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archiving issue

In case anybody's wondering, yes, the Reference Desk archiving bot (scsbot) has started having trouble logging in, and hasn't been able to complete any archiving for the past few days. I'm not quite sure what the problem is yet, but I'm working on it... —Steve Summit (talk) 02:06, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know. StuRat (talk) 02:14, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Should we start manual archiving? I'm a bit rusty, but could give it a go again. Matt Deres (talk) 12:27, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Yeah I noticed this too. I've had to manually add the date headers a couple of times to the Computing desk. I'd be willing to attempt manual archiving as well (for that desk; since it's the one I mostly contribute to.) --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 18:24, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, guys, but I think I may have fixed it. Stand by...

(Or should I say, "Stand back, I'm going to try... https!")

—Steve Summit (talk) 18:52, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Yup, working again. Full archiving resumes tonight. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:19, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Ah, yes - the https switchover. Thanks for clearing that up, Steve! :) --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 17:30, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Removed medical advice thread (using magnets to rip out embedded objects)

Following the instructions at WP:RD/G/M, I have removed the blatant request for medical advice, and the discussion – including dangerous advice – provided therein. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:10, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Why doesn't Wikipedia provide medical advice?

[moved here from ref desk μηδείς (talk) 18:52, 6 September 2013 (UTC)]

Need a short answer, can't really read the long text about it, because of health problems. Is it because Wikipedia isn't qualified? This applies to the whole world. 78.156.109.166 (talk) 18:10, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

There is a pretty short disclaimer at WP:Medical about why Wikipedia does not offer medical advice. An even shorter answer is that your assumption is correct. There isn't a very good way to verify who is actually qualified to dispense medical advice so we just don't. 146.145.80.218 (talk) 18:37, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

There are really several underlying reasons - but probably the most important ones are:

• There are places in the world where it's illegal to practice medicine without a license - so we don't.
• Bad medical advice could easily kill or seriously harm someone - and we don't want to bear that responsibility.
• We recognize that text on a page hardly ever provides sufficient information to deliver a diagnosis - so we couldn't do a good job - even if we wanted to.

SteveBaker (talk) 18:55, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I think you forgot the most important one of all, "we're covering our asses". The WMF doesn't want to get sued. --Trovatore (talk) 19:05, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Since the person giving the advice is responsible, it is that individual editor who would probably be sued, IRWolfie- (talk) 23:57, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

My favorite explanation is because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Wikipedia does not do many things: we are focused on writing a free-content encyclopedia, and providing medical advice does not further that goal. If we (the contributors) wanted to provide medical advice, we could do so elsewhere, and we could quibble about the ethical and practical problems elsewhere. Nimur (talk) 20:47, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

You can come up with all sorts of shiny explanations, but if we're honest, the most important one is not getting sued. --Trovatore (talk) 20:51, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

We don't, not because we couldn't do so in a responsible way addressing the above concerns, but because of opposition from some contributors here who will defend the current policy come what may. I participate on other forums where medical advice is given without any problems. In fact, quite a number of medical disasters have been prevented by us there. Count Iblis (talk) 19:16, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Dead men tell no tales. IRWolfie- (talk) 23:58, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

The current policy is based on a lot of red herrings, not on reality. Count Iblis (talk) 00:07, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

The answer is very simple: It is not possible to provide a valid diagnosis via this medium. If someone here happened to be a doctor, they could possibly give you advice - but only via a personal visit. What other sites do is their own problem. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:29, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Diagnosis is a red herring issue. Count Iblis (talk) 19:41, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

It's not either a "red herring". IT IS NOT POSSIBLE to provide a valid diagnosis through text messages alone. The fact that you might have guessed right sometimes and thus got lucky does not alter the basic fact. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:16, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

But who says that we would provide any diagnosis at all? What happens at the forums where I participate from time to time is that we give the people medical advice who have some questions, sometimes preventing big problems. E.g. we had a case where someoe was prescribed alpha-calcidiol by her doctor, not because she has kidney problems but just to treat vitamin D deficiency, and that without regularly measuring blood calcium levels. Our medical advice was to immediately stop the medication and to find a new doctor. The Ref Desk's non-medical advice would have been to stick to her doctor's prescription with likely disasterous results. Count Iblis (talk) 23:34, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

"The Ref Desk's non-medical advice would have been to stick to her doctor's prescription". No, it would be seek a competent medical professional if you desire a second opinion, but this encyclopedia reference desk can not help. Playing doctor without knowing the exact circumstances (and only relying on what the individual self reports) and while being unqualified is a very very dangerous game, IRWolfie- (talk) 00:01, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

In practice, the Ref Desk's rules applied to our forum would have led to that woman being stuck with her doctor, because we wouldn't have even communicated enough to find out her situation. So, eventually she might have gotten hypercalcemia, and perhaps irreversible damage to her body as a result. But we would not have known anything about that. This is not at all "playing doctor", because the person is always going to see a doctor anyway, it's about communicating with a person to help that person interact with the existing medical system better.

Just imagine Baseball Bugs's calling his son and finding out he has been ill. Do you really think that during this phone conversation he would stick to the rules he prefers for the Ref Desk? No reasonable scenario for such a phone conversation where the son is ill but not seriously ill and thus not likely to see a doctor, would be consistent with what he is arguing for here. Count Iblis (talk) 00:44, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Next time you talk to an OP by phone, let us know. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:47, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

The issue is a bit similar to why medical marijuana is a controvesial subject in the US. Read what Sanjay Gupta had to say about why until recently he was against this and why he now thinks he was wrong about this issue. Why won't the US accept the facts on this and make appropriate laws? Because of the usual tendency of people to defend the existing system. Count Iblis (talk) 19:48, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

No, those laws exist because we don't want a nation of pot-heads. Conventional history tells us that Prohibition failed. But the dirty little secret is that prohibition did work, to an extent. Alcohol consumption dropped significantly. The crack in re-opening the door was the use of alcohol "for medicinal purposes", along with a change of administration. That same crack in the pot prohibition is likewise starting to form, as the drug warriors are getting closer to simply giving up. But if we get a Republican administration next time, the door could close again. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:20, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Not if we get a good Republican (that is, one from the libertarian wing). --Trovatore (talk) 21:39, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia's official medical disclaimer, which has been linked, we do not provide medical advice by definition. That is to say, even if someone here were to give a diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment plan to someone asking about his symptoms, our medical disclaimer declares that that is not actually medical advice (though some would reasonably disagree). This official disclaimer is very much a "cover your ass" sort of thing. The guideline that prohibits the giving of medical advice on the reference desk, Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice, was built by the community, not the foundation. The status of that guideline as a real guideline is based on the individual motivations of each editor who supported it. As expressed, those opinions have already been mentioned here, and varied from vague legal fears to moral issues. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:31, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this! Thanks for pointing it out. No matter what we may say here, it is automatically not medical advice, due to that disclaimer. Many regulars here, or on the talk page, say things like "we can't say XYZ, because WMF could be sued" -- but that is not really an issue that the ref desk responders need to worry about. Sure, we all have our own ethics and morals about these issues, but legally, WMF is already absolved, and protected against indemnity, because nothing we can sat here can legally construed as medical advice (at least, insofar as we trust the WMF lawyers who wrote the disclaimer). SemanticMantis (talk)

Actually, disclaimers don't work that way. You can say you are not dispensing medical advise all you like, but if you make no reasonable attempt to prevent it you can easily find yourself civilly liable. The same thing with using "alleged". You can still find yourself subject to and losing a civil case if you are not careful with defamatory statements, even if you do pepper your statements with allegeds. μηδείς (talk) 21:16, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

A court of law may well agree with you. I just don't want people to have the impression that some edict was handed down from on high that forbids us from giving out medical advice. The only such edict came from other volunteers. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:39, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Indeed I think an important point is that there has never been any suggestion from the WMF or their legal department that we need to take great care in this area. And the vast majority of people who most strongly support it don't consider legal reasons particularly relevant. And whenever the issue comes up in other discussions, it's generally accepted we shouldn't worry too much about legal issues unless told to my the WMF or in clear cut issues like copyright violations. And even then, if there is fundamental disagreement in a complicated case over whether or not something is or isn't a copyright violation it's generally accepted we should ask for advice, in fact people trying to argue in to doing something for legal reasons or based on complicated legal arguments frequently get short strift because the WMF only has one legal department/cousel. The idea above that it's because we don't want to be sued isn't really support by the plenty of discussions that have taken place that Wnt mentions. Nil Einne (talk) 17:25, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

To me it's not about being sued or Wikipedia being sued (which I don't wish for, but it wouldn't cause me any sleepless nights either). It's about not doing harm. Diagnosing and recommending treatment or giving prognosis, without seeing, examining, or interviewing a patient, at the very least, just based on a whatever written information we receive here is potentially dangerous. I've witnessed faulty diagnoses at the Mayo Clinic's symptom checker where you have to answer a number of questions (unlike here). I too think the only thing we can recommend in these cases is "go see a doctor" (with competence, equipment, qualifications, accountability, etc). –––Sluzzelin talk 21:28, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

That's why I don't do it. I've screwed myself with bad medical advice. I don't want to think what I could do to someone I don't know. That's not to say I haven't had good ideas, too, but why risk it? Just get well soon, everyone! InedibleHulk (talk) 00:13, September 5, 2013 (UTC)

This is a bitterly contentious issue that has been debated at great length on the talk page, many times - check the archives (practically any archive, going all the way back). Some of us continue to deny the assertions that discussing health issues is a Bad Thing, and see a profit motive in doctors fearful of competition from the Internet. But in the end, if you try it, they'll turn out to try to shut you down in the name of "ethics". Medical ethics is very strictly equivalent to a long-term calculation of profit. Wnt (talk) 07:04, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of your hatred of the medical profession, the bottom line still is that is not possible to provide a valid diagnosis via text messages. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:16, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I never thought about that, but searching "texting" and "doctors" gets me [1], which provides useful instruction. After emphasizing the importance of things like SEO, they explain that "e-mail offers the potential benefits of great accessibility and immediacy of answers to non-urgent issues." But emphasize the safeguard of "reserving digital communications for patients that maintain face-to-face follow-up only." In other words, like everything else in medicine, texting is ethical if and only if they're making money off of it. Wnt (talk) 17:25, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Apparently you expect doctors to work for free. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:47, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

