Best ever "oppose". Libraries are full of books, not opinionated people giving their opinions and points of view. If someone wants to pull a book off a shelf and read it and believe it, fine, but right now we have a lot of users claiming to answer questions when all they're doing is giving their own, mostly unreferenced and biased, opinion. That is not what a Reference Desk is about. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:55, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

  Books, magazines and blogs too (with our virtual library)... all written by opinionated people, some notable, but many others are not, and a few evil sarcastic musicians contribute too. We do have guidelines regarding what we expect from contributors here though. -Modocc (talk) 21:42, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. It doesn't matter that the name of this site is the "ref desk", what matters is what the people who visit this site want, and it's usually answers to question, sometimes but not always with a reference to the scientific literature. If giving a reference helps, it should be provided. If I answer a question without giving a ref, then someone else may come up with a suitable reference. If there are doubts if an answer is correct, then that issue can always be discussed. The lack of references may in some cases be a red flag, but answers should not be a priori dismissed just because no reference is given. The Stack Exchange website does a good job answering questions just like we do here but without the prolems we have here. There is no requirement to give references there. Here I gave a reference, but here I didn't give a reference to the general method I am describing, because its all based on personal experience. In this answer to a math problem no reference was given because here you want to illustrate the advantage of using the theorem to tackle the problem, you don't want a general reference to the theorem (which is just one Google search away anyway). Count Iblis (talk) 20:51, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

  Ok, given the general hostility towards IPs, some/many of whom are asking perfectly useful answers, we should rename the desk to be a "opinion desk". That, at least, will manage expectations. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:57, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose - First, some legitimate questions (non-troll questions) are worded so poorly that the answer has to be a request for clarification, or an effort to restate. Second, I agree that in general, an article or source should be referenced, but making this a policy, without other reforms, be just provide yet another opportunity for some regular editors to snipe at other regular editors. What we really need to do is to minimize the sniping between regular editors. Oppose any rule that provides more opportunities for regular-on-regular antagonism. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:15, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, the sniping (seriously insulting one another) needs to diminish greatly. I just looks silly to a third-party observer. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Adar 5775 13:23, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'll repeat what I said below, that being that there might be times when the correct answers to questions aren't in a net source or you don't know which book has the info. Many bits of archaeological knowledge, some more obscure and some of those things that authors think need not be said, for instance, you only find out from lectures or talking to other archaeologists. Rather annoying when editing in main space, actually. Examples would include the fact that most every near eastern archaeologist gets up right before the crack of dawn to head to site so that they can work through the morning daylight and not risk heat stroke in the afternoon sun (something so basic that no one feels the need to mention it in the literature), or the fact that tells extend beyond the Middle East from Bulgaria to Pakistan (I found that out from David Wengrow in a lecture and only recently learned it might be cited in the book, Archaeological Landscapes of the Near East, which I last saw in London), or that Italian digs tend to be poorly managed and chaotic (well-known, but whoever publishes that would get a ton of hatemail). For that kind of info it's difficult to point a user to a good web source and we kind of have to apologise and say that we can't find a source that they can look at themselves with any ease. I trust this problem extends outside of the realm of archaeology to many other fields. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Adar 5775 13:23, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. The best answers synthesise answers from logical or mathematical implications of the question or other people's answers. This is far to rigid a rule, and it won't improve the reference desk. SteveBaker (talk) 04:09, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

Rather than replying in the support/oppose sections, please reply here.

RfC

Objection my bulleted comment immediately below was not made in response to any "RfC" subheader--this was added later, and other than "arbitrary break" which everyone knows is for convenience, it is improper to interpolate headers. Readers might think I put that header there, or was responding to it, neither of which is true. At the very least, the editor who added it should have indicated it was added later and signed it. In light of this I suggest again that much of what goes on here is counter-productive.

• If this is an RfC, set it up as an RfC. We get plenty of questions of the form "what species is this a photograph of" or "how would you translate X" none of which will have directly relevant sources, although one can point to dcitionaries and otherwise unhelpful works for the non-specialist. All that should be necessary is that one be able to back up what one is saying with relevant material if asked/challenged.

Some questions allow direct referential answers, like my recent question on how one might go about finding information on a doctor convicted of medicaid fraud. But we also had a question about "what trees are these?" I could have said they were dandelions. Would my having had linked to dandelion (they were probably crepe myrtles) have thereby somehow made my answer valid? There's a real issue with people trying to control others here that doesn't sit well with anyone.

I suggest maybe we abolish the ref desk talk page, and give each page its own narrow talk page for technical issues,and refer the rest to ANI. μηδείς (talk) 23:36, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

See What Tree Is That? Online. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:46, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

While the thinking behind this proposal is sound, I think it probably goes too far. Many legitimate questions asked at the maths ref desk don't really need a reference for an answer - see for example [11]. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:56, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Point taken. How far is just far enough, then? I would personally be happy with an end to the idea that every question is an invitation to open-ended, tangent-upon-tangent discussion until everyone gets tired. I proposed an alternative space for that sort of thing and got zero traction. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:05, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Basically, one should be able to back something up if challenged, for exactly the same reason we don't require a ref for every edit. There's also the fact that things like spelling, grammar, and simple math are not required to be referenced in mainspace. I try to add refs or links to everything I do, in fact I create about a redirect a day on average. But I don't think I need to be challenging those who answer "what does this Arabic or Chinese text say" unless the OP himself or someone else points out a problem.

Recently there was the question of how to translate Monsieur le Cure, and I said that the head of a parish was a Monsignor. This was incorrect, I had taken my father's description of my childhood parish priest as a monsignor to be a definition, whereas he was only describing our parish priest, not defining the term. Someone pointed out my error, but then defined the rector as the parish priest, when a parish priest is a rector, by a rector is not necessarily a parish priest.

There's a lot of such give and take. Look at the identification of the Carpathian Chamois, a type of goat, which several people had suggested was an antelope or a deer. The process is often a give an take. If anything, there should be a disclaimer saying, "We are just strangers on the internet, nothing we claim should be taken as more certain than your own judgment or that of a paid professional's" But a strict link/ref requirement won't accomplish anything, as it says in quite definitively in Poor Richard's Almanac. μηδείς (talk) 01:15, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes and No

A good ideal. But how do you deal with a question like "Does anyone know what the music is at the 2 minute and 48 second mark of this linked video?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:16, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

You link to the article (or offsite recording, properly licensed, or Allmusic page, or other reference) telling them what it is. --Jayron32 00:20, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

(ec) You would deal with that by explaining that the refdesks do not provide such answers, but here are a couple of other websites you could try. The web is a vast information resource and knowledge actually exists outside of Wikipedia. If people have come to expect an answer directly from refdesks, they would need to get over that. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:25, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

You have just invented a new rule - because this happens all the time. And, technically, finding a link to the music elsewhere and saying "this is it" constitutes original research and would not be acceptable in an actual article. Technically, you would have to find an external source which states that the music at 2:48 in that clip is whatever it is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:29, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, yes, this discussion is about the possibility of inventing a new rule, or restoring the refdesks to their original intent, and it doesn't really matter which you call it. I'm lost as to the rest of the above comment. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:47, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Are you now saying that original research / original synthesis IS OK on the ref desk??? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:48, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

No, and I'm at a loss to understand where you got that, from my suggestion to point the OP to other websites where they might get their music question answered. The only OR going on there is the choice of websites. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:52, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I was commenting to both you and Jayron at the same time. It was Jayron who suggested linking to an offsite recording, which requires original research or synthesis to arrive at the conclusion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:56, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I see. I was thinking more like http://www.midomi.com/, where you can hum or sing a few bars and maybe get an answer. And I'm sure there are forums where such a question could be answered by actual humans. We don't have to answer every question we can here, and I think we should answer only those questions that cannot be answered elsewhere, and then only if we are very sure we know the answer, and then the thread should end as soon as the answer is given. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:02, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

If they upload their own voice, then a direct answer would require original research / synthesis. And sometimes an answer will lead to new questions and new answers. Or sometimes the original "answer" was either incorrect or incomplete. It would not be appropriate to hat every section once a (supposedly) correct answer has been presented. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:08, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Again I'm at a loss. I said nothing about uploading their own voice. [add later: I now see where you misunderstood. What I meant was that we would give a link to midomi.com, not that we would provide an equivalent service.] Please see my comment at 00:05 in the preceding subsection, which will have to serve as my position for now. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:15, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Bugs's point makes perfect sense insofar as I may be quite certain that a piece of music is X, but quite incapable of finding an example of X at youtube to provide to the OP. I should simply say, I am almost certain it is X, but can't find a link. And I often do exactly that. Then another editor, prompted by my comment, will say, "Oh, yes, here it is." That's what's called collaboration. μηδείς (talk) 01:22, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, then we need a different name, as "reference desk" is not what you are describing. See Reference desk. Clear communication solves/avoids many problems. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:28, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

No, look at my recent question on the language desk, the answer to which was elegant variation. I do not think the other answers were evil, or exactly what was wanted regardless of links and articles. I found every response of interest. I think this idea that we can somehow replace the OP's ability to think for himself is not only pernicious. It's vicious.

