Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 104

How to answer questions:


Discuss. SteveBaker (talk) 17:45, 3 December 2013 (UTC)


 * You left out a key factor. When someone shows up, not to try to answer an OP's question, but merely to harass a responder, that someone's comment should be subject to deletion. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:43, 3 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Baker's also apparently defined trolling out of existence, giving it a pass in every circumstance. For some reason Glory Allred and Kathy Griffin come to mind, not that I have the faintest idea why. μηδείς (talk) 19:00, 3 December 2013 (UTC)\
 * Not so. He specific has a section on violation of guidelines.  Trolling is exactly that. Mingmingla (talk) 20:13, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * This seems a rather obvious and belaboured way of saying that people who think a thread should be hatted as trolling should leave it alone when Baker and others really, really want to answer it. Look at the patent nonsense we have had recently from our Louisville Kentucky troll.  How much of it has any value?  How much of it explicitly violates specific policies to Baker's satisfaction?  Steve below appears to make exactly the same point about what is implied.  This part of wikipedia is a voluntary pigsty, and people who are happy to find resources for OP's asking about serious questions, like the effects of sex-reassignment surgery on sexual orientation, shouldn't mind if their voluntary work appears on the same men's room wall with "questions" about masterbation habbits.  I am sorry, but I don't agree, and this chart is a personal essay that belongs on its creator's user space, not mainspace, nor labelled as if it reflects policy. μηδείς (talk) 22:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The word "Discuss" means that it's merely a suggestion and that all forms of feedback, including ideas for improvement, are welcome. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:35, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No, you are advised to "walk away, you don't need to answer." Or, yes, I am discussing it. μηδείς (talk) 22:45, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That's a pretty impressive strawman collection there, Medeis. No one (except you) has said anything about the Louisville troll (or Steve's degree of satisfaction with it), or voluntary pigsties, or sex reassignment surgery or masturbation, or dictating policy. —Steve Summit (talk) 23:30, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I still recall the brouhaha over trying to put the brakes on the British troll called "Light current". Every time one of his stupid entries would turn up (many of them similar to the Kentucky troll), some users (and thankfully I don't recall which ones) would come to his defense, despite his being a banned user. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:41, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Why, sure; I remember Light Current, too. (If you look carefully you can still see some pretty impressive scars on my user and talk pages.) But do you have a point to make about.the current discussion, or are you just adding to the strawman collection? —Steve Summit (talk) 23:53, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If you consider questions about trolls to be "strawmen", I don't know what to tell you. The diagram summarizes stuff that is said here all the time, so is not new - and does not address any of the stickier issues. Hence, it's worthless. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:13, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Bugs, the points Medeis raised about trolls were straw men because he brought up something no one had said, as if to refute it, as if to score debating points, but in a way that advanced the argument not a whit.
 * No one has said that trolls should be left alone because there are people who really, really want to answer them.
 * No one has said that the Reference Desks are a "voluntary pigsty".
 * No one has said that people looking for resources about sex reassignment therapy should have to put up with anything. (Whatever that was supposed to mean.)
 * No one has said that Light Current or other banned users should be defended.
 * So if you and Medeis are trying to suggest that Steve's flowchart is wrong because it says any of these things, well, you're wrong. (You're of course perfectly entitled to your opinion that it's worthless, but I for one don't agree.) —Steve Summit (talk) 00:53, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It provides no new information and does not address issues that continue to vex the ref desk. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:05, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Very nice. I particularly like the large number of ways of getting to the "you don't need to answer" box in the lower left corner.  I would note that, besides not answering, this also means:
 * you don't need to hat or delete anything
 * you don't need to worry that the system is broken
 * you don't need to post here on WT:RD that there's a problem that needs discussing
 * That's right: you don't need to do anything. You can just walk away, and find something else enjoyable and productive to do! —Steve Summit (talk) 19:10, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * When the nannies are told to "walk away" rather than hassling other users while not attempting to answer the OP's question, then you'll have something. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:18, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Indeed. You are perfectly at liberty to walk away and do nothing - and I think this would be a better place if more people did just that.  There have been many recent questions where I've been unhappy about the question and the questioner - and I've done just that - walked away.  We can't have a guideline that says "You MUST answer the following categories of question if you know the answer!" (with appropriate application of Wiki-wedgies to people who fail to answer when we think they could).  The only known tactic for fixing trolls is to ignore them.  This is Netizen-101 training.  Hatting their questions or the answers to them simply encourages them.  Disputing why we did or didn't ignore them also gets them excited - edit wars over the ignoring or not of them makes it even worse.  The least exciting thing for them is to be ignored and the second least is to have a relatively boring, non-contentious answer delivered with a perfectly straight face just as if nothing unusual was happening.  My flow chart seeks to encourage use to do just that.  The more that Medeis and Bugs rant and fuss and fight about trolling, the happier the trolls become.  So let's ignore trolls when we're personally convinced that they are being annoying - and give them no special treatment when we decide to give them the benefit of the doubt per WP:AGF.  If there is anything worse than not ignoring a troll - it's getting belligerent with someone who isn't a troll but just has an odd set of questions to get off their chest. SteveBaker (talk) 03:08, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Suggestion: between "Has a good answer been supplied yet" and "Add your comment in &lt;small&gt; tags", we might want to add another decision box "Are there fewer than 10 humorous asides already?" or "Do the existing humorous asides account for less than 10% of the total answerage?". —Steve Summit (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * On a more serious note, it does not deal with Wickwack (and others in a similar position). There should be an option for removal of responses by banned users, rather than just original questions by banned users. Tevildo (talk) 22:10, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It says "How to respond to a WP:RD question". There are a whole bunch of responding-to-responses cases it doesn't cover. —Steve Summit (talk) 22:21, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure - I kinda planned a followup flowchart about "How to deal with other people's answers". But let's get this much chewed over first. SteveBaker (talk) 03:08, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * SteveBaker has omitted the one thing that would stop 90% of the debates/arguments that occur frequently on Reference Desk, stop 90% of responses that trigger refutations, shorten & clean up Reference Desk, and restore its place as the very best place to get a good answer out of the various forums on the Web:-
 * If the question is not within your competence, leave it for a day before answering. If after a day, nobody else has answered, then go ahead and volunteer your answer.  Most likely though, it will be answered by someone who does have competence.  It is not within your competence if you have to google it or search Wikipedia in order to understand an answer.  Competence does not mean professional or official qualifications, it means you know the subject to the detail required to answer it.  This does not preclude the desirability of including refrences and links to sources (preferably links) in your answer.

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 * That's also an excellent idea, but I would hope that you, ratbone/wickwack/whatever, would actually follow it yourself. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:12, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

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 * One tactic trolls often use is to say, "I'm not that guy, but it looks like he's been mistreated by wikipedians." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:24, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I strongly agree with you - and I think I have that covered. I said "If you have a good answer"...emphasis on "GOOD" - and it leads to a box that says that you should provide a "USEFUL" answer - with references where possible.  And if nobody comes up with a good/useful answer - then after a couple of days, we can suggest that the OP ask the question differently.  Most trolls will be bored after two days with no reaction to their efforts - so providing this 2-day courtesy response shouldn't greatly alter the efforts to not feed the trolls.  I'm prepared to rock-paper-scissors with you over whether the delay should be 1 or 2 days - but the sentiment is the same.  SteveBaker (talk) 02:57, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

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 * OK, now we don't agree! Some of the best answers I've seen here (and some of the ones I'm most proud of giving) are as a result of someone here scouring the net, using their unbelievably wicked Google-fu skilz, and pulling an answer out of nowhere.  Take today for example, someone asked about whether an autonomous vehicle had circumnavigated the globe.  Nobody here is going to be an expert on that subject - it's just too obscure.  If we stuck to your rules, 99% of articles would go unanswered.  But with about 20 minutes of digging around and reading up on the subject, I was able to come up with a pretty good contender for the vehicle that is most likely to succeed - and the autonomous vehicle that has in fact travelled more than a third of the way around the world.  I'd hold my answer up as the ideal answer to a Wikipedia question like this.
 * Recall that we seek to emulate a library reference desk (our name is kindof a clue about that!) - when you go up to the reference desk in a real library, the person you are talking to is almost certainly not an expert at whatever you're asking. Their expertise is in the quaint topic of "Library science" - how to find information from a damned great pile of books.  We're the same.  Our best contributors are not the ones who work in their areas of excellence - but the ones who can dig out the most amazingly hard to find information within the encyclopedia - or elsewhere online.  I hardly ever know the answer to a question - it's almost always an amusing and interesting quest to find that information that leads to our best answers.
 * The ACTUAL problem here is people who think they are experts (or at least more knowledgeable than they really are) - who shoot from the hip and guess at an answer. That's worse by far than someone who knows nothing about the subject who goes off and meticulously puts one together from the available online information.
 * SteveBaker (talk) 03:37, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, you are spot on re folk who shot from the hip - they are indeed worse that someone who knows nothing but looks it up. But that is a case of very bad is worse than just bad.  My proposed rule covers both.  As I said someone who just looks it up can thru ignorance misread, take out of context, or pick a low quality source.  Not for a minute would I forbid anyone from answering - I just want them to wait and see if a competent person answers.  If you are competent, you don't need to wait.  If we all stuck to my rule, it would not be case of 99% of questions going unanswered.  It may well mean that 90% of questions (more likley 70%) suffer a delay up to one day before an answer appears.  That in itself is ok - Reference Desk doesn't pomise instant answers - but as I said the lack of nonsense with applying the rule will probably after a while result in additional people who can provide good answers comming forward.  This is what is not being appreciated - bad answers discourage good answers, as good people likely think "I'm not going to waste my time here - its just another nonsense forum."  I felt your answewr on automous vehicles was good helpfull answer.  But you never know, an expert on such things just might come across Referenmce Desk.  If none did, then your answer would still be just as good after a slightly greater wiat than the OP got anyway before you answered.  A few good answers from non-experts does not invalidate what I'm saying.

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 * If it were that simple, it would be no problem. The problem is caused by the relentless arguments by those who don't believe in the "no medical advice" rule and want to constrict it as much as possible. P.S. I see you're in western Australia. Say "G'die" to WickWack next time you see him. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:28, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

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 * I don't disagree. The thing is, deletion causes more of an uproar. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:39, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

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 * Completely off-topic here but, I really liked the way you all answered my silly questions!  Miss Bono  [hello, hello!]  00:35, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Hey, where you been? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:39, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Connection where I am now is very slow, check out the last entries in my talk page. But I miss all of you guys at the ref desk and I promise to come back.  Miss Bono  [hello, hello!]  00:46, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Miss Bono! I suppose I should confess that at the outset, I thought you were a troll.  I now know that I was utterly wrong about that...but hey, we all make mistakes.  I didn't hat or delete your questions - or the answers to them - I simply decided to "Walk Away" (per my flowchart, above).  Other people decided that you weren't a troll and made best efforts to answer your questions - which was fortunate, because you stayed with us and actually started answering questions along with us - which is the best possible outcome for Wikipedia!   Gradually, I realized my stupid mistake and started to do my best to start giving your questions the attention they deserved.  This is an absolutely prime example of why we shouldn't shoot from the hip and execute suspected trolls on sight - or worse still, turn an innocent questioner into a pissed-off Wikihater who actually will do things to properly annoy us.  Hence the flow chart.  Sit back, wait to see what happens, and apply your own personal "Don't Feed The Trolls" approach. SteveBaker (talk) 03:17, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * SteveBaker, for the way you treated me at first I thought I was a troll I just tried to make non-bono questions I fixed what was wrong :P...  Miss Bono  [hello, hello!]  22:42, 6 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Couldn't we reduce this a single question:
 * "Do you have an answer, with references, to provide for the original question" and if the answer is "yes" the action is "Then do that" and if the answer is "no" then the action is "Then you don't have to do anything at all".
 * All conflict only comes from actions other than that. That is, no one has ever generated conflict by simply providing an answer, with references.  Conflict only arises when people do OTHER things, including but not limited to, jokes, attacking others, hatting questions, deleting questions, etc.  What if we made our policy simple: Answer the f'n question with a reference or two, or do nothing.  If everyone did that, the trolling would just roll off the page with no responses, which is probably the best way to treat it.  -- Jayron  32  15:07, 6 December 2013 (UTC)