No, I just don't want to hear them claim it's unethical to work for free, or to allow anyone else to work for free. It's like the encyclopedists at Brittanica who opposed amateur work on Wikipedia. They may indeed have a point (there may be a need for far more rigorous class warfare on the part of the poor, to answer that waged against them) but I refuse to be ordered about by them. But with doctors the class warfare is on the other foot, so needless to say, they have law and media and all else on their side, except morality that is. Wnt (talk) 23:08, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I've never heard anyone say that working for free is "unethical", but that really has nothing to do with Wikipedia. Any medical advice coming from here would be worth its price - or worse. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:32, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, we've established it's not illegal, not unethical, and despite what you say, well-sourced answers to questions can be valuable. Which (as always) leaves no reason for the prohibition. Wnt (talk) 23:51, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

If someone asks, "I have a headache. What's causing it?" there is no valid information you or anyone else here can provide which will definitively answer their question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:20, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Enough already. We haven't "established it's not illegal" as Wnt asserts or any such nonsense. Civil law and criminal law are totally different, and something can easily expose you to civli liability that has nothing to do with a criminal prohibition. This is the reference desk, not a talk page. There's no call to be having this debate here. μηδείς (talk) 01:27, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

BB, that's an example of a question we shouldn't answer, but that example doesn't prove that there aren't other question that fall within the current medical questions policy that one should answer to prevent harm, like in the example I mentioned above which occured on another forum where medical advice is given (an incompetent doctor treats vitamin D deficiency using alpha-calcidiol, doesn't do regular blood calcium tests and, of course, alpha-calcidiol isn't going to do much about the vitamin D deficiency). Count Iblis (talk) 02:05, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

"Another forum"? Since when are the ref desks supposed to be forums? What you do on some other website is out of Wikipedia's control, and if you manage to kill someone with your guesswork advice, that will be your problem, not wikipedia's. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:12, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Round and round, whack-a-mole. Every argument is disproved, the prohibitionists go on to the next one, we disprove that... sooner or later we're back round where we started. You stonewall and somebody laughs all the way to the bank. I suppose you'd ban Wikipedia from having articles like Headache#Cause if you could; but since you can't, you settle for banning question-and-answer and imposing special, unreasonable sourcing requirements. Wnt (talk) 07:59, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

This discussion belongs on the Talk page - not here. As I'm quite sure you already know if you've been following the various discussions on this subject, our rule applies to giving specific advice to specific individuals. There is nothing wrong with writing an article about the causes of headaches. There isn't even a problem with replying to a question like "What causes headaches?" - but our guideline does not allow "Is this pounding in my left temple a stress headache?", or "What can I take to get rid of my headache?" or "Will I die because of these repeated headaches that I'm getting?" (Kainaws criterion - no diagnosis, no treatment suggestions and no prognosis). Because it's all to easy to "game the system" by phrasing the question as a generality, when it's quite clear that the questioner is asking about a specific case - we frequently deny answers to these kinds of question even when they are couched in more general terms. As you correctly point out, there are plenty of other places on the Internet where you can get medical advice - and it is not Wikipedia's role to provide all possible information to all people. (See: WP:NOT) SteveBaker (talk) 13:03, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Question: "Will eating GM-foods make my migrane worse?" Answer: "No it won't." Anti-GM Zealot: "Medical advice removed". Count Iblis (talk) 19:25, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Sanity break:

The bottom line here is that a LOT of people here disagree with CountIblis, WNT and others who feel that the No Medical Advice rule (NMA) should be reversed. Sure, we understand that none of the arguments that the pro-NMA folks have made - and nothing we could possibly say will convince the anti-NMA folk to change your mind - which is why most of our pro-NMA people (myself included) are no longer bothering to argue about it. This sometimes leads people to think that they are winning the argument - but "victory by exhaustion" doesn't work well here.

By the same token, you must understand that nothing that you say will change our minds either - I haven't bothered to read all of your arguments in detail because you seem to be rehashing the same arguments that I rejected several years ago - and my mind hasn't changed.

So we have reached that point in a Wikipedia policy discussion where everyone has made up their minds and further discussion is counterproductive to getting on with the business of running the reference desks.

The "status quo" (as evidenced by day-to-day running of the ref desks and a clearly described FAQ) is that there is a firmly administered guideline that says "No Medical Advice on the Reference Desks". Under long-standing Wikipedia rules, to reverse the status quo, you need a strong consensus - not unanimity, but much, much more than a simple majority.

That leaves you anti-NMA people three choices:

1. Accept that the guideline is indeed valid and quit annoying everyone by continuing to argue about it.
2. Refuse to accept the guideline (against Wikipedia rules), continue to whine about it at every turn, and risk an accusation of trollish-behavior and WP:DISRUPT with attendant consequences.
3. Claim that your stunning rhetoric has produced a new consensus and that the guideline can now be overturned. If so, you should immediately start an WP:RFC to test that.

Let's consider that third option: For myself, I've heard all of your arguments before - and I'm not even slightly convinced by a single one of them. So already you know for 100% sure that don't have a chance in hell of getting a unanimous consensus to change). I'm pretty sure that you're not getting anywhere with BBB or by my count, at least five other long-established "regulars" here who have bothered to comment on it again. That means that you're not getting a consensus to change the rules. A consensus isn't "a majority" remember...you have to have arguments powerful enough to change people's minds - and you very clearly do not.

Since it's clear that your arguments are not enough to convince a lot of respected Ref Desk regulars - doing an RfC is a complete waste of effort - at best, it would be a blatant attempt to provoke rounds of acrimonious debate followed by inevitable defeat. Feel free to do that - but know that by doing so, you'd be burning your credibility with the majority of people working here, and that's never a good idea.

So I strongly recommend #1. Give it up and let's get on with making a fantastic Ref Desk (albeit without medical advice).

SteveBaker (talk) 21:22, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Is there any possible way that everyone on our side can agree to shut up without having the other side dance on our graves and cheerfully announce in article space that they have unanimous agreement that it is wrong to talk about any such thing on the internet (unless the doctor is receiving ongoing payments)? To me it looks like two sides are arguing endlessly, and I wasn't first to this dance. Wnt (talk) 22:01, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Anytime you try to bring up your hatred of doctors, you get pushback on it. So you can either continue to beg for that pushback, or you can stop bringing up your hatred of doctors. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:14, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Above I see you pounding the Gospel of personal doctor visits three times (plus an extra aside to extol the virtues of Prohibition) before I responded. It's not enough for you to sit on your no-consensus ban of conversation you don't like; you have to have zero dissent about it or there's "pushback". And you blame me for that? Wnt (talk) 22:51, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

@BBB: Yes, you can just shut up and ignore the anti-NMA crowd. They can't claim to have a new consensus to amend or overturn the rule without asking for a formal test of that consensus - which, in such a bold step, would really demand a formal WP:RfC - and so long as the pro-NMA crowd aren't completely asleep at the wheel, that can't pass. But continuing to join in these kinds of discussions is unnecessary, and possibly counter-productive. A simple "I strongly disagree and the NMA rule stands."-response to all efforts to start a new debate is perfectly adequate. SteveBaker (talk) 03:42, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not against a sensible NMA policy, but what we have now is something that goes well beyond what is reasonable. Also, a discussion about improving things is shot down by some here using straw man arguments. Then one has to respond to that, but this makes it impossible to build a more reasonable policy. The core of the current policy looks ok. we obviously cannot provide any diagnosis here. But questions and answers are removed when anyone feels that it could in theory lead to someone doing something that could lead to medical problems. The problem is then that under this NMA policy you could remove a large number of harmless questions. Our puritan attitude here is not consistent with many of the Wikipedia articles we have, take e.g Vicks VapoRub and compare this with the truth about VapoRub. Count Iblis (talk) 00:10, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Our policy is fine. We just have some enthusiastic editors who sometimes confuse advice for simple information and take premature action before bringing it for discussion. BB is right: you can't diagnose over the internet. You can debate it all you like, but if you can't see them, you aren't getting all the information or history required to make a proper diagnosis even if we were allowed to do so, and can't offer treatment without knowing patient history regarding potential drug interactions, allergies or anything like that. Even if we aren't legally liable, it is wrong to put them at risk. If you feel you are able to help and are not a doctor, so be it, but please do it on your own time, away from here, and not to anyone I know. But fake doctor or real, you must understand at least this much. People lie, people mislead, people leave out information. That's why we shouldn't do it. However, WNT and Count Iblis are right, too: if they ask about a condition, there is no need for and no existing prohibition on giving information about it. Mingmingla (talk) 00:35, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Then do things right. Draft a new wording for the rule - make a formal proposal for it's acceptance. After a few days of discussion, do a straw poll to see if you've garnered support - and if it appears that you're changing minds then do a formal WP:RfC and if a new consensus forms around your amended rule, it'll be enthusiastically accepted. However, if it's clear from the first presentation that it has significant opposition - then just drop it. SteveBaker (talk) 03:42, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're saying: I thought I was agreeing with you. I don't support giving advice. Mingmingla (talk) 03:45, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

If they ask, "What are some of the causes of headaches?", they can be sent to the headache page, along with a question mark as to how they found the ref desk but couldn't find such an obviously-named article. If they ask, "What's causing my headache?", there is no valid information we can give except "see a professional". If they've cleverly worded the question so as not to look like a diagnosis so they can get away with asking for medical advice... well, as the saying goes, it's their funeral. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:24, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Kainaw's criterion is our touchstone here. Things that definitely violate the "no diagnosis, no treatment suggestions, no prognosis" rule are easily and unambiguously deletable under present WP:RD guidelines. The problem is when our OP's try to game the system with clever phrasing. These borderline cases are the biggest issue here. We don't want to wind up with some Jeopardy-like system (where answers have to be in the form of a question...Why? Eh?) - where we actually will diagnose a headache and offer treatment if you phrase the question with the right magic words. So I don't doubt we'll continue to have debates when borderline cases come up. But the criteria we have are pretty good - and I can't see them being overturned. SteveBaker (talk) 03:42, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

More often it is the other side doing the "gaming". They actually don't accept that criterion, and have argued such on many an occasion. Wnt (talk) 03:52, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we should not answer explicit requests for medical advice. However, if someone isn't clearly asking for it, I don't think we can, or should, attempt to determine the intent behind their question. If you can't give advice because you can't observe/verify aspects of the person asking, then I fail to see how you could infer their intent- unless they're really really bad at being indirect, this will become an endless debate unless the op is willing to fess up. --The other day I asked about tea bags being used with toothaches, none of you can have any clue as to why I actually wanted to know about that: perhaps I was simply curious, perhaps I have a horrible toothache and don't have money to go to visit the dentist, maybe I'm making a website about weird uses of tea bags, who knows? However, as long as a question isn't explicitly requesting medical advice, there shouldn't be an issue with giving answers to it that do not, themselves, contain medical advice.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:53, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually, on my own example question you even pointed out that I could have other intents behind it (I didn't, for what it's worth). Moreover, you provided a very good answer (thanks for that, the links were interesting reading :-) ). It would be more helpful, at least for me, if you could be a little clearer, then, in what you mean about "playing word games" since I have no idea where the line should get drawn with that, and I don't think there is any standard to appeal to that clarifies that.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 05:03, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Consider this, a refrain from giving MA also has the potential to endanger lives. An extreme example, "I've just consumed a solution of potassium cyanide, what is emergency response?" Therefore, if the goal is to protect the OPs from their own foolishness, then it is a pointless exercise.