All I am describing is a reference desk run by more than one person, which often works better by collaboration than the authority of one dude with a flowchart, or someone tossing inuendo. μηδείς (talk) 01:59, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I disagree. Reference desk says the following, halfway through the article: The librarian can look up a brief, factual answer to a specific question. With that minor qualification, the article makes it very clear that a reference desk is a place where they point you in the direction of your answer, not where they provide your answer. And the kind of things you're talking about are rarely "brief, factual answers", which are along the lines of "what is the capital of South Dakota?". ―Mandruss ☎ 02:08, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I am with Mandruss on this one. The answer to "What about [example that would not be allowed under this new rule]?" is that it should be disallowed. Again, what we are doing now is clearly not working. Perhaps making the Reference desk be a Reference Desk instead of the comment section on a Youtube Video will work, --02:47, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Is there some reason, Guy Macon, why you are making unsigned comments? Is it an innocent mistake, a lack of knowledge, or do you not actually have some sort of evil agenda? Can you prove you don't have an evil agenda? Given you are the obvious subject of this thread, it behooves you to prove your innocence, or be assumed guilty, don't you think? μηδείς (talk) 04:29, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Subject of this thread? I thought we were talking about how to answer or not answer certain questions under the proposal by Guy Macon. When did we start discussing anyone in particular? Nil Einne (talk) 01:52, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

(ec) Wikipedia is based on the model of an encyclopedia, but it is not in every respect exactly like a traditional encyclopedia.

The Wikipedia reference desks are based on the model of a reference desk, but they are not in every respect exactly like a traditional reference desk. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:50, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

As currently operating they are as close to a traditional reference desk as Wikipedia is to an almanac (it's where you can look stuff up). ―Mandruss ☎ 03:02, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Put differently: In what respects are they like a traditional reference desk? Based on our own article, I don't see much commonality at all. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:11, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

However

How will this proposal do anything toward enforcing the rules against giving professional advice, or toward dealing with drive-bys? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:18, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Would you stop with the drive-by thing? People are allowed to not register an account. If you wish to change Wikipedia policy on this, WP:VPP is thataway. Good luck. Until then, we treat unregisterred users identical to those who have a user name. Full stop. --Jayron32 00:20, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually you treat them better than you treat registered users. Maybe not you in particular, but certain users here are in the habit of trashing regulars and kissing up to one-entry trolls. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:26, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

How many new accounts, new trolls, and new IP's have just been blocked? Calling them drive-by's is not bulldozing Nimrud. μηδείς (talk) 01:23, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

While I am tempted to say something like "What part of PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT ON HOW THIS OR ANY OTHER RULE SHOULD BE ENFORCED. THAT IS ALREADY BEING DISCUSSED ELSEWHERE are you having trouble understanding?", Let me try reasoning with you folks. We all know that once we start discussing the above, it will take over the thread. Yes we are all interested in resolving our deletion/hatting issues, but do we really need to discuss them in every thread? Please stop. Discuss this in the thread where it is already being discussed. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:37, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be trying, once again, to control other editors, Guy Macon. That has been brought up against you so many times above, Guy Macon, I am surprised you are once again trying to control a thread. Or maybe I shouldn't be surprised? μηδείς (talk) 04:32, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Trolling

Here's a good example of feeding a troll.[12] Now, are the complainants here going to yell at everyone who fed the troll, including the guy who hatted it? Or are they going to give a pass to users not named Medeis? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:54, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

OK, I am going to say it. What part of

PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT ON HOW THIS OR ANY OTHER RULE SHOULD BE ENFORCED. THAT IS ALREADY BEING DISCUSSED ELSEWHERE

are you having trouble understanding? --Guy Macon (talk) 02:40, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Jee Whiz, Bugs, do you not understand that Guy Macon is in control of this page? He's even said it in BOLD CAPS! Guy Macon is in control of you. μηδείς (talk) 04:34, 9 March 2015 (UTC) PS., I suggest we hat the entire page. μηδείς (talk) 04:36, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Not yet. We haven't heard from Alex Sazonov. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:21, March 10, 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary section Break 01

Is this new?

The Reference Desk guidelines already say, "Ideally, answers should refer (link) to relevant Wikipedia articles, or otherwise cite reliable sources". How does this proposal differ? —Steve Summit (talk) 04:24, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

This puts teeth in it. If the guidelines specifically say that something in prohibited, we can take those who persistently violate the rule to ANI and request that an administrator topic ban them from the reference desks. Administrators, unlike our self-appointed Obergruppenführeren, have gone through an RfA asking the community whether it trusts them to control the behavior of others. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:23, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

If that is the intention, I will have to oppose the proposal. As I have already pointed out, legitimate questions on the maths ref desk often neither require sources to answer, or are likely to have such sources available. What is needed is amendments to the guidelines to prevent the misuse of the ref desks as a forum, rather than rules which prevent e.g. the pointing out of mathematical or logical errors in a question because we don't have a source stating that the specific question contains an error - or sometimes simply pointing out that nobody is likely to be able to provide an answer. Consider a question asked recently on the misc desk: "How many of the 61 survivors of the 1977 Tenerife airport disaster are still alive today?" I very much doubt that a source can be found answering the question, and I have to suggest that the most appropriate reply is to indicate that such information is unlikely to be available. There are legitimate reasons for providing unsourced responses to some questions, and I can see no merit in prohibiting such responses. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:01, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

That's a quite reasonable objection, but I don't see how something that much less restrictive is workable. Imagine that you had a couple of regulars who, in your words, regularly engaged "the pointing out of mathematical or logical errors in a question because we don't have a source stating that the specific question contains an error" -- and one of them was Otis Eugene Ray and the other was Underwood Dudley. I am sure that you can see the problem. Perhaps we can find just the right amount of restrictive? --Guy Macon (talk) 10:28, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Sourcing

This proposal requires reliable third-party sources. That seems reasonable, but questioners can and often do seek information from sources that are not reliable or third-party. Thus... how are these expected to be handled? Ignore, obstruct, divert or shun? Shouldn't we be meeting their general reference needs like a real library would? For instance, if they are doing research in a topic area for a thesis, wouldn't they want to seek relevant information from primary sources even if it is for the purpose of refuting those possibly self-published author(s), news coverage or even blogs they are looking for? Plus, there are plenty of nonacademic personal interests to be served too of course. -Modocc (talk) 18:06, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Imagine a library where anyone can walk around behind the help desk and start answering questions, and there are usually a dozen there, often disagreeing with each other. Now imaging that those asking the questions are a mixture of legitimate library patrons and people who think it is fun to try to get the crowd behind the desk all riled up. And everyone (except me of course) is wearing ski masks. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:18, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

It's wrong to demonize people like that for this is an open-sourced project such that some of us are more anonymous than others and we do have disagreement, make mistakes and occasionally make our opinions known. That happens to be the nature of the work here and severely limiting requests and/or muzzling contributors won't help. -Modocc (talk) 20:29, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Then let's rename this, it's not a Reference Desk, it's an "opinion desk". The Rambling Man (talk) 20:48, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Disruption in the form or wp:soapboxing has been dealt with on many occasions, and with any opinions asserted (which some contributors are better at properly disclosing than others) your mileage may vary. But the same is true with media in general, reliable or not, for it is not monolithic. -Modocc (talk) 21:10, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

All that's needed is to make this site more promonent so that you get more questions and more people willing answer them. This means that we have to face the competition form sites like Stack Exchange, doing so cannot be done focussing on the small domestic disputes we're having. Instead one has to look at how these other sites are oprating and see if we can offer something that they don't offer that is attractive to the general public. Count Iblis (talk) 21:03, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