 * No, it's not as simple as that. Such a policy would be a bad policy.
 * I agree that the best way to deal with trolls is to ignore them. If a troll provokes no response, he'll get bored and go elsewhere.  Hence, fewer troll posts, and the troll posts that do occur haven't done much harm.  Most trolls post questions, and a troll answer can usually be recognised as such by the OP.  The trouble comes because some troll posts aren't recognised as such by everyone and responses get posted.  There's no easy solution to this.
 * I fully agree that links and refrences are highly desirable. It does conform to the presumably traditional (American) public library refrence desk model.  But there are many many questions for which Wikipedians know the answer, and it is based on logical reasoning or math, so no references are necessary.  Quite a significant percentage of questions are answered this way.  For example, say an OP wants to know how to calculate the impedance of a radio cable.  Almost any electrical/electronic engineer knows the formula for this one.  Most can derive the formula from first principles on the spot - it is simple and can be done in three lines. We can type it up in about 5 minutes.  What's wrong with that?  It might take 15 minutes to find it in a reference.
 * I have provided many answers, without links or references, becaue it is evident that the OP already has a good reference, but he's stuck on some aspect. Or, he's confused because a Wiki article is not clear.  Citing another reference is not especially helpful.  Providing a logical explanation in easy steps is.  Do you want to exclude such responses?
 * When I give an answer to OP's that by the wording of their question are probably learning a new (to them) subject, I take care to use and or explain the terminology of the subject. Often, OP's ask questions because they don't know what words to google. I usually put standard terms in italics.  This may trigger the OP to search on those terms.  If the OP does the looking up, it is far better for his /her learning than if I look it up for him/her.  If I look it up, he/she may just accept it, then forget all about it a month later.  If I induce the OP to look it up, they'll learn something, and they'll remember it.  I know from occasional thank-you posts (and thank you's are rare on Reference Desk) that my strategy is often successful.
 * Lastly, but by no means the least important: I'll say this again - while SteveBaker is correct (see above) that a person who is ignorant but looks it up is heaps better than one who guesses or shoots from the hip, a person who actually knows the subject, before looking it up, is better still (references should still be cited where applicable).  People who rely on looking things up can in ignorance cite references that are dubious or plain wrong; they can all too easy take things out of context.  Such misinformed answers with citations are a significant trigger of counter posts.  Your proposal, by focussing hard on providing links/refrences, would encourage more such answers.  The solution to this is - if you don't know the subject before looking it up, wait one day and see if someone knowlegeable has answered.  If not, go ahead and give your answer.
 * Libarians in a traditional public library did not provide answers to questions - they only told you where to look to find an answer. That's all they could do - one librarian cannot know all about all subjects.  In Wikipedia Reference Desk we can do better, as we are not just one person.  And that's what the customer wants.
 * 60.228.254.73 (talk) 00:29, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, all you said is perfectly correct. We still don't need complicated rules.  The basic principle of "If you know the answer and can prove it, go ahead.  If you don't, shut up"  is enough.  That includes responding or not to trolls, hatting or deleting threads, or anything else.  If you don't like someone's question, there's no reason to do anything.  At all.  It does you no amount of harm, it shortens your lifespan none, and it presents you no inconvenience to do nothing in response to a thread you don't like.  -- Jayron  32  03:02, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * "If you don't like the thread, don't post, don't do anything." Right on.  I gave this a bit more thought after  I posted.  Reference Desk is by no means the only place on the Web where you can ask questions and get answers from more-or-less anonymous volunteers.  It is is interesting to note that only Wikipedia has all sorts of rules and policies.  Most of the other question & answer forums don't have anything, and because of that they have zero trouble with folk mis-applying rules.  And they have a lot less trouble with trolls (everybody has trouble with trolls, but they generally have less), and the answers just like Reference Desk are a mix of direct answers and answers that just give refrences or links with a few words to say why the link or ref is appropriate.  What makes Wikipedia Reference Desk unique is not the quality of answers, it's that you can ask on any subject, at any level of advancement, and more often than not, somebody can answer it if the trolls and shoot-from-the-hip guys don't get in first.  On reflection, adopting your policy that you expressed before would reduce the trouble we are having, but also reduce the value to many people.  So maybe there should be five and only five rules:-
 * 1. If you don't like the thread, don't post, don't do anything.
 * 2. Unless you know the answer before looking it up, wait one day to give a chance for a knowledgeable person to post.
 * 3. Give links to online sources or references (links preferable) wherever reasonably possible and appropriate.
 * 4. Don't violate Kainaw's Criterion and ask for or give medical advice.
 * 5. Don't ask for or give legal advice.
 * There are cases where post should be deleted. But the facility for hatting should be removed.  Whatever the original intended use was, it's not working now.  Hatting achieves nothing, and the facility is being abused.
 * 60.228.254.73 (talk) 03:29, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Hatting an entire question (in response to perceived trolling) is entirely worthless.  Either the person is a troll, and now you've left a giant Historical Monument that says "TROLL HERE!  COME ADMIRE HIS WORK" or the person isn't, and you've just attacked an innocent person.  If the thread is so bad that it should never be read by anyone, delete it.  If not, leave it alone and either let someone answer it, or let everyone else ignore it as well.  But it should be rare to delete a thread, and never entirely hatted (I support limited hatting of digressions or other inappropriate responses to good faith questions, but not hatting of good-faith questions merely because someone sees trolls hiding behind every odd query...)  -- Jayron  32  04:19, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * And then one or more responders will gripe that their precious pearls of wisdom will be lost to history, and we'll have the delete-vs.-hat argument yet again. Infinite loop. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:46, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * So just what is your advice on masterbation, Jayron?
 * In the meantime, let's also get a policy on three nonsense questions in a row, sockpuppets who restore their own material after its deleted, gathering ten useless responses by editors who will do anything now not to see their responses to him deleted, and my favorite, the 500-word racist rant essay followed by an innocent one-sentence inquiry on how many jebuzians have ever held the grand-poobahship of a non-jebuzian country.
 * The elephant in the room here are the single purpose accounts, IP or sock, who show up day after day asking bullshit. Check their user contributions, and they have started dozens of new threads at the ref desk, all absurd. They have never followed up on such questions, or otherwise contributed to the project.  These are either genuine idiot-savants who know how to edit without ever having practised in the main space, trolls whose sole purpose is disruption, or studied longtimers with multiple accounts gaming the system.  The percentage who fall under idiot savants are probably less than one.  So how do we deel with the other 99%?  Just leave them to their pigsty antics?
 * Where is there just one active admin interested in patrolling such accounts? μηδείς (talk) 07:06, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I like to think that admins who regularly post here, such as Jayron, take an interest in defending Wikipedia against such trolls. But it always comes down to the same bugaboo: You can't indef IP's (unless they're open proxies) and you can't force IP's to register. This is a never-ending problem, which is one reason why I have pretty much abandoned vandal-hunting. Until or if WMF changes this core philosophy of "anyone can edit", which was once a boon and is now an albatross, nothing will change for the better. Add to that, that there are not enough active admins, and Wikipedia's "standards" for admin selection, such as they are, do not encourage expansion of the admin corps. It's kind of like a city council, noticing an increase in the crime rate, and responding by reducing the size of the police force. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:34, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Welcome to Wikipedia, Bugs. Here's your mop and bucket.
 * As far as I'm concerned, the "anyone can edit" philosophy is still one of Wikipedia's most fundamental cornerstones. Does it cause problems?  No question.  But it is also absolutely responsible for Wikipedia's phenomenal success.  The day it's rescinded is the day I seriously consider abandoning my participation.
 * As for Medeis's comments about active admins, it's not an admin's job to patrol for vandals -- it's all our jobs. It's an admin's job to block an account once vandalism is reported.  No, you can't indef-block an IP, but you can temporarily block 'em, and I think most vandals get bored and don't play the IP-hopping game for too long.  (But yes, there are a few that are damnably persistent, and for those, well, again, welcome to Wikipedia.) —Steve Summit (talk) 14:45, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Right. Report them to AIV, where an admin will say "insufficiently warned" and deny the block. That's another reason I don't bother much anymore. What's needed is for non-admins who have other sort-of admin rights (such as rollback) be allowed to issue temporary 31-hour blocks. If you expect us ordinary wikipedians to fight vandalism ourselves rather than relying on admins, you had best give us a weapon. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:07, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not totally sure why we're allowing an unrepentant topic banned editor to be involved in this discussion. But since the followups mean it's not going to be deleted, I would note that whatever forums our banned friend normally hangs out in (perhaps only ones which allow them to have multiple identities to provide support for any disputed claims they make?), plenty of places where you can ask questions do in fact have rules and limitations. In fact, plenty (not all of course) are far more strigent than we are. Particularly when it comes to trolling, anything coming even remotely close to someone violating copyright or something probably against the law, etc.
 * Notably, in many of they have moderators (generally admins). In other words people who have the final say and can stop stuff on their own initiative. With only limited room for appeal (usually privately) or community discussion (often only on the wider direction rather than on specific issues). The moderators themselves may be community appointed but are often simply appointed by whoever is in charge or owns the forum. Most places also generally require registration with a valid email (to avoid spambots as much as anything) and rarely have any real limitations on those with access (admins or mods) being able to check out IPs etc. Of course, all this leads to the second issue namely that in many of them the rules are clearer and more stark, unlike here where we try to avoid fixed rules. (Although in other places it may still take a while to get a feel of the culture and of how the rules are intepreted.)
 * The idea that we are some super strigent place with a large number of obscure rules and whatever that isn't done anywhere else is IMO largely a myth sometimes spread, perhaps not coincidentally frequently by those who have problems with our culture, particularly those who have been blocked or banned. Whether the cause of this is because they're making the stuff up to try and justify their behaviour or whether it's because they hang out in the places where what they say is true, I can't say.
 * The only real truth to it is that considering the nature of wikipedia and the sometimes uncomfortable position of the reference desk, we do generally expect sources rather than personal opinions or commentary (other places may require sources for certain claims, but usually are more openly accepting of personal commentary or opinions). Oh also of course, what I hinted at earlier namely that we aim to operate without many real rules.
 * None of this has anything to do with the hatting issue, although I would note again in plenty of places it's far more common for a thread to be locked if inappropriate than for it to be deleted, deletion generally being reserved for stuff like personal attacks, libel, copyright issues and spam. But either way, I don't think we should be worrying too much about what is done in other places, let's worry more about what we should do. I only brought this up because I didn't want to let stand the myth that we have these super strong rules and no one else does that.
 * P.S. In terms of hatting an entire question, as I think I've said before in one of the many discussion, personally I consider deletion best. Yet as I've also said before and as others have mentioned here, if you delete clear cut trolling, even from a banned editor, don't be surprised to be yelled at if you also delete the responses others may have made (and I presume as we all agree leaving responses with no question is just dumb). And finally as I've said before many times, when you know something is clear cut trolling, particularly based on details others may not have picked up, it's extremely rude to leave it be simply because some people enjoy interacting with trolls. Since plenty of people do not enjoy wasting their time on trolls, yet not everyone who does not can be expected to pick up all the signs, particularly in the case of a persistent troll and editors who don't check out the RD that often. There's no reason why those who enjoy wasting their time on trolls should take priority over those who do not. (I do of course also recognise that to what extent we should deal with putative trolls is unclear and disputed and since as with most things is a continuum, is not something we will can ever hope to have clear consensus for every case.)
 * Nil Einne (talk) 13:09, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

[Comment by banned user removed by Medeis]
 * [Comment by user restored by user: Not aware of any ban.  Removal appeared to be selective muzzling of discusion]
 * Does Wikipedia Reference Desk have a strong and effective set of rules and policies? No it does not - the trouble had, and the continuous discussion and debate about all sorts of alledged and actual trolls, vandals, and other pests on this talk page is evidence of that. As is continual inappropriate hatting and continual appropriate and inappropriate deletion, though only a tiny number of wikipedians do this. As SteveBaker and others have said, simplification is the key to improvement. Are the rules and policies meant to govern/guide usage of Reference Desk onscure? Well, to new users, the rules & policies certainly are obscure. It takes new users considerable time to learn what and WHERE they are. As you've alluded to, Nil Einne, when you talked about taking time to learn the culture. Having a minimal set of simple rules displayed at the top of the edit screen would help. Even quite experienced Wikipedians don't know about Kainaw's Criteria for example - it is hidden away. If it was a sentence appearing every time at the top of the Science Desk edit screen, you'd most likely get far fewer requests for medical advice, and even less proferrings of advice when it did occur. Or maybe, when you click the Save Page button, a clickable check list should appear. Most requests for medical advice seem to be from new users who are unaware that Reference Desk cannot provide medical advice. Very few have tried to game the system and test the boundaries.
 * Yes, other forums do have monitors. Monitors would be a good idea in Reference Desk too, but only if such monitors were selected or voted into office by a much better process than can exist within the way that Wikipedia operates.
 * Say "G'day" to WickWack the next time you see him there in the Perth area. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:43, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Far as I know, the user calling himself "WickWack" is topic-banned from the ref desks. I don't think he ever actually created a user ID, as it's easier to troll via IP-hopping. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:48, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think it was ever confirmed that WickWack was not some other banned editors although off the top of my head I don't know anyone it could be. (But maybe their historic problems were outside the RD.) IIRC when it was suggested they create an account before got in to major trouble, they said some stuff about being misidentified and blocked because of it which in retrospect you have to wonder if whether what they actually means was that they were correctly identified and got blocked because of it. I won't of course be replying anymore to WickWack above, the only reason I replied at all is people seemed to be accepting their claims most of which I consider clearly nonsense and therefore harmful to this discussion. Nil Einne (talk) 19:08, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * This thread is the supreme irony, no? A magnet for trolls and banned users, an argument for why the comments of people like our Danish troll (now blocked ) should be left to disrupt in peace. μηδείς (talk) 21:43, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * FYI: User:Medeis is attempting to muzzle this discussion by attempting to get my flowchart deleted before this discussion has run it's course. Feel free to express your opinion about this tactic at Files for deletion/2013 December 8. SteveBaker (talk) 23:11, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I have suggested that this file be renamed to "suggested protocol" and moved to Steve's user space if it is retained at all. see the nomination. Anything about my "muzzling this discussion" is panicked nonsense. μηδείς (talk) 23:18, 8 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Bullcrap Medeis, complete unadulterated bullcrap. If you wanted the file renamed then why did you go to "Files for DELETION" to get it done rather than Requested moves?  Either way, would it not have been a little more polite to come here and discuss it first?  Heck, why not just ask me if I'd rename it?  No - you did what you always do - which is to charge in and start hiding/hatting/deleting anything that you have the slightest distaste for without regard for the consensus and long-standing practices of this place.  That's why your name comes up here over and over with such negative comments about your editing habits - and why your behavior angers so many people.  You need to understand that as a community, you have to get large scale agreement behind you before taking precipitate action.  You just wanted my diagram gone...and pretending that it's "unencylopedic" - as you're well aware - is a stupid claim for an image that's not being used (and would never be used) in mainspace.  If you'd really wanted it renamed, you'd have done that rather than demanding deletion.  Quite why either thing needs to be done while this discussion is still in play is anyones guess.  Unless you're trying to muzzle and/or disrupt our discussions here.


 * This image isn't confusing people by it's naming - there is no urgency to take any action whatever. I'd go further and say that my diagram does actually describe the long-standing practice of these reference desks...except when you personally take it upon yourself to go around hatting things that really don't need hatting, almost always angering the majority of people who do good work here.  My flow chart is an effort to encapsulate current practices - and my request for discussion was simply to see if there were significant good reasons to change that.  I don't see any convincing arguments for doing that.  SteveBaker (talk) 06:41, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Here's the nomination that has SteveBaker in such a panic he's cursing in his edit summaries: "This file neither reflects an existing policy, nor is there consensus to make it policy, although its name implies it reflects a WP protocol. It was created as part of a talk page argument, and serves no encyclopedic purpose. There's no objection to it being renamed neutrally to "suggested" protocol and being placed in the creator's user space. But we cannot have users uploading policy arguments labelled as facts. μηδείς (talk) 4:58 pm, Yesterday (UTC−5)"


 * That's very clear, the emphasis added sentence indicates there's no desire to delete the file per se. I'll nominate it for moving to "suggested protocol" when I get the time. μηδείς (talk) 18:04, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Y'know, Medeis, committing a preposterous and provocative act, and then trying to duck responsibility by belittling your victim for reacting to it, is one of the standard tactics of the immature bully. Is that what you're trying to achieve here? —Steve Summit (talk) 19:22, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * No, Steve, it's to fill some yawning hole in her psyche by making everything always be about Medeis. She knows Oscar Wilde's epithet "There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about", but has perverted it into "being the butt of everyone else's angst at least has the saving grace that I'm not being ignored".  Funnily enough, that's exactly what drives trolls.  And babies and small children.  Any attention, no matter how negative, is better than no attention.  That's what we've always been working with here.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  02:29, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Steve, if you want to point out where I have bullied anyone here, please provide the diff. You have my nomination quoted verbatim above, it's there for criticism. I will assume your complaint is sincere, although Jack "Making people feel guilty is my supreme ambition in life. ... "Winning is never enough - others must lose" of Oz's chiming in on your behalf while having just called me a "nasty vindictive baitrice" whom he forgives "Mandela-like"  makes it hard to take his contribution seriously. Touché, Jack. μηδείς (talk) 05:14, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Jack of Oz has hit the nail on the head. It's attention trolling.
 * Nothing the ref-desks haven't seen before in other users. APL (talk) 16:07, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Presumably you're talking about IP-hoppers and drive-by red-link accounts, as contrasted with registered users who stand with their accounts. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:33, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Them too. Those are the other kind of trolls we get here. APL (talk) 18:39, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If certain users spent even a tenth of the time they spend hassling regular users, in dealing instead with those "other" trolls, instead of defending them, it would be a significant change for the better. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:21, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Perspective
I agree with discussion that discuss the matter of joking; sometimes there really is too much. However, I just had a go through all the desks and find that a vast majority of questions are answered, eventually, with direct references, links to other Wikipedia articles, or suggestions on how to find the answer elsewhere. While we do get issues with jokes, medical and legal advice, and trolling, most of the time this place works as advertised. We only notice the outliers and ignore things when it runs smoothly. This isn't to defend bad behaviour, but more a reminder that we do indeed do good work here much of the time. Mingmingla (talk) 02:33, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, we do manage to deliver a good answer to most questions eventually...and we did do that in the case described above.