Moreover, how could someone be legally liable for bad MA given on Wikipedia? Especially, when the responder is outside of US jurisdiction. Plasmic Physics (talk) 02:30, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Are you are just making this nonsense up? Surely you are aware he can sue in US court, and sue WP as the venue regardless. The glut of ignorant "answers" being given here is laughable. Let's hope our medical negligence is less damaging than our legal incompetence. μηδείς (talk) 02:38, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

What is so nonsensical about what I've said? No, I am not aware that the OP can sue, that does not make sense. If WP is just the venue, then it should logically not hold any responsibility of what is said by its users. If I happened to commit a murder, does my landlord get sentenced? I should think not. Plasmic Physics (talk) 02:51, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

If there is such an artificial link imposed upon moral logic, that WP is responsible, then it seems that common sense is wasted upon the US legal system. Plasmic Physics (talk) 02:55, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Looking at this discussion has convinced me of one thing at least - I wouldn't take medical advice from anyone who was prepared to give it out on a Wikipedia reference desk. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:06, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Then at least you're not a candidate for the Darwin Awards. Plasmic Physics (talk) 03:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Deletion from RD/E

Um. I've just deleted a copy of the List of best-selling music artists article that was posted to RD/E by User:SAADWWE. I note that this user has a fairly long list of warnings, blocks, ANI references, etc. I'll leave it to those more knowledgeable about our disciplinary procedures to decide on whether further action is appropriate. Tevildo (talk) 22:46, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

trolling removed

We are not an internet forum, questions like this do not belong on the ref desk. μηδείς (talk) 02:24, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Maybe a bit harshly dealt with, but still an appropriate removal. Reference-wise, there are many articles on popular media answers to that question, but since he said what would you do with a million, that gets into chat-room mode. As for what I would do with a million, I would stash it in my Swiss bank account, to be saved for funding a World Series victory parade for the Chicago Cubs. I figure the accrued interest will be considerable by then ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:33, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

That user is on a highly dynamic Iraqi IP. Across his many addresses, he's asked numerous questions - some good, some bad, all in terrible English. I can't tell if he's a troll or just can't speak the language. If the latter, he may not even comprehend if told what he's doing wrong, if he could find the message at all. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:35, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure "trolling" is the right word in this case, since that word implies some maliciousness, but it is otherwise a good removal. Mingmingla (talk) 16:56, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

More likely ignorance/incompetence than deliberate maliciousness. If it's an IP-hopper then it's probably just a one-shot anyway. So, in any case, it's "See ya." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:50, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

The guidelines used to say that this is not an internet forum, but that has been removed. Not that I think it would help in this case, but for future questions like this it would be helpful to have a guideline to point the OP to. Agree calling he OP a troll may be a bit harsh, but "forumer" doesn't sound very good either. μηδείς (talk) 19:36, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Any answers the OP was asking for would violate the referencing rules, unless one or more of us can provide independent sources for our own viewpoints. As regards the IP, if he never does this again he can be safely described as a former forumer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:51, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I'll support any efforts to re-insert the wording regarding Not a Forum. Mingmingla (talk) 00:12, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Can you find the diff for when it was removed? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:54, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

It was removed with the general overhaul of the guidelines, whenever that was, maybe a year back. μηδείς (talk) 02:39, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Here's what the main ref desk page looked like, well over a year ago.[2] Can you find where the guidelines are? I'm not seeing it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:25, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

That's not what it looked like a year ago: the changes to the transcluded headers aren't shown. It's a bit tucked away, the various transcluded links are listed under Wikipedia:Reference_desk/header. The word "forum", for example, was removed from Wikipedia:Reference desk/header/howtoask here not quite eight months ago, referring to discussions that now can be found in Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 97. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:44, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

What good are guidelines that can't be found from the main ref desk page? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:47, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

They can easily be found. Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines is a direct link from the header on each desk. The idea was to have less instructional clutter on the top of each desk. Referring to another place for more information is a common way of making things more visually comprehensible on Wikipedia and elsewhere. The exact thread referred to in the edit summary of the diff removing the word "forum" and other things is "New RefDesk header". ---Sluzzelin talk 12:56, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see anything there that says anything about "not a forum", and I don't understand why the link to the guidelines is not on the main ref desk page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:08, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I suggest you make a concrete proposal what to add where, as some of the pages are protected. If you want to change the guidelines, perhaps add something about not being a forum to the subsection "What the reference desk is not" ... , that page isn't protected. I'd leave a note here, since fewer people watch that page. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:51, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I suggest you tell us what the guideline used to say. And enough already with the links. QUOTE IT VERBATIM. Please. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:23, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

In the diff I gave above, the word "forum" was removed with the sentence "Do not start a debate; please seek an internet forum instead." In that diff it was removed from the header, not from the guidelines. I don't know whether the word "forum" used to appear in any other form in the headers, nor do I know whether it ever appeared in the guidelines. I won't be doing this research, however. I merely tried to explain what medeis might have been referring to, and then trying to clarify that the guidelines are still easy to find. Whether or not we add something like WP:NOTFORUM, at the desks or in our guidelines, isn't something I care about. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:11, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, maybe someone will turn up here who actually DOES care, and can explain whether we still have a rule against asking forum-like questions, or not. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:15, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

The top of every Refdesk says "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate." I don't recall offhand whether we ever had the word "forum" in the boilerplate, but if we get rid of the requests for opinions, predictions, and debates, then I'm not sure what else qualifies as a forum-like question. Matt Deres (talk) 21:34, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

It used to say something like, your question may be better suited for an internet forum, or the like, and on the individual pages. The word forum was used. There is always WP:NOTAFORUM, although the emphasis is slightly different. μηδείς (talk) 02:31, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I missed Sluzzelin quoting it above. "Do not start a debate; please seek an internet forum instead" is indeed the guideline (at the top of the page, or whatever you call it if not "guideline") I was thinking of that was removed last year. μηδείς (talk) 00:40, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Moving (wiki text of) discussions

Sometimes a discussion is moved from one desk to another desk, one which is deemed to be more appropriate to the topic of the question. If the displayed text is copied from one desk and pasted onto another desk, then the links are lost. (Piped links are especially problematic in this regard.) However, if the wiki text is copied from one desk and pasted onto another desk, then the links are maintained. I wish to encourage editors to copy the wikt text instead of the displayed text, and thus to preserve the links.
—Wavelength (talk) 17:32, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. You will note I followed the correct procedure when I moved "Why doesn't Wikipedia provide medical advice?" above form science to talk. μηδείς (talk) 19:38, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Discussion on the Math desk about Fields Medal keeps on being removed

It's plainly disruptive to have to answer to someone by having to reload an old version of the page and edit that page. The OP's question was removed with the additional discussion yesterday presumably because the OP didn't ask a clear question. But if that discussion yields something productive, one shouldn't remove the entire thread. That happened yesterday but just now I had to restore the discussion again. I would have thought that if the discussion continues in a productive way, especially if more than one regular is involved in there and it's more than more than one editor who has reverted, especially if it is more than one regular editor (one even with a "rvv" edit summary), you need to stop removing that discussion unless there are actual complaints about that discussion being disruptive in some way (other than merely violating some interpretation of the rules, because we do have WP:IAR as official policy here). I see no trace of any discussion on this talk page here about such disruption. Count Iblis (talk) 13:10, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

The OP didn't ask about a medal, he asked the forum-like question, "What would you do with a million dollars." That was removed on the grounds that the ref desk doesn't allow forum questions. However, according to the discussion a section or two above here, that rule is apparently no longer operative. So apparently it IS valid to ask directly for personal opinions about things. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:16, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Right, so at most the OP's question should have been removed, not the entire thread. The OP's question can be judged to violate a well established guideline, but whole point of these guidelines is to prevent disruption to the users of the ref desk. So, if removing the entire thread is going to cause significant disruption to the users who are actually participating in the dicussion, while the OP's question is just sitting there without much problems, one should not remove the entire thread. Count Iblis (talk) 13:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

What's the purpose of the thread if the question is gone?

I understand that disappearing things is disruptive, but why not box the thread and be done with it? APL (talk) 14:43, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

What guideline does the question violate? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:24, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

If nothing else, the refdesk header says "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.", which jives with the refdesk guidelines that say that we can't give opinions and should only answer such that "there should exist a reliable source (or sources) that would give the same answer."

In fairness, I can't find a rule that says such questions are prohibited, just that they shouldn't be answered. But what good is a question that can't be answered? APL (talk) 16:38, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Which is why it should simply have been deleted rather than answered. Trouble is, once somebody answers such a question, they get offended if their pearls of wisdom get flushed along with the original question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:38, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Many times we've discussed why simply disappearing things is disruptive. Boxing/collapsing it would have been sufficient. APL (talk) 17:45, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

And then Medeis gets yelled at for daring to merely box something up. This all seems to be an endless loop. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:49, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Medeis sometimes boxes things that others believe should have been left unmolested. But that's not a "Loop". That's Medeis being more severe than others think is warranted. (As in this case.)