There are plenty of people "answering" questions, many of them are just giving their own opinions. This isn't about a contest with Stack Exchange, although some of our "contributors" could learn something from that site, it's about making sure Wikipedia stops claiming to have a Reference Desk where people spend their lives promoting their own point of view, their own opinion etc while forgetting that this is an encyclopedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:07, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Actually we have a small group of people who are answering the questions. The social dynamics is then different compared to a much larger pool of answerers. In the latter case, for almost every question there's bound to be an expert available that can give a very good quality answer for that specific question. That deters lay people from chiming in and even lesser experts will exercise caution when answering questions. This stimulates professional behavior. Count Iblis (talk) 21:40, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I barely understand your answer, but it's such a tragedy that there's no "professional behaviour" here at all. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:46, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Would there be a way of expanding the potential pool of answerers? Maybe not enough users know about the ref desks. I was here for several years before I even heard of it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:37, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

RFCNV (Request for Cliff's Notes Version) of the above stuff

So, since I last edited anything on this talk page, it appears a number of unpleasant arguments have broken out leaving tears and destruction in their wake. As I don't fancy spending a half hour reading through all of it, could someone give a brief overview of the whole thing sans attacks and finger-pointing? Nice and neutral, please. On a side note, I hope that my fellow editors do realise that whichever troll it was whose actions prompted all of this fighting, he/she has won big time and is likely having a very good laugh at our expense. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 18 Adar 5775 20:52, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! It's been fantastic, from the infamous 'ick question' to the why did jimmy cross the road saga. There's 1000's of ways to stir things up in here. It's actually quite fun gaming about and doing the ip whack a mole thing. I think the editors secretly enjoy it as much as us trolls do. I mean, imagine how boring things would be here without the wild west element. And let's face it, conflict drives progress. As long as there's nothing personal, right....Baseball, Ian, Mandruss, BJ michell (or whatever his name is) jayron etc etc. Shout out to all my friends, fans and haters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 39.114.147.222 (talk) 22:55, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Can't really argue with any of that. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Adar 5775 01:03, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Assuming this is the person who asked about gokun, then I think they've really given us good info about how ignoring trolls or posting AGF answers is the way to go. Here we have a putative and self-confessed troll, describing how our arguments are the fun part. I imagine this person got a lot of fun about our arguments over trolling, but was probably not very entertained by my AGF answer at the time. I hope our eager troll hunters carefully consider this enlightening post. I still maintain I am personally untrollable here. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make her care... SemanticMantis (talk) 19:57, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I think you and I already agreed on this point earlier up above when I was relating past trolling experience. Another thing trolls like in a good way is positive recognition, buuuuut that should only be reserved for successful trolls that do it right (and actively troll-hunting in an environment where trolling is discouraged just encourages trolls because you can never hunt in a way that doesn't make you seem angry). No one likes a troll that can't even cause rage or conflict. Of course, we don't want anyone trolling Wikipedia, but dickish non-trolling behaviour (as in acting like a jerk) from refdeskers is just as bad if not worse in many cases as it becomes an accepted norm. I think this whole page has been a smorgåsbord of lulz for him. Incidentally, my good troll sir, there's an assessment I wrote for you while I was bored yesterday. Read at your leisure. As for being untrollable, Semantic, you're only as untrollable as you are apathetic/willing to push the envelope one step further (probably best if the latter is not done on Wikipedia). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Adar 5775 20:30, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Speaking personally, I couldn't find any consensus anywhere, except that some of the rule suggestions had some consensus, but now it's the OP's job in each case to try and move things forward, if that's what they want. IBE (talk) 08:26, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, IBE, but I fail to see how a request for a brief summary of the discussion and complaining about unnecessary incivility rests that responsibility on my shoulders. That responsibility for everyone keeping a civil tongue, even in dealing with people they dislike, still rests with everyone. When everyone can communicate civilly and with reason, then the discussion can move forward. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Adar 5775 13:08, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

My apologies, that was careless of me. I meant the OP for each specific case, where they think a consensus has been reached. I think this is the interpretation Guy uses below, in his post (12:01, 10 March, 2015) "Would the community ...". IBE (talk) 14:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

No need for apologies. If I wrote down all the mistakes I make, it could make for a mildly amusing book. Wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. If you start something, you need to see it through. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Adar 5775 15:00, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

As I wrote above, "After reading the reasoning of the oppose !votes, I am now convinced that another, more carefully crafted proposal that is more restrictive than the chaos we have now and less restrictive than this proposal is needed. I am striking my support !vote but not withdrawing the proposal, because I dislike early closes that don't let people who take vacations get a say."

Would the community like me to do a final read through of the various comments attempt to craft a new proposal with input from other editors? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:01, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Ah, apologies, Guy, you'll forgive me if that would be difficult for those in vacation to locate in a sea of black and white. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Adar 5775 13:08, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

That's up to you. I thought your suggestion was constructive, but I thought you had too many no votes (that's if you mean the one about requiring references/links/sources). IBE (talk) 14:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

It was, and in re-reading my reply to you here, Guy, it's a bit overly harsh and I do apologise. It's indeed constructive. I don't agree with it for the reasons I stated, but it puts us in the right direction (even if people say no, it just means that you figured out a way that won't go over well and can focus on retooling for something that might). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Adar 5775 15:00, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Why is it that the Reference Desk managed perfectly well since 2005 with the current rules (or something close to them) but in the last ~3 years things seem to have broken down. The rules didn't change, and the type of questions being asked didn't change either. Maybe what the desks need most of all are a set of guidelines for those answering the questions. Maybe something like; "always be civil to the OPs and each other, always try to provide a reference to an answer you are giving instead of just guessing, don't post joke answers until the question has been answered properly with at least one source/reference, always provide a clear and neutral justification when removing a question so that other editors can see why it was removed and/or contest the removal without having to guess at your reasoning" etc. Seems like simple things that most people used to do anyway, but maybe for some it needs to be spelled out clearly and enshrined in a guidelines page. 82.44.45.127 (talk) 12:27, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

It might indeed be as our good troll said, that in some cases there's a desire for conflict as entertainment as it's a break from the normal routine. Everything you said all seems sensible although there might be times when the correct answers to questions aren't in a net source or you don't know which book has the info. Many bits of archaeological knowledge, some more obscure and some of those things that authors think need not be said, for instance, you only find out from lectures or talking to other archaeologists. Rather annoying when editing in main space, actually. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Adar 5775 13:08, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

In my considered opinion, the reason we have the problems we are having is that a small groups of individuals here simply will not follow any rule that is labeled as a best practice, strong suggestion, or similar words such as "normally,..."

The only rules that these individuals will follow are rules that are rigorously defined with no possibility of misinterpretation and enforced with an iron fist by administrators with longer and longer blocks.

(Start Sarcasm) Oddly enough, the admins are not willing to make enforcing help desk guidelines their full time job (End Sarcasm).

Am I overstating my case? Consider the following: when I put forth this proposal, I added a couple of (unenforceable) requests designed to keep the discussion on point, avoid duplicating other ongoing discussions, and make the !votes easy to count. They were:

• "Threaded discussion: Rather than replying in the support/oppose sections, please reply here."

• "Please do not comment on how this or any other rule should be enforced. That is already being discussed elsewhere."

Look at the result. No admin enforcing the rule with blocks, so no compliance. Most other places on Wikipedia, I would have either seen pretty much everybody follow the same rules or perhaps some thoughtful replies saying "I disagree with Rule X for reason Y". Here, the request was just ignored by some folks, and if you look at the comments, you will see a couple that are clear attempts to troll me into responding.

This is why the reference desks are so screwed up. A few misplaced comments in a proposal is a small issue, not really worth bothering with, but it does identify the problem we are facing.

This is also the reason why I deliberately decided to use the term "Obergruppenführer" (literally, "person who is in control over the group") to refer to those who

• [A] regularly delete questions and threads,
• [B] have never gone through a WP:RfA asking the community if they trust them to control the behavior of of other editors,
• [C] Have received a substantial amount of criticism and pushback for doing so, and
• [D] persist anyway.