 * The problem is that someone who comes here to ask a question and sees that it's being mocked will probably go away before the good answer shows up - and there is an even worse risk that they may mistake a joke for a real answer. The thing here is that most people assume that questioners are adults with a good command of the English language and are from a European/American background - when in fact, many are children with English as a second language who live in places quite unlike where the majority of our respondents are from.  For them, a joke response is easily misinterpreted as a real answer - even though it's obvious to you and I that it's a joke.  That's why we need to insist on "No joking until we've come up with at least one good answer" and "Distinguish humor from serious answers by using &lt;small&gt; text".  Those are imperfect rules - but they would eliminate 99% of the problems.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 15:11, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Semi-Protection Time?
Other than wickack and the Toronto Troll, are there any IP contributors here? I am curious if there's opposition to requesting the talk page be semi-protected. μηδείς (talk) 03:52, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm opposed. There's several good-faithed regular IP contributors, not to mention any of the future millions of people who haven't registered yet but want to ask a question.  Semi-protection here is a BAD IDEA.  We can deal with Wickwack and the Tornotroll and our Denmark troll either by ignoring them (best option) or removing their posts (far less desirable, but meets some people's desire to be in control).  I'm in favor of doing nothing at all, but semiprotection is keeping out all the good stuff for the sake of three PITAs.  A bad idea.  -- Jayron  32  04:03, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Medeis is referring to just the ref desk talk page, not the ref desk itself. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:08, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I am quite unaware of any helpful contributions by IP trolls here on the talk desk--and I do assume Jayron's misunderstood me--I am not talking about the Ref Desks themselves. We've just had the Denmark troll blocked.  Wickwack is banned.  We have had semi-protection in response to the Toronto troll.  I am unsure how a medium length semi-protection at this page would be problematic given the determination of the trolls to disrupt this it. μηδείς (talk) 04:15, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * There aren't helpful contributions by trolls. There could be any number of good faithed questions by non-trolls, and any attempt to stop trolls must be weighed against the big, undeserved middle finger we give to all the unregisterred non-trolls that exist in the world.  -- Jayron  32  04:22, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Semi=protection is not a middle finger, it is used all over wikipedia, when necessary, for a limited time, in response to trolling and vandalism. We can easily post an explanation here explaining why the page might be semi-protected.  People who are not trolls will understand that. μηδείς (talk) 04:25, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is used, and yes, it is still a middle finger. The visibility of the page must be taken into account, and more visible and used pages are LESS appropriate to semi-protect than those that get little traffic (that's why we DON'T semi-protect the TFA or other main page featured articles if we can at all avoid it).  That is, the likelihood a page is to receive a good-faith contribution from an IP address is perhaps the most important factor in deciding when to semi-protect, not merely the fact that some known troll is editing it.  This page in particular is too visible, and too likely to receive random, but good faithed, contributions from IPs to merit protecting, and likewise has enough watchers from regulars to delete or revert trolling so as to make semiprotection BOTH undesirable and unnecessary.  -- Jayron  32  04:32, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Semi-protection of a talk page is pretty much unheard of. Even Jimbo Wales himself puts up with random IP trolls coming to his user talk all the time (and they really are banned users, and he has a pretty good idea who they are).  Give it up.  Honestly I find the IP trolls less annoying than the policy trolling. Wnt (talk) 05:11, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

The Reference Desk is specifically designed to encourage participation by people who are not normally Wikipedia editors. I know you're talking specifically about the talk page, but it feels very very wrong to turn the talk page into some sort of ivory tower from which the regulars can look down upon the newbies on the ref-desks. APL (talk) 06:31, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * We semi-protect pages when we have a serious problem we can't solve any other way.
 * What's the serious problem here, now?
 * I'm honestly not seeing it.
 * (I gather there are a few posts by an IP who might or might not be a banned user, but even if it is a banned user, (a) the posts don't seem that problematical, and (b) the right thing to do if they are from a banned user is to quietly delete them, with a minimum of fuss.)
 * —Steve Summit (talk) 11:52, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes. Entries by banned users are subject to removal on-sight, regardless of whatever their alleged quality might be. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:49, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem here is we have a banned user who posts incessantly, and whose posts get responded to, disrupting the discussion page. It would be a lot more helpful if the people who are saying there's no need for SP were also reverting the banned user's edits. μηδείς (talk) 18:07, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Should we delete every entry from any IP that geolocates to Perth, on the assumption it's WickWack? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:12, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:15, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your semi-valuable input. I was asking Medeis for a practical suggestion on how to deal with WickWack. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:29, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I have to agree there doesn't seem much point protecting this page. The level of banned contributions isn't that bad nor that insidious and there are a few non banned IPs who contribute here and protection needs to be justified by the risk (remembering that IPs are allowed to contribute to wikipedia by policy). I don't particularly like the fact people see the need to give banned editors a say in developing reference desk guidelines by engaging in them in discussions on guidelines, but that's what it is. It isn't uncommon in other discussion pages for comments from banned editors to be stuck other when they are part of a discussion but I'm not sure that won't cause more controversy here so I didn't try it.
 * (I do of course acknowledge that people can come back from being banned. In fact we have someone posting another discussion on this page who was at one time a majorly annoying troll and vandal who I don't think anyone really defended. It's only a pity it doesn't happen more often.)
 * As others have said, protecting talk pages is very rare and having it for any length of time even more so. (Although neither is unheard of, some editor talk pages are protected when problems arise, μηδείς's is one obvious example. Similarly article talk pages of living subjects with a lot of teenage fans or I presume enemies also sometimes get protection. And in those cases often for fairly long periods of time albeit with an unprotected subpage.) So even if I were to support it and we were to get consensus of people here, I'm fairly sure it's not going to happen in this case.
 * In this case as with noticeboards etc, we have a somewhat special situation in that both the talk pages and main page are used for discussion, with the talk page being used for discussion of guidelines or specific meta or administrative stuff arising in the main page, rather than for developing the main page as happens in the normal situation (articles, most wikipedia pages, templates, even files), that doesn't actually change the protection situation.
 * Nil Einne (talk) 18:52, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

On the topic of who is or is not WickWack, and how we know or do not know that, somebody who claims not to be WickWack is complaining at ANI about his comments being deleted as WickWack's. These complaints are also being deleted as being from WickWack. But he or she is persisting. People here seem to be well versed on the WickWack issue so maybe take a look? Here's his latest attempt to lodge this complaint and/or troll ANI. (Who can say?) APL (talk) 01:36, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The good news is, due to a lack of disruption, prophylaxis would be bootless. As for Wickwack, when you get a sophisticated single-puropse IP user from Perth who insists on answering science ref desk questions with attitude, and cursing when you restrict him, and who files absurd ANI cases that get criticized by and even deleted by various admins, then yes, you should assume the worst and remove the edits.  A normal person would understand this, and either move on to another area or register an account. μηδείς (talk) 20:42, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

This is a tough problem. There are really only three solutions to it:


 * 1) Have the internet provider in Perth issue 'sticky' DHCP addresses like most other ISP's around the world do.
 * 2) Have Wikipedia prevent IP editors from editing without some other means of identification.
 * 3) Persuade miscreants to create accounts so we can ban them properly!

Clearly none of those things are going to happen.

I suppose we could apply for semi-protection of the ref desk pages to force Ref Desk contributors to create accounts here. I don't think we'd lose much by requiring respondents to have accounts - but the problem is that we'd only want to constrain people who are answering questions - not those who are asking them. But technologically, the MediaWiki software doesn't provide a means to distinguish between people editing the page to add a question or a follow-up clarification and the people who are adding answers. We need to allow IP questioners - so semi-protection won't work.

Our present approach is to condemn the roughly 1.9 million inhabitants of Perth, Australia to suspicion, insults and random hatting and deletion whenever certain trigger-happy Ref Desk editors don't like their answers - which brings a near-certainty to producing false positives and thereby violating WP:AGF, WP:BITE, WP:NPA and who-knows-what-else.

I don't have a good answer - but at this point, I strongly urge that we stay polite no matter what and to delete only the "obviously bad" WickWack contributions with an absolute minimum of troll-feeding. Ideally, that would result in WickWack either being forced to mend his ways and become a decent editor or to waste a lot of time typing things that are soon sent to oblivion. He's clearly capable of making valuable contributions - and IMHO, would benefit greatly from the Wikipedia mentorship program. I have no problem with banned users returning quietly and without fuss if they are capable of reforming their bad habits. If you can't definitively tell that a particular edit came from WickWack, then we lose very little by allowing it through.

I just worry that our false-positive rate is going to be alarmingly high.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:41, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Trolling type replies from regular editors
I just hatted a bunch of trolling type replies to a question asked by an editor in good standing. I have no idea why Trovatore, Medeis, Baseball Bugs, Hot Stop, Tevildo, and 2601:9:3200:467:1830:AF9B:D09C:6497 thought that their comments were a good idea. Frankly it looks to me as if some/all of those need to take a break from answering questions. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 19:42, 13 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The question itself "How long exactly should one stay in the shower after a normal day at work or at school?" [emphasis added] is absurd, and the OP doesn't at all seem to mind that we had a bit of fun with it. He's also recently asked the very serious question, is it really true ghosts aren't real?  He's a big boy, why don't you ask him to join the discussion?  The alternative of hatting the whole thread also existed from the beginning as a request for opinion--indeed if there's to be any hatting, the whole thread should be.  But that would bring the usual flying flaming shitstorm of complaint.  Until now the way it was handled seemed to please everyone. I think the hats should be removed unless Caius objects. μηδείς (talk) 19:58, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with Medeis on this issue (twice in as many months - what is the world coming to)? The question was not, IMO, one which invited a serious answer, and I do not feel that any of the humourous responses were inappropriate.  If this is not the sort of behaviour we should be engaging in, the entire thread should go, rather than just sections of it. Tevildo (talk) 20:19, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Likewise. I never, ever, imagined that I would be ever agreeing to anything that Medeis says ;-) but I have to  agree. Also, this hatting means the OP's determination that his question has been resolved, has  been unilaterally  un-resolved by you. How would you like one of your responses to a question that you posed, to be hatted out of visible existence? We all judge, consider and answer  the OP questions the best we can. Sometimes 'we'  consider the appropriate response is to encourage the OP to think about the question he 'really' should be asking. As is quoted (somewhere) in Zen Buddhism: You can not ask the correct question... until you know the answer.--Aspro (talk) 20:41, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * About our agreeing, Sauron, it doesn't mean we haven't disagreed in the past. Nor does past disagreement imply we are obliged to hold a grudge, rather than declare ourselves free to judge each new case on its merits. μηδείς (talk) 20:28, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I have asked User:Admiral Caius to comment if he cares to. μηδείς (talk) 20:35, 13 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree whole-heartedly with that sentiment and approach, Medeis. Would that we could all practise it all the time, rather than assuming past history necessarily dictates or at least conditions current intentions.  Beginner's mind is often an elusive thing for non-beginners to capture, but well worth the quest.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:58, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I very much enjoy you Jack, and the "annoying" things you do rarely actually annoy me. If they do, it is only for a moment.  You are quite aware that I answer all your questions in good faith when I can. μηδείς (talk) 21:27, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, and thank you. What I said was an aide-memoire for myself more than anyone else.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:40, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