I'm curious, I certainly don't follow this page religiously, could you point to a case where Medeis boxes something and then gets berated for not just getting rid of it outright? I can't remember one. APL (talk) 17:56, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

As I recall, a month or two or three ago Medeis was yelled at simply for boxing things up. It should be in the archives somewhere. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:14, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

If the people participating in the thread want to close it down, they can do that themselves. The only reason why you want an outsider to do that is to put a stop to some ongoing disruption that the participants in that threat are either unable or unwilling to do someting about.

It's similar to how we uphold the law. The police doesn't do unannounced house calls to check if everyone is behaving well. Its up to the people themselves to police themselves, make sure the kids don't do stupid things etc. etc. Only in emergency cases does the police intervene. Count Iblis (talk) 20:35, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Would that things were that simple here. It's evident that there is disagreement over what "the law" actually is here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:03, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Again, I know Medeis has been criticized both for deleting things that others felt should have been merely boxed, and also for boxing things that others felt should have been left unmolested.

But that's not an "endless loop", that's Medeis being more aggressive about boxing and deleting than others want him to be. There's no paradox there.

It would only be a ridiculous "endless loop" if Medeis was told "Don't delete, box" and then later, for the same class of problem, was told "Don't box, delete."

APL (talk) 21:14, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

The "endless loop" is that someone boxes up or removes something, somebody else gripes about it, and the usual arguments ensue. The plain truth is that there is no consensus here about what constitutes an acceptable question. And given how this has gone on for at least the last three or four years, there's no consensus in sight. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:12, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

That' because of the disagreement about the law that you mention above, which in turn is caused by the discussions about the law not being driven by the actual problems that we experiences when answering questions. It's similar to why Communism failed. If some party boss is going say how someone should run a business based on Communist ideology then that's not going to work well in practice.

So, instead of judging what goes on here on the Ref Desk by looking at how well we stick to the rules, we should assume that there is a good reason why the status quo is what it is and then ask how we can make things even better. We should not a priori exclude that moving in a direction that looks contrary to the rules is worse. The measure of "better" or "worse" shoud be determined by how well we can help the people asking questions here. Count Iblis (talk) 23:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

...and so the endless loop continues. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:11, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Question removed from Misc. desk

I removed a question that seems to be rather obvious trolling. If you disagree, the edit is here for you to revert. Dismas|^(talk) 23:04, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I've put it back and answered it. I think that the content of the question alone is not enough to condemn it as trolling. (It's a popular idea, believe it or not!)

If there was something else that indicates this new user is trolling that I can't see, then feel free to rererevert. APL (talk) 23:22, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

It was exactly the same question that Technoquat asked a few days ago [3], though frankly I'd have thought it was obvious trolling anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:00, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Good (re-)removal. It IS obvious trolling, and APL should have left it deleted. It sounds like classic "Light current" garbage. The question is metaphorically doing exactly what it's asking about... and APL fell right into it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:10, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Aside from the fact that this happens to me occasionally (not a bookstore in my case, but a different retail shop), it's still pretty likely to be trolling. Mingmingla (talk) 01:50, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm curious as to how you're all making that determination?

There are honestly a lot of people who believe this is a real phenomena. It has also been mentioned numerous times in pop culture, which is all it takes some people to believe in something.

With all that in mind, how have you determined the intent of the question asker?

Are you all so uptight that you believe that nobody is ever curious about poop? APL (talk) 02:14, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

As I have already pointed out, the question was the same one that long-time reference-desk troll Technoquat asked a few days ago. There can be no reasonable doubt that it was him again... AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, good thing we were all vigilant. We almost answered an entirely legitimate and interesting question for someone who didn't deserve our help. Close call everybody. APL (talk) 02:38, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Glad to be of service. P.S. None of us is perfectly vigilant. I've been trolled sometimes when I've assumed more good faith than was warranted. No harm in the long run. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:00, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Disruptive edit warring

Medeis, please stop playing the moderator and please stop complaining about disruption when the only source of disruption are your constant removals. Please self-revert or I'll take this to AN/I. If you are complaining about disruption but the only possible disruption you are experiencing is that your reverts have been reverted (as you are not a Math desk regular), you are complaining about nothing more than your status as the self-appointed "boss" being undermined. I did not type that response to Widener for nothing. Count Iblis (talk) 03:16, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and if you just look at the Humanities Ref Desk (I don't visit there often) what I see are many, many forum like discussions in which Medeis has no problem participating in. Count Iblis (talk) 03:25, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

As I said earlier, around and around it goes. How about you provide some specific diffs to illustrate your complaints. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:32, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I put the thread back. By the principle of charity, I'd assume they were asking about the Millennium Prize Problems given that it is on the math desk and specifically mentions the prize amount; perhaps the asker does not speak english? Nonetheless, the question isn't causing a big disruption, the discussion that followed has useful info, and the regulars at the math desk didn't find it so disruptive a question so as not to contribute.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 03:35, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I was preparing it to move it my talk page to reduce the drama, there was an edit conflict, I've self-reverted to restore to your re-instatement. Count Iblis (talk) 03:43, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Count Iblis' personal manifesto saying he ignores all policies is on his talk page. There's a discussion above he choses to ignore by creating this new thread. He accuses me of something on the humanities desk, but provides not a single link to a conversation I have ever unhatted. If editors can't obey the policies the community sets, but declare themselves above them, there is always ANI. And, no, this does "no harm" is not a policy. See WP:NOTFORUM. μηδείς (talk) 03:59, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Do you know how many goofy jokes I see in threads, side discussions, forum like questions, etc. on here? All of those don't get deleted. Rules are meant to deal with problems, not with everything that violates them. If you disagree, feel free to be consistent and close up half the desks on a routine basis. Finally, I take the question as about the Millenium problems, and math prizes in general- and, even if not, intent is irrelevant if there's nothing to contradict that and it is not disrupting anything elsewise.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:16, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

There are several issues. First, the question as asked is simply a request for personal opinion, entirely out of scope of the ref desk as actually written. That would justify removal or hatting, per the quidelines. Next is the insistence on restoring the thread because respondents thought their answers were so brilliant, and not hurting anything. That's not how this place works, and you will see the majority of people here whose comments are hatted submit to the wider judgment. You will notice I started a thread here when the question was removed, and the consensus was the closure was appropriate. I suppose hatting might have been better than deletion--a good faith response by those who opposed deletion of their own comments would have been restoral of the removed remark, followed by hatting or archiving. Likewise, the proper response from someone who thought the OP was asking about a prize would have been to ask the OP if he was talking about that prize, and refrain from commenting until he clarified himself. As for jokes, this was not a valid question properly answered, but an invalid question with nothing but opinions or jokes. In the normal course of things one wouldn't remove a valid question because someone answered it with a joke--and that's not what happened here. And if someone hats another person's joke within a thread as off topic, the normal response is to accept the hatting,not insist that and act as if the rules don't apply. μηδείς (talk) 17:43, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Medeis, at first I didn't even see that that thread was about this particular issue, because the title "trolling removed" didn't seem related to refer to it (usually such threads here are about problems on the humanities desk), also the content of the discussion isn't based on any actual complaints from the people participating on the math desk, so a quick glance at that discussion doesn't give you away much clues that the discussion is in fact about that thread on the math desk. The link you gave was not made explicit (you have to move your mouse over "this" to see that "this" links to the thread in question), you would have to see BB's comment below where he refers to the OP's title, miss that one (easily done in a big thread, particularly if you are not dealing with the OP's original question rather with the Fields Medal), you wouldn't have a clue that this is in fact about that very thread on the Math desk.

This points to how irreleveant that entire discussion actually is, a consensus reach there isn't worth much more than the consensus reached in the Catholic Church that Galileo was wrong about heliocentrism. Count Iblis (talk) 13:46, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Since you claim not to believe in Wikipedia rules, should we assume this section you started is merely satirical, not to be regarded seriously? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:54, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. Ask why User:Likebox isn't at present editing Wikipedia, making great contributions to theoretical physics articles. Count Iblis (talk) 14:11, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

"Count Iblis rejects most of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. He just edits in any way he sees fit to improve Wikipedia. Whether such edits violate Wikipedia's policies is neither here nor there." I'm sure Medeis equally edits in a way that's intended to improve Wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:13, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:IAR is widely misunderstood. It doesn't mean that you can just pretend that all of the rules, guidelines and policies don't exist. It doesn't mean that you can break rules just because you don't happen to like them. It means that in some very special situations, if a rule is basically a good rule - but fails to apply properly to some specific situation, then you may choose to ignore it. However, when others come to defend the rule, you'd better be prepared to discuss why you feel that the rule is best ignored on this one particular occasion. So, for example:

1. We have a rule about British and American dialects of English - that an article that started life written in British English should probably stay that way. However, if in such an article, you need to quote what an American said on the subject of colour - you should probably ignore this rule and spell it "color". The rule isn't bad or iniquitous - it just fails to consider every possible situation that might arise - so, just this once, we'll ignore it - and be prepared to defend our position if challenged.
2. The Ref Desk has a "No Medical Advice" rule - but if you repeatedly ignore it without having a really good explanation for why it doesn't apply in each and every case where you ignored it - then you're going to get in deep trouble.

SteveBaker (talk) 17:12, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I wonder what his defense would be for "Count Iblis does not recognize the validity of ArbCom rulings. He calls on all restricted editors to violate their restrictions..." Unless he's just being satirical and doesn't actually believe in that statement. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:31, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

It's fairly evident that Iblis is the actual disrupter here, and he might end up being the one schlepped to ANI, instead of him doing the schlepping to someone else. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:04, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia and this Ref Desk are not some online video game where the rules are the rules of the game. The whole point of the Ref Desk is to answer questions that people ask and you can then have follow up questions, discussions etc. Then to prvent problems or abuse (a student can post during an exam using his smart phone, you can have potentially dangerous medial advice etc. etc.), we must have rules to prevent such problems. But enforcing the rules in a way that undermines the whole point of the Ref Desk is precisely what IAR says we should not do.