They persist for the same reasons that they refused to keep threaded discussion in the threaded discussion thread and refused to keep rule enforcement in the rule enforcement thread. Peer pressure will not change this. Reasoning with them will not change this. Only well-defined rules that most here agree with backed up with blocks and bans will change it. This proposal from The Rambling Man fails the "most here agree with" part, as does the earlier "Moratorium on Deleting and Hatting" proposal. The question is whether there exists a proposal that most here agree with, or whether the differences of opinion are too entrenched to allow any compromise. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:40, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Can't disagree with anything you said, Guy. But: this is a classic, classic conundrum, one experienced by almost any group over time. The old camaraderie and consensus break down for whatever reason, and the only reasonable solution is to try to formalize the old de facto consensus with some new, written down, de jure rules, which are "unambiguous" and "objective" and "enforceable". But there are two problems: (1) the people who liked the old, informal, consensus-based approach don't want to operate under a bunch of seemingly-restrictive rules, and even if the rules can be agreed upon and adopted, (2) the seemingly inevitable result is that conflict and strife manage to invent themselves along the boundaries of the new rules, no matter where they are, and no matter how infinitesimally thin they are. And if you invent new rules to refine the boundary and stamp out those debates, yet newer debates spring up along even the new, more finely-delineated boundaries. It's a tale as old as time, and I don't know how to resolve it satisfactorily. All I know is that if the only solution is more rules, the battle's probably already lost. —Steve Summit (talk) 00:00, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

The problem is not that complicated, although the solution might be. You can make rules all day long, but until you can precisely define what constitutes "professional advice", this conundrum will continue. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:41, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Analysis, Comments, Reminder

I agree with the analysis and assessment by Guy Macon that the basic problem at these Reference Desks is that a few regular editors simply do not want to follow any guidelines, and have resisted any effort to engage in constructive discussion. Other editors have tried in several ways to engage in some sort of dialogue, and in fact have been met with hostility, up to accusing Guy Macon of trying to control other editors. (That accusation is very unfair, because what he is trying to do is to facilitate discussion.) Some of us have tried to propose guidelines, and have asked Medeis, in particular, for comments, and her answer did not seem constructive. (I would still appreciate any comments from Medeis, or any other regular editor, on either flexible guidelines or rigid rules.)

An unregistered editor states that the Reference Desk went perfectly well from 2005 until about 2012 and that things have since broken down. I haven’t followed the Reference Desk that long, and in addition am skeptical of an unregistered editor acting as institutional memory, but I agree that the mood has become uglier recently than in the past. One factor probably is that trolls have found that the Reference Desk is a place where trolling sometimes works. (I will offer my opinion that the hatting of threads is, of all responses to trolling, usually the most unproductive, but that is my opinion. I think that any of ignoring, boring responses, or even deletion are better than hatting, but that is my opinion.) However, another reason is clearly that some editors at the Reference Desk cannot get along with other editors. It is my understanding that there is an interaction ban between User:The Rambling Man and User:Medeis, and an interaction ban between User:The Rambling Man and User:Baseball Bugs. If that is not correct, please provide me with more accurate information on what the interaction bans are. In any case, conflict does recur from time to time, whether in spite of or because of the interaction bans or the underlying dislikes.

There have recently been a few threads at WP:ANI. So far, they have not resulted in any action. In general, when a topic area results in multiple WP:ANI threads, what will eventually happen is one of: (1) the conflict subsides; (2) "the community" at WP:ANI takes administrative action, typically in favor of the faction or group that is louder and noisier; (3) if the ANI threads themselves become troublesome or disruptive, an ArbCom filing is accepted, and Arbcom hears a full evidentiary case. This should be a warning. If the conflict between Reference Desk editors persists rather than subsides, either ANI administrative action or ArbCom sanctions will probably follow. ANI sanctions will take the form of: blocks; interaction bans; topic bans; or site bans. ArbCom sanctions normally take the form of: discretionary sanctions; interaction bans; topic bans; or site bans. I am sure that no one wants topic bans or site bans, so be warned that those are what are likely if dialogue and reason do not prevail.

Try to engage in reasonable dialogue, because if that does not happen, solutions will be forced on us.

Robert McClenon (talk) 03:06, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Solutions will need to be forced upon the Reference Desks. A lot of your thread relates to talk page stuff, not the Ref Desk itself. You should focus on the behaviour there rather than the behaviour you have described above. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:03, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

It isn't clear to me what The Rambling Man disagrees with. The issue, as he says, has to do with the Reference Desks proper. Some of us have been trying to discuss behavior at the Reference Desks proper here, on the Reference Desk talk page, as an alternative to forcing a solution on the Reference Desks. Discussion here is failing. Any solution to behavior at the Reference Desks proper (responses to trolls, hatting of threads, deleting of threads) will have to be forced on the Reference Desks from one of three venues: (1) this talk page, via the RFC process, which is binding and can establish local consensus; (2) WP:ANI, which can block, topic-ban, or ban users; (3) the ArbCom, which can impose discretionary sanctions (a clumsy remedy for the Reference Desks) or can topic-ban or ban users. My advice at this point is that the least drastic way to deal with behavior at the Reference Desks would be an RFC, which would be discussed here and could impose local consensus. The alternatives are ANI or the ArbCom. Does The Rambling Man have a suggestion on what solution should be forced on the Reference Desks? Does anyone else have any ideas on how to go forward? Robert McClenon (talk) 15:45, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Do you always conduct conversation in the third person? If you misunderstood my point, let me re-iterate. Your "summary" focused on discussions that happen here on the Ref Desk talk page, not on the Ref Desk itself (or else I can't see why you would spend so much time discussing the existing IBAN). Just read how many threads here and in the recent archives discuss the same old thing. That's what you need to address. Your summary didn't really cover that. ANI has failed. Many times. It's clearly a divisive issue, but what is as plain as the nose on your face is that some users here need to be reminded that IP editors are not just tolerated, they are encouraged to contribute. All these throwaway "drive by" comments are genuinely offensive. Long-standing editors have no more rights here than an IP making his or her first ever post. I think Robert McClenon needs to start thinking about an Arbcom solution since all other avenues have been exhausted, and the problematic behaviour of a few Ref Desk users continues unabaited. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:12, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

One reason why I am discussing this in the third person is that my comments are applicable to editors at this talk page and at the Reference Desks proper in general. Another reason is that I was trying to avoid direct argument with you, TRM, or with other editors, but your complaint about attacks on IP editors is off the mark, because I was not attacking IP editors. Do you, TRM, really want disputes about the Reference Desks to go to ArbCom, which is likely to ban you and certain other editors from the Reference Desks? I agree that WP:ANI has failed. You are probably right that a solution will have to be forced on the Reference Desks. Is there a reason why it cannot be done by RFC and has to be done by ArbCom? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:17, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Banning someone who hardly ever uses the ref desk, in hopes of getting regular users banned in the process, would be a very cynical and unfair thing to do. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:55, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Well you're clearly better informed than most if you think Arbcom will ban me from Ref Desks, but if they do and find they need to ban others who are disruptive, then I can take that. My complaint about attacks on IP editors is not off the mark because I wasn't referring to your edits. Obviously. RFCs have even less teeth than ANI so Arbcom it is. And once again, I reiterate, if you believe my edits to the Ref Desk itself (not the talk pages) to be disruptive as those who continually disrupt the actual Ref Desk, then I welcome the ban from Arbcom as long as the other users involved are similarly banned. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:31, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

As far as I know, I am the only one here that uses the term "drive-by". I could say "single-purpose, one-use IP user who comes here to fire a verbal shot at another user and is never heard from again", but "drive-by" seems shorter. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:28, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

But you seem to use the term whenever any IP editor says something you don't like. Thus it's hard to square your usage with your claim that you're not biased against IP users. —Steve Summit (talk) 16:39, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Are you saying that all IP users behave like drive-bys? Sorry, that's not the case at all. Most IP users are fine. Your claim that I'm "biased against IP users" is false. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:45, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I spent quite a bit of time writing up a big, long, detailed explanation, but this talk page has exploded since then, and there have been several calls to tone it down with the interpersonal bickering and tangential discussions, so I'm going to let it ride, and if someone gets the impression that I do believe that all IP users behave like "drive-bys", so be it. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:39, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

wick wock

There was an infamous editor called this, or something similar.

Can anyone direct me to his/her contribs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.156.41.125 (talk) 12:25, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

There aren't any. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:50, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Far from infamous, a rather valued user, User:Wickethewok's contributions can be seen here. I wish they'd return. --Dweller (talk) 13:02, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Fairly sure the IP isn't referring to Wickethewok but instead referring to our engineer friend from Perth called Wickwack/Ratbone/Keit/Floda/possibly other things who remains topic banned from the RD Wikipedia:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Wikipedia community after these discussions Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 99#Community ban of Wickwack AKA Ratbone & Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive249#WP:GAME violations at Ref Desks using multiple identities from multiple IP addresses due to them pretending to be different editors (including supporting themself in their own arguments). It's very difficult to get a list of their contributions since they operated from a/ highly dynamic Perth IP range/s. I guess there is a risk of WP:BEANS with this but AFAIK after hanging around like a bad smell for a while (including using WP:RD/L as a free language translation service) they eventually largely disappeared. Nil Einne (talk) 13:27, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I can't approve of sock puppetry, but Wickwack/Keit/Floda et al did have some good and helpful contributions, IMO. A google search like so [13] will give you most of Wickwack's contributions, as he (usually) signed posts by hand. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:44, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I think most agreed with that, in fact it was commonly suggested it would be okay if they created a single account and stuck to it but that suggestion was never taken up. (Heck I personally would have been fine if they just used on identity and stuck to it always.) BTW, that search will only give you perhaps about 2/3 of WickWacks contributions, because even though they did normally sign (until topicbanned), they appeared to use the 4 (or possibly more) identities randomly. A search like [14] whether with the Wikipedia internal search or with an external search engine [15] will be more effective. Not Bing though [16] (besides tried while not logged on to a Microsoft account and perhaps with safesearch and obviously somewhere where that wouldn't cause problems). Nil Einne (talk) 11:42, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Private fighter jet ownership

Moved to WP:RDM#Private fighter jet ownership Nil Einne (talk) 12:49, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Discussion about problems here

I have a little bit of experience round here of aiding conflict resolution. It seems that the first stage is usually to work out what the actual problems are, according to all parties. I can't see that that's been properly done, so...