The question as worded is asking for an opinion, but that does not justify the deliberately unhelpful "answers" and jokes posted in response to it. The questioner should be asked to clarify what information they are seeking, and informed that the question as written is not answerable on the reference desk because it is not a request for established facts. These pages are for many users their first introduction to Wikipedia and bombarding them with nonsense because they made a mistake goes against the entire point of the reference desk as a place where newcomers are supposed to be helped. 82.44.76.14 (talk) 20:57, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with that too. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:59, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Ah, but that's assuming that you found the responses amusing. I thought they were stupid and juvenile and if you found the question unworthy of an attempt at answering then why even bother. Or do you want to encourage useless questions so they can receive ridiculous answers? The question may at first glance may appear unanswerable, so ask for clarification or ignore. There is nothing that says you are required to comment on everything. At first I thought it couldn't be answered but then I figured that if you look at it from a different angle then sensible answers could be provided, as was done by some editors. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 21:08, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The fact that you have no sense of humor is not particularly enlightening. Or then again, maybe it is.  Anyway I don't remotely apologize, and I think you should apologize to me for the word "troll". --Trovatore (talk) 21:11, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * (By the way, may contribution was not that funny, it's true. But Medeis's baroque elaborations &mdash; those were hilarious.) --Trovatore (talk) 21:22, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Your answer, if not spit-out-your milk funny, was indeed funny, and perfectly appropriate for the question as asked. μηδείς (talk) 21:33, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi everyone. I was informed of this thread by Medeis, so I came to try and clarify the situation. I have been an obsessive germophobe for quite some time, and I struggle with obsessive washing and paranoia. I was curious on what time is considered "correct" and came to the RD to try get some opinions. The comments are quite humorous and amusing (though not overly useful), but I don't consider them bothersome or disruptive, and certainly not trolling. I didn't intend for the matter to escalate; I was simply looking for a casual answer. Admiral Caius (talk) 21:28, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That's actually very interesting, Caius. Had you stated the explanation in full, the question might have been deleted as medical advice.  Are you actually looking for a minute amount, or a "landmark" that will tell you when you're done?  Have you talked to a professional?  I have a friend from middle school who had a serious OCD issue, with showering and especially with hand washing.  He's quite happy now, I can ask him how he has dealt with the issue.  You might put a question, "what information has been published on how people with OCD deal with the need to shower?" μηδείς (talk) 21:39, 13 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I have turned the hats to smalls per the no harm no foul consensus. μηδείς (talk) 21:48, 13 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Ha! I guessed as much, but it didn't seem polite to say "do you want to know this because you have some kind of obsessive behavior and want to know what's normal?" ... so there you are, assuming good faith was the right thing to do this time. Talking crap at trolls is fun but like 82.44.76.14 said, it interferes with helping our often cryptic but well-meaning visitors. It's a kind of fun that works better on forums where fun is the primary goal and offering help is not. (Though of course offering help is fun, but you know what I mean. I'm talking about the kind of fun that may involve hello.jpg.) Card Zero  (talk) 01:50, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank God you finally invited Caius to explain what he meant. He must really be reassured by the fact that rather than respond humourously, we would normally have summarily deleted his question as a request for medical advice. Ha! indeed. μηδείς (talk) 02:52, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I basically never understand any of your posts. OK, well done for contacting Caius. The other stuff seems to be mostly about ego. I don't care about that sort of point-scoring nonsense at all. My ego is smaller than your ego, so nerrrrr. Card Zero  (talk) 02:59, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Several regular editors seem to treat Wikpiedia's reference desks as some kind of social media. The thread mentioned here is a perfect example of a number of editors who barely ever contribute to mainspace (a term unfamiliar to some regular ref desk editors) yet use Wikipedia as a kind of playground to be "witty" or attempt (and sorely fail) to appear "clever". It needs cleaning up and editors should be reminded that they are here to improve Wikipedia (which is driven by article quality), not to make flippant replies on chat pages/reference desks. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:07, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * One can't get away with just appearing to be "clever" on the ref desk because other editors will soon put you back in your place. Witt, is akin to satire, it can dissolve the veil and so  can help  the OP to focus on the question s/he meant to ask.  You just try to answer some of these questions yourself and see how far you get.  Walk a mile ...  --Aspro (talk) 22:41, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, this is an encyclopaedia, not Facebook. If you prefer to socialise and joke and provide false answers and so-called "humor", use another medium.  The Rambling Man (talk) 23:07, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Trovatore, you are right I don't have a sense of humor but I do have a sense of humour. Do you wish for me to apologise that the word troll exists? Please take the time to actually read what I wrote rather than what you think I wrote. Admiral Caius, I'm glad you weren't bothered by the replies but a newer editor might have been. "If this is not the sort of behaviour we should be engaging in, the entire thread should go, rather than just sections of it." You are correct for the most part you and others should not be engaging in that sort of behaviour. If you think the question is unanswerable as is then ask for clarification or remove it. There is no reason to think that the reference desk is there for a small group of people to crack jokes. There are plenty of social sites for that. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 22:33, 13 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Oh! Is Wikipedia heading towards its first handbags at dawn showdown? Maybe  Clint Clint Eastwood can turn it into a movie. --Aspro (talk) 22:58, 13 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The Rambling Man, practically all the editors above have been making numerous contributions to mainspace for years, and they each have referred questioners to numerous references, and yes they are regulars who are familiar with each other and tend to consort occasionally. Whatever Wikipedia is not, its not about alienating each other just because some editors are less helpful than others. The appropriate focus here is to provide the best answers possible when we can and with the shower question, I was half-way expecting to see SteveBaker add one of his often-put comprehensive lists of factors to consider even if it sometimes borders on original research (which we do allow for), but there was plenty of relevant information given anyway and the OP has now clarified what they are expecting (which had nothing to do with saving energy or water BTW) which is all fine and dandy. -Modocc (talk) 23:07, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Modocc, many chat page editors have made little-to-no substantial mainspace edits yet seem to believe that using the chat pages here somehow validate their very existence. This is, of course, horse-shit, much like some of the fallacious and facetious "advice" provided on the chat pages.  The "best possible answers" do not include making up bullshit, although that seems a proclivity common to some.  If you and your co-existants wish to celebrate social media, Facebook, Twitter or other outlets are available.  If you wish to build an encyclopaedia, please try to start doing that.  The Rambling Man (talk) 23:11, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Again you are making this up because contrary to your empty assertions, the involved editors have been making edits to mainspace. --Modocc (talk) 23:19, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Wrong. At least one of the editors noted has made barely a single notable contribution to the mainspace.  (When did you last make a notable contribution, by the way?)  The chat desk people usually just chat, chat more and fail to improve the encyclopaedia.  The Rambling Man (talk) 23:24, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * One editor? Really, that is not what you said, so are we getting a different story from you? Anyway, since it's simply a strawman that you trollishly wail against, there is not much more to this dead horse to beat.--Modocc (talk) 23:30, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Is it really? Are you getting a different story from you? Anyway, the way you're responding, you know exactly which editor(s) waste time of others' and use flippant responses.  You're the troll, not those asking questions.  What is the point of the chat desk people who just use Wikipedia as a dull alternative to Facebook or Twitter?  You and your chat friends need to start actively improving Wikipedia.  Right now, the chat rooms are becoming a laughing stock and are undermining Wikipedia's aims.  The Rambling Man (talk) 23:34, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No one is wasting anyone's time, but your original [first] post here was filled with flippant accusations (or smears), as I've said. --Modocc (talk) 23:43, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Again, you're wrong. It wasn't my original post.  You're mistaking me for someone else who also cares about the fact that the chat desk people have become a clique.  The Rambling Man (talk) 23:47, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm rarely wrong and I was referring to your post  here. --Modocc (talk) 23:51, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * "I'm rarely wrong"? Funny!  Thanks for the laughs.  Now, when you and the chat room people are prepared to actually get out and edit real articles, I'm sure the rest of Wikipedia will care about what you have to say. [have you actually edited in the mainspace in the last six months?!!]  The Rambling Man (talk) 23:54, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I clarified that I was referring to your first post, so it won't be confused with that of the OP of this thread. You are quite capable of answering your questions regarding my contributions for yourself. --Modocc (talk) 00:19, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Quite, I didn't want to embarrass you. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:29, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The Rambling Man has criticized harshly several other editors who have actually had a large percentage of their edits to articles and article talk pages. I looked at some contribution patterns via https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/pcount/index.php? To mention a few whose names came up in this thread, Trovatore has 52.68% of his edits to articles and their talk pages; for Medeis, it is 32.03%; for Baseball Bugs it is 38.79%; for Hot Stop it is 47.8%; for Tevildo it is 57.43%; for Rambling man, 53.00% of edits were to articles and their talk pages. You could just look at edits to articles, but their talk pages are also crucial to arrive at concensus as tpo what should and should not be in articles. We are not paid to sit at a desk and do a job here, It is a volunteered service, and we may chose to only edit articles, or to also answer Ref Desk questions, or to participate in AFDs to make sure articles about notable subjects are kept and vanispamcruft and hoaxes are removed, to participate in RFA and make sure qualified good-faith editors are added to the Admin ranks, or to participate in ANI and deal with incivility issues and make sure blocks are appropriate. I do not condone any holier than thou posturing or incivil criticism about the way other editors choose to spend their precious time participating in various activities at Wikipedia. Edison (talk) 01:42, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I only get 25% (probably hindered by a compulsion to edit my ref desk posts multiple times), yet I'm the one who gave the actual referenced answer to the showering question. It's interesting to see statistics, but keeping score serves no purpose and is akin to saying "I've got a PhD so STFU" or "my dad can beat up your dad". I mean, yes, it's good to contribute to main space, and it's good to post referenced answers on the ref desk, and it's good to be civil and assume good faith, but it's pointless to snipe at people over those matters. Card Zero  (talk) 02:17, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * This is quite interesting. How do you ge these results, and how could I find out what percentage of my edits are to the ref desks?  Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 02:47, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Click link above, user name goes in the box, press button. Card Zero  (talk) 02:52, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's cool. μηδείς (talk) 03:11, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Why are talk page contributions added to article contributions above? Once again, it's another place for people to engage in their chat page mindset.  The Rambling Man (talk) 22:29, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Only this encyclopedia also has a reference desk for providing pretty quick answers. To keep you happy, should Jimmy Wales direct all correspondence to a post office box,  were -if you're lucky- you may get a reply after several months? Your quote "At least one of the editors noted has made barely a single notable contribution to the mainspace." Yes we know, and we make allowances... because Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia that anyone (including you) can edit. Enough said?--Aspro (talk) 23:38, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't give a shit about Jimmy Wales, he's just another editor. I do give a shit about the fact that there are several editors who do not actively improve Wikipedia.  If you can show me evidence that these chat desks are notable outside Wikipedia, I'd be interested.  Otherwise, it's just naval-gazing bullshit, and in some cases, worse than that, flippant bullshit that denigrates the entire purpose of Wikipedia.  Facebook is somewhere else.  If you want to chat and lie to people, do it somewhere else.  The Rambling Man (talk) 23:45, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Boom, like that: http://eprints.rclis.org/20329/ Mingmingla (talk) 02:17, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Think your digits may have miss keyed on your keyboard. You should take your concerns here.   Bye, Bye, nice making your acquaintance...--Aspro (talk) 00:01, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Not at all, but it looks as if you can't type on your own keyboard. Goodbye to you, it appears you have a world of wonder around you, that in no way reflects reality.  Enjoy that!  The Rambling Man (talk) 22:25, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you truly mean 'Goodbye”? If so, then thank goodness for that.--Aspro (talk) 20:50, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * It's not difficult guys:


 * RULE 1: No humorous replies until at least one good answer has been given.
 * RULE 2: Humorous replies must be rendered in &lt;small&gt; font.


 * The horrible answers to this question explain very clearly why these two common-sense rules are important. The responses may seem clearly humorous to those who know - but they could very easily be taken to be true by people who don't.   If people can't follow these two very obvious, easily understood guidelines - then we should move to ban humorous responses from the ref desks altogether (which I think would be unfortunate).  All of the people involved have been around here long enough to know the rules - I'm horrified that they failed to follow them to such a degree.  Shame, shame, shame on all of you.  Humor must never ever masquerade as truth.  SteveBaker (talk) 02:09, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I'd have thought that 'common sense rules' for answering questions on a reference desk would start from the premise that any responses should consist of answers to the question. Can you let us know where these 'rules' regarding off-topic irrelevances were agreed, SteveBaker? AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:20, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that we have not formally codified those rules (they aren't in the FAQ, for example) - but we have discussed them on several occasions in the past and the consensus has always been that "this is what we do". I'm not going to spend time digging through the archives to find those discussions - but I'm sure they aren't difficult to find.  The first rule is intended to ensure that threads like the one being discussed here don't detract from getting our OP's answers and the second rule helps to prevent humor from being mistaken for fact...both of which were problematic here. SteveBaker (talk) 15:00, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * My biggest problem with this all was that it wasn't entirely clear how much of that was serious answers and how much was a joke. There is room for a serious answer in this kind of question, ie. average length of time, etc. The biggest problem with the jokes was that it wasn't clear what was or wasn't a serious answer. The presence of jokes isn't the biggest deal (I do them all the time in my real job as a reference guy; it's all about gauging who you are dealing with); the biggest deal is that a serious answer was hard to pinpoint in all the jokes. Hence SteveBaker's rules, which, AndytheGrump, aren't anywhere that I know of either, but they work for me, with the added Rule 3: Humourous replies should not outnumber real responses. Mingmingla (talk) 02:25, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * When a post is simply meant to be humor it is usually true that we do the small bit, but I took Travatore's initial post to also be an inquiry for clarification, "how do you expect us to...", although that it could have been stated clearer. The quality or lack there of, of the followup answers depends on whatever answers or lack there of was expected.  --Modocc (talk) 02:34, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, the initial post was sarcastic. Then I guess people thought "so much for this stupid troll question" and got playful. Card Zero  (talk) 02:50, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * ...which clearly violates one of our formal guidelines: Reference_desk/Guidelines which specifically states "Humor is allowed in reference desk answers, provided it is: ... not at the expense of other people, including the questioner"...and..."In particular, don't poke fun at a poorly written question." SteveBaker (talk) 15:00, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Now that the original questioner has clarified what he was really trying to find out (medical advice), the entire section should be dumped in the bit bucket. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:28, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No because Kainaw's criterion. The OP already knows what he's got, and isn't asking how it will pan out, or what to do about it, it's just a request for a fact. Like if you had joint pain and knew saunas help and were asking "where's my nearest public sauna?" ... that's different from "have I got bad joints?" or "will saunas help?".  Card Zero  (talk) 02:50, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * "I have been an obsessive germophobe for quite some time, and I struggle with obsessive washing and paranoia. I was curious on what time is considered 'correct' and came to the RD to try get some opinions." That is a request for medical advice. We can't possibly know what the "correct" amount of shower time is for a germophobe. He needs to talk to a professional about it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:51, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I refer you back to Kainaw's criterion. Card Zero  (talk) 03:57, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * So, what's the correct answer to that question? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:59, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, and notice he asked for "opinions", not "facts". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:01, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's a mistaken use of the reference desk, but in those situations we quite routinely supply facts instead and the OPs are often satisfied by that. Card Zero  (talk) 04:04, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * What fact will answer the OP's question? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:09, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That looks like a rhetorical question. You know I gave an answer to the OP on the desk. (It was a link to research about average showering times.) So by asking this, you must be trying to make some point. What's on your mind? Card Zero  (talk) 04:17, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Has this stopped being about medical advice at this point - did you concede on that? Card Zero  (talk) 04:18, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * What's the proper factual answer for not just anyone but for one who admits to being a germophobe? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:24, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I see - you're saying that because the question was asked by a germophobe and relates to keeping clean, only a doctor can answer it. The idea is that if somebody asks, say, how does aspirin work, and we somehow find out that they've got a headache, we've got to delete the question because we're in effect advising them, personally, to take aspirin for their condition. There are two holes in that: firstly, it's still actually up to the OP how they use the information we give and it's patronising of us to say "you can't have this information because we know what choice you're going to make" - we don't know that, and it isn't advice. Secondly, the length of time a germophobe chooses to shower for is in no way a treatment, or even a therapy. Card Zero  (talk) 04:42, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It's getting late now and I should really go to bed, so I'm going to stop discussing this and play computer games. I promise I'm not trying to evade further discussion, it's just a regrettable lack of time. Card Zero  (talk) 04:48, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Bonus nachos. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:00, 14 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I am inclined to agree with the bonus nachos (did you think of that yourself, BB? Or did you hear that somewhere?) suggestion.  It was obvious that the replies were joking from the beginning--and a serious reply--I should say the only official serious reply--would have been to close the question as a request for medical advice.  At this point all we have is people trying to make other points, such as that certain contributors are evul, and offer nothing to the project.  The OP has spoken.  We can address his actual question.  There's no point in further discussing here what was never his actual discussion.  Or we can all tighten up. μηδείς (talk) 05:26, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Go to about the 3:40 mark of this item.[] Also, watch the whole thing if you haven't seen it before. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:05, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Wow, haven't seen that for 30 or 40 years. μηδείς (talk) 03:18, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Appropriate role of the Refdesk
From The Howling: Reborn: "You know, when somebody had a question they couldn't answer, they used to ask God. Now they ask Wikipedia."

But when Wikipedia doesn't know the answer, they ask us. :) Wnt (talk) 19:53, 16 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Standard Oil used to say, "As you travel, ask us." Unfortunately, there's no Standard Oil anymore. :( ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:53, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Another perspective
Years ago, I used to hang around the refdesks (Language, Humanities, Misc) and answer what I could, with wikilinks and page numbers and resource I could find. Now I don't. The attitudes that made me less likely to wish to spend my time here appear to have intensified. You may consider my absence no great loss. That's not for me to say. But I do miss the sense I had back then, of an online equivalent of staffing a library desk, listening to queries, and professionally guiding the stranger to a factual response. BrainyBabe (talk) 15:14, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't let the talk page fool you into thinking good work isn't happening. If you dig into each desk, you'll find that generally speaking it still works that way most of the time.  We are gradually getting better at dragging the nonsense here. Work still needs to be done, mind, but having read the talk page archives more than once, the current failings are the same as the old ones, generally speaking. Mingmingla (talk) 19:00, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm glad to hear it, but I was referring to the helpdesks, not this talkpage, which I rarely frequented. BrainyBabe (talk) 21:36, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I know. So am I.  Mingmingla (talk) 22:16, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You're missed, BrainyBabe. It's very good to hear an outside opinion. The desks could do with a lot more friendly criticism of what we're getting right and wrong. I watch the same boards that you used to frequent, and these are for natural (or epistemological) reasons, the boards where answers can be subjective and debatable. Whenever I look at Science, it seems to be functioning reasonably well. There are few mentions here of Maths, Entertainment or Computing, either. I'd like, on an experimental basis, for us to try some kind of clerking system, inspired by how Dispute Resolution works. If not clerking, then some sort of independent feedback mechanism. One simple thing we could do with continuous improvement on is how to recognise and deal with trolls. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:16, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Verily, Judith. As long as I've been hanging around the ref desks, which is the bulk of my 10 years at Wikipedia, individual editors have used their own criteria to identify trolls, and have then done whatever they consider was appropriate in each case.  While this is accordance with WP:BOLD, it has led to a HUGE number of disputes, not to mention good faith editors falling out with each other, and I'm sure many good people have left the ref desks, never to return.  This is a sad legacy, and we could have done so much better.  There has never been an agreed set of guidelines as to how to identify, out, and appropriately deal with suspected trolls, and the piecemeal approach we've been using has just fed into the trolls' deepest desire: to cause as much disruption as possible.  As they say, "United we stand, divided we fall".  We have to speak with one voice to trolls, and not spend any more time making it up as we individually go along, or any more time fighting World Wars III, IV .... MDXLVIII among ourselves.  We should also have a very clear consensus as to when it is and is not appropriate to hat things, and when it is and is not appropriate to delete things.  This would feed in to the troll policy, but would also have wider application.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  00:54, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree that we need a much more testable, procedural approach. Like "Here are the steps you go through" - so we can clearly say "You shouldn't have hatted that" - or "We should have deleted that question" - and have that be based on a clear set of guidelines.  That way, we'd more often agree on a unified front - and it would be easier to hold people's feet to the fire when they are doing it wrong.


