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yeah. -- Dweller 22:08, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Hi I browse, i guess like most of us, the different sections of the ref desk, humanities, science, etc. But then of course I'm usually at the bottom of the page reading the last posts. So every time I have to go back up to click on the link. I know this only takes a well aimed push of the home key but somehow it makes it very frustrating, it seems so unnecessary. Could please someone add the links to the different sections of the desk at the bottom of the page? Tadaaam. Keria 22:01, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="' + ' http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User:Froth/refdeskmodv2.js' + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');
See the comments above. I wrote a script to add a navigation box to the bottom of the RDs for convenience, and put my various tries at WP:RD/TOOLS. Check em out. I didn't want to put them in a subpage of my userpage, because maybe other people have scripts to share? -- froth t 03:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I toned down the language in this template, which is nominated for TFD. Please feel free to evaluate it and change it if necessary. bibliomaniac 1 5 04:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Click here to learn more about it. a.z. 18:07, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Can someone review this comment and figure out what (if anything) User:65.163.112.225 is complaining about? I'm currently on the R/V Wecoma in the middle of Dabob Bay with not nearly enough bandwidth to properly investigate. Thanks. — Steve Summit ( talk) 06:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
We have a winner -- Dweller 09:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Should we have a list of regular contributors to the Reference Desks? I think it would be useful to have it in case you're working on an article in need of expertise. bibliomaniac 1 5 00:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
And the Computing Desk gets off the mark. Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing#EMail_ID_-_3rd_post -- Dweller 13:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to toss this out here, not sure how many computing desk "regulars" read the talk page, but anyway - when somebody comes to use with a question or problem using Windows, can we please refrain from the "just install Linux, n00b!" or "get a Mac, LOL!" responses? In general, those are not helpful to the issue at hand, and I don't think they give a good impression to the questioner. Anybody who wants that type of response can get it pretty much everywhere else on the web. We should not be here to proselytize for our favorite OS (or browser or whatever). Yes, we all know that Windows has lots of problems, and perhaps a complete change of computing platform would be a great solution to all of them. In the meantime, somebody who just wants to change file extensions without an annoying nag box probably wants an immediate solution, not a weekend project. -- LarryMac | Talk 15:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
While there's nothing wrong with "Unfortunatly, that's not changeable in Windows, but it would be in Linux", it's bloody annoying to read through nothing but "WTF windowz sux0rz. Linux 4evah." It's not helpful, it's not answering questions. It's better to not have anyone answer at all - meaning nobody knows - than just "LOL your OS sux0rz." What are we, 12? This isn't the "Switch to Linux" desk, nor the "Non-Windows Computing Help Desk" - the fact is, most computer users use Windows, so if you don't use windows, don't answer Windows questions. It's that simple. It's like, if on the misc desk someone asked "What's the best way to peel an orange?" and the only answer they got was "Oranges suck, use apples, they don't require peeling at all, in fact the peel is good for you!" and then the followup "no, use grapes, they don't require biting either, you just pop them in your mouth whole!". Kuronue | Talk 18:32, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
←(unindenting), (edit conflict)Er, what the heck? If someone wants to respond to my comments, feel free. I'd appreciate, though, the courtesy of responses to things that I actually wrote, rather than worst-case imagined interpretations of what an evil bogeyman like me might have said.
I didn't say that "Libertarians...should leave Wikipedia". I said that some conduct is appropriate for Wikipedia, and that some belongs elsewhere on the 'net. Football is fun, but I don't play in the library—it's not what the library's facilities were constructed for, and it interferes with other people's ability to use the library peacefully and productively. I don't care if you guys want to play football outside, but when you come indoors to Wikipedia's Reference Desk, there's an expectation that we will maintain a certain atmosphere. We're flexible, but certain conduct – mocking or insulting people who come here for help (or other contributors, for that matter); spending so much time and space on jokes that useful answers become difficult to find – impairs the function of the Desk. I'm not going to set up a Ref Desk on the football pitch; is it unreasonable to ask that people not play football in the library?
Libertarianism is a good read for anyone interested in the topic. When Wikipedia works, it's a very libertarian place. The Wikimedia Foundation provides its servers and bandwidth; thousands of editors contribute text and ideas; everyone participates voluntarily in the arrangement and all the parties put their resources to work as they see fit; there's no government coercion involved or required. It is important to remember that we are using the Foundation's property here, and that it would be very un-libertarian indeed to use their resources solely for our amusement, or to interfere with their project's goals. Of course, if one found the Foundation's rules governing the use of their property absolutely intolerable, one could always fork the project. Everything here is licensed under the GFDL, and anyone is free to take their own time and money to start their own web site under their own rules. Using one's own property without interference and as one sees fit is the libertarian ideal. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 15:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Ten that WikiLibertarianism is very close to the Wiki Way, but unfortunately (just as in the political arena) the conservative dissenters tend to be more powerful since their position is easily consolidated. In wikipedia I think there are far too many rules, and that by far most of them are completely unnecessary. The very core guidelines of Wikipedia are WP:TRIFECTA. The whole of wikipedia's rule structure should reduce to these three rules. Matthew 22:40: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Just as in real Libertarianism, we should stick to our WikiConstitution and not feel like we need to define every. single. thing. as "legal" or "illegal". Or anything at all for that matter- we may come to decisions on how to interpret the trifecta on a specific issue, and use that decision in the future, but there's very much an atmosphere in Wikipedia of guidelines-in-the-making, of being able to simply achieve consensus and all of wikipedia is bound by your new rule. Don't like how some people act on the reference desk? If we can simply achieve consensus then we can write ourselves a new guideline that prohibits such behavior. I think this attitude is totally wrong- the magic of the internet is total freedom, and the only reason that wikipedia works is because of the surrounding internet atmosphere, not in spite of it. The rest of the internet has no inherent rules and it has collectively accomplished far more than wikipedia ever will.. granted, we have a special requirement of at least a bit of academic reliability, and of unprecedented cooperation, but still these are easy to enforce with only a very few rules: the policy trifecta. Not the trifecta + the thousands of other little rules that people make up in their little projects. In fact, the trifecta can be reduced to the very first one and wikipedia