I'd be quite interested to see if anyone disagreed that the following occur at the Ref Desks and are problematic:

1. Replies from regulars (no names, thanks) based on individuals' opinions that aren't flagged as such
2. Newbie/IP biting by regulars (no names, thanks)
3. Regulars (no names, thanks) editwarring with each other by hatting and dehatting or deleting and restoring

NB This is deliberately not intended to be an exhaustive list. I'm not asking "are these all the problems that you think exist?", I'm asking "Do you agree that all of these occur and are problems?"

Cheers --Dweller (talk) 17:10, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

The instructions at the top of each refdesk include: "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate." Although it's not explicit, and perhaps should be made so, one could reasonably infer, "We don't give opinions, predictions, or debate, whether they are requested or not." Therefore I would modify your item 1 to "Regulars frequently responding with opinions or debate (no names, thanks)" and I would then reply "Yes" to your question. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:21, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

In my book, a little WP:OR is fine, as long as it is clearly flagged as such. E.g. I sometimes do that when a question is asked about plants/gardening. Of course I prefer WP:RS, but sometimes I can't find any, and I'd like to think that my experience in plant husbandry might still be helpful to OPs. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:52, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Most of the hatting/deleting debate is about professional advice. On your list, you need to add "Define precisely what professional advice is." The "IP biting" part can be solved by never hatting or deleting anything, and by never protecting the pages. If an admin (such as Jayron) concludes that the IP is a sock and/or troll, he could block the troll/sock, since us peons can't do that. The rest of us should curb our enthusiasm for responding to trolls (and many of us are guilty of that). That point needs to be on your list also. As to the third point, if you forbid hatting and deleting, that problem goes away. Assuming more good faith toward regular users would be nice too. You need to add that point. Included with that, you need to add a point to forbid sniping at regular users in front of the OP. Saying "that's not correct", followed by a correct answer, would be proper. Attacking a responder, as too often happens, is extremely bad manners. And another point you need to add, would be how to attract a broader pool of responders. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:52, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't disagree with #1 or #2 (although I wouldn't express them in precisely the same way). On #3, the problem isn't really edit-warring, it's the generation of endless ineffective post-mortem discussions (to which I am now contributing). If these discussions could be made effective - if we could come to a consensus AND ENFORCE IT - then we might make some progress. But enforcement is the big stumbling-block. Tevildo (talk) 00:37, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

They hardly ever come to any sort of definite conclusions or consensuses that anyone could either align themselves to or take a stand against. It's just airings of opinions and gripes, with no commitment to doing anything to resolve them. Or, when someone does propose a certain course of action, it's usually criticised as a step too far, and it just dies. That's why I hardly bother getting involved anymore.

Our culture here is sick and tired and ineffectual, and in need of a completely new start. If we were setting up an online reference desk from scratch, knowing what we know now, what sorts of protocols would we be adopting? That's where we ought to be directing our energies. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:54, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, many years ago, I was a regular participant at SDMB, and there were (and perhaps still are) two major differences to the way we do it: (a) The (fairly limited) rules about user behaviour were mercilessly enforced BY ADMINS; any problem user would find themselves banned very quickly. (b) Discussions that were, or had become, off-topic, were moved to a special area (called "The Flame Pit", as I recall), where people could vent their political and religious opinions without getting in the way of the real answers on the main boards. Could we do something similar without making our violation of WP:NOTFORUM worse than it is now? Tevildo (talk) 08:48, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Given that admins themselves do questionable stuff here, I don't know if that would work. But it's worth considering. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:07, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

The question might be, should it be more like a "real" reference desk? If so, some things would be expected from the ones posing the questions - like not asking something strange and then disappearing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:03, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I have never seen a real library reference desk that has any rule against asking something strange and then disappearing. Can you cite a specific library where such a rule exists? The libraries do, however have rules concerning the behavior of those who are behind the counter answering questions, and one of the big ones is always "if a significant number of people complain about your behavior, you are no longer allowed to answer questions at rthe library reference desk." --Guy Macon (talk) 07:03, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

When I talk with librarians, it is understand that I will be part of the process, of the give-and-take, and that I will help in finding the answer, because I actually want to know rather than to just jerk the librarian around. Maybe things work differently where you are. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:52, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

One thing I've seen at Yahoo Answers, or whatever it is - they have questions and one or more answers, and they ask for feedback on what the best answer is. They must not regard it as an unfair burden on the questioner to ask them to actually acknowledge the answer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:54, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Requiring a questioner to acknowledge the answer is unrealistic. We can ask, and many will comply, but the plain and simple facts are that

[A] A significant number of internet trolls have discovered that asking questions on the reference desks just to mess with us gets a reaction and thus is (to them) a lot of fun to do.

[B] The way we are handling it now increases the chaos and attracts more trolls.

[C] The way some of us handle [B] above increases the chaos further and attracts even more trolls.

I would like to get back to what we were discussing before. Individuals who continue a pattern of behavior on the reference desks despite criticism and pushback from the other regulars are a big part of the problem. The criticism and pushback itself becomes a subject of criticism and pushback, we all get into yet another long, unproductive discussion, and things become more fun for the trolls. As several here have pointed out, this is heading towards an arbcom case, which will likely result in several one-year bans. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:22, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Which is why we should (temporarily) outlaw hatting and deleting, and see if things go more smoothly. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:07, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I would support a moratorium on hatting and deleting. In particular, the hatting of original posts (questions) is never an appropriate response. It actually draws attention to the post that was hatted. (It was recently done at the Reference Desk, and was a mistake.) Deletion is, in general, only appropriate in special situations, such as duplicate posts (a reason for deletion at the Help Desk), incomprehensible posts (e.g., not in English) (also occasionally a reason for deletion at the Help Desk), or posts that are not questions (e.g., rants). I would be willing to support a general moratorium on hatting and deleting for a period of time. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:25, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Is there a reason why everyone seems to have only just discovered how trolls operate? Not to sound rude, but it's really not a complex problem. Troll tries to upset you, you get upset, troll wins. Troll tries to upset you, you don't get upset, troll loses. This is the internet, which is full of trolls and literature about trolls. This is a very public part of the internet where you will meet many in one form or another. Honestly guys, it's not rocket science and it doesn't require this conversation that has dragged on for about a month. People need to stop attacking each other and work towards treating each other civilly in accordance with Western standards of common courtesy and then there will be many fewer problems here. We don't need all sorts of new rules, we don't need arbcom, and we certainly don't need all this pointless analysis. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 21 Adar 5775 13:34, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

The biggest problem here is the attitude by some to see minor imperfections as big problems that need to be dealt with by overt interventions. This is counterproductive, in the same way that a hypochondriac by worrying about his/her health all the time, is actually undermining his/her health. A great deal of damage has already been done to the ref desk by having too many discussions and too many interventions on issues that are totally irrelevant. We need to stop with this nonsense and get on with answering questions. Count Iblis (talk) 15:23, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I concur with this devilish fellow, there weren't many real problems beyond incivility before these discussions broke out. Now all that's happening is that everyone's angry at each other, trolls are happy (with very little effort on their part), and a huge amount of time that could have been spent doing useful things has been wasted on these lengthy discussions here. How much chaos is there actually one the refdesks? An occasional troll, but questions get answered and except for a few small fights, nothing's really broken. Everyone's attentions would be better focused on just manning (and womanning) the refdesks. I recommend that everyone take a week or so off first though, and then come back, look at and assess this discussion with a clear head, and then get back to work Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 21 Adar 5775 17:23, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes. The proclivity to race to the talk page to discuss each and every removal or hatting or whatever of posts that a few users deem unacceptable to them, and the hunt for IPs, geolocating them, hurling accusations at them, is precisely what the trolls want. It should stop and then the Ref Desk could possibly regain some of its integrity. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:49, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, but if someone removes my AGF, referenced comments to a post in the name of troll hunting, is it not the appropriate thing for me bring it here for discussion, vis. WP:BRD? I must confess I believe strongly in WP:NOTCENSORED, and it is bothersome to me when I see others interfering with free usage of these desks. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:49, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Correct, I concur, the "policing" of the desks is the core of the problem. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:38, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