 * It was in that spirit that I offered my flow chart (above). If we can collect a consensus to follow a simple, stepwise approach like that (recognizing that WP:IAR can apply) then these long debates about whether some editor should or shouldn't have hatted things - or whether humor is or isn't appropriate in some context could be simply resolved by pointing to the rules.


 * I wouldn't claim that the flow chart I presented is perfect - but I at least hoped we could have a rational debate about it with the goal of ultimately committing something like that to our formal guidelines.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 01:48, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The flowchart is OK except for the part about "Does it violate our guidelines?" which is where most of the arguments arise. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:55, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * As an inexperienced editor, I found the flowchart to be a useful reference. I think much of the criticism stems from more "expert" editors not being the target audience...obviously, in creating tools for novices, you want to avoid complicating things too much. There will always be exceptions and nuance to anything as big and complex as the wikipedia, and newer editors can quickly get confused and sucked down rabbit holes all over the place, so it's refreshing to see something simple and generalized. There are dozens of guidelines, so to create a flow chart that explains what to do for each of them would probably require a wiki of its own.Quietmarc (talk) 15:22, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * @Bugs: I'm not convinced of that. I see a lot of action being taken about questions that are not to people's liking - but without there being a specific section in the RD guidelines that talk about that. SteveBaker (talk) 04:32, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Google Translate
I think it would be a good idea if we stop directing people to Google Translate as often as we do on the Language Desk, as we did for example here. It has its place, but if we are not proficient enough in the target and original languages to confidently verify it, I don't think that it is something that we should be providing as a reference in most cases. If I don't know anything about the languages being discussed, I usually don't comment - it's that simple. I do not think that using it is necessarily going to be helpful, and it could be very misleading.
 * Just as an example, I could say in French, "J'avais onze ans quand j'ai commencé la collège," which Google Translate gives as "I was eleven when I started college." The statement in French is true and reasonable (I did start Middle School around that age), while the statement in English is not (but it makes me seem like a child prodigy).
 * If you put "I am really excited by my friend's offer" into Google Translate, you get this: "Je suis vraiment excité par l'offre de mon ami." People who speak French well would probably attest to the fact that the French translation is incredibly dirty/sexual, while the English is not inherently so.

In this particular case, this might have been more valuable: (an actual bilingual dictionary), but really what the question needed was attention from a Portuguese speaker.

My suggestion is that we don't use online translation services as a replacement for human expertise. If you don't speak the language, that's fine - nobody expects you to speak all human languages, and you won't be faulted for not commenting. Machine translation can be a useful aid, but only if you already have a good idea of what you are doing in the specific instance that you use it. Falconus p t   c 05:42, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with the general point of avoiding the usage of Google translate (although I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it should never be used on RDL if you can't comment on the results). But on the example you have, I don't know if it's correct to say an 11 year old attending or starting college would be a child prodigy. As seems to be somewhat the focus of the discussion that started this, college means different things in different areas. Unless the speaker is American, I don't think it's wise to assume college means university or some other form of tertiary education even if it's perhaps rarer for it to be used in such a context as you mentioned to mean secondary school. (When you know the speaker is not a native speaker, there's even more reason to be cautious.) Nil Einne (talk) 06:53, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't think that college in any dialect of English of English would refer to school for people between 11-13 - I thought it was always 14+. I apologize if I am wrong about that. Falconus p t   c 16:41, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * As it happens, the UK school I attended from age 11 (to 18) was called K—— College: this caused some confusion when US tourists visiting the town asked us about our schooling (our uniform included a straw boater, so they were prone to striking up conversations in the street with such quaintly dressed locals). The discussions on the Main Desk (in which I was too late to participate, having just returned home from several days with computerless elderly relatives) focussed largely on official State-system terminology, to which Private or semi-Private (in the UK confusingly called "Public") institutions may not adhere, and I would have thought the same might apply in other countries. For the record, I thought the OP's question was perfectly sensible, and some of the Regulars' answers needlessly obfuscatory. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.204.16.14 (talk) 17:18, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Well I don't know how many people would call someone attending something at 14 they normally attend at 11 a 'child prodigy'. Gifted perhaps. Prodigy normally implies something extremely different from the norm. An 11 year old starting university may be a prodigy. An 11 year old starting secondary school (high school if you prefer) even if the normal starting age is a year or two or three later? Not so much...
 * And to be clear, college commonly simply refers to secondary school in New Zealand. Intermediate school or middle school (which don't necessarily mean the same thing) aren't universal so some students still go straight from primary school to secondary school or high school. Secondary schools commonly accept year 9 onwards (~12-13) but some still accept year 7 onwards. And I'm not clear and our article Education in New Zealand doesn't make clear if this used to be more common, but my guess would be yes, since it's similar to the system in England which the system partially derives from. (Definitely I believe the practice of a secondary school catering for Year 7 onwards is more common among private schools.)
 * Most people would probably say they attended/started high school or secondary school, but as plenty of secondary schools are called colleges in fact the number is probably increasing because of the belief it helps perceptions of the school for the international student marked so some people definitely say they started college when they mean they started secondary/high school e.g. plenty of the results here [//www.google.co.nz/search?q=%22started+college%22+site:nz] [//www.google.co.nz/search?q=%22attended+college%22+site:nz]. So yes, I'm pretty sure there are people here who when they say they attended college they aren't even implying they are gifted let alone a prodigy. (As the results may somewhat attest, college may also refer to some non university tertiary institutes, but it would generally not refer to university except if you went to one in the US or Canada or perhaps are speaking for such an audience.)
 * Nil Einne (talk) 06:56, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The origin of the term "college" makes it easy to understand how its meaning could diverge over time and places. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:46, 28 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Google Translate is a useful guideline. It's not gospel, by any means, but it's better than nothing. A dictionary is insufficient. You can get a potential result much faster by using Google Translate. With Spanish, for example, you would have to find the infinitive and then study the grammar rules to see which person and tense to use. Way too tedious. Use Google Translate to get most of it, then fine-tune as needed. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:14, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Right, as I said Google Translate can be useful as an aide in some situations, but not a substitute for understanding what you are doing. Falconus p t   c 16:41, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The language ref desk should always be able to do better than Google Translate. If anyone needs French to English translation, contact me on my talk page. There are other translators around too. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:18, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I can help too... I'm not perfect when it comes to French (you can see my mistake in the translation that I just did yesterday...), but I am fairly proficient. Falconus p t   c 16:41, 27 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The issue is, we should always be able to do better than Google anything. We need to assume that people who find this page can type their questions into google, and unless and until we see evidence that they blatantly didn't try that, we should be able to do better, or at the least, make it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR how we used Google.  -- Jayron  32  15:20, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It is not uncommon to have someone ask a question that a 30-second look at Google will answer. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:49, 27 December 2013 (UTC)


 * There are at least two silly premises here. The first is that google translate or any reference "speaks for itself".  Refernces require minds to read and interpret them.  In the case of the Brazilian using the word college in some unspecified language and context, I immediately thought, well, colegio can mean high school or college, and the OP wouldn't be asking what the Brazilian meant by college if he meant what college means in English, so he must have been referring to high school.  So I linked to google translate's defining colegio to show this sense of the word in the user's native language.


 * Any other on-line source I could have chosen would have given the exact same possible meanings. So this has nothing whatsover to do with google translate.  I certainly didn't type into google translate "what does a Brazilian mean when he says college?" and get the answer "high school".  That was based on my interpretation of the given context: Brazilian speaker, uncertainty over what a rather plain word means, the likelihood there's a false friend at work.


 * The second silly premise is that the OP has asked a clear question, or even wants an answer. That there was a certain amount of guesswork was going on was given.  The OP never clarified anything.  We don't know if the Brazilian had an American or a British accent.  We don't know if the Brazilian said "After I graduated college I went to university" or "I got a masters in education from a teaching college in New Jersey".  The OP presumably has this information, but he's chosen to withhold it even after being told his question was lacking vital clues.  Oh well, μηδείς (talk) 18:14, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

unhelpful edit
I am not interested in snowden jokes nor commercials for pc world, but literal answers to my questions, with refs if avail. μηδείς (talk) 22:04, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * But you are interested in using Wikipedia as Facebook, right? "It was the blonde alien kids who effed with the signature, not me"?  Helpful.  Not.  PC World can help you with PC problems, just as the Apple store can help you with Mac issues.  To attempt to claim some moral high ground on joking around on ref desks is pure irony of the highest order.  Try again.  Perhaps another go at AN/I?  The Rambling Man (talk) 22:06, 22 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't doubt either of you, but do you think you guys could stay away from one another at the reference desk and its talk page? Lame edit wars, snarks, hatting, vague references, come on ... ---Sluzzelin talk  22:10, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure, as soon as the a$$hole is redacted and apologised for, i.e. the direct personal attack, all can get back to normal. Come on.  Having said that, being threatened with AN/I for the fourth time, I'm happy to go there too.  Look forward to it.  The Rambling Man (talk) 22:12, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Medeis, will you please do as requested. I don't believe in forced apologies, but I believe in peace at the desks, and if your apology can improve that, I ask you do it. ---Sluzzelin talk  22:14, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, I think this one is resolved now diff :-) We all understand that he was born a ramblin' man. Congratulations, Rambling Man and Family! ---Sluzzelin talk  22:39, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Not really, it would have been ideal if User:Medeis had the guts to admit she made a personal attack, albeit in a sly way, and asking for it to be deleted after being read. And then had the guts to redact the personal attack.  But no, not a bean, not that I'm surprised. I guess I look forward to yet another bout at AN/I, because she thinks she owns the ref desks and thinks lodging personal attacks is fine.  All I've done is rid myself of the trash she continually deals out. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:54, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If this brouhaha is about your comments in the section "Restore friend's computer from my disk image", then it appears you went to that section strictly to attack the user rather than to try to answer the question. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:44, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Wow, in what world does suggesting you take broken computer equipment to PC World constitute an "attack"? And since when does Med have carte blanche to remove comments she simply "dislikes"?  And where do you live were it seems acceptable to call other people asshole?  The Rambling Man (talk) 08:20, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've managed to irritate a number of editors from time to time, yet I hardly get obscenities thrown at me. So if you are, then you might want to first examine your own behavior. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:06, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * (You didn't answer any of the three questions....) but... the point is she didn't throw them "at me", she threw them via another editor's talk page. I don't need to examine my own behaviour, I pride myself on improving articles in Wikipedia.  Secondly, calling someone an asshole is not what we do here, or have you forgotten that?  With your experience, I'm a little surprised you think it's cool.  Some editors, her and perhaps a few others who just hang out at ref desks chatting and making stuff up, then censoring people because they don't like responses, do not improve Wikipedia.  Facebook/Twitter/Vine is elsewhere.  The Rambling Man (talk) 17:22, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * When someone calls you a bad name, it doesn't reflect on you, it reflects on them. In short, it's not worth reporting, unless somehow the name-caller is also acting to obstruct your edits. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:03, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you've discovered irony, or you already knew about it. But yes, Medeis is "acting to obstruct my edits".  She also continually threatens me with "ani" despite having been there.... three times (?) with nothing but a sincere waste of community time.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:11, 23 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Another open-and-shut case of "Bailiff, kick these two nuts in the butt." —Steve Summit (talk) 05:48, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I would agree if Medeis could apologise for the direct personal attack she's posted on another editor's page. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:20, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I think both of you need to take a deep breath and relax. Medeis, the comment wasn't that bad, if not particularly in depth, certainly not worth an "asshole".  You've added plenty of unhelpful edits in your time, too.  The Rambling Man, sometimes you need to be the bigger man, so to speak, and let it slide.  This is the Internet: you've never met Medeis and never will.  It seems like you are fixin' for a fight (even if you aren't): a change in tone may be in order, even as you make valid points. If it seems to aggressive, your point may be lost and people will turn on you instead.  Nobody wants that. Mingmingla (talk) 17:49, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Medeis doesn't get a pass, by the way (I don't see any links to it here). Show us the name calling and I'm sure we'll all have a word on that, too.  That's not cool. Mingmingla (talk) 17:53, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Medeis never apologises for anything. She called me an asshole like a snake on somebody else's talk page and requested its immediate deletion upon reading.  That's sly.  I couldn't care less about who Medeis is or pretends to be but she's the first to threaten to take me to WP:ANI but yet I've never resorted to the direct personal attacks (hidden away, particularly).  Now she decides that she can censor my suggestions because she doesn't like them.  She needs to work it out for herself, as she's clearly of mature years given her posts, she should know even better.  But until she starts actually improving Wikipedia, I couldn't really care less what she has to say or think, although I will correct her many errors.  The Rambling Man (talk) 17:55, 23 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Mingmingla is right. Everyone should drop this.
 * TRM, I'm glad you realize Medeis is not going to apologize. You're right.  (I'm not sure what outcome you expect, then.)
 * I hesitate to do this, because I'm annoyed I've gotten sucked in to wasting time on this little tempest and I don't think anyone else should, but this (I think) is the "asshole" comment TRM is complaining about, and this and this are the Computing desk answers Medeis is complaining about (which there has since been a certain amount of edit warring over, hatting and unhatting.) —Steve Summit (talk) 20:17, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No tempest. Perhaps Medeis was "under the influence" or "tired" when editing, she's never normally behaved in such an irrational and directly abusive manner.  Here's hoping she and I can move on from it and she can start to improve Wikipedia instead of using it as a chat forum.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:11, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. When I first read this discussion when it started, I came to the conclusion that despite being on the RD talk page it was actually intended for someone's talk page since there was no real explaination in the form of links or at least direct quotes to what people were referring to. At least now I know. Nil Einne (talk) 04:57, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no clue what Medeis thought process is (or anyone else's here, for that matter) but suggesting someone was inebriated is highly offensive. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:13, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Too many sherries Bugs? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:05, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Ha. The amount of alcohol I consume over the course of a given year would maybe fill a small juice glass. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ —Preceding undated comment added 10:47, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Ban Everyone!
It is bad enough the Falkland Islands thread degenerated into debate, personal insults, sarcasm, obscenity, tiny comments, and politically incorrect attacks on the Scottish and other disabled people, all within less than eight hours. (We know from the flowchart above this sort of abominable behavior should take a minimum of 48 hours to develop.)