would work just as well- the 2nd one is completely arbitrary and unnecessary, but I guess that's Jimbo's decision and it seems successful. And the 3rd is a guaranteed right, not a rule. Actually I just realized I have no idea where I'm going with this- I'm trying to take notes from an audio lecture right now and it's very difficult to do both at once.. but this sounds good so I'll post it :P Something about it being wrong to extend rules from the trifecta- those are our only rules. Wikpedia has no legislative branch- "consensus" is not a legislative body. Our highest WikiAuthority is a judicial body: the ArbCom. They have the wide powers that a high court would be expected to have, but even THEY don't make policy, they just interpret it. So our attitude of just making up a rule every time you don't like something is completely unfounded.. even if interpretation is functionally identical to making up new rules, I think our debates would look quite different if we had that attitude of constantly refocusing on what we're interpreting, rather than just giving the once-over "does this pass trifecta, yeah it doesnt conflict so it's ok". Well that actually wrapped up nicely! -- froth t 18:49, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Can someone go to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives add the appropriate links for October, November, and December 2007? Thanks. — Steve Summit ( talk) 05:24, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I removed that section. Isn't that sort of reckless to tell a kid what poisons to put in his eyes? See also ANI here. • Lawrence Cohen 13:36, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Big it up for the f**king brilliant Languages Desk. ( [2]) -- Dweller 12:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I feel that I should point out that when you bowlderise the word by using asterisks you aren't actually swearing :-( If you want to say fuck just do so, it's a fine olde english word and our article on it is very informative. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 00:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I recently was bold enough to remove what I took to be a question soliciting medical advice, and caught some crap for it. Actually, it was a question solicting medical advice. Thing is, I see one practically every day on Science or Misc, and I feel a crusader-like urge to sweep them away in keeping with The Guidelines (caps added for irony). Am I the only one who sees it? Please look at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Lights_at_night_appearing_.27blurred.27 on Science and tell me why that is not another of these questions. -- Milkbreath 16:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
What about "...should i be worried? I mean...i'm short sighted and have astigmatism..."? (Note the small i like Bucolic Buffalo.) I don't seem to be able to twist my thinking enough to see that as anything other than an outright request for medical advice. Help me out, here. -- Milkbreath 16:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia has clear disclaimers disavowing any responsibilty for medical infomation on the site (there are loads of it in articles), so people who oppose medical questions are just being unnecesarrily overcautious, much like the copyright Gestapo. — Nricardo 16:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
It seems that this discussion has pretty much dried up, probably since this talk page is the only page on which it is referenced. Does anyone have any ideas how better to promote the color discussion page?--VectorPotential Talk 21:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
It's unimportant but my question was archived but not placed in unanswered questions - I got not replies by the way - here - Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2007_October_13#ray_node_traversal_image
I don't really expect you (whoever you are) to go through checking.. so maybe there would be a way to automatically place unanswered questions in the right place - just an idea. Is too impossible? 87.102.17.46 20:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Time's up! I left a message here for like an hour waiting for yeas and nays before I got impatient and just did it. The desks are now color coded. The desks move through the Hue of the HSV color space as you move down the navigation column, as sepcified by Wikipedia talk:Colours. Love it? Hate it? Leave comments here. I know some of them are kind of ugly- Computing got shafted with beige. Does anyone have any thoughts on actually having the backgrounds of the navigation bar "tabs" be colored with that desk's color? It would require a major redesign, but it would be possible -- ffroth 01:26, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I've got to agree with the above, looks 'cute' - actually the colours are a little pale (ie practically invisible) - if I was using a CRT I'd assume someone had dropped it or had been messing about with a magnet near it. But what's the point? How does this help? ( can I go around wikipedia 'playing' with the colours too? <sarcasm>) Seriously - is there an explanation for stupid people that explains - what the colours mean and why it's been done. Please help 87.102.16.28 08:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC) In the meantime lets all look at this image and draw what meaning we can individually from the text within the image.. 87.102.16.28 08:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC) Comment - I have no objection to changing the main colour in the heading from the usual blue -to another colour - makes a welcome change - but I really think the rest has to go - as it serves no purpose..09:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.16.28 ( talk) I think the simplest explanation is you are either a. Gay b. A 12 year old girl c. Very very drunk?
mainbg accent headingbg borders H30 #FFFAF5 #FFF2E6 #F2E0CE #BFB1A3 COMPUTING H80 #FCFFF5 #F7FFE6 #E6F2CE #B6BFA3 SCIENCE H130 #F5FFF7 #E6FFEA #CEF2D4 #A3BFA7 MATHEMATICS H180 #F5FFFF #E6FFFF #CEF2F2 #A3BFBF HUMANITIES H230 #F5F7FF #E6EAFF #CED4F2 #A3A7BF LANGUAGE H280 #FCF5FF #F7E6FF #E6CEF2 #B6A3BF ENTERTAINMENT H330 #FFF5FA #FFE6F2 #F2CEE0 #BFA3B1 MISCELLANEOUS
The links up in the Choose a topic: box aren't hyperlinked at this time (except for "Archives"). - hydnjo talk 23:17, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I think I am hallucinating. The top right part of the page with the quick links to other reference desks has colors now ... multicolor bands. Was it always that way? -- Kushal t 14:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC) -->
How can you tell whether a user is a sock puppet? There is a question, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#stay_or_leave, that was posted twice in the space of a minute (21:11 and 21:12) by an IP address. I and another user deleted one each, inadvertantly erasing both. A minute later, a new registered user posted again the exact same words. The question itself is on its face suspect to my mind, but the circumstances are even more so. -- Milkbreath 00:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
WTF is going on with the RD hedre header? -
hydnjo
talk 02:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Response seems to be good but people hate the color tabs. The point of them was to make the color coding distinctive like "I can't remember which desk I put my question on, ah that's right it was the bright pink one" or to let regulars find the link to their desk without even reading.. once they get used to it, just look for the color and quick-click. But I've heard a lot of negative response to the tabs.. so it's time for a good old fashioned straw poll! Support or Oppose to having the colors put right next to each other like that in the nav list. If the majority is oppose, I'll make the other tabs the mainbg color, it'll look fine. So choose your fate! -- ffroth 00:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
*OPPOSE HATE HATE HATE the colours, what are they for, no purpose so far as I can see and they slow down the loading of the page. Forget it !!--
88.109.243.56 09:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC) (banned users don't get to express an opinion.