• Boards like this work more easily when questions on usual troll topics (penis size, anal sex, whether black people are less intelligent than white people, and so forth) are declined with the minimum of drama (e.g. deleted with a standard response about not conforming to guidelines). This is much easier than agonising over possibly failing to answer the very rare genuine question about such topics. 109.152.146.39 (talk) 21:22, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

People need to respond to the questions posed or we'll get nowhere. There's a whole load of other sections on this page to discuss whatever you like, or you can create a new one. I'm going to repost. --Dweller (talk) 10:04, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

penis correlation question at misc [nevermind]

An OP asked if penis size is inversely correlated to intelligence. He didn't ask it in relation to his own junk or anything else trollish in the question. Various people said we can't answer factually, but there actually is plenty of research that says penis size is inversely related to monogamy.

I did the research and posted the correct answer after restoring the question which had been deleted as "deny" by IP 122 The IP again deleted the question, along with my researched answer: diff. The deleting IP geolocates to Seoul.

I am unaware of any regular poster using Korean IP's and am wondering why the user is not editting signed in. I don't doubt it's possible the OP is the same person as another troll, but since the question is not rude or implausible or otherwise problematic, I am going to restore it with my answer one last time. I expect this will get me called a Nazi or a Negress or both, but I leave it in the hands of people who enjoy the rd talk page. If others believe the OP is a troll they should say so in their edit summary deleting the question, and I won't restore it (or mind terribly). μηδείς (talk) 20:07, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Nevermind, the OP's obscene edit summary justifies Jayron's block and the edits deletion. μηδείς (talk) 20:09, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe, but that doesn't justify two unilateral removals by 112.144.15.207, prior to the obscene edit summary. Three users had already responded before the first removal, four before the second. That's simply disrespect for de facto consensus, plain and simple, and it needs to be prohibited in clear writing. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:18, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

This is an interesting issue. I agree with you that the question in itself was valid. I'm not going to read through diffs but I gather the OP revealed bad faith after the fact? I'd still be fine letting the question stand. Consider another example: pretend I asked a question about the identification of a bird species, based on a photograph and brief description, in entirely bad faith - I'm secretly hoping to waste people's time because I don't think it can't be identified. Should the reasonable question and answers be removed just because I had a secret ill intent? I'd say not. Just adding some food for thought... SemanticMantis (talk) 20:43, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

The Taming of the Troll

I would like to suggest the possibility, while still assuming good faith, that such removals might themselves be a form of trolling. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 21 Adar 5775 20:51, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Just as likely someone who enjoys playing refdesk cop more than they care about core Wikipedia principles like consensus. But the motive is both unprovable and beside the point, so why speculate? ―Mandruss ☎ 21:11, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe more along the lines of WP:POINTY - but we can't ever really know motive in any case, so I strive to AGF/ignore as much as possible. My main point was about content vs poster intent, but that's a bit too broad and off-topic, so I'll stop now. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:18, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I was suggesting the very likely possibility that the IP is the same troll or another one gaming the system for the purposes of trolling everyone here. I was trying not to be so blunt. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 21 Adar 5775 21:59, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Editing at the Ref desks is more similar to reacting in the real world than editing at articles on the encyclopedia. At articles we can have the luxury of rules even if one of the rules is "ignore all rules". But we don't have that luxury when editing at the Ref desks. We are trying to come up with rules for how to deal with certain situations that arise on the Ref desks. We are hampered by what I think is our assumption of similarity between the encyclopedia of articles and the Ref desks. We cannot nearly as easily formulate and then rely on rules of the "if this, then that" variety at the Ref desks. We are not writing articles; rather we are interacting with people. Therefore we have to be on our toes to respond to endless creativity of individuals, some of whom will definitely take pleasure in trying to trip us up. The important thing to realize is that there is no set correct response. Bickering among ourselves is a problem. Sometimes it is the right course of action to "hat", sometimes to "ignore", sometimes "delete". It is sometimes the correct course of action to engage in dialogue with the person posing the questionable inquiry. That dialogue can be for the purpose of clarifying the question, but that dialogue can also be used to probe the sincerity of the person posing the question. Bus stop (talk) 22:32, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Things probably won't be helped by the fact that there's a whole talk page listing everything the refdesk hates people doing. Has everyone read WP :BEANS? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 21 Adar 5775 22:54, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Until there is a way for us to meet in private, and somehow identify the wolves in sheep's clothing and prevent them from joining us (which is of course never going to happen), that's just a problem we will have to live with. The worst idea of all would be to stop discussing ways to deal with trolls for fear of showing our hand (without discussion, we have no hand to show). ―Mandruss ☎ 23:11, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. The only ways to properly deal with trolls have either been told to everyone here directly or reasoned out by individuals several times already. Unlike many things, the methods of troll removal are pretty much set and universal and have been for a long time now. Any seasoned troll will tell you as much and any further work on it is pretty much a waste of time that could be spent trying to get everyone who's here to help at refdesk to play nice with each other and to answer questions. . Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 21 Adar 5775 23:22, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

If we have a consensus on that (which does not require unanimous agreement), there should be no issue with codifying those rules and procedures in Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines. Why hasn't that been done? ―Mandruss ☎ 23:30, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Can't be a consensus without unanimity though (sorry, have to be nitpicker right here). That would just be an agreement. And by that are you talking about the best ways to deal with trolls? That just requires everyone here educating themselves about trolls so that they actually understand them rather than taking wild stabs in the dark. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 21 Adar 5775 23:37, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Please refer to the second sentence in Wikipedia:Consensus. And we are not going to maintain any such consensus in our collective mind and pass it down to future generations like folklore. We write rules down, in a place where they are recognized to represent community consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:41, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm, touché sir. They really should rename the process, but that would be silly I guess. I'm not suggesting oral tradition as if we were discussing some epic poem (Norse if we're discussing troll-slaying). I'm just saying everyone should educate themselves first. A person can write some stuff down, but if they don't really have a good understanding of what they're writing about, the result won't be anything useful. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 21 Adar 5775 23:49, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

If the rest of the project followed that reasoning we would not have a single policy or guideline in writing. Those who understand write, the rest read and discuss until they understand. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:56, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

What's wrong with suggesting that everyone gain an understanding before writing the guidelines? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 21 Adar 5775 23:56, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

"Everyone" means unanimity, which we will never achieve. There are no doubt people who understand you completely but disagree with you anyway. If consensus exists as you say, trying to bring the rest on board is a futile waste of time. If there is anyone who fails to respect a consensus because they disagree with it, they are in violation of a core principle and persistence will be considered disruptive. That even applies to me. I would much prefer a clearly written set of rules and procedures that I disagreed with, and I would follow it to the letter. There is nothing more important to me than the principle of consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:04, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't realise you thought I was still talking about consensus. I'm not. I'm just suggesting everyone (not meant in unanimity in my use, but in the everyone should do this sense) should do some research first and then whoever wants can write some guidelines, that's it. We're talking about two different parts of the process. I'm focused on the part about gaining an understanding, and you're focused on the part about using that understanding. Also, please remember that this (trolling) is a somewhat irrational, illogical, and decidedly malicious human behaviour we are talking about, not an editing guideline. If we were talking about writing a guidebook to interacting with Parisians, for instance, wouldn't you do your research first? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 22 Adar 5775 00:13, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Well I'm going from confused to confuseder. If the following is true, where is the need for research? According to you, some here including you already know how the rules should read, and this is in fact "universal".

The only ways to properly deal with trolls have either been told to everyone here directly or reasoned out by individuals several times already. Unlike many things, the methods of troll removal are pretty much set and universal and have been for a long time now.