Now we have a thread about "boobpedia" in which the OP asks about how to meet her sister, and some joker using the alias as[]pro comes and makes comments about bosoms a mere 50 minutes after the thread is posted. As if bosoms were a real word. And why isn't an ass pro commenting on buttocks, instead?

I, for one, do not intend to stand on the sidelines and just watch while such behavior is allowed to continue.

μηδείς (talk) 21:37, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * That is 'why' I made the comment. It looked trollish and if the OP has a serious question then s/he/or it, would come back with a more focussed question. Second: 'in which the OP asks about how to meet her sister' did you read the threat properly? Forget about going out into the kitchen for some more strong latte or what-ever. Go down to the cellar and pull out a whole amphora of retsina. Sleep, and tomorrow, you with be refreshed and back in Olympic condition. --Aspro (talk) 22:20, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I initially assumed "Boobpedia" was a synonym for "Wikipedia Review". As regards "bosoms", seems to me that Dolly Parton has used that expression in reference to her well-known attributes. Although in her case it might be amply justified. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:16, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Oi, Medeis! What's with "the Scottish and other disabled people"? What are the common characteristics of all Scots and all disabled people? HiLo48 (talk) 23:30, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * No objection to my suggestion that we ban everyone, that it is okay according to the protocol to pick on the disabled after 48 hours, that an as[]pro should be commenting on buttocks rather than bosoms, or my refusal to refrain from joining in the misbehavior? Now I am sad I didn't actually get in on the Falklands Islands thread before it was hatted. μηδείς (talk) 00:40, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I can't follow any of that post, Medeis. Can you please just say whatever it is you want to express, using plain declarative sentences devoid of sarcasm, irony, cynicism and whatever else gets in the way of comprehension?  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:02, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems that Medeis becomes tired quickly and writes such impenetrable posts. Please assume good faith with her.  The Rambling Man (talk) 22:07, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Medeis's 16 December 22:02 post makes sense if someone had responded to the 15 December 21:37 post to say simply "I'd have no objection". (But I can't see who that was, either.) —Steve Summit (talk) 01:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * My "no objection" question was addressed to the person directly above it (get that indent thingy?) who had objected to my saying Scots and other disabled people. How understanding that is brain surgery--Hilo's "oi, the indent, the temporal sequence--is beyond me. μηδείς (talk) 01:52, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, and given that this thread evidently isn't serious, I guess you don't need to worry about it. —Steve Summit (talk) 01:33, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The statements aren't serious (and I don't know how anyone could have thought otherwise), but the satire does serve a serious point. We've just had this huge lengthy discussion of how horrible joking is, and how everyone should follow this flowchart, and then it gets violated egregiously by many of the same people participating in the discussion.  I think there are two lessons.  Relax.  And focus your ire on the real trolls, the disruptive single-purpose accounts. μηδείς (talk) 01:47, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That's like shooting fish in a barrel. It's more fun for certain editors to attack the ones who stand with their usernames. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:55, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Speaking of disruptive single purpose accounts, see the closed ANI filed against BB a few hours ago, and this one here against User:54.242.221.254 as well. μηδείς (talk) 03:37, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Indeed. A couple more of those fish taken down. With a double-barrel shotgun. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:13, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Isn't there a wiki guideline about posting troll-like comments just to make a point? I think that's just what Medeis has done... Quietmarc (talk) 18:13, 17 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, that would be WP:POINTY. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:31, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * This is a talk page. The point of talk pages is to make points (exactly as Quietmarc has just done, unless his remark was pointless). μηδείς (talk) 21:59, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
 * This is Wikipedia. The point of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopaedia, not use the talk pages and reference desks as a version of Facebook. (many of your posts are pointless) The Rambling Man (talk) 22:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * More like Twitter, actually. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:23, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Would that it was. At least it'd restrict some of the nonsense to 140 characters.  The Rambling Man (talk) 09:00, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That's a good point, although I concede that many of the drive-bys achieve their damage in well under 140 characters at a time. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:22, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Worse, many of the "regulars" are effectively spamming the encyclopaedia with junk. A Twitter ruling would be good all round... The Rambling Man (talk) 21:23, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * A key difference is that "regulars" stand by their accounts. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:15, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Makes no difference. A 140-word limit would certainly curtail some of the more unhelpful postings by the chat room regs.  The Rambling Man (talk) 15:15, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Feel free to limit your own entries to 140 characters, and we'll see how things work out. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:40, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd rather you applied it yourself, as would many others. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:56, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Pointless edits
I got cross about this one, a gratuitous shoving in of potentially very contentious politics.

And this one, why? The answer is immediately clear in the OP's question.

We're starting to have a real problem with "ref desk regulars". It's not a good concept anyway, because no-one is an expert on everything. I don't want to be part of this problem any more and am taking the ref desks off my watch list for a month or two. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:39, 27 December 2013 (UTC)


 * In the first one, the guy said food is a weapon. No. Withholding food is a weapon. As for the second one, how do you get a long "o" from "ou"? Since I'm obviously a lot dumber than you are, maybe you could explain that one. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:49, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The general opinion in Ireland was nothing like you described even before the declaration of independence in 1916. Attributing ideas to others is always a bad idea without doing a bit of checking. Dmcq (talk) 16:10, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Silly me for believing the artice. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:21, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Which article? Dmcq (talk) 23:02, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The one about the potato famine. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:45, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It does not say the Irish hate or hated Britain, it says many blamed Britain, that is quite a different thing entirely. You might also be interested in the genocide question bit at the end, the writers on it are all American or British except for Cormac Ó Gráda from Dublin who says it was not genocide. That Gorta Mór business is mainly for American tourists and brings in good money. Dmcq (talk) 00:05, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I guess the million Irish who died, just had it coming to them. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:11, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No, for instance Poland did things much better with the famine there. And it helped with nationalist propaganda. But what you said was simply wrong. There was no great hate of Britain like people hate Assad, in fact people asked before 1916 about why they wanted to separate from Britain simply said they wished to govern themselves even if they did a worse job of it than Britain, they wanted to express their own values and identity. Dmcq (talk) 00:25, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sure there were people who hated Britain since there always is. I say this primarily because you said 'like people hate Assad' but as anyone following the Syrian civil war knows, it's entirely unclear how many Syrians actually hate him. Nil Einne (talk) 06:10, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Of course but I said no great hate like many groups do. There is a difference between thinking a government is stupid and corrupt and thinking it is hateful. Sometimes I wonder if Americans have forgotten this with the way the Democrats and Republicans attack each other and destroy the place, there seems to be some real hate in the Tea Party for instance. Dmcq (talk) 11:24, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't really understand what you're trying to say. I'm sure there were plenty of people who thought the government was stupid and corrupt, and a smaller but not nonzero number who hated it. Whether or not this number is enough to be called 'great' is unanswerable without knowing the numbers and a definition of 'great'. In any case, more importantly as I said in my earlier post, we don't know how many Syrians hate the Assad government, which combined with the fact we also don't know how many people hated the British government, there's no way the comparison you made can be meaningful since for all we know more Irish people hated the British government than Syrian people hate the Assad government. If we start to include other groups like the Tea Party or Democrats and Republicans in the US, there's similarly no way we can make meaningful comparisons about the level of hate of these groups vs the level of hate of the British government. As for your latest point about hateful government, well I'm sure there were some people who thought the government was hateful as well although I'm even more confused about the relevance of this. Nil Einne (talk) 14:16, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * In some cases it is difficult to say if a sofa will go through a door but in most cases it is pretty evident. We don't need exact figures here as it is pretty evident from what's written down. Dmcq (talk) 15:26, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's evident at all from what's written down. (And you've provided no sources for what's 'written down' other than what BB already provided. And having read and heard a lot about the Syrian conflict, I can say this is a highly contentious area with the evidence unsurprisingly considering the hellhole that Syria is at the moment rather limited. But it's totally unclear whether even a majority of Syrians want Assad to go let alone whether they hate although of course not wanting him to go doesn't necessarily imply they don't hate him. This is of course largely distinct from the war crimes and other horrific crimes against humanity taking place in Syria at the moment, many of which Assad seems to have a hand in, because our personal feelings of a person are often quite different from how others may feel, particularly if they have different information correct or incorrect, and experiences and desires, ethics, feelings, histories etc. The presence of a some highly motivated people who do clearly hate Assad doesn't change any of this, since we're talking about population level phenomenon. If this still confuses you, consider that in a related fashion, despite the horror that is North Korea for the past many years, it's not totally clear how many people there actually realise this let alone blame the Kim family and other key leaders who it's clear are share most of the responsibility. I would note I don't know much about how Irish people felt in those years and never intended to say anything to suggest I did, but nothing you've said has really demonstrated that hate was that rare that we can completely dismiss it out of hand as irrelevant. And I would note that in such matters we have to be very careful to avoid conflating to more recent opinion with how people felt at a certain time as opinions can change very rapidly. I mean heck, there's a fair chance the answer has changed in the past year since the 'level of hate' towards Assad could easily have changed that much in a year, whether for or against. And I won't even get in to the Tea Party or Republican/Democrat angle.)
 * And yes, I've seen so many things which people claim are 'evident' which were totally wrong (including plenty of things which are far easier to determine), often because people took their own biases and preconceptions in to account rather than trying to look at it from the outside and based on evidence. In other words, it seems to me while criticising others, you've made even worse mistakes. Since unlike Bugs it sound like you actually have no real evidence (Bugs may have misunderstood what he was reading but at least he was going on something) and are seem to insist you are correct even after it's pointed out to you that you have no evidence and so could easily be wrong instead continuing to make unsupported claims whereas Bugs seems to have largely left the discussion (others may have continued, but you can't blame Bugs for their actions). While this is not the RD, since it's a discussion surrouding stuff going on in the RD's resonable to expect the same standards to apply.
 * Frankly I found the whole Irish famine thing which started this boring from the small bits I read, although I understand why this is a sensitive issue to many. But I find this discussion here sad. Particularly since, it's unclear to me why you needed to make such unsupported comparisons, and then to insist on them when challenged to make your point. As it's not only distracted from whatever point you were trying to make, it's damaged the credibility of any of the stuff you were trying to say (like the more general point about the lack of hate of the Irish towards the British which I would not have challenged or even concerned myself much with were it not for the fact you continually insisted to make other unsupported comparisons). And this is the sort of thing which makes me wonder if people may have a point about the problems with RD nowadays although if I'm realistic I'm pretty sure I've seen similar stuff many times before, it's just that it infrutiates me every time. (And to be clear, I'm not saying that there was 'great hate' of the British by the Irish whatever you want to mean by that or that there isn't 'great hate' towards Assad, or that the 'hate' however you quantify that towards Assad is lesser or that the 'hate' toward the British was more; rather that we do not know, and are unlikely to ever really know the answer to those questions. Since we can never hope to obtain statistics which will answer such a question particularly since even if we could ask everyone alive at the time and they would answer truthfully, any statistics will depend significantly on what you ask anyway and it's not really meaningful to quantify 'hate'. Not to mention we can't actually do that, in the ongoing Assad case let alone 100 years or so ago and plenty of people wouldn't answer truthfully.)
 * Nil Einne (talk) 16:44, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Condescending about my faults too. Great. Well I'll not bother you more about something that bores you. Dmcq (talk) 17:23, 28 December 2013 (UTC)


 * How is Bug's asking what is meant by ouv problematic? In IPA, which should be between brackets /ouv/ or [ouv], it is clear the sound is that of drove.  But without specification, an American is normally going to assume ou has the sound of loud or house. μηδείς (talk) 18:19, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The problematic bit is feeling the need to answer when you know nothing at all about the topic. "Withholding food is a weapon". OK, fair point. See the work of Amartya Sen. But then you follow up with saying that "the Irish" hate "the British" which is as accurate as saying that African-Americans hate Anglo-Americans because of slavery, and just as offensive. On the pronunciation, the OP gave examples and people gave further examples before Bugs chipped in. As a prolific WP editor he has come across the IPA before. Bugs, since you think I'm smarter than you, and you may be right, say a long oh, then segue into ooh. Oh-ooh. Then try it in "dove" as in "dove into the lake". Doh-oov. Now say it more quickly. Doesn't it sound like your own usual General American accent? (Not like my received pronunciation/Estuary English.) That's the sound we're talking about. Can you see why it's spelt the way it is? Not rocket science. You could have worked it out on your own. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:47, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Doh-oov??? I've never heard anyone say it that way, be hey Yanks or Brits. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:14, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'll refrain from commenting on the Irish comments, not because I know them to be wrong, but because they are OR. The question about vowels, however, is exactly what I'd expect from any American who's not been trained in the IPA, which is about 99% of them.  See the entry for /au/ at Pronunciation respelling for English.  This sound (of loud and ow) is almost universally depicted with an ou or ow in American dictionary respellings.  The IPA is manifestly superior, but unless you get a degree in linguistics or a post-graduate degree in a language you are unlikely ever to encounter it in the United States. μηδείς (talk) 21:13, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Ref desks are frequently used by "ref desk regulars" as some kind of outlet for their version of humour or Facebook. It's a common problem. Many contributors to the ref desks make no real mainspace contributions to the encyclopaedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:03, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Kindly stop suggesting that this is some sort of lesser calling. I don't contribute much to the mainspace, but I do support helping people with improving their knowledge, which is why I'm here.  I agree with you (to some extent), but please don't misidentify the problem as people like me. Mingmingla (talk) 00:41, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * and for the "ref desk regular" in question, this is a good thing, as his few mainspace edits are not helpful contributions.66.87.82.173 (talk) 22:42, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Rambling Man should substantiate his accusations via objective analysis of someone's contributions, or apologize and stop his contentious posts. Edison (talk) 05:17, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems unnecessary considering the number of issues raised by various editors here. Apologies are few and far between on this website, as many regulars here know.  The Rambling Man (talk) 15:18, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Prove your mettle and apologize for painting ref-deskers who don't edit mainspace with teh same brush. Mingmingla (talk) 16:24, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No thanks, but thanks for the offer. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:57, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh, I'm shocked. Mingmingla (talk) 18:22, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't mind the Rambler. He's got nothin'. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:54, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No, sure I don't. Just a few FAs and FLs to actively help improve the main content of Wikipedia.  And several chat room editors who have done nothing but .... well, chat. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:26, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Are they still FA / FL quality? Probably not, unless you watch them like a hawk and spend all your time reverting the drive-bys. Which, by the way, is something I got tired of doing, which is why I mostly work on the ref desks now. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:34, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
 * And that is what is technically known as a "cop out"! The Rambling Man (talk) 11:39, 29 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Who are you? And why would I care if you're shocked?!  How bizarre.  Back to the chat fora I guess.  The Rambling Man (talk) 18:32, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * In an effort to "fix" wikipedia and deal with all the "chatting" that you (rightfully, to some extent) object to, you are participating quite a bit in it.  But please note that you have complained about a lack civility and politeness in this very thread and now refuse to do the very thing you complain about.  If you want to maintain credibility in your arguments and actually accomplish what you set out to do, don't piss off the people you need support from.  You can't make these changes alone.  I will willingly support your efforts to tone down the chattiness of the Ref Desks if you acknowledge that you need to adjust your tone to get support for your position.  Being right is rarely good enough; you need to be a politician, too. Mingmingla (talk) 20:08, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't need any support, I'm not fussed at all about the chat desks. It's a shame that the energy expended here giving funny/ironic/rude answers to mundane and esoteric questions isn't spent improving the encyclopaedia.  If the people who do nothing but chat here can't see that, then they should expect no support outside their comfort blanket of chat desks.  The Rambling Man (talk) 20:29, 28 December 2013 (UTC)