If it feels like disruption that a rule isn't enforced while there was no reason to enforce the rule in the first place, then you have this video-game mindset where you get upset when a point you scored isn't awarded. This has nothing to do with what the Ref Desk is about. Count Iblis (talk) 18:58, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Not surprisingly, you're copping the same holier-than-thou attitude that your own user page espouses. Do yourself a favor, and box up this section before you get taken to the cleaners. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:07, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

You still haven't read this and considered why he isn't contributing to Wikipedia anymore. I was involved in the same case, unlike him I decided to stay, but of course, that does mean that you do that with a similar idea about ArbCom and the way Admins uphold the rules here. It's not any more "holier-than-thou" than a North Korean dissident who criticizes the regime is always correct about anything. He isn't, but that doesn't invalidate his criticism of the regime. Count Iblis (talk) 19:25, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I myself am under an ArbCom restriction, but unlike you, I consider it my duty as a wikipedia editor to obey that restriction. And comparing wikipedia to North Korea is a twist on Godwin's Law, or whatever it's called. How about you contribute something to wikipedia right now: Box up this useless session you created, and count your blessings that you weren't smacked down for it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I did obey my restriction when it was in force and as you can see here, I'm busy editing Wikipedia but because I hardly speak that language, progress is a bit slow. Count Iblis (talk) 19:50, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Let me remind you all why we are here: we aren't (supposed to be) bureaucrats. We're building an encyclopedia. If some editors see this thread as a means to that end, then why is it essential that it be removed? Steven Baker brings up things like medical advice: how is that even remotely relevant? Baseball Bugs archives this discussion: why? What the hell is going on here, people? Have you lost your minds? Sławomir Biały (talk) 20:27, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Countlis, who openly admits to not believing in Wikipedia rules (except when it suits him), created this section in order to level an attack against another user without providing any information as to just what he thinks the problem is. If you actually think that kind of behavior helps to "build an encyclopedia", I don't know what to tell you. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:41, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

In short, this section is garbage and should be treated as such. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:49, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Do you really have nothing better to do than to flig this utterly irrelevant trifle? WP:NOTHERE much? Sławomir Biały (talk) 22:22, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

You're right that this section is an utterly irrelevant trifle. So go ahead and box it up. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:37, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Slawomir, you restored the nonsense at the math desk saying it wasn't harming anything. Now you want to say that this discussion, about a relevant issue, posted in the relevant venue, is harming wikipedia? μηδείς (talk) 22:53, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

No, I restored it because the removal with no edit summary appeared to be vandalism. I haven't even commented on the content itself, since this entire discussion is an obvious pissing contest. Sławomir Biały (talk) 23:16, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Which you just had to get in on, of course. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:18, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm here because the subject concerns me rather directly. But what I don't see is how all of the innuendo about Iblis is even remotely constructive. Editors here should agree to disagree and move on. There is nothing to see here! Sławomir Biały (talk) 23:51, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what "innuendo" you're talking about. Is this about that "what would you do with a million dollars?" nonsense - or is it something else? How's about providing a diff, while you're at it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:57, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm referring here to your unacceptable ad hominems against Iblis in this very thread! I don't know what ax you have to grind with Iblis (and now me, apparently), but please find a more appropriate forum for it. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:49, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

You mean, like, where I quote his own words? How horrible of me. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:26, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Any more red herrings out of this one, and we should open ourselves a cannery. Sheesh! Sławomir Biały (talk) 23:21, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Quoting to make your own propaganda about me, you are not reading my user page to try to understand the issues that I raise there as that doesn't seem to be somethjing you are interested in. I already asked you twice to read what User:Likebox wrote on his userpage as I was embroiled in the same issue, this led my to take that stance. Count Iblis (talk) 15:05, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Don't try to blame some other editor for what you freely wrote on your own page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:37, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not blaming anyone, just saying that I was in the same boat as him. Given what happened (which is what you can read on that userpage) and what was later communicated to me privately by former Arbs), I don't take the rules and the way they are enforced here seriously. Count Iblis (talk) 19:55, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The user you're talking about has not commented here at all, as far as I know. So what has that user's situation got to do with anything here? If you don't stand by the words on you user page, you should delete them. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:48, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

As a late viewer here, I have to say that I have no real idea of what the original problem was because there are no links to it. I sort of gather it was in the Maths desk and had something to do with the Millennium Prize, but apart from that, I'm totally in the dark and unable to contribute anything of value here. Sad really. Your loss. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:25, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

For sure. Yes, the question was that one that keeps popping up, somebody asking us what we would do with a million dollars - a question in total violation of the rule about how we don't answer questions asking for opinions. It's a question that cannot be answered with anything that meets Wikipedia guidelines. Hence, it needs to be zapped. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:43, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually it seems to me that this has been a problem for both threads and because of the post going back and forth there was always a good chance you'd miss it. I had to check CI's contribs yesterday to find what was being discussed [4]. And I'm still not really sure why we need 2 long threads on this talk page which basically concern the same thing. It seems to me this discussion could have continued under the existing thread or as a subthread of the existing thread which is only one thread above. Nil Einne (talk) 23:42, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, they could be combined. As I said earlier, it's the standard ref desk endless loop. Someone posts an inappropriate question, someone else zaps it, and then someone argues about it here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:45, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

@ Jack, above, the question on the Math Desk had nothing to do with the millenium prize, the OP never said any such thing. The OP asked what "you" would do with a million dollars. The original deletion was noted in the thread above "trolling removed". Count Iblis was asked to join that existing discussion and take note of its existing consensus five hours before he started this new thread. Rather than retain the integrity of that thread with a consensus in favor of the deletion, which he denied existed, Iblis started this new thread with the title "disruptive edit warring by medeis".

There's a whole lot of bad faith going on here, ignoring discussions that have been brought to one's attention, denying plain facts about the rules and the actual existing consensus, attributing words to the OP he never said. All for what? μηδείς (talk) 00:01, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I skimmed the "trolling removed" thread, and I read this one, but I had no sense they were related, so thanks for the clarification. Effective communication on this talk page seems to be taking a back seat to polemics and ego-posturing. Plus ça change etc. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:18, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes actually that's another problem. I came across this thread early on, misread it and thought it was referring to something in humanities but checking out CI's contrib history I got confused since there was nothing from CI there recently, in fact the most recent stuff related to the earlier maths thread. Then I reread and realised I had confused myself and CI was referring to something in the math desk so it must have been that, and in context it became clearer what CI was complaining about. However the message is fairly confusing, it's the sort of thing which would be fine on μηδείς's talk page or perhaps even in reply to μηδείς here but it's very confusing (not to mention silly) to start a new subthread let alone a new thread when you're really just addressing one person.Nil Einne (talk) 12:34, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I thought it was better to start this thread, because the disruption has little to do with the other thread; whether or not one can argue in the abstract that in principle the question asked by the OP should be deleted is irrelevant to the disruption caused by constantly deleting an ongoing conversation. Medeis had already escalated things by posting on my talk page and threatening to go to AN/I, posting on her talk page would not do any good. AN/I is not a good venue to discuss this.

A factor here is also that unlike in case of Wiki articles, we don't have a talk page coupled to each subject. What happened here would be similar to having just a few talk pages for all the Wiki articles we have that most editors of the articles then don't pay attention to. You could then get the crazy situation that the editors editing the Manning article would edit constructively together, reaching some good agreement on the naming issue. But on some obscure talk page that no one of these editors pays much attention to, Baseball Bugs and Medeis and a few others who are not engaged in editing that article would reach some "consensus" among themselves on the naming issues and Medeis would then implement that "consensus", which would of course be almost guaranteed to be perceived to be disruptive by the editors.

I think a long time ago, Jimbo did something like that. Based on complaints about Commons that he agreed with to some degree, he went over to Commons and started to delete files there. But that led to an angry backlash, Jimbo's actions were all undone. Count Iblis (talk) 14:53, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The fact is you're complaining about the same thread and deletion which was already been discussed. If you don't want to talk in the abstract but want to talk about the disruption caused by deleting the thread, it makes even less sense to open a new thread when there is already a thread discussing the very deletion you are complaining about. In addition as has already been stated, if you want to involve the wider community in the discussion, it would help if people actually know what you are talking about, so a link to the thread being discussed, and an actual explaination, not simply telling μηδείς to do something. If you're just going to tell μηδείς to do stuff and leave the rest of the community scratching their heads over what the heck you are talking about, then yes, that's best left on μηδείς's talk page as it doesn't concern the community (nor can they reasonably be expected to offer much help). I would note as I've also said before it doesn't really matter if you're a regular at the maths desk, as there's still a good chance a regular would have missed the thread that was being pingponged between deletion and undeletion. As it stands, I don't really agree with μηδείς's actions, but I haven't bothered to voice it yet and I'm not likely to offer any further explaination because I've already wasted enough of my time being confused and working out what the heck was being discussed and pointing out the problems in the way the whole thing was approached, plus the way this whole thing was handled by you, particularly you insisting there was a good reason to open another thread just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. In fact, I now realised there are three threads on this talk page basically discussing the same thing, two of them (which are also the two I was already aware of and the later two) started by you which further reenforces my view. I had thought the earlier discussion was on a related issue but was about a different thread. Nil Einne (talk) 15:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I should have looked better at this talk page, but I didn't notice that the thread started by Medeis was in fact about the discussion on the math desk. That's why I started the second thread. The reason that I didn't see it is quite obvious, because "trolling removed" doesn't seem to be even remotely related to the discussion on the math desk, and if you miss BB's reply to Medeis where he cites the OP's question about the million dollars, you have no clue whatsoever that this is in fact about that same discussion (there was already a huge discssiopn at that point, so BB's first comment was burried in there).