Rockpocke
t 16:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC))
Moral support (Thanks for that phrase, Sluzzelin) It is a daily treat to see how the Ref desk has been changed. No irony: it's always functional, but just a *bit* different. SaundersW 21:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
In the banner at the top, I'd like to suggest the relevant name (Humanities, Computing, etc) be put in ALL CAPITALS, or at the very least, in Initial Caps, to help the name stand out better and lower the risk of people asking questions on the wrong desk. -- JackofOz 06:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I've removed four duplicate questions in the past couple of days, and I know others have removed dupes too. I just wondered if anyone can think of a reason for this sudden spate of them. They don't seem to come from the same user. Could there be something awry with the posting procedure that people are not understanding? Or could there be a bug somewhere?-- Shantavira| feed me 08:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, something is (or somethings are) definitely wrong. There've been a bunch more duplicate questions, and while slowness causing inexperienced editors to multiply submit is certainly a plausible explanation, it's odd that there are so many of them all of a sudden.
I'm also having horrible problems with the archiving bot. At first I thought it was just because my DSL seems to be going south, but now I'm wondering how much has to do with Wikipedia wedgitude.
The bot is getting a "server error" on almost every single edit it submits. The edits seem to be going through okay anyway, but every time I get one of those errors, I have to double check to see that nothing got screwed up. (This isn't just paranoia: the bot has screwed up a couple of the desks recently for this reason.) But having to double-check everything kinda defeats the purpose of having an automated bot in the first place, and it's a miserable nuisance when Wikipedia and/or my own corner of the network are so slow.
Some of the desks haven't been archived in 2-3 days, and are now twice their usual size. Unfortunately it's the larger ones, so the problem is exacerbated. And I'm starting to wonder if the problem isn't exacerbating itself in more ways than one: the server errors I'm getting seem to be correlated with submitting an edit to an entire long page (as opposed to a section edit). If this is true, the problem is only going to get worse: the longer a page gets, the harder time the bot is going to have archiving it, and the longer the page will get. If there are inexperienced editors doing page edits instead of section edits, they're probably getting lots of these server errors, too, and if they're assuming from the error message that they need to resubmit their question, that would explain the duplicates (since, as I said, despite the server error messages the edits do generally seem to be going through).
Anyway, enough rambling. But if anyone has any more ideas or tips about what might be going on, please share them. (I haven't had any luck so far with either the wikitech mailing list or IRC channel). — Steve Summit ( talk) 01:50, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
50% consensus is unsettling for an idea I wasn't sure would work well in the first place.. I removed the rainbow of tabs, which incidentally allowed the 'external' parameter to actually work. So it's a good thing, sort of. Dirk seems determined to start votes for every change, so expect those soon I guess.. I don't really see any potential problems with the way things are now (especially no problems with the lack of inconsistent, ugly, redundant icon page :/) so I won't be asking for opinion or changing anything for awhile. Of course if there's consensus that the color coding idea is stupid then I'll remove it; I mean that I won't be making any additional changes. Ya so the rainbow is gone -- ffroth 21:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I've restored the iconic header (for reference only at this time). Discussion? Also, there are some links there that aught not be so casually discarded. - hydnjo talk 23:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone know why things are so bloody slow tonight. Posts are taking forever! Clio the Muse 00:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
You're having that too? At first I thought it was just my DSL circuit, which I've been having trouble with for a couple of nights. But it's having an impact, at least, on my poor bot's ability to archive the desks properly (the larger of which haven't been archived for a couple of nights... :-( ) — Steve Summit ( talk) 00:47, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Whatever happened to the pictures representing the desks and the captions underneath denoting various subcategories that belong to the desk? Where can I find the template that originally had these? Even if the pictures are gone, I still think the captions should remain as a cue to help people figure out which desk to post the question; I currently have no idea where to post my origami question.
lvlarx 06:50, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Yea, what the hell is going on? The icons were clear and self-explanatory, with sub-divisions letting people know where individual questions should be placed. The whole thing looks terrible now. Is some attempt being made to put people off using the reference desks? It's certainly a lot less user friendly. Look, if something works just leave it alone. Other people must surely agree? Can someone please tell me how I can restore the icons? Stockmann 07:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
The old, "iconic" intro page is temporarily here. (As Hydnjo explains, it is "for reference only at this time".) — Steve Summit ( talk) 11:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
As I've said above, you may want to check yourself for a heartbeat. Chances are you won't find one if you "currently have no idea where to post [your] origami question". I'm very suspicious of like 9 people complaining about the same thing within the space of 4 hours when in the 8 hours before there were half as many comments.. >_> -- ffroth 13:50, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Instead of having to 'fuck about' spend effort voting on do which like such and such an aspect of the new scheme - how about a blanket roll back to the way it was before. There was no discussion as far as I could tell of whether or not this cruft addition was a good idea.
Somebody please just remove it. then 'froth' can suggest making changes to the desk here - before carrying them out. 87.102.94.157 12:03, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- thanks you gave me a little giggle - no offence - I liked your new front page. 87.102.94.157 14:51, 24 October 2007 (UTC)Cruft is a term generally applied to something useless or badly designed. It has more specific meanings in the field of computing
In keeping with this section's title, I agree (Froth's boldness aside) that the discussion about this be continued with the "iconic" header in place. Having the "non-iconic" header in place makes it seem a fait accompli rather than a discussion about others' preferences. As I've already done so, I'll not roll-back again.- hydnjo talk 15:34, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to echo Ten and Clio here regarding the new version. Less user-friendly, less inviting and basically offers no advantages over the old one that I can see, yet takes away much that the iconic one had going for it. Is there somewhere specific where you, Froth, enumerate or explain why you feel this version is an improvement over the iconic one? Because it seems like a step backwards to me. As to the colors, I pretty much could care less; except for the fact that I find pastels horrid and despicable and the ones you've chosen are practically vomit-inducing. Baaaa!! Baaaa! I fear change. Baaa! 38.112.225.84 22:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
How about someone putting a couple of links here to facilitate side-by-side comparison (Froth?). - hydnjo talk 15:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
From the amount of debate that the color changes have generated, it seems only fair that we revive the color collaboration so that all those who expressed oppose votes, and even those who didn't can participate in a discussion to help select the new colors for the different desks!--VectorPotential Talk 19:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
You have missed that some people don't want any colours, don't think there is a need for colours, and therefor don't want to discuss what colours to have... 87.102.94.157 19:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
First of all, I want to say that I've been worried to death all day that someone would think that mind-numbingly idiotic suggestion of reverting every single header page is a good idea and I'd come back to my room this afternoon to find a totally broken and crippled reference desk.. vectorpotential got it perfect in removing the colors and I was very relieved!