 * That's technically known as a "cop-out". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:44, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * And none of this is technically improving the content of Wikipedia. Well done again for all the chat room work though.  The Rambling Man (talk) 18:18, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Your own contributions to this "chat room" are indispensable. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:52, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Truth hurts I guess. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:26, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is about verification, not "truth". But if I do see something resembling either verification or "truth" emanating from your keyboard, I'll be sure and get back to you. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:43, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, are you accusing me of lying? The Rambling Man (talk) 10:17, 29 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Typical useless (and inaccurate) comment by a cowardly drive-by. Specifically, a Baltimoron. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:56, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * do you have any supporting diffs that the statement by TRM and myself are false? Insults tend to make a poor foundation for your opinion. 66.87.82.173 (talk) 00:09, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see you denying that you're a cowardly drive-by. Although you could perhaps provide some diffs to demonstrate otherwise? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:11, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * thanks, but I will pass on your trolling question. Your personal insults of "cowardly" and "Baltimoron" confirm the subject header and comments from other editors.  You might want to stop throwing jabs and take a moment to look at what you are accomplishing here on the encyclopedia.  Peace. 66.87.82.173 (talk) 00:48, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You have like 3 edits, all of them personal attacks. That is trolling. While you were formulating your next drive-by shot, I was answering a couple of questions on a ref desk. So you might ask yourself what you're accomplishing here. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:59, 28 December 2013 (UTC)


 * What do we have here? Looks like ... no, it can't be ... but it is - a completely pointless thread about pointless edits.  How unprecedented!  How shocking! Whom can we turn to?  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:30, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Ironically it'd be any of the chat desk folks who I'm sure will continue this thread ad infinitum to justify their own existence here in Twitterpedia. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:10, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Just stop beating the horse, pal. You are in as deep as the rest of us.  Mingmingla (talk) 22:43, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Bollocks pal. My contributions are not limited to chat pages, like most of the Twitterati here.  The Rambling Man (talk) 22:46, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * So what? Seriously, why does this matter so much? Mingmingla (talk) 03:35, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Rambler appears to make good edits in articles. It's just that his entries here are worthless - nothing but attacks on contributors. I was surprised to discover that he's an admin. Although it's important to keep in mind that in his time, standards were pretty low. Adminships could be won as prizes in gumball machines and Crackerjack boxes. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:07, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, you're right, 128 supports is the equivalent of gum ball machines. You sound... bitter. Good luck with improving content one day, although that seems highly unlikely.  The Rambling Man (talk) 10:17, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh my, I started this pointless thread. Would people do their very best not to try and supply answers to questions when they have no expertise of any kind to contribute? Could respondents at least attempt to stay on topic? And could we remember that generalisations about race, nationality and ethnicity may be offensive? It's very tempting to use the ref desks as an invitation to a conversation. I've fallen for that myself on more than one occasion. But it doesn't show WP in the best light. It would be great to set up some kind of feedback and quality improvement mechanism. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:20, 28 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I hear your pain, Its. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  10:38, 29 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Feel free to box the entire section. Just be sure you get Rambler's permission first. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:20, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Permission granted. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:39, 29 December 2013 (UTC)


 * For "feedback and quality improvement mechanism", we can and do comment on the quality of contributions to these desks, in fact, we have done so above in regards to Bugs' posts. I've nothing to add to that discussion though, but my diva meter has been getting slammed lately. -Modocc (talk) 16:57, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
 * An "interesting" post, but what does it mean? We're all divas, one way or another, hopefully you're over it by now!!  Happy New Year to you.  The Rambling Man (talk) 19:03, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Happy New Year to you too and to everyone. -Modocc (talk) 19:59, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, and may it really be a new year, not just a repeat of things past. For last year's words belong to last year's language / And next year's words await another voice. (T. S. Eliot).  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:26, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Oddity on a couple of ref desks
Anyone have an idea why this red link was posted just above the Dec 27 line? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:52, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Also on the humanities desk, just above the 29th. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:56, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Archiving issue. I'll look into it after dinner. Steve Summit (talk) 03:02, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The edits are fine, and one redlink has corrected itself, but the other (on the Entertainment desk) persists. (That is, the archive page Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2013 December 27 does exist, so shouldn't be a redlink.)
 * So this is a caching issue, not an archiving issue.
 * Anybody remember how to force a page to get regenerated?
 * If so, can you invoke the magic incantation?
 * Thanks. —Steve Summit (talk) 08:12, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * ?action=purge. Nimur (talk) 22:38, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes. Shoulda checked my cheat sheet; it's right there.  Thanks. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:54, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you to whoever did whatever it took to fix it, I am no longer seeing those links, in red or blue or anything. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:35, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

This happened again, just above December 31 in the misc ref desk. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:12, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

DC area subnets
Onorem unfortunately violated his own "don't feed the trolls" rule by restoring the troll's comment. It's at least the third recent IP for this DC-area troll, whose only purpose is harassment. Advice here in the recent past has been to quietly delete such stuff. That's what I tried to do, but then this busybody Onorem restored it. Thanks a lot, Onorem. NOT. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:35, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Also. I don't really like dealing with this stuff. But this should raise some awareness. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:40, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Medeis and I both are in discussion with the admin who refused to block the latest IP - which wouldn't even have been an issue if Onorem had minded his own business and not restored the troll's trolling comments. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The admin said if he were in charge, he would semi-protect this talk page for a while. Shall I try that again? Or are y'all going to shoot it down again? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:15, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That seems reasonable to me, iff the admin won't just block the IP range, which seems no end of trouble. μηδείς (talk) 04:20, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * For the record, I oppose protection of this page at this time, as there is nowhere near the level of abuse that would necessitate it. —Steve Summit (talk) 14:46, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've asked again, and dropped the admin's name. Maybe they'll take action this time. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:30, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If anyone's curious. This request was denied for the basically reasons Steve Summit just mentioned. APL (talk) 18:22, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for notifying me about this. (Oh wait. You didn't.) I have nothing to say because I don't want to feed the troll. --Onorem (talk) 11:59, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I brought this issue up on your own talk page before I brought it up here. And since you're the busybody that caused this problem, right here on this page, I just figured you would be back here soon. Which you were. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:25, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * "busybody"? There go those communication skills again.  The Rambling Man (talk) 12:38, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It fits. Meanwhile, every second you spend here is a second you're not spending "improving" Wikipedia. So what's keeping you here? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:40, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Focus on insulting others, you'll get what you deserve! The Rambling Man (talk) 12:43, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed, This nonsense must come to a stop. Looking at the R/D Talk archives finds issue after issue with this editor.  Perhaps an RFC is in order on how the R/D conducts its business.  Regardless, it is time for Baseball Bugs to shape up or ship out. 79.130.118.66 (talk) 20:43, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

With two "contributors" of such experience, I'm surprised that either think that the odd post every so often would warrant protection on a page. There's a case to answer for wanting to "silence" this IP who seems to make reasonable points and ask reasonable questions, especially in light of some of the nonsense propounded by some of the "regulars" here (others have called them Statler and Waldorf for their double act). Protection is not required. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:45, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I mostly agree with Steve Summit's point in the discussion above this. In any case, regardless of situation surrounding the handling of the deletion, the IP lost the right to have us care about their 'reasonable points' or 'reasonable questions' once they started vandalising BB's signature with personal attacks so there's little point worrying about that anymore. Nil Einne (talk) 03:51, 1 January 2014 (UTC) Edit: Not the first time the IP's edits have lead to them being blocked either User talk:JackofOz. Nil Einne (talk) 04:16, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

The unbearable crassness of a certain type of response by RD regulars
e.g.
 * I'd probably rather lose my retirement than be shot in a carjacking and left a quadriplegic. μηδείς (talk) 16:30, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Either way, you'd soon be dead. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:40, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Could it ever occur to these two "frequent flyers" that what they wrote is an insult to people who have actually lost their retirement or are quadriplegic (whatever the cause)? I don't know where this kind of writing belongs, but certainly not in anything I'd choose to read. IMO responses of this type are a disgrace to the Ref Desk purpose to provide serious, objective, and helpful content. μηδείς and Baseball Bugs- how about some respect for the rest of us? Or at least bracket such blather with and ? -- Deborahjay (talk) 14:44, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The reason Medeis would soon be dead is that Medeis is a tea partyist and hence doesn't believe in any kind of social safety net - hence, either dying of starvation from having no money for food; or dying from any number of possible things due to lack of medical attention - again due to lack of money. Try reading the context of things instead of zeroing in on specific comments. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:56, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid this is standard Twittery from these two "assistants" here. Hence the numerous threads on this talk page from several people sick and tired of it.  People have finally had enough, these complaints are now a regular event. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:59, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The complaints seem to occur regularly, but nothing ever happens. Are we to assume that the RD's resident Statler and Waldorf are somehow immune from any sanctions against their disruptive behaviour? AlexTiefling (talk) 01:08, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If anyone actually cares to do anything about it, they are welcome to do so. I don't think anyone has pursued any actual administrative sanctions recently (good luck there).  All we get is this back and forth.  Mingmingla (talk) 03:16, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of crassness, if you look at Rambler's contribs you'll see an unrelenting snippiness, attitude, and vulgarity. If he were to run for admin now, it's unlikely he'd get it, in fact he might get indef'd instead. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Whats running for admin have to do with the current issue of your insulting comments? 54.224.206.154 (talk) 01:00, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Check and see how many of the "no" voters have since been indef'd (of which you are probably one). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:12, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Check and see how many of the "yes" voters have since been indef'd. Reminder: "If you want an admin who will kiss up to you, then I'm not your guy, and we're done here."  Good one!  The Rambling Man (talk) 09:58, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Would it be too much to ask for Bugs and TRM to stop sniping at each other like this? It is, indeed, unbearably crass, and quite contrary to the attitude of professionalism and mutual respect which Wikipedia expects of all editors. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:03, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The stuff TRM says is unbecoming of an admin. That's why I say he must have won it in Crackerjack box. He couldn't pass an RFA now. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:12, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You sound bitter Bugs, been burned in the past? I have to admit, 82 opposes is quite impressive mind you, I can't remember ever seeing such a momentous opposition.  Tell you what, just stick to your task of chatting away on the forums here, and I'll stick to mine of actively improving content.  And when people complain about your behaviour here, try to listen and improve.  You may perceive that what you're saying is helpful, but others clearly do not.  Hence this thread's existence and someone's opinion (note, not mine) that your responses can be "unbearably crass".  The Rambling Man (talk) 09:15, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Your routine crassness exceeds any crassness I am alleged to have posted. Your edit summaries are shameful. Focus on your own behavior, and I'll focus on mine. Ya follow? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:31, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Check out the history of this page "must...ignore...nonsensical...Bugs...drama..." for instance. You seem to think I'm all alone in realising that you're not here to improve things.  Statler?  Waldorf?  RFA bitterness?  Deary me.  The quicker you pick up the general theme of this talk page (i.e. improve your communication skills), the sooner you'll eventually make a positive contribution here.  Seems like you haven't learnt anything since that monumentally awful RFA.  My edit summaries are shameful?  Your edits are shameful.  The Rambling Man (talk) 12:34, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You know nothing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:41, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You talking to yourself again? Read the comments here.  Your edits must improve.  The Rambling Man (talk) 12:42, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You're funny. Tell ya what... you stop using vulgarities in your edit summaries, and I'll try to make my edits more palatable to you. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:52, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Ooh, a "bad word"? I'm shocked you're shocked.  Matron!  Anyway, hope to see you soon acknowledge the half-dozen or so editors here who have tried to point out your shortcomings.  The Rambling Man (talk) 12:56, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Nothing much shocks me. It just reflects poorly on you... especially as an admin, who should be above that sort of thing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:17, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Bless. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:54, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Reference desks have become "The Wikipedia RD playground". The Rambling Man (talk) 21:43, 31 December 2013 (UTC)


 * So, wait, why hasn't anybody sought sanctions on these two? I'm confused. I'm a refdesk noob but I've lurked enough in the past few weeks to see near universal resentment for the regularly unhelpful and/or detrimental additions by Bugs and Medeis. (My own first visit to a refdesk was this exchange from a month ago. The user asked a serious question about an aspect of literary criticism. Bugs responded that it was called "arrogance" and then "elitism" and "nose-in-the-air" without offering anything else at all). Surely there are people who have been collecting diffs or archive links to examples that would make a good case, no? Maybe my perspective is just skewed by my own welcoming to the refdesk and the glut of threads on the topic from the past few weeks. ...This doesn't have to turn into a wikified Yahoo Answers. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  |  21:09, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Careful, you'll invoke the wrath of the pair of them. As you can see from the ongoing tedious ANI post, they have no shame in their ongoing crusade to "claim" the ref desk for their own, BB by using crass and "humorous" responses and Medeis by hatting any topic she doesn't particularly like.  They both need to look at themselves long and hard.  They aren't improving Wikipedia, as many people have noted. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:22, 1 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I still think that the solution is for us all to improve the quality of responses. Taking these editors on head-on, as I've been doing recently, gets you nowhere fast. Itsmejudith (talk) 23:01, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The effect is two indignant editors trying to ignore the issues levelled against them here, there and elsewhere. Simple.  Fix that, no issue. The very fact that many editors have raised these issues time and again and yet nothing is done about the comedy duo speaks volumes.  Ref desk responses should be concise and useful, currently these two provide banter and censorship. The Rambling Man (talk) 23:24, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It's you who's the indignant one. Somebody allegedly called you a name, several weeks ago, and you're too immature to get past it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:45, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
 * "Baseball bugs has engaged in deliberately inflammatory rhetoric which, if it was not deliberately calculated to offend, certianly has offended in an entirely predictable way", "Bugs is the only person I see who is completely unwilling to drop the stick", "Doesn't know when to shut up and listen". And you're claiming I'm immature?  All I and numerous other editors here want to see is that you and Medeis just quit with the comedy duo and unhelpful behaviour.  Fix that and there should be no further problems.  The Rambling Man (talk) 13:39, 2 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The original objection here was based on the mistaken assumption my comment was meant to be insulting, it was not, see Deborahjay's talk page for an explanation. From there it has simply developed into a spillover of other arguments into yet another venue.  As I notified Deborahjay I would do, I am closing this thread. μηδείς (talk) 18:20, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * This thread has since expanded to include complaints about both you and BB, so it's not ethical for you close it. Leave it, or better still, learn from it.  The Rambling Man (talk) 19:24, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You're doing nothing but trolling now. Stop it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:40, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * And it appears that you and Medeis are attempting to censor complaints against your behaviour. Stop it now.  Or try ANI I suppose. It's actually really important that you both stop trying to censor complaints about your behaviour.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:04, 2 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I have again asked for help at ANI. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:14, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Amazing. P.S. that thread was archived, so you must start another one. Cheers.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:16, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I added to it. Maybe someone there will archive this one too, and put an end to your infinite loop. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:24, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Seriously, neither you nor Medeis can close this thread, you both know that. Your infinite loop of "deliberately inflammatory rhetoric" and not knowing "when to shut up and listen" seems to continue ad infinitum.  There's nothing here that needs closing, it's a thread about your bad behaviour, so get over it.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:25, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You had no right to delete the edits I made there. Regardless, I've created a new section as per your complaint, and have asked some neutral party there to look into and hopefully archive this section also. Your behavior these past few days has been nothing short of disgraceful. We're trying to improve our edits, yet you continue to flog this dead equine. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:31, 2 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Bugs, Medeis, and TRM: All three of you really ought to just drop this. The only net result of this thread has been clearly shown (multiple times) to be the three of you shouting at each other, and no one listening.  Although all three of you are (IMO ) behaving pretty badly uncivilly, clearly no one at AN/I cares enough to do anything about it, and it looks like nobody here does, either.  So keep shouting at each other, or stop, it doesn't make any difference.  Hat this thread, or not, it doesn't make any difference.  It sounds like you've all more or less offered to leave each other alone and move along, if only some magic wand gets waved to validate that result and make it so, so: I'm waving a wand right here, right now, can this be the end of it? —Steve Summit (talk) 21:31, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I have already had a civil discussion with Medeis over the item that DJ originally complained about. I am also trying to make better edits. I don't know what else to do at this point. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Medeis and I both have been given a fair warning by the admin that closed the previous ANI discussion. I fully expect the admin to issue a similar warning to TRM, as it is TRM who is the primary cause of this skirmish. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:40, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Incorrect. You and Medeis are the cause. I am the effect.  Move along.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:52, 2 January 2014 (UTC)