Anyway, I do think that discussions here are not productive. It's best to dismiss any claim of "consensus" reached here as totally irrelevant and not even bother taking part in any discussions here. Count Iblis (talk) 19:55, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

No, there is consensus above to close the math desk nonsense. What exactly it benefits you to dismiss that truth I still can't understand. Can you explain why it is so necessary to you that the rules be undermined? Is making the ref desks a joke somehow in your interest? μηδείς (talk) 03:50, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't look like consensus so much as confusion, 95% of the above is bickering and confusion over this being split between two threads. I don't see an issue with it being hatted, personally, since it is still easily accessed- although, I don't believe there was any strong reason to hat/remove it to begin with.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:39, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Medeis didn't hat it, she repeatedly deleted it in the midst of the regulars talking to each other, thereby disruptively interrupting that ongoing conversation. Whatever the problems with the OP's question, you can't just delete that thread, especially not if you already got the feedback from more than one participant in that discussion that they object to the deletion (which also implies that there was no consensus for deletion). There would be quite a few other ways to end the discussion at that venue in a less disruptive way like hatting, moving the discussion to user pages etc. etc. (I was in the process of moving this discussion to my talk page, but someone restored when I had copied it there; had it not been restored, I would have posted a notice in the talk page of the few people who were participating in that thread allowing the discussion to proceed)

Medeis seems to be hell bent on seeing this as a sort of video game where you score points for an action like hatting or deleting and then be able to defend whatever action you've taken in order to keep your points. Once an action is taken and it later transpires that there are some problems with this, she will tend to dismiss those problems and argue that the process leading to that decision was handled correctly. But this is exactly what WP:BURO says we should not do. Count Iblis (talk) 15:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Are you still going on about that "What would you do with a million dollars?" or is it something else? Because if it's the million dollars, that is an unacceptable question. It's directly asking for a personal, unciteable opinion, and that's against the guidelines. (Unless you're still standing by your statement that you don't believe in rules here.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:01, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm tallking about a discussion on the Fields Medal and a math desk regular asking me about my theoretical physics background being disruptively deleted. That the OP asked about what we would do with $ 1 million is neither here nor there. Correcting a problem by causing other more severe problems is stupid. Count Iblis (talk) 16:13, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

What does the OP's question have to do with this "Fields Medal" you keep bringing up? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:16, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

It can be argued to be related to it, but one can also argue that the question is inappropriate. Either way, Medeis was wrong to delete the whole thread because by the time she did that, the discssion on the Fields Medal had already started. At most the OP's question could have been deleted or hatted, or some toehr non-disruptive action could have been taken. Having gotten the feedback after her first deletion from one math desk regular (not me) that her action was diruptive, she continued, then she got independent feedback from another regular (me) that her action was disruptive, but she still continued and then she started to threaten me with referral to AN/I. She wanted to push through her original action to deal with the OP's question come what may, regardless of all the collateral damage. Count Iblis (talk) 16:25, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

There is no indication that any open-ended question about a million dollars has anything to do with a medal. If you're so determined to keep your pearls of wisdom visible, then your best bet is to invent a question about that medal and separate comments about it from the original question, and then delete the original question as it is inappropriate for the ref desk. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:29, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't have to do that (also I was asked questions that I answered), it was up to Medeis who made a big deal about a problem to go about solving that problem in an appropriate way. She was behaving like a waiter who is going to clean up your table while you are still eating, taking away your dish while you haven't even finished yet because of some problem with your original order. BB, "Waiter bring back my steak, I haven't finished yet!". Waiter, "Sorry, consensus reached in the kitchen is that your original order had some errors, it was inappropriate for us to have served you the dish you got. You have to order again". BB, "but there was no problem with my meal!", Waiter, "Sorry, we have to stick to our rules here.". Count Iblis (talk) 17:02, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Of course you don't have to do anything in particular - as your user page asserts, rules don't apply to you. By implication, rules only apply to others. Although I could give you the same lecture that others tend to give to me: "Either answer the OP's question, or don't comment." And since the OP's question is unanswerable according to the guidelines here, that should have been the end of it. If you want to start a discussion on some medal or another, that's a separate topic under a separate heading. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:31, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

In general, I would agree that the over-zealous police-man act from Medeis (And to a lesser extent Baseball Bugs) causes roughly as much disruption as it fixes, if not more, and I wish they would both take a more pragmatic, thoughtful approach.

However, this is about the million dollar question? Really? APL (talk) 22:07, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Apparently so. But this is why I almost never hat or delete things. They should be proposed here and discussed, and at least some of this usual endless-loop brouhaha could be avoided. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:31, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

That I completely agree with. APL (talk) 22:41, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why we can't just apply the standard procedure of "Bold-Revert-Discuss". Further commented on, at the bottom of the page in Jack's addendum. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:06, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Malware removed

I removed this q because it set my security system buzzing bigtime with warnings about Trojans and other malware. I couldn’t get it to play the alleged Powerpoint file at all.

The user has been visiting the refdesks on and off since June and I’m not aware of any previous issues, so I’m AGF here. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:49, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to go near that item, but is the editor communicative? Maybe he should be warned that he might have major problems brewing on his PC and doesn't know about it. (AGF, likewise). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:20, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I've left a message on his (until now red-linked) talk page. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:44, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I got your message. I ran a scan for threats with "Symantec Endpoint Protection" and no risks were found. My firewall is active and I didn't get any warning about the file - are you sure it's corrupt? What antivirus are you using? 84.109.248.221 (talk) 13:50, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The Powerpoint file itself seems fine [5] [6] [7]. Perhaps it was an ad or something on the site although sendspace is I believe one of the better file sharing sites. As with many similar sites, most of the download links are ads to dubious stuff, the link you want to click on is 'Click here to start download from sendspace' which is roughly in the middle. If you clicked on anything else, it's no wonder you got complaints of malware and trojans. Nil Einne (talk) 15:27, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Nil Einne. I thought I did click the link you described, but maybe not. I've done it again, and it seems to be accessing it OK now, but I still can't play the PP file, so I'm still no better off.

All I can say is that if a supposedly safe and respected file sharing site comes with extremely UNsafe ads plastered all over it, which look for all the world to an IT dummy like valid links to the file you're after, then the entire site is unsafe. I feel quite justified in having removed the question. If someone else wishes to restore it, that's their call, but there should be some sort of prominent warning. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:17, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Question doesn't make sense

Someone hatted a question on RDS because the question didn't make sense. That's just silly. It's more appropriate to ask the OP what they are talking about. I removed the hat. 163.202.48.126 (talk) 07:27, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

This[8] is from the same guy who keeps asking, over and over, how the Big Bang could have occurred from "nothing". If you see any value in that question about TV screens or whatever, feel free to try to answer it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:25, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

One can try to translate into Arabic and then back to English, tweaking the options for the translation of the words. Count Iblis (talk) 14:20, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Or one can box it up as being nonsense. If you've bothered to check, you've seen that the same subnet keeps asking basically the same question over and over... and it's already been answered. If you think keeping that nonsense visible is so important, maybe you could field all the questions coming from that subnet henceforth, and then maybe the light might start to come on. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:40, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I oppose blanking, deleting or hatting questions like this. This is a slippery slope.

Once we start to box/hide/delete questions that don't make sense, we're going to have people who simply do not understand a perfectly valid question getting rid of it. Many times, someone has come here and asked a seemingly nonsensical question only for a later respondent to point out that the words do actually mean something - maybe in a small field of knowledge or perhaps the words are a quotation that's meaningful or a misspelling that one of us will recognize. We're really not short of disk space or space on the page - so I think we should avoid deleting or otherwise hiding questions which seem at first glance to be nonsense.

But that's not the only problem in this particular case. We've always had periodic issues with some person who has a particular bee in their bonnet going on and on about the same topic. The one that irked me the most and got most coverage here was "Planet colors guy"...but there have been (and continue to be) many others. We have to be very careful about these kinds of people. They are often well-meaning and genuinely curious - if a bit odd. We're required to WP:AGF and assume that they are genuinely trying to understand something.

Another kinda-related thing is when one person asks many questions per day - even though they are all perfectly valid, this can get annoying too.

I would urge caution and politeness. If you can't understand a question and nobody else does within a day or so - then by all means post a simple one-line reply asking for clarification - and leave it at that. These people get bored and go away when nobody answers them. It's rather unfortunate that we can't help them - especially when the question is garbage because it was automatically translated into English. I really wish the other Wikipedia language sections would start up their own Reference Desks so this kind of thing would not be necessary...but we have no way to make that actually happen.

SteveBaker (talk) 20:29, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

• I agree one should ask for an unclear question to be explained. But at some point WP:COMPETENCE. μηδείς (talk) 21:33, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:COMPETENCE applies to editors - not to people asking questions on the Ref Desks. SteveBaker (talk) 02:30, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Sez who? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:24, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The language of WP:COMPETENCE, mainly.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 03:50, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Anyone who edits wikipedia is an editor. Are you trying to set up sockpuppet or troll or single purpose account or some other group as a formally different class of editor, Phoenixia? μηδείς (talk) 03:57, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

That rule seems to apply to editing the actual content of Wikipedia, I doubt it was intended to apply to people asking questions on the reference desk. You seem to favour a very narrow interpretation of rules and terms, especially when it supports you, I don't- there's nothing that gives your reading more weight, or if there is is, I haven't seen it.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:14, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:COMPETENCE is listed as an essay and there does not appear to be mutual agreement to if it applies to questioners here, I fail to see how it is relevant at all.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:24, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

COMPETENCE is regularly applied to problems only caused on talk pages etc. By no means does it apply to articles only. I'm pretty sure it's likely been applied to problems only caused on more normal wikipedia pages like noticeboards and policy pages or guidelines but I can't recall any example off hand. COMPETENCE may be an essay, but the principle has lead to blocks and even I think bans, probably because the principles are supported by wider guidelines and policies. That said, I'm not suggesting we start to revert contribs from the specific editor. Nil Einne (talk) 09:14, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The guiding principle here is WP:AGF. Until someone has actually been proven to be a sock or some other miscreant, we have to assume that they are genuinely asking a real question and that they care about the answer and that our duty is to help them however we can. There cannot be some standard of competence by which they are judged - mostly because we only hear a few sentences from them (insufficient to judge a person by) - and we recognize that people who don't have the common sense to type their question into Google before asking us may need more help with life than the typical big-brained computer-literate internet-savvy Wikipedia editor. Many of our questioners are not native English speakers - others are very naive about the subject that they're asking about - yet more are small children or people with very low IQ's.

We have to be VERY careful how we deal with the general public. We are a rare part of the public face of Wikipedia where people who are not in the business of writing an encyclopedia - but instead merely using it - come into one-on-one contact with actual for-real Wikipedians like us. For that reason, our standards of behavior here are very important. This is a serious responsibility. When dealing with the general public - we simply MUST be unfailingly polite. Never, ever, demeaning - forgiving of breaches of Wikipedia rules - not poking holes at their grammar, spelling, vocabulary or weird choice of question - not making fun of seemingly weird life-styles or incomprehensible problems.

That said, there are undoubtedly very annoying people out there - we must deal with them without breaching the unspoken code of politeness, etc. So, when a question is too unclear to provide an answer, let us ask for a clarification and provide no further input until/unless we get one. If it's a question about what dog poop tastes like - let individual Ref Desk staff choose to simply not answer - or to actually find a good answer - your choice. When behavior edges into the trollish - we don't feed the troll because it's widely known that this is the only thing that deters them. Overall, we need to be careful and handle the public with kid gloves. We can employ humor in our replies - but never at the expense of the questioner - and only rarely at the expense of other respondants. We need to be approachable, yet professional. We need to treat our OP's as friends and customers.