―Mandruss ☎ 00:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Oh, you thought I was saying the info was already written in guidelines on Wikipedia. No, this is off-wiki knowledge, as far as I can tell–well, except for ignoring trolls–but it was talked about a few times in the subject relating to giving trolls boring answers (in the IP's RFC). The ways to deal with trolls are indeed known, but the info is written elsewhere on more troll-oriented sites like Encyclopedia Dramatica and chans. I wouldn't say I know how they should read even though I spent a few years trolling myself (not on Wikipedia), but I know that without knowledge of what trolling is an how best to deal with trolls, then however the rules read, it won't solve the problem. That's why I'm suggesting people do some research beforehand. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 22 Adar 5775 00:31, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

No, I understood you to say that discussion of how to deal with trolls is unnecessary because the answers are well known, and that you and others here know them. If that is the case, an articulate person like you should be capable of applying those principles to this environment and writing rules, and that is what is sorely needed. If I'm still missing your point, we have reached the limits of this kind of communication and should give up. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:44, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The discussion so far has proved pretty much fruitless (except for the previously mentioned bright spots) because people can go find the information and educate themselves on what trolls actually are rather than guessing as has been the case so far. The universal thing wasn't to imply that the knowledge is universal (or even well-known otherwise trolling wouldn't be a problem), but rather that the most effective methods are universally effective. With the knowledge of how to properly deal with trolls, and an understanding of Wikipedia, interested editors can then write guidelines on how best to deal with trolls. It's not really unreasonable to suggest that people get some background knowledge before doing something. Unfortunately, this conversation seems to be becoming unnecessarily hostile over a very small point. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 22 Adar 5775 00:51, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

No hostility on my end. Frustration, perhaps, at the inability to communicate. I'll deal with it. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:55, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I tend to rattle off replies on the fly and so sometimes the meaning can be lost. My apologies for causing you unnecessary frustration. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 22 Adar 5775 01:04, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

RFC: Proposed guidelines for Reference Desk

Should the following guidelines be implemented by local consensus at the Reference Desks?

A. Hatting of posts and threads

A. Original posts (questions) and threads (original posts followed by responses) shall not be hatted.

Survey

• Support as proposer Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support Hatting a discussion is the equivalent of the Streisand effect at the ref desks: it draws attention unnecessarily to that which was ostensibly inappropriate in the first place. --Jayron32 00:09, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Hatting draws attention to the content, which on any view is the last thing we should be doing. Tevildo (talk) 00:10, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support I've always disliked this option. --Dweller (talk) 10:43, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support But needs qualification. I hatted one the other day because it had been moved to another refdesk. A comment at the end stated that it had been moved, but I felt that wouldn't be enough to prevent continuation of the old thread. Removal would have been the wrong move since a pointer to the new location was needed for the OP and earlier responders. There is occasionally a good reason for a hat. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:28, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

Hatting of questions, whether appropriate or inappropriate, has been found to be ineffective, and in fact encourages trolling. Note that, as written, this rule is binding not only on general editors but also on administrators. There is never a need to hat original posts or whole threads. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. Occasionally, it's useful to use some form of boxing to hide a large amount of text. It might be an idea to recommend a suitable template for this, with the essential caveat that only the person posting the text can employ it. Tevildo (talk) 00:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Question. Is this proposal only about hatting per se which collapses the discussion, e.g. {{Hidden archive top}}, {{hat}}, and {{collapse top}} or is it intended to also include those forms of closure which put the discussion in a box and advise not to modify it, e.g. {{discussion top}} and {{Archive top}}? If just about the collapsing ones, is it intended that the other two be allowed? Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:22, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

B. Deletion of posts and threads

B. Original posts (questions) and threads (original posts followed by responses) shall not be deleted, except by administrators, unless the original post is a duplicate, is incomprehensible (e.g., not in English), or is not a question.

Survey

• Support as proposer. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
• I won't support or oppose, so count me as neutral for the following reason: I am very uncomfortable granting any power to administrators that is not tied to the use of their tools, which we do not grant to the everyone. If an editor can do it then they should be allowed to do it, unless we specifically ban someone. That's how Wikipedia has, does, and should always work. It's an open community, and I don't like rules that grant a special class of people special privileges, excepting those privileges tied to the toolsets they have been granted (like admins, stewards, etc.) That all being said, the reason that I won't oppose either is that I begrudgingly realize that something has to be done here to establish some order, and frankly, I don't see any other possible solution the regulars here have the stomach for. That all being said, the best you'll get out of me is "I won't oppose this." And I'm still not comfortable saying that, but accept that it's probably the best we will do. Sorry for the long "vote" but I felt the need to fully explain myself. --Jayron32 00:13, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support per nom. See earlier threads for further comments. We need to allow for the fact that admins are not perfect, and some method (not necessarily formalized) of questioning deletions will be needed - we may also want to allow people to delete their own posts. However, the basic principle of non-admin deletion being prohibited should have a very positive impact on the situation. Tevildo (talk) 00:14, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose It's a wiki. Hipocrite (talk) 11:04, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

This "If an editor can do it then they should be allowed to do it, unless we specifically ban someone" idea keeps popping up, but that's not how Wikipedia works. For example, anyone here can replace the signature on this post with their own, but that does not imply that they should be allowed to do it. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:29, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

C. Non-permitted questions

C. Original posts (questions) that request medical or legal advice may be answered only with statements that Wikipedia does not give medical or legal advice. Responses that give medical or legal advice may be hatted or deleted. Original posts that appear to be homework questions may be answered with statements that Wikipedia does not assist with homework, and with pointers to appropriate articles.

Survey

• Support as proposer. This merely restates existing policy. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support if and only if we strike the "hatting" part. Questions that ask for medical/legal advice should get the boilerplate and be left alone. Any responses except the boilerplate "we don't do that here" template should be deleted. --Jayron32 00:14, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose as stated. See below. Tevildo (talk) 00:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support strike "hatting." Hipocrite (talk) 11:04, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

• As I see it, there are two issues with this proposal as it stands. Most importantly, it's in conflict with A and B above, as it allows both hatting and non-admin deletion. I would support the proposal if "hatted or deleted" were changed to "deleted by administrators". Secondly, the wording of the current guideline is "medical, legal or other professional advice", and what counts as "other professional" advice is a matter of disagreement which it's not appropriate to discuss in this RFC. For the moment, I would recommend adding the "other professional" to the proposal so that it is aligned to the current guideline. Tevildo (talk) 00:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

D. Hatting and deletion of responses

D. Responses to original posts (questions) shall not be hatted or deleted, except by administrators, unless they provide medical or legal advice, are duplicates, are incomprehensible (e.g., not in English), or are unambiguously not responsive to the original question.

Survey

• Support as proposer. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support if and only if we drop the exceptions. If we're going to do this (and see above for my explanation why I am still uncomfortable with this) then we need to go whole hog. Again, not happy to have to do this, but I don't see any other way. --Jayron32 00:16, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support if not outright prevented. --Dweller (talk) 10:44, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose as stated. I would support this if it simply read "Responses to original posts shall not be deleted except by administrators" with no further caveats or exceptions. Tevildo (talk) 00:23, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose still a wiki. Hipocrite (talk) 11:05, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
• Support. I wish it wasn't needed, and it wouldn't be needed if a small handful of regulars simply stopped doing things that invariably lead to criticism and pushback, but that is clearly not going to happen, and thus this proposed rule, while not perfect, is far better than what we are doing now. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Other

Reserved for threaded discussion of other issues about Reference Desk behavior not covered above. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

Oh, look, another RFC insisting on the right to tell shitty jokes on the RefDesk! Hipocrite (talk) 11:05, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Robert McClenon and Guy Macon

At the time of my posting this threa, I did a search of all seven ref desks for posts by Guy Macon and Robert McClenon. There were none. No questions, no answers. At the same time, I find 36 matches to Robert McClenon on this page and 42 matches to Guy Macon, along with comments about Nazis and those who want to control others and the ref desks, and so on. (This is about a behavior, not about Guy and Robert personally, they are not the only ones doing this.)