 * As soon as Medeis apologises for calling me an asshole and she and Bugs stop performing like a comedy duo, that'd be fine. This thread is valid, it's a criticism of their behaviour as much as mine.  As such, they can't foreclose on it.  I see no sign of improvements from either editor as all they've done is to attempt to "silence" criticism by asking for it be removed or hatting it.  If Medeis doesn't want "emotional" stuff to be involved then she shouldn't "use" emotional responses, no matter how tragic the circumstances.   The Rambling Man (talk) 21:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I will bet you $20 that Medeis is not going to apologize.
 * And I will bet you $100 that Baseball Bugs is never going to stop acting like, well, Baseball Bugs.
 * So what do you want to do if they don't? —Steve Summit (talk) 21:39, 2 January 2014 (UTC)


 * That's a cheap bet, so I wouldn't bother taking you up on either. It's a shame that Medeis (with whom I've had the odd agreement) can't just admit to the personal attack.  As for Bugs, well given his history, I'd be prepared to bet you $100,000 that he won't stop acting like a .... Bugs.  And given the criticism he's had over the past few years, that's amazing.  Quite why he hasn't learnt anything from all the conflict in which he's been involved is beyond me.  But yeah, RFC is the way forward, we'll look for a serious community action over ref desk bullshittery, (ooh "potty mouth"!) to make sure those editors who want reasonable answers are pointed to good and helpful articles (instead of "I want to know about gravity" -> "Ok, see Gravity" (my paraphrasing).  Also, we'll look for less "emotional involvement", should someone suddenly need to redact a bunch of text that reflects on them personally, when the going gets tough.  After all, this is an encyclopaedia, not a chat room or Facebook or Twitter, as I said some weeks ago.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:51, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * As was pointed out by another editor on ANI, my advice to have the OP read the Gravity article was a perfectly acceptable response. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:54, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You must be so proud. Another editor also pointed out that you and Medeis act like muppets.  Perhaps you should take that on board as well.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:55, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

factional debate closed
I suspect the entire Ayn Rand thread should be closed as an invitation to debate, but I have tried to steer it towards referring to her works. Unfortunately, this subject brings out the debaters. The two last questions have made critical references to the ARI, one of the two main sects of Randianism to appear since Rand's death (assuming you've never heard of ARI, think of the Trotskyites versus the Stalinists), and asserted that Rand "opposed paved public roads" as premises for further debate. Next will come the Trilateral Commission, and the New World Order and so forth. So I have closed those two "questions" as inviting debate. μηδείς (talk) 18:39, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * An old colleague of mine, who was a card-carrying libertarian, actually did argue against public roads. Whether he got that from Rand or not, I couldn't say. I don't recall him ever mentioning Rand. He seemed to talk mostly about Milton Friedman. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:43, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Not to open up the discussion again here, but yes, Rand was in favor of privatizing highways (which has historical precedent) and other public utilities as an abstract long-term goal. She had no programmatic plan as to how to do it, and she considered it of the least priority. (Her biggest goals were ending the military draft and returning to the gold standard.)  To imply that Rand was against paved roads is about as rhetorically honest as saying atheists are devil worshippers, and there's no way to address such matters at a reference desk--there are at least half-a-dozen well-populated fora that discuss and argue about Rand. μηδείς (talk) 19:25, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Hard telling where the "paved" part of it comes from. In fact, the US Constitution specifically provides for public roads, so this is pretty much of a non-issue, just a theory. I recall my colleague also being against the draft because "it's a waste of resources." In short, the only ones who serve should be the poor and the ignorant, who are pretty much expendable. I didn't see much of a high road in that part of the theory. As regards atheists being devil-worshippers, that would be self-contradictory, as the devil is a supernatural being, and atheists don't believe in supernatural beings. However, that's bringing too much logic into the debate. You probably should, in fact, box up that section if you haven't already. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:32, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd always thought Ayn Rand was an idiot but I'd have to support private roads, our family made its money in the past from charging people to go along a stretch of road which they maintained and protected from robbers. ;-) Dmcq (talk) 14:49, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

A warning from AboutFace 22
just wrote this. As I result I don't plan to interact with him/her again, but I was wondering if someone (preferably an administrator who hasn't posted in his/her threads) could explain that this isn't appropriate language for Wikipedia. -- BenRG (talk) 21:21, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Apologized in a follow-up. -- BenRG (talk) 21:39, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Why is the page locked?
It rather defeats the point.

I wanted to post: Premium pricing. 86.183.79.28 (talk) 20:57, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I've put in an official unprotection request at WP:RFPP. An IP user is attempting to delete a question and using rude words in the edit summaries.  I personally don't believe this warrants protection, but it's up to the powers that be. Tevildo (talk) 21:49, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The request was rejected, but the lock has now expired. Tevildo (talk) 12:06, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * For clarification for future readers, this appears to have been talking about Reference desk/Humanities in particular. I don't want to get in to whether or not protection was justified, but if the problem does arise again, feel free to post your question here and ask someone to copy it over for you. (And I'm not saying this is ideal, simply offering it as a suggestion.) Nil Einne (talk) 12:11, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

ANI discussion which partially concerns the RD
There have been plenty of these recently, but the most recent one Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive825 has some concrete proposals currently being discussed. Nil Einne (talk) 06:42, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I know that anyone is free to comment, but do you know whether all of us, or only administrators, are allowed to formally support/oppose the sanctions being proposed there? —Steve Summit (talk) 14:12, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I think we all are. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:47, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * WP:AN and WP:ANI, despite their titles, are now considered "community" boards by as indicated by arbcom procedure, the board's headers. (e.g. ANI uses the phrase "require the intervention of administrators and experienced editors." -- and "experienced" in this context is essentially self-identification), and long-standing practice. NE Ent 15:53, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The discussion welcomes all-comers. And everyone should be encouraged to give their experiences of all three editors named in the "trial".  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:24, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * In theory they are open to all, but in my experience many admins will completely ignore any points made by non-admins. StuRat (talk) 14:06, 5 January 2014 (UTC)


 * FYI, the discussion has been closed, so that link no longer works. Matt Deres (talk) 23:32, 4 January 2014 (UTC)


 * No, it hasn't been closed. Not yet.  The link didn't work because someone changed "Sanctions" to "sanctions" in the header on the ANI page.  I've corrected it above.  Works fine now.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  00:04, 5 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I was wondering why I didn't see it in the archives! Thank you, Jack; I appreciate the correction. I was led astray by another thread on there about TRM, which talked about the "closed discussion above" and I assumed they were referring to this. Matt Deres (talk) 12:46, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

An appeal for style
Hi all, I'd just like to put out an appeal for all of us to refresh our memory of WP:INDENT. Things can get a little confusing if we don't follow our own style guide. The biggest error I see is people adding indentation levels for no reason, they seem to just think it's appropriate to always add another colon. If you are answering the OP, and not directly addressing a previous respondent, please do not add additional indentation. I've seen several recent cases of confusion arising from incorrect indentation, and even more cases of incorrect indentation that may or may not cause problems (i.e. we only know confusion is present when someone says "I'm confused", or "who are you talking to?" -- confusion is probably more common than reporting of said confusion). In fact, you can look right above for an example of how not to do it (not intending to put any one specific user down, just want to keep our discussions more intelligible :) Thanks, SemanticMantis (talk) 22:53, 8 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Do you mean "no offence indented"? :)
 * But seriously, I agree 1,000%. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  04:00, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree (although it's an easy mistake to make). I'd also like to remind people about our convention that off-topic asides and humor should be in &lt;small&gt; tags.  SteveBaker (talk) 14:14, 9 January 2014 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, I find it useful to add an extra blank line when responding at the same indentation level -- otherwise it can be hard to see the separation of responses. When there are multiple responses at the same level, bullets can help to make them distinguishable. Looie496 (talk) 16:35, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Wiktionary links
I was bopping around Wiktionary today when I noticed they have a page similar to this one, called The Etymology Scriptorium. Now, our Language desk already links to two pages on Wiktionary; a translation request page and the information desk. From an outside perspective, it seems like there's a bit of redundancy going on there, but the pages appear to be quite long-lived at least - and still active. Do you think it's worth including a link to this third page as well? Matt Deres (talk) 14:20, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a worthwhile idea. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:23, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
 * ...and get them to provide a link in the reverse direction. SteveBaker (talk) 15:51, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
 * If that's a wiki, could we add such link ourselves? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:49, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Would probably be more polite to ask...we're not exactly regulars there...unless someone here does contribute there regularly. SteveBaker (talk) 17:04, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Definitely a good idea to ask first. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:23, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm a Wiktionary regular and can add a link if you like. Wikt also has the Tea room, a place to discuss specific words. However, both the Etymology scriptorium and the Tea room are primarily for discussing aspects of Wiktionary entries, not so much for discussing anything anyone wants to ask about, the way WP's Reference desks are. Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:25, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Personal attacks etc removed.
I've hatted a great deal of rather unpleasant personal bickering between two (apparent) old enemies - I would advise them to continue their argument in a more appropriate venue. Tevildo (talk) 19:31, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Wow. Well said and well hatted.
 * (Getting into heated arguments over these "rules of grammar" questions, like whether it's okay to begin a sentence with however, is almost always a fool's errand. The style mavens who maraud around dispensing prescriptivist rules are almost always wrong -- and, sadly, this includes Strunk and White.  Read what people like Steven Pinker and Geoff Pullum have to say, and be enlightened.)
 * (And as another aside, evidently the reason these grammar arguments sometimes get so intense is that every native speaker thinks he's an expert, so the bike shed phenomenon reigns supreme, as Pullum argues here.) —Steve Summit (talk) 21:42, 14 January 2014 (UTC), updated 22:34, 14 January 2014 (UTC), 22:42, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * This shows no likelihood of stopping. I have hatted some more outright argumentation and archived the thread.  It could probably do with hatting as a whole, but given some of the replies are encyclopedic, even if the question isn't, I have left it visible. μηδείς (talk) 02:41, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Per Template:Hidden_archive_top/doc the hats should be signed. NE Ent 02:51, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I apologize to all if I posted anything on RD/L that was inappropriate. I really just wanted to know whether such a grammar rule existed based upon some edits on saw made on a page I am watching. I first asked at the Teahouse and they recommended I try here. It was never my intent to turn the RD/L into battlefield and use it as a forum to secretly criticize (either directly or indirectly) the edits of another editor, or to try and get others to do so on my behalf. Moreover, there is no ongoing war (at least not in my eyes) between myself and this other user. I was just under the assumption that it was OK to ask questions about things you are uncertain about at places like the Teahouse and RD/L, etc. I realize now that I should have been more careful with my choice of words so as not to mislead others and misrepresent this other user. I have apologized to the user offended by my comments (both here and on my talk page) and struck out the parts of my question/comments on RD/L that were deemed offensive. This user has made many substantial improvements to the page in question, and, overall, the page is much better than before. I just thought by asking questions here first, I could hear what others had to say and, therefore, avoid any unnecessary confrontation. However, I know now that was bad faith on my part and I should have gone to the article's talk page instead with my questions.
 * I hope that is sufficient, and that it is seen as sign of my sincere remorse. I wasn't fake apologizing and wasn't trying to keep this discussion going via proxy after I left. Once again, I'm sorry for the mess I created. - Marchjuly (talk) 07:20, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I don't think you were out of line, you just inadvertently stepped into some people's strong opinions on linguistic prescriptivism. However, you have also done your best to right any inferred wrongs, so my advice is to forget about the whole issue. (p.s. I have published several academic papers that include sentences starting with "however." The professional copy editors balked at all sorts of other minor issues, but never mentioned that as inappropriate!) SemanticMantis (talk) 15:14, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think almost everyone on the Reference Desk considers Ihardlythinkso to be out of line. He engages in personal attacks, gets enraged over imagined offenses, and is borderline trollish.  I don't think you should apologize, since it only encourages this kind of unacceptable behavior.  --Bowlhover (talk) 16:47, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Reference desk/Computing
For some strange reason, Scsbot has archived January 12th's discussions even they were still active. It did not touch January 9th, 10th or the 11th. There's been no activity in the 9th's discussions since the 9th but it left it on the page. Not sure what's going on here, but I reverted the bot. I am cross-posting this on the Reference Desk talk page and the Scsbot talk page. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 11:47, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I reverted you since that seems to be just the normal current archiving practice which is being discussed above. The 12th was archived but as visible from the diff, was also transcluded so it should have showed up unless you hit the recent problem where purging sometimes seems to be necessary. If you look at the diff you can also the transcluded 9th was in fact removed from them page by the bot at the same time. Nil Einne (talk) 15:49, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Is there a time delay? It wasn't there when I looked at it.  A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:00, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * If it was a red link, try purging the page first. There's been a known problem in updating the database that null edits/purges will fix. - Purplewowies (talk) 16:05, 15 January 2014 (UTC)


 * All the above is correct. Thanks for explaining and fixing, NE.
 * Does anybody know anything more about the database lag and the false redlinks? Is the problem likely to get fixed soon? —Steve Summit (talk) 17:26, 15 January 2014 (UTC)