For all of those reasons, the more rigorous standards that Wikipedia editors are held to simply do not apply to our OP's. If Wikipedia rules don't say that, then this is one of those rare (but important) times to invoke WP:IAR - and to write our own RefDesk-specific community standards to explain why that is.

SteveBaker (talk) 13:51, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

When a user asks the same question over and over, despite it having been answered, that's trolling and is subject to deletion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:31, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Kudos for seeing the bigger picture here, Steve. I pretty much agree with everything you said. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:45, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Have you read the so-called question in this particular case? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:06, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Me? Why, yes. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:08, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Kudos. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:01, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem is your idea of the separation of the general public and encyclopaedia editors doesn't make much sense. Plenty of people who leave comments on talk page aren't really interested in building an encyclopaedia. They just want to note problems and are just as much or just as little 'wikipedians' as question askers. In fact, this comes to an extreme in BLP cases where a person may have little interest in actually building an encyclopaedia but understandably want problems relating to them corrected. While this may be part of building an encyclopaedia, they're just as much as a 'general public' as question askers, and have even more expectations to be treated fairly particularly when they have a legitimate point about the problems with their article. But this doesn't mean we don't hold them to any standards. Of course we do, we try to help them and treat them as fairly as possible. But ultimately if they can't behave reasonably with us for whatever reason, they will may find themselves blocked, whether. And it's entirely reasonably for us to expect the 'general public' to behave within certain standards on wikipedia no matter where they are. And if they fail to do so after repeated attempts to help them, it's entirely resonable for them to be blocked for it. Again as I said in my initial reply I'm not suggesting any specific action with this question asker, in fact I fully support leaving the question in place and asking for clarification. I'm simply pointing out your idea that we are some super special area of wikipedia where no standards apply or question askers (or answerers for that matter as not everyone answering a question has any real involvement in the rest of wikipedia nor any desire to have any) can get away with anything if they're not malicious because they're the 'general public' is flawed and has been rejected before. In fact continuing to express this belief is the sort of thing that contributes to stuff like that silly RFC a few months back. Note that this doesn't mean we don't WP:AGF. It's just that it's well accepted that just because someone is acting in good faith doesn't mean they can't be blocked if they seem unable to change and are causing genuine problems. The belief that someone acting in good faith can't be blocked for the problems they cause is a common misconception. We are less likely to block them and will generally be given more chance to improve but ultimately if you're causing problems on wikipedia, whatever area of wikipedia, then yes you can be blocked for it, at it's core that is what CIR is about. To give a good example, someone who keeps deleting an entire RD page when asking questions no matter how much people have tried to help them and provide advice is ultimately likely to be blocked for WP:COMPETENCE reasons if possible, even if we have no reason not to believe it isn't simple user error. And definitely even in the first case it isn't unreasonable for someone to simply revert even if they see that the person asked a question and could have copied it (which is not to say the question shouldn't be added back, but we don't expect people have to do so when correcting a good faith but serious problem). (Incidentally, since the encyclopaedia itself is much more public facing than the RD and when we defame someone in an article as sadly as happened before this is a much more serious thing then an OP being treated poorly which of course also has happened before.) Nil Einne (talk) 07:26, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Hatting/ Unhatting

I unhatted this question [9], which Medeis had hatted, saying "not a forum". We can certainly provide references that address the question, without engaging in any opinions etc. I have supplied a reference, and I am certain better references can be added if anyone cares to. I believe there is nothing wrong with this question, and post here as a courtesy to μηδείς. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:27, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

That's fine. The question lies in the header, and you have answered it. The essay soliciting personal opinions is unnecessary, and can stay hatted. μηδείς (talk) 21:32, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

You could have waited, I don't know, maybe four whole minutes before just re-instating the hat. That might actually allow you to see how the community here sees the question, and whether it should be hatted. That would be a better way to build consensus. Whatever. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:38, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Medeis, pardon me for asking, but how does "Predict your co-workers' behaviour, and don't exceed it. Adjust your behaviour on the following day according to your observations on the first. Repeat" accord with "We don't give personal tips about our own knowledge of how to get get by and enjoy life"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Feel free to hat that thread, Jack, then get back to me. μηδείς (talk) 03:42, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not into hatting except in clearly egregious cases of Ref Desk rule/guideline violation, which yours is not. But it seems to break your own rule, and that troubles me more. If one is going to assume the role of blackboard monitor, one needs to be squeaky clean in one's own behaviour, whether in regard to the generally agreed standards or to one's own publicly declared higher standards. Otherwise one would be invoking Muphry's law, and I rather doubt your surname is Muphry. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 13:30, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes - we can all find endless numbers of cases where Medis has done things like that - you can find one for almost every day that Medis has been answering questions here. It's fine - this is how the reference desk has always operated - and it works. We do need references for controversial claims and matters that are not obvious. The standard Wikipedia WP:V guideline is what we're aiming to follow...although we relax it by allowing (actually, even preferring) references from within Wikipedia rather than requiring strict adherence to WP:RS - and by allowing some degree of WP:SYNTH where facts from disparate sources are pulled together to make an answer. SteveBaker (talk) 02:26, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem with some of this over-enthusiastic hatting is that "someone" has not noticed that Reliable Sources are not required for obvious facts. To quote from WP:V "Attribute all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable, published source". I don't have to find a source for "water is wet" or "the sky is blue". Similarly, when someone asks for some suggestions for what to do in a house without electricity at night, things like "listen to a wind-up radio" or "learn to play a musical instrument" do not need referencing because they are simply not likely to be challenged. It is obviously true that you can learn to play most musical instruments by flashlight...I don't need a reference to make that suggestion to our OP.

Those statements are also not matters of personal opinion. It isn't simply my opinion that you could do those things to amuse yourself - it's a fact.

Unnecessary hatting is evil - it in no way improves the reference desk.

SteveBaker (talk) 02:26, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Absolute bullshit. Of the last 30 hattings most will belong to other editors whom I shan't name since tehy've done nothing wrong. Try providing diffs for your accusations, rather than posting such lies. μηδείς (talk) 03:48, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

There are certain editors here, a junior-high-school-like clique, who from time to time feel the need to find somebody to scapegoat, when their ownership of the ref desk is challenged. This is one of those times. And it's the usual double-standard. If someone in their clique did that hatting or deleting, you wouldn't hear a peep out of the others. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

No, using sarin gas on people is evil. Hatting is nothing. You can always look under the hat and see if there's a reasonable question there. (Of which "What would you do with a million dollars?" does NOT qualify.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:23, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

It's evil, don't touch it. IT'S EVIL! DON'T TOUCH IT	!
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Pure Evil: DO NOT TOUCH!!! This odd notion that hatting things kills people makes me laugh. The same with the idea that people who ask questions at the ref desk aren't editors. But then maybe some of our editors are just notions of the matrix,and they can't unhat things. How horrible that fate must be. μηδείς (talk) 03:33, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

So, you're not actually going to answer any of the substantive points made in earlier posts? Instead merely attempt to deflect a serious and important discussion with failed attempts at humor. This is very typical of a Baseball Bugs reply but I had thought Medis could do better. So, again: Medis makes un-RS'ed replies all the time - yet randomly decides to hat responses that are not RS'ed - he claims (above) that hatting is both so crucially important that it should continue despite widespread disapproval - yet is effectively so trivial as to not matter if/when you get it wrong. WP:V makes it clear that for obvious facts, you don't need RS.

How about you guys get out of the clown suits and engage in some serious discussions of your behavior here? Both of you guys show up in far too many complaints here - just look back at the archives over the past few months. There is clearly little doubt amongst Ref Desk veterans that we'd be better off without either of you. You are both rude and unfeeling towards our questioners, dismissive of genuine requests for information and contribute more problems and internal dissent than actual answers to serious questions. You turn almost every reasonable request for information into a cause for jokes or the invocation of supposed rules and guidelines about questions that don't actually exist or shouldn't be applied here. Substantive questions about your behaviors are deflected with nonsense. I think I speak for almost all of us here who genuinely wish to provide a useful, high quality service to real people with real questions: You are useless to us. We don't want you here anymore. We'd like you both to quietly go away and do something else...please...before this gets any more ugly than it already is.

So go ahead - make more dumb jokes - deflect criticism with random BS about sarin gas and how hats don't kill...we can wait. SteveBaker (talk) 13:30, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

You call something so trivial as hatting "evil" and you've got the nerve to lecture us? Take off your own clown suit... and the several others you're probably wearing under it. Then go away from the ref desk for some appropriate time period until you've got your priorities realigned. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:28, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Per wiktionary: "Evil(computing, programming, slang) undesirable; harmful; bad practice." Now, how about you stop deflecting and discuss the issues. SteveBaker (talk) 19:30, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

BB's consensus building efforts in the Bradley/Chelsea Manning dispute :). Count Iblis (talk) 19:52, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I was on the right side of the rules in that case. Not that you care anything about rules. Although if you were to remove that offensive material from your user page, that would be a step in the right direction towards establishing your credibility. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:03, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Why don't you then participate in that case? I haven't seen any evidence or Workshop entries by you. I was far less involved in that case, but I still proposed a principle based on my ideas about IAR. Now that you've raised my comments on my userpage again, why not give your comments to my workshop entry? Count Iblis (talk) 21:07, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

(1) Because I was getting sick of that debate; and (2) I was told that mainstream media are now saying "Chelsea", which renders the entire issue moot. Although, if they took their lead from Wikipedia, then shame on Wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:02, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

What rubbish! If the media took their lead from Wikipedia, then shame on the media for abrogating their jobs. If we follow what the mainstream media do, that is exactly what we're supposed to be doing. You'll object and say we used Chelsea first; all that means is that we are not tardy in following our own protocols and naming conventions, particularly about high-profile subjects. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

As I said, I'm sick to death of that topic. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:28, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Why try to hijack this back to point (1)? Your malaise was not so debilitating as to prevent you from making another point only 30 minutes ago. Have you had a relapse? I was responding to your point (2), obviously. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:43, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

My argument from the beginning (clear back to the late winter when the advocates were lobbying for "Breanna" Manning) was that the alleged name change was not properly sourced as Wikipedia rules require. Once it was properly sourced, there was no further reason to get into it. In fact, when someone asserted that mainstream sources were now saying "Chelsea", my first thought was, "Thank goddess, I can be done with this now." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:55, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure you weren't the only one heaving sighs of relief. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:00, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Bugs, being on "the right side of the rules" is often a subjective call. Even in situations where the rules are hard and fast, reasonable people can legitimately, honestly disagree on how best to apply them, and which rules apply to which situations. Your own personal determination on that question is only one of many.