This raises the question, who exactly is it that is looking to control whom here? The next time someone brings up "people who want to control the ref desk" or "police it" or whatever, can we have some names and diffs, as I did immediately above with the Penis size question? The unending innuendo above by people who don't even contribute to the desks strikes me as just a little bit odd. μηδείς (talk) 21:32, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

If someone makes a constructive effort to help resolve ongoing refdesk problems, I call that contributing to the desks. Each of us (well, most of us) has something different to bring to the table. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:37, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Some folks are the "answer refdesk questions" kind of contributor. Others create articles. Others fix typos. Others patrol new pages, or edit templates, or fix BLP problems, or help decide if articles should be deleted. All of us are contributing in our own way. I am involved in dispute resolution, as is Robert. You will see both of us a lot if you search the archives for DRN, ANI, and Arbcom -- usually as an uninvolved commenter, almost never as a named party. The fact that we are uninvolved in the fights that plague the reference desks is a positive, not a negative. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:51, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I support Guy Macon and Robert McClenon as constructive contributors who need feel no shame about editing this page. I don't care when they last edited mainspace, the ref desks, or anything. We don't need names and diffs until it seems plausible that there is agreement, and some action can be taken. If people name names, this is exactly what causes the thus-named to start getting upset. I'm not going to look for comments about Nazis, because I simply don't care enough, but if anyone engages in reductio ad Hitlerum, I advise them to treat difficult people (no names mentioned) with kid gloves. The people are very touchy, and will take up loads of our time. IBE (talk) 14:43, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree: We judge the merit of edits and talk page proposals, not motives or experience. Any editor is welcome to look at how we do things and propose and advocate for changes. That's what being a Wiki is all about. Suggesting that only people who are experts or experienced at a page, regardless of namespace, should be involved in editing or improving it is a form of page ownership and there are very few places here where that is allowed. The ownership policy begins with: "All Wikipedia content − articles, categories, templates, and other types of pages − is edited collaboratively. No one, no matter how skilled, or of how high standing in the community, has the right to act as though he or she is the owner of a particular page." and then goes on to give these examples of an improper statement suggesting ownership: "'You obviously have no hands-on experience with this topic.'" and "'You hadn't edited the article or talk page previously as a history search shows.'" Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:51, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The opinion of an admin who actually works on the ref desks, such as Jayron, is in a much stronger position to comment on these things. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:08, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The opinion of Jayron is that no one should be saying that these two cannot comment on the operation of the desks, and that no one should be implying that they are not allowed to help out in any way they want, including conflict resolution and helping establish a framework for preventing said conflicts in the future. Anyone can contribute anyway they have the skills and desires to do so, and no one has the right to tell other users their help is unwelcome, especially by implying that prior experience or certain qualifications as being "part" of some closed-off community are necessary prerequisites to be taken seriously. People should never treat anyone like that, and one should never cast aspersions or obliquely note that someones lack of prior experience in editing as though that made any difference at all to whether or not their ideas should be taken as seriously as anyone elses. That's the opinion of Jayron. --Jayron32 16:31, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Defamatory request for either opinion or legal judgment

A contributor asks us whether a certain business venture is a legal scam, then, realizing his mistake, changes the wording to "not a scam". In either case, calling a business venture a scam is defamation per se and the question still asks for an opinion even if we pretend it is not a legal opinion. I suggest it be closed or removed. μηδείς (talk) 00:56, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Unless someone has taken court action against the company, it's not a question that can be factually answered. It's like asking whether that place that has Ted Williams' body in deep-freeze is a scam. One could argue either way, but unless there's been legal action, there is no factual answer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:29, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

In fact, the one asking that question is the same one that asked about whether it's "easy" to drive a high-speed train, and then got snippy with the first respondent.[17] According to the ref desk non-participants here who nevertheless want to nanny the ref desks, we should grovel at the feet of that user. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:51, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Please stop trolling. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:35, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

You're funny. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:01, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

No, Bugs, don't laugh it off, take credit for it! Nobody said we should grovel at the feet of that user, nobody believes that, but you've twisted the conversation in that direction so deftly, and planted the bait so succinctly, that someone is sure to rise to it. Well done! —Steve Summit (talk) 11:31, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The "according to the ref desk non-participants" bit of trolling right after the same question was asked and answered in the section above was particularly inflammatory. Bugs does have some skills as a Troll. It's kind of pathetic, but he can't quite seem to figure out why no one else sees his actions as heroic. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:57, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

It was asked and rationalized, I'll give you that. As for groveling, that's the standard message we get here from certain users. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:16, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Bugs, your troll was clearly compiled with inferior tools. My guess is that you used Visual Troll++, or possibly TurboTroll 2000.

These first generation tools are quite limited, and there is a severe garbage-collection-related performance hit when you try optimizing the output of VT++ for flaming or insults.

I suggest that you try the latest version of GTC; the Gnu Troller Collection. It is *the* standard when it comes to creating Trolls. It is also Open Source, re-entrant, and is fully compliant with the Triple Troll, Troll-On-Troll and TrollChow protocols. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:57, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Are those options available for my TRS-80? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:16, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• Observation: This above is not only not only unproductive, it's counterproductive.... Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 22 Adar 5775 14:18, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Medeis brought it here to ask about it. When Medeis doesn't ask, they get yelled at. When Medeis does ask, they still get yelled at. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• I was referring to the back and forth over trolling when it doesn't really count as trolling, and even if it did, the back and forth over the alleged trolling would not helping. (though funny enough, and not saying it applies to this conversation, but an accusation of trolling against someone raising a legitimate concern can sometimes be trolling itself). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 22 Adar 5775 15:38, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• The question does not state "legal scam" so I cannot agree. I also cannot accept that we are in a position to make legal judgements, eg. about "defamation per se". We are in a position to make a much smaller judgement about the nature of something being defamatory, as a general description, not as a legal term. Here I feel it is unwarranted and excessive, because the only factual basis is given clearly by the questioner there. It is that Mars One has "no possibility of actually launching a simple rocket", which is clearly just an opinion, and does not seem at all defamatory. It merely invites the reader to form an opinion based on this claim.

However, the question as posed is silly, and reads to me like an invitation to debate. It is also inappropriate for the Humanities desk, and at best belongs on the Miscellaneous desk. I would suggest a boilerplate warning about not responding to requests for opinions, predictions or debate (the question seems guilty of all three). I also feel it lowers the tone of the desks, and we will do admirably well if we restrain ourselves from otherwise answering it. It would be a better response to the questioner there, and a much more powerful demonstration of our culture and interests, if we could leave the question there with only a boilerplate, and demonstrate our visible disinterest in this manner.

Thankyou for taking this here, and congratulations on picking this up quickly, because this helps us all. I believe calling it "defamation per se" adds a lot of spin, but your approach here is very welcome. Gratefully, IBE (talk) 15:39, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

It initially did say "legal scam".[18] The OP might have figured out that asking it that way would get it shot down immediately, so he changed it, and voila, a debate ensued. Imagine that. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:46, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

What are the problems here?

I have a little bit of experience round here of aiding conflict resolution. It seems that the first stage is usually to work out what the actual problems are, according to all parties. I can't see that that's been properly done, so...

I'd be quite interested to see if anyone disagreed that the following occur at the Ref Desks and are problematic:

1. Replies from regulars (no names, thanks) based on individuals' opinions that aren't flagged as such
2. Newbie/IP biting by regulars (no names, thanks)
3. Regulars (no names, thanks) editwarring with each other by hatting and dehatting or deleting and restoring

• Please say "yes" if you agree that all of these are problems
• Please say "yes" even if you think that there are other problems I've not mentioned
• Please say "no" if you think one or more of those points is not a problem (and it'd help if you said which one and why)

Please restrain yourself and just answer the question and don't comment on others' responses.

One word answers are fine and possibly even helpful.

Cheers --Dweller (talk) 10:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Replies from regulars that are totally unprofessional. Not an option, but the sole problem. Hipocrite (talk) 11:06, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Please could you reply to the question asked. Thanks. --Dweller (talk) 11:18, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

No thanks. I thought I'd explain the problem to you clearly and succinctly, as opposed to playing at bureaucracy. Hipocrite (talk) 13:45, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Addressing your points individually:

(1) NO - Redundant, as any response without a link qualifies as original research.

(2) NO - Nowhere near the problem that a few here seem to think it is.

(3) YES - Definitely a problem.

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:19, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

That reads like a "no". --Dweller (talk) 11:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Two of the three, I don't see as significant problems, hence it works out to a NO as per your rules. My other comments are in keeping with your comment "it'd help if you said which one and why." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:42, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

True. Thanks. --Dweller (talk) 13:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

No. More specifically (1) happens occasionally but is not a major problem (2) happens occasionally but is not a major problem (3) happens quite often and can be a problem. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:58, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks --Dweller (talk) 13:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

No. Number 3 isn't how I would describe it. It isn't totally wrong, but in my experience, the people restoring the posts have typically done the right thing by coming to this page and bringing it to the attention of others. I have hardly seen those who remove the posts doing the same. So I cannot agree with the term edit-warring. I would call it tendentious behaviour in hatting/ removing posts, or I would phrase it more neutrally to avoid the suggestion that there are two sides in some kind of battle over hatting/removing. Thanks, Dweller, for your help here. IBE (talk) 15:04, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• All three are problems. --Jayron32 16:00, 13 March 2015 (UTC)