So now it looks like it's back to color collaboration. It's my opinion that nothing will ever get done unless someone just does it. Right now every single one of the color collabs is completely broken, but it looks like vector has turned it into just deciding which colors should go with which desk (maybe the page should be cleared out so it's very clear what direction it's taking now), so I won't work on fixing the existing entries.
Antilived has given me a good idea for making the colored tabs less ugly (and making it work) so I'll try to implement that.. if I can get it working it should be very easy to add those colored style tabs, should we ever reach consensus. Which we won't, ever.
Anyway, I'm very happy with the code changes on the backend, and I'll be positively tickled if antilived's excellent suggestion works. I'm very unhappy that the iconic splash page held out, but I can't say I didn't expect as much. I'll try again next year, at least this year I got twice as much good feedback as last.. hopefully if the trend continues I can bring that beast to its knees come halloween next year (I'm bookmarking this post!).
Also, enjoy the "skip to bottom" link, I'm sure that will be very helpful ;) Thank the WP:HD for the idea.
-- ffroth 20:23, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
(I've copied the above list here from froth's talk page, as an example of what the {{ ambox}} inspired nav bar might look like--VectorPotential Talk 23:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC))
Have all the desks be one color, but gradually fade it from say white/blue to medium/blue or blue/green?--VectorPotential Talk 23:53, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
(I've modified the above example so people can have some idea what I'm suggesting, feel free to comment--VectorPotential Talk 00:03, 25 October 2007 (UTC))
Light blue, to dark blue and Blue to black. For comparison.--VectorPotential Talk 00:21, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
So I still don't know if the problems that I, and some others, and in particular Scsbot have been having are Wikipedia-related, or network-related, or what. I'm increasingly convinced that there's something wrong with Wikipedia that's causing the bot to get a Wikimedia Foundation server error for every single page it archives, but I haven't gotten anyone else to admit or confirm this, so I'm still somewhat in the dark.
So I went ahead and implemented a double-check (actually a triple-check, in addition to some others the bot has been doing all along): the bot now re-fetches each big page it submits, to make sure it's the right size. This slows the bot down and increases the server load somewhat (and was a nuisance to implement), but at least I don't have to keep manually double-checking each of its edits.
However, I haven't implemented the double-check for the daily date header insertions (which are handled by a separate pass). So for the time being I won't be having the bot do those at all; it's too risky to do it without the double-check, but I'm getting just sick enough of all this that I don't feel like it's worth implementing the double-check for those, either.
People can manually insert the date headers if they want to, and have the time, and feel like taking the risk. Otherwise, we can live without them with only a slight inconvenience: the bot doesn't depend on them for archiving, and it will re-insert them (as it has always done) into the archived days as they're generated.
— Steve Summit ( talk) 04:01, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Curiouser and curiouser. As I mentioned, the bot seemed to be having more problems with bigger pages. And the last page on its list, which isn't even one of the Reference Desks, but which is equivalently big, and which it had never gotten down to on any of the past three or four nights before I aborted everything in disgust, is Wikipedia:Help desk. But since tonight I thought I had everything as under control as it could be, I let the script run all the way through.
It got server errors on every single Reference Desk page and day it archived (15 in total). But for the four days worth of Help Desk questions it archived all in a row tonight, it got... zero errors.
Now, what's the difference between the Reference Desks and the Help Desk? I'll give you a hint: this problem only started happening on October 21. — Steve Summit ( talk) 04:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Colo(u)r Collaboration - Please Help Out! part 2
Is this the way to go - quote from above section
If no one chooses to express their opinion on that page, then it makes my job easier as I'll just impose whatever colors I feel look best, then we can have another frenzied vote here on this talk page to decide whether it stays or goes.--VectorPotential
How about a request for comment here. I have lost my sense of humour. 87.102.94.16 13:18, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Hey, 87.102, I understand your sense of frustration, but always, always keep cool and, please, don't ever lose your sense of humour. For Humour and her acolytes, Irony and Satire, are the best ways of dealing with things we do not like. Take care, now! Clio the Muse 22:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm very sorry to be the one to report this, but there's currently something very wrong with the Reference Desk headers. This explains why many of us have seen such slow editing (and even slow viewing) of our desks lately. It explains why I've been having such extreme difficulty archiving the desks for the past week. It explains, I strongly suspect, why we're suddenly seeing so many duplicated (and triplicated, and quadruplicated) questions posted.
I've verified this in several ways. Here's the evidence:
At User:Ummit/rdslow and User:Ummit/rdspeedy are two nearly-identical snapshots of the Science desk from tonight. One has the normal header, transcluded from Wikipedia:Reference desk/header. One has that template removed. The speedy one takes between 8 and 10 seconds to edit or render for the first time. The slow one takes more like 60 seconds, and I get a Wikimedia server error every single time I edit it. I invite anyone who's interested to experiment on these pages. (Note that they're both brand-new, so they don't have long histories or anything.)
Secondly, I temporarily removed the transcluded header from the Science, Language, and Entertainment desks, and then ran a pass of the archiving bot. The bot got server errors on the Computing, Mathematics, Humanities, and Miscellaneous desks. It got no server errors on the Science, Language, Entertainment, or Help desks.
See also Simetrical's comment in this thread at the Village pump.
I have replaced the nice-looking (but slow) headers at the Science, Language, and Entertainment desks for now, but we're obviously going to have to do something about this.
— Steve Summit ( talk) 01:39, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
...have been temporarily solved with a hack that will last at least until the developers decide to start running the servers with a degree of competence. In a week or so I'll try putting the real header back to see if the server issues have been resolved. Nobody should experience any more performance problems or wikimedia errors on the RD. -- ffroth 03:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Incidentally, as to the mention of WP:PERF: there isn't much of a server performance problem here. You are not hurting the servers at all via this template. You're causing high latency, but not much lowering throughput, since very few people actually visit the Reference Desk. It's the users who try to view the few affected pages that suffer, and so you may want to remove the templates (as has been done) for editorial reasons: because people have trouble viewing the particular page, not because the servers themselves are hurt. This seems to be a distinction that confuses many people.
But basically, this slowness is a known and recognized problem. It will be dealt with eventually, but whether that means within a year or within five years (keeping in mind that MediaWiki has existed for less than four years) I can't say. This issue with the reference desk is among the smaller of the problems it's caused, directly or indirectly. When Tim introduced the template inclusion limits, hundreds of heavily-used pages and templates broke, and some months ago a template used on the Spanish (?) Wikipedia crashed several sites until it was tracked down and deleted. Unfortunately, as I say, the problem is not easy to solve while maintaining backwards compatibility, and with only two developers who are paid to work on the software, there's no timetable for this particular issue. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 19:52, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
User:Gurch took it upon himself to (badly) transform all header code to (broken) flat code and transclude it on all desks, replacing the working already-flat code that I implemented last night, then blanked the entire header and nominated it for speedy deletion on the grounds that it was bloated, so that somehow fills an imaginary WP:CSD of his. So that's why for most of today every desk has shown up as Miscellaneous and random spaces were all around the header.. Let me repeat: while sever performance problems continue, the header has already been replaced with fast, flat (unmaintainable) code hosted from my userspace to keep things running smoothly. Leave it alone! This is ridiculous. -froth
Ents Desk finally gets off the mark -- Dweller 11:02, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
When the header code had a bug, several questions ended up posted on the article C instead of their intended destination(s). I have moved them all to WP:RD/Misc, that seemed better than trying to assume which desks they had been intended for. I imagine they might get my name on them from SineBot, I'll try to deal with that if/when it happens. -- LarryMac | Talk 20:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
To be quite frank, isn’t this color question taking up a rather ridiculous amount of time and energy? I have nothing against adding a few aesthetic touches to the desks to make them more appealing, but we’re all supposed to be here to write an encyclopedia. Don’t we all have obscure Indie albums to write about or something? One thing I do strongly advise that we leave alone is the iconic header which is important for people who do not know Wikipedia well. -- S.dedalus 22:57, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Nice. hydnjo talk 23:25, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
What's up with this thread on the Science Desk? The questioner doesn't know the difference between a turbofan and a ducted fan and catches a bunch of grief over it.— eric 04:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Eddymania7 20:14, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn`t we have a Video Game Reference section?
Eddymania7
Urgh...Supercheats is a CHEATS website and it answers questions! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eddymania7 ( talk • contribs) 20:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I am blown away by the farsighted responses of Wikipedians on the issue of Baby computer OS. even though I am not the OP, I would award a barnstar for the answer about wooden blocks. Congratulations, Sean and SteveBaker! Regards, -- Kushal t 03:14, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I think this is the farthest back (23 November 2001) I've ever found an incarnation of the Reference Desk- I have no idea (and no way to tell) where it was before this (the talk page was very helpfully deleted last month by an enterprising sysop), but apparently the help desk was moved to wikipedia:Help desk in 2002 by the original creator of the mediawiki software (so says the Wikipedia help desk page history, but Wikipedia:Help desk has no intact history before 2004), but a few days later Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous showed up on the scene full of the same questions we saw in 2001. We have no history for Wikipedia:Reference desk prior to 2005 (when apparently it was split into Miscellaneous, though that seems to conflict with the fact that we have history for Miscellaneous 3 years earlier) but it DID exist before our oldest copy- the page log at least shows protection activity 3 months before our first diff. Also if anyone cares I tracked down for User:Ruud Koot the origin of the "ask a new question by clicking here" that was causing problems with the flat headers- it dates back to January 2004! He found the exact point where the code was added that ended up breaking things though: August 2005- a few days (I think) after the rd header was separated into "How to ask and answer" -- ffroth 23:52, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
What's the problem with the rat question? Granted it isn't very "scientific" and perhaps a bit naive, even maybe worded in a way which is a bit impolite, but invalid or rude? I'm not seeing it, are you suggesting the question is too stupid to ask? You know what they say about stupid questions.. Vespine 23:55, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
We get these boy loves girl questions all the time. We could practically have a dating desk! I wonder why we almost never get girl loves boy questions. I guess women just innately know how to handle these things. -- S.dedalus 19:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Do not request regulated professional advice. If you want to ask advice that "offline" would only be given by a member of a licensed and regulated profession (medical, legal, veterinary, etc.), do not ask it here. Any such questions
may be removed. See
Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer and/or
Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer. Ask a doctor, dentist, veterinarian or lawyer instead. |
Good idea / bad idea? To be used to replace the text deleted from a medical enquiry. Comments please.
Lanfear's Bane |
t 14:07, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
To respond to DuncanHill's concern raised above, I agree that there's nothing wrong with asking for an explanation of a biological phenomenon. Indeed, I doubt that there's any disagreement around here on that point. However, asking for an explanation of a specific individual's symptom (as in, "I have noticed strange thing foo happening with my body, what could cause that?") crosses the line into medical advice. The poster at that point is looking for diagnoses to explain his particular condition. One can call them 'explanations' if one prefers, but it doesn't change the fact that the individual may choose to make medical decisions on the basis of our advice and response. In this case, we ought to tread particularly carefully, since it's obvious that we're not even dealing with an adult.
In a section further up this talk page, I gave some examples of questions that sought medical advice and compared them to questions that simply were on a medical topic. I hope that that discussion will help to clarify the boundary.
On a meta-discussion note, I would strongly urge all the participants here to confine their discussion of appropriate versus inappropriate questions to this talk page. There's no reason to slug things out on the Ref Desk itself—it just confuses our readers and seems to encourage edit warring and incivility. This is why we have a talk page in the first place. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 15:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
My apologies for adding so many sections to the talk page today. Entirely coincidentally, I just finished a draft today of an essay meant to explain the reasoning behind our medical advice guidelines—why they exist; what we hope to accomplish with them; who is protected by them. Comments are welcome. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 16:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail
Maybe we need a larger selection of tools for dealing with the "medial advice" problem. Wikipedia does not give medical advice and many reference desk participants do not want to even allow discussions that might include answers that can be interpreted as medical advice. Some reference desk participants end up labeling as "asking for medical advice" anything that they fear might lead to a reply that could be interpreted as constituting medical advice. Maybe in the "welcome" instructions for "
How to ask a question" we should include something like: "Please do not describe personal health, medical or legal problems. Only ask general questions that can be answered by the type of general information that is found in an encyclopedia." When people do provide personal health/medical/legal information, we could provide them with a link to a subpage that explains what a wiki website is and how to ask a general question rather than a personal question. --
JWSchmidt 20:54, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to explore the extent to which Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers and Wikipedia:Assume good faith are being applied at the reference desk. I think some editors are making the bad faith assumption that reference desk participants are liars, so we cannot trust them with medial-related information. My view is that if someone asks a general health/medical-related question then reference desk participants have the right to provide links to Wikipedia articles that are related to the question. I object to deletion of reference desk material when that deletion is based on bad-faith assumptions about how information might be used. The basic "do not bite the newcomers" approach of Wikipedia includes empowering newcomers and telling them the correct way to do things....without making bad faith assumptions about how they will behave and use that knowledge. -- JWSchmidt 00:12, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I started this thread by suggesting that we could decide to ask reference desk participants not to describe personal health/medical problems. I also suggested that when people do provide personal health/medical details, rather than answer their question we could provide a link to a page that explains the difference between asking a personal health/medical and asking a general medical-related question that can be responded to by providing links to encyclopedia articles. These simple suggestions for how to improve the reference desk were met with several replies (#1-4, below) that illustrate how bad faith assumptions are at work both on the reference desk and on this talk page:
reply #1: "I'm not sure how valid the assumption that everyone reads the instructions is" <-- Nobody made "the assumption that everyone reads the instructions".....I explicitly included the idea that, "When people do provide personal health/medical/legal information, we could provide them with a link to a subpage that explains what a wiki website is and how to ask a general question rather than a personal question." I think it is not constructive to suggest that since some people do not read the instructions we do not have to have good instructions. I think it is an assumption of bad faith to say: "Note that we don't want to get too cute—offering instructions along the lines of 'We're sorry; we can't offer medical advice here. But if you rephrase your question in the following magic way (wink, wink), I can give you the medical advice you're looking for without anyone noticing.... won't fly." We should provide instructions that show people how to ask general medicine-related questions that can be answered by providing links to relevant Wikipedia articles. We should not be deterred from providing instructions because of a bad faith assumption about how some people might interpret medical information as medical advice. "Newer editors don't know not to offer medical advice" <-- So because some people might offer medical advice we cannot allow people to ask medical questions? Wrong. Don't delete general medical questions, delete the medical advice when it is given and educate the newer editors. I think "answers" on the reference desk should emphasize links to Wikipedia articles and providing such links in response to general questions does not constitute medical advice. Make sure that you are honest about what constitutes medical advice. Do not delete discussion comments that you fear might be interpreted as medical advice. Let's work to keep the questions general and not personal and lets work to keep answers focused on directing people to Wikipedia articles.
reply #2: "Everybody lies." "What the OP may have done is unintentionally lied by omission." <-- Yes, reference desk participants might lie. But we cannot create a system within Wikipedia that is based on bad faith assumptions about what some people might do. We should assume good faith and provide reference desk participants with instructions about how to ask questions that we can answer. "Take off the little aprons and surgical masks you have manufactured for yourselves" <-- This is a bad faith assumption about reference desk participants. Answering general medical questions is allowed and providing links to Wikipedia articles that contain medical information in no way involves "little aprons and surgical masks". "There are a set of rules and they are being followed" <-- Questions have been deleted from the reference desk not because they ask for medical advice but because some participants fear that answers will be interpreted as medical advice. This is a bad faith assumption and it is not following the existing rules. The proposed solution is to make sure that personal health/medical details are not included as part of questions and that we "force" questions to be general medical questions that can be answered by providing links to Wikipedia articles. "it is safer to air on the side of safety" <-- I take this as an admission that some reference desk participants are going to continue to violate the guidelines and remove medical questions that do not ask for medical advice. As far as I can tell, this arrogant and willful disregard for the guidelines is based on bad faith assumptions that 1) reference desk participants will respond to medical questions by providing medical advice even when it is not asked for and 2) reference desk participants will interpret general medical information as constituting medical advice. In my view, this attitude is a violation of the Wikiversity Wikipedia:Assume good faith ideal. "when an equally obviously regular person asks a question that would require my violating the guidelines of the desk to answer. Good faith doesn't enter into it." <-- When you invent a bogus interpretation of the guidelines (calling general health/medicine-related questions "requests for medical advice" when you only imagine that a thread might involve someone offering medical advice or when you fear that someone might interpret medical information as medical advice) that is motivated by your bad faith assumptions about Wikipedia participants and "it" is very much involved with failure to apply the Wikipedia guideline assume good faith.
rely #3. "Wikipedians abhor rules." <-- This comment seems to be motivated by a bad faith assumption. I have complained when reference desk comments/questions are removed for bogus reasons. It is silly to suggest that people like myself are complaining because we abhor rules. What we abhor is self-appointed tin gods who delete reference desk content based, not on the guidelines, but rather, on their fantasies and fears that involve violations of Wikipedia:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. It is bad for Wikipedia when we delete edits and lie about why we delete them. Deleting an edit and lying about why it was deleted is a terrible way to treat an editor. "I agree that we should take pains to be as courteous as possible at all times, especially when slapping some poor supplicant down for asking the wrong question." <-- It is clear from this statement and deletions of content from the reference desk that we have reference desk participants who feel that their job is to "slapping some poor supplicant down for asking the wrong question". This is wrong and I am going to do what ever it takes to correct this problem.
reply #4. "I genuinely don't see how this is a question of bad (or good) faith" <-- This really does not surprise me. Many Wikipedia participants have adopted an attitude that is blind to the meaning of
Wikipedia:Assume good faith and
Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. This corrosive attitude is now a matter of regular discussion at the highest levels of the Wikimedia Foundation. Personally, I'm tired of watching disruption of the Wikipedia project by participants who do not respect
Wikipedia:Assume good faith and
Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. I think the reference desk is being disrupted by deletions of content that are motivated by bad faith assumptions and that involve "biting" reference desk participants. Maybe people who do not respect
Wikipedia:Assume good faith and
Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers need to step aside and stop blocking good faith attempts to improve the reference desk. I think that the self-appointed owners of the reference desk have long gotten away with bullying, but I intend to change this. I am confident that if we eventually have to push this to the level of arbitration committee review, the principles of
Wikipedia:Assume good faith and
Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers will be upheld. A lawyer for the Foundation has already made the point that our medical disclaimer covers Wikipedia on the medical advice issue. There is no need for reference desk participants to delete general health/medical-related questions out of fear for what might happen if Wikipedians discuss those questions.
--
JWSchmidt 17:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
There seems to be some confusion about the types of advice that are allowed on this board. Obviously, doing anything that would be considered the 'practice of medicine' is right out; we're not doctors, and the environment here is inappropriate for that for any number of reasons. However, it was (correctly) pointed out by Dreftymac a fair while ago that making a determination as to what constitutes the 'practice of medicine' is very much a legal matter in and of itself. As far as I know, nobody currently contributing to these Desks is a malpractice lawyer, nor does any participant sit on a Board of Medical Examiners. Consequently, we have no one here qualified to judge what does and does not constitute the 'practice of medicine' from a legal standpoint—and even if we did have such people, they have good and sound legal and ethical reasons not to offer such opinions here.
Still, it was widely agreed that giving out medical advice in response to people's posted problems was a risky practice, with potential emotional and physical impact on the person who asked the question, personal and legal repercussions for the editors replying, and potential harm to Wikipedia's reputation. (See my essay for an informal but fairly thorough discussion of the downsides of medical advice.) The risk that bad advice will be offered is not hypothetical—we have seen, in the past, bad advice that runs the gamut from the merely incomplete, through ineffective, to inappropriate (recommending the wrong drugs, offering overly-benign explanations for symptoms, arguments that toxic substances are 'harmless', advice to not worry about a doctor's concerns because doctors like to 'overdiagnose'). Every time a layperson on the Desk offers an explanation for a person's symptoms, every time someone suggests a home remedy for a perceived illness, every time an editor says "Don't worry; it's probably nothing", we're playing Russian roulette. So far – and as far as we know – we've been lucky. There's no guarantee that that luck will continue to hold.
Recall that Wikipedia was in the news for weeks over a two-line hoax sentence added to a biographical article (see Seigenthaler controversy). Jimbo spent a whole pile of time being grilled about it on CNN, in The Economist, and damn near everywhere else, and it led to a great deal of embarrassment for the project as a whole—not to mention what was then described as draconian new policy. We'd rather not be in a position where, again, a single editor brings down the wrath of the press on Wikipedia—and you can bet that we won't be treated kindly if we've actually given advice that caused a kid somewhere physical harm.
So, what to do? A set of guidelines evolved. They are necessarily more restrictive than the minimal 'avoid the practice of medicine' theshold, both because deciding what creates a doctor-patient relationship is beyond our expertise and qualificaions here, and because the potential for harm exists even with 'unregulated' types of advice. We established standards that were intended to be as straightforward and 'bright line' as possible, to make explaining, understanding, and implementing them as easy as we could. To summarize Wikipedia:Reference desk/guidelines/Medical advice, we don't offer any response that is likely to be interpreted as a diagnosis, a prognosis, or a treatment. We also remove any question that can be reasonably be interpreted as asking for those things. It's not out of malice; it's out of a desire to protect the poster, the responders, and the project as a whole.
Unfortunately, because 'regulated professions' are mentioned in the header (that's a relatively new formulation, I think) there's the completely understandable – but incorrect – perception that only advice that would regulated by a professional governing body is forbidden. I think that's the root of Lanfear's Bane and DuncanHill's argument above. Though I'm not qualified to give a legal opinion, DuncanHill is likely correct that the advice described doesn't meet the test of constituting the 'practice of medicine'. Lanfear's Bane is correct that Wikipedia's test is stricter, and that the advice doesn't meet our standards.
I know that this is a challenging issue, and I expect it always will be. People who contribute to the Ref Desks are generally both smart and helpful. As a rule, they don't like to be told that they're not qualified and not allowed to help when presented with any problem. I have no doubt that some individual editors here may be comfortable with the legal and/or physical risks that they may be taking by offering medical advice (within Wikipedia's definition). Indeed, were that the only consideration then I would be offering suggestions for some 'minor' medical issues, too. What single editors cannot do is decide to accept a risk of harm to other people (particularly minors) who might post here, nor can they decide on behalf of the entire project to expose Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation to a potential public relations disaster. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 13:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Anyone know why the science desk is apparently in Category:Wikipedians with BA degrees? I can't seem to find the link that's causing that. Someguy1221 19:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
The following has been removed from the Humanities desk and placed here for further discussion: -- Milkbreath 00:12, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
The thing I noticed is that the original poster in no way suggested he was contemplating doing the illegal/unethical thing. He just asked a question, and potentially a pretty interesting one at that. — Steve Summit ( talk) 02:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
This is ridiculous! Are parents and teachers illegally practicing law when they tell their children "now billy, prostitution is illegal, you wouldnt want a police officer to come around the corner"? Knowing the law and sharing the law with others is not practicing law- that only applies to actually filling out legal paperwork and advising someone on a legal case. Do you seriously expect americans to learn the law by paying a lawyer $400 an hour to sit down with them and go through the lawbooks one by one? Judges and lawyers interpret the laws, and news agencies and wikipedians are certainly allowed to disseminate the laws and their interpretations. And no, this comment doesn't count as legal advice. -- ffroth 03:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Whoa, let’s take a step back here. The OP was not asking for legal advice. He or she was asking a legal themed question. If he had said “Would it be illegal for me to hire somebody to write my essay?” that might warrant removal from the desks, although I favor simply leaving a polite message stating that we cannot help with legal matters and reverting all subsequent messages. However, this question is entirely appropriate. In fact there are numerous examples of “Is it illegal questions:
[4]. They range from constructive: (
“Is it Illegal to not be a Muslim in Saudi?”), to odd: (
“Is it illegal to ejaculate in a urinal?”) to silly/troll: (
"Is it illegal to kill a man while hitting him with a cactus?”), to defiantly troll: (
Is it illegal to reach your hands down a woman's pants on the street if you're wearing a mask?) Obviously the last two would have been good candidates for revert! Let’s put this question back on the desk ASAP. --
S.dedalus 04:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I've said this before and I'll say it again Wikipedia does not give legal advice etc, means Wikipedia does not give legal advice not Wikipedia editors are not allowed to give legal advice. Anyone who takes advice from a bunch of geeks on the internet is a bloody fool. I clarified this with brad patric who was wikipedia's lawyer at the time ie I did take legal advice from someone qualified to give it. We need to lighten up on the whole removal issue as removing questions and answers is rude. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 07:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
(exdent) Suppose someone asks: "Is it illegal, in the UK, to be under the influence of illegally supplied drugs?", and I answer, "No, unless you are operating machinery or driving", is that a form of venturing a legal opinion that should be avoided? And what if, instead, I reply: "Our article entitled Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 contains this snippet of information: it is not illegal to be under the influence of illegally supplied drugs once ingested/injected unless operating machinery/driving."? Should that sentence perhaps be removed from the article because, under some interpretation, it can be construed as Wikipedia giving legal advice? We must distinguish between supplying information about what the law (including case law) says about some issue – which, I feel, is fine – and offering an opinion as to what that means when applied to a real situation, about the particulars of which we have only heard the questioner's viewpoint, and then only those bits that they deemed relevant and prudent to reveal. As to the definition of legal advice, please don't assume that everyone operates in a common law jurisdiction. The lines we draw should equally apply to a Swiss editor replying to a question coming from France. -- Lambiam 15:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
It says, "If you want to ask advice that 'offline' would only be given..." But of course what we mean there is "would only properly be given" or "would only officially be given", but those two aren't quite right, either. (But my point is, out there in the real world, and whether they should or not, ordinary lay people ask and give each other medical and legal advice all the time.) — Steve Summit ( talk) 11:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
There are at least three factors to consider when trying to determine whether we're talking about improper legal advice. The first two come from the formal, legal definition of " legal advice":
To those two points I believe we can legitimately add one of our own:
According to our legal advice article, as far as the law is concerned, it's "legal advice" if and only if the answers to questions 1 and 2 are both "yes". And for us of course the answers to both are virtually always "no". So from that standpoint we're theoretically in the clear. (But only theoretically. There are certainly other things to worry about.)
What if the answers to the first two questions aren't both "yes"? Again according to the legal advice page, if a professional gives advice for free, that's pro bono. And if a non-professional pretends to be a professional and gives advice for money, I think that's pretty much the definition of "practicing law without a license". And we certainly don't want to go anywhere near there.
I don't think the law much cares about whether the advice is abstract, theoretical, or practical. If you ask a professional lawyer a hypothetical question, and unless he's a personal friend who owes you a favor, he's going to charge you just as much for his professional opinion on your question as if you'd asked him about a specific legal pickle that you personally were in.
But of course we don't care so much about what professional lawyers do (or have to do), because we're not. And if we want to place more stringent limits on what we can do, that's fine, too. (Wikipedia has a pretty long history of this -- for example, we insist on public-domain, GFDL, or creative-commons-licensed media in situations where we could get by perfectly well with fair use; we choose to set a higher standard for reused work than fair use allows.)
But since we're not professional lawyers and we're not accepting money for our services, we're going to have to muck around with things like question 3 if we're going to set any additional limits.
Personally, I think it's fine for us to offer opinions on abstract questions of legal fact. Most of us believe (and I agree) that we shouldn't be offering opinions on people's specific legal problems. Personally I think hypothetical questions are okay, too, although those are obviously considerably more debatable.
I think the same arguments hold in a parallel way for medical advice, too.
There are a couple of other issues that keep getting raised, which I think confuse the question more than they clarify it.
I think the only remaining problem is that since there is no clear-cut law against anything we might be doing here, since there is in fact nothing legally wrong with anything we might be doing here, the rules we set for ourselves are going to be based primarily on our own consensual opinions, not on any statute or case law or anything. So we can (and probably will) debate it forever.
My own bottom line on all of this is that we ought to have guidelines against asking (and answering) professional-advice questions, but at the same time, that we can be reasonable about enforcing them. We certainly don't have to apply them massively or expansively stringently; there's absolutely no need to take anything that even remotely smells like a legal or medical question and knee-jerkily categorize it as a prohibited one.
— Steve Summit ( talk) 00:01, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Can we find practical ways to help reference desk participants efficiently navigate the gray area between "general medical questions" and "questions that seek professional advice"? The practice of medicine relies on a flow of information about a patient's condition to the medical professional. Asking a general medical question does not require any information about a particular patient. We have some reference desk participants who have been deleting questions because they contain personal health information. These deletions are usually "justified" by saying that the question was seeking professional advice even when, in fact, it was just asking a general question and happen to include some personal information. Providing personal health information creates a slippery slope towards medical advice, so why not craft some rules for dealing with questions that include personal health information? It seems to me that we could just say, "Do not describe personal health matters on the reference desk." When people do include descriptions of personal health matters as part of a general medical question, rather than delete the question we could provide a link to a page that explains why the reference desk does not want questions that include personal health information and that page could explain how to ask a general medical question that does not include personal information. I suspect that a restriction against descriptions of personal legal matters would also help to guide reference desk participants away from asking for legal advice. The only objection I've seen to asking reference desk participants not to give personal information is that in some way doing so would be a "game" by which people would end up asking for medical advice in "code". I think that argument is a [red herring] and violation of the Wikipedia ideal of assuming good faith. If our rule was that we will respond to medical and legal questions that include personal information only by providing a link to instructions for how to correctly ask general questions then I think that would go a long way towards educating reference desk participants about what a wiki is, what they should expect from the reference desk and it would reduce the potential for reference desk discussion that involves asking for and giving medical advice while at the same time solving the problem of inappropriate deletions of reference desk content. The current system of not explaining how to ask questions and lying about why reference desk content is deleted is not acceptable. -- JWSchmidt 18:55, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I have such a strong desire to say "Meh" that I'll probably sound like a sheep. There's such a need for so many people to recover some perspective, you're way past WP:TEA... You've inspired a new essay WP:BOSTON TEA PARTY. -- Dweller 14:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Erm. This Is Not America. Sha la la la la la. -- Dweller 10:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 35 | Archive 36 | Archive 37 | Archive 38 | Archive 39 | Archive 40 | → | Archive 45 |
yeah. -- Dweller 22:08, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Hi I browse, i guess like most of us, the different sections of the ref desk, humanities, science, etc. But then of course I'm usually at the bottom of the page reading the last posts. So every time I have to go back up to click on the link. I know this only takes a well aimed push of the home key but somehow it makes it very frustrating, it seems so unnecessary. Could please someone add the links to the different sections of the desk at the bottom of the page? Tadaaam. Keria 22:01, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="' + ' http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User:Froth/refdeskmodv2.js' + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');
See the comments above. I wrote a script to add a navigation box to the bottom of the RDs for convenience, and put my various tries at WP:RD/TOOLS. Check em out. I didn't want to put them in a subpage of my userpage, because maybe other people have scripts to share