Furthermore, On Wikipedia it's explicitly permissible to violate the rules if there is consensus to do so. So therefore even your opinion that the rules should be followed at all in any given case is just one opinion of many.

Saying that you were "on the right side of the rules" does not carry the weight you think it does. It is not, as you seem to think, a fact that trumps all else and should shut down all debate. And that, fundamentally, is why you find this talk:refdesk experience so frustrating, and why others find you so frustrating.

APL (talk) 22:36, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I must admit that being right most of the time is a heavy burden. But I have big shoulders. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:41, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

If this is likely to become another formal RFC/U, or a less formal procdedure with similar effects, I don't believe that we'd be justified in implementing sanctions against Medeis and/or Bugs (or any other regular - I'm sure we could all come up with very long lists ) merely for being annoying. The focus has to be on active _disruption_. I would therefore suggest two possible working rules:

1. Medeis is not to hat or delete anything. This may be draconian, but there are plenty more eyes on the desks that can spot anything for which deletion or hatting will be uncontroversial.
2. Nobody is to post joke replies until at least one substantive reply has been posted.

Of course, I expect to get it in the neck for this, but it's what we're here for. Tevildo (talk) 20:22, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

No, you can't play favorites. The only fair thing is to declare a moratorium on ALL hatting and/or deleting. Talk about it here first, and then let the regulars decide what to do, if anything. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:04, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

BS. It entirely reasonable and rather common for there to be sanctions against editors that the community has identified as having a particular bad habit but is otherwise a good editor.

(You recall a particular editor was banned from making spelling corrections of any kind.) APL (talk) 22:15, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Cuddlyable3, who used to rag editors mercilessly for spelling and usage mistakes, especially Jayron32. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:47, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I would be in favor of both the sanction against Medeis hatting things on the RefDesk, and a (stronger) prohibition against joke answers before a thread is resolved. APL (talk) 22:15, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

How would you "resolve" a thread that begins "What would you do with a million dollars?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:29, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Someone other than Medeis could hat it. If that hatting is contested and unhatted,It would not be worth wasting time over, so I would leave it unhatted. APL (talk) 22:36, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

(And to anticipate your next question. A Medical advice or BLP issue would be worth discussing, but after it was unhatted I would still not re-hat it until the discussion seemed to be approaching some sort of consensus. There are no police here.)APL (talk) 22:38, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm just curious what you think the right response is to a question asking editors for their personal opinions on something. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:44, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm happy to satisfy your curiosity!

If it seemed uncontroversially an opinion question and there weren't yet any serious replies, I'd probably hat it if I noticed it. But, And this is the important part, if someone contested it or reverted me, I'd just shrug my shoulders and move on with my life.

If something like that is contested, especially if it's not BLP or medical, it's far better to leave alone it for the people who do think it should be left alone. Even if I'm 100% sure that those people are wrong, nothing worthwhile can come from debate or revert-warring over it.

Basically, if in doubt, just leave it. It's not my job to enforce the rules on other people for the sake of enforcing the rules. If we leave a rule unenforced but no harm is done, then we haven't failed at anything, but if somebody provokes an argument or revert war that achieves nothing, then that is a failure. APL (talk) 00:28, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

@Steve, there's no substantive point to address. The claim that I am out of line hatting things according to the rules is pure nonsense. Anyone's s entitled, just as they are entitled to remove comments by wickwack and so forth. And, once again, there's another editor or editor here whose hatted far more things than I over this summer, whom no one is complaining about, and whom I am not going to mention, because they haven't done anything wrong. Even THIS HAT "What are you do if I give $ 1 Millon ?" is supported by a majority of editors who commented when I brought it up above under "trolling deleted". So get your diffs of who's hatted what this summer and post them, and, until then, bugger off with the unsupported accusations. μηδείς (talk) 23:02, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Is anyone even still deleting wickwack's stuff? I mostly gave up because I seemed to be the only one doing it and I didn't want this to become a me versus them scenario and I've seen several responses since then and a look at the science desk history suggests no deletions relating to that in the past 6 days or so. Nil Einne (talk) 07:28, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Quasi 3-Revert Rule

How about a prohibition on any one editor hatting a thread or part thereof any more than X times a month? But no limit to discussions back here. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:49, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

What if it's well off the map, like "What's causing this horrible pain in my lower right abdomen?" or someone like LC asking questions about screwing dogs or about "Uranus"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:53, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

(e/c, ironically) We could laterally set X equal to 6, and call it the "De Bono Rule", in honour of Edward de Bono and his Six Thinking Hats. After all, thinking is something we should all be doing here, rather than being the first to react so quickly that one's knees disintegrate from all the ferocious jerking to which they're subjected. (If you think I'm talking about you, you're probably right.) Also, I like the idea of "de bono" as the wellspring of good things. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:57, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

That's good. I got nothin'. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:59, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

In reference to my mini-discussion with APL farther up the page, maybe we're overlooking the obvious: Bold-Revert-Discuss. Someone hats or deletes something, it either stands or gets reverted. Then the reversion stands until or if it gets discussed here. That seems simple enough. The main thing is to not argue the issue too much in front of the OP. If the OP comes here to add to the discussion, that's another matter. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:04, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The ref-desks seem to have adopted a similar policy of Bold-Revert-NameCall

It's not really a 'discussion' anymore if people are being called "troll sympathizers" or whatnot. APL (talk) 00:38, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

• Would you provide the diff here of the reason for suggesting this rule forbidding application of the rules, Jack? Are you suggesting you think hatting "What are you do if I give $ 1 Millon?" was so egregious we need a draconian new rules structure? μηδείς (talk) 23:07, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

There is no diff I could provide. I'm not suggesting we forbid application of the rules, not remotely. Simply a refinement.

Just as one editor may do 4 million reverts in a single day as long as they're all to different edits and it isn't otherwise disruptive or vandalistic, but may not do more than 3 reverts to the one edit, I'm suggesting the above as something worth thinking about. We've had numerous palavers here about the frequency and appropriateness of hatting and deletion, and for better or worse one editor's name gets mentioned more than any other. I'm not sure what that means about that editor, if anything. But it does seem to be sub-optimal, if the attitudes of the rest of the community are anything to go by. And in a collaborative environment like this, the attitudes of the rest of the community are always important.

So, if one editor feels disposed to hat or delete stuff noticeably more often than most, such a rule might help to either cause them to rethink, or maybe bring it here for discussion first.

Naturally, each individual hatting or deletion must still be in accordance with our protocols. Maybe it's time we codified just exactly what our hatting and deletion protocols are, so that we're all on the same page. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:25, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

As a mathematics refdesk regular, I can say that threads that stray outside the bounds of the guidelines there are not normally a problem. (I would say that, almost unequivocally, unless some busybody with nothing better to do makes it a problem—in which case it should be clear to all concerned who the disruptive party is.) Obvious trolling is obvious to basically everyone, so hatting/deletion isn't a problem. When there is a concrete, policy-based reason (e.g., no medical advice), then it should be similarly acceptable to remove a thread. But when it is potentially controversial among refdesk regulars whether a thread is within the guidelines or not, it's better neither to to delete nor hat. If it the would-be hatter feels that some crypto-trolling is going on, then an amusing DFTT image might even clueify some of the contributors. Also, please remember that this talk page is not very widely watched. If you feel that you must delete or hat a thread that might be controversial, then it should be standard operating procedure to template everyone involved in the discussion, informing them of the discussion that should take place here.

User:Baseball Bugs has whined many times even in my brief acquaintance with this talk page that it is too much involved with such discussions. Well boo-hoo: If that's true, then the obvious solution is that each reference desk should have its own discussion page. (Imagine that!) If this were the case, then most likely participants would already be watchlisting the page, and the load would be lighter for stalwart and exhausted defenders of the wiki like Baseball Bugs. Sławomir Biały (talk) 00:25, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

That's been discussed here before. The consensus was hattings can be signed on the spot and deletions should be mentioned on the talk page, which is exactly what happened in this case. It was decided it was not necessary (it was not decided it was necessary) to notify people individually by template. OP's are supposed to be watching for answers in any case. μηδείς (talk) 02:05, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I wonder how often the math desk gets questions like, "I think I've ruptured my hypotenuse - what should I do?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:35, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Don't worry. You can replace it with the root of the sum of the squares of the other two sides. APL (talk) 00:41, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

So there's no rule against mathical advice? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:04, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I like your initial proposal, and I also like Bugs' suggestion at 23:04 above. I will follow both as general guidelines, and hope that other regulars will too. SemanticMantis (talk) 01:58, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

My own proposal: violations that require immediate attention (BLP, Medical, Legal) are dealt with on sight, then discussed here. Violations of rules that are not egregious (requests for opinion, forum, etc.) can be discussed here first, and unless a consensus to not hat is reached within a specified time frame, the person raising the issue deals with the matter. Questions of the second type are not damaging enough that they can't be dealt with after a delay, and if we can't reach some agreement on the matter (perhaps even just a vote of who's about) in a timely fashion, there's no reason to imagine there would be legitimate agreement after the fact either.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 09:02, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Good luck on the BLP thing. Some of the most inflamed arguments on Wikipedia have been about BLP issues - often seemingly trivial stuff like when and where someone was born. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:06, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Phoenixia. I like the idea of treating the two classes of questions differently. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 09:16, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

You are apparently unaware that there is often severe disagreement about what constitutes medical advice, for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:07, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

It's really good to hear you acknowledging that, Bugs. Normally what we get is one editor or group of editors implacably insisting a certain question/answer is MA and another group vehemently denying it's any such thing, with no common ground where both sides recognise there is more than one valid perspective. While there's life, there's hope. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 12:20, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

BB - what (I think) Phoenixia is saying is that if you think a question is MA then treat it as such. If you think a question is a request for opinion / forum / nonsense / etc then first come here before hatting. If there is no consensus to hat such questions then they should remain on the desks. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 13:05, 13 September 2013 (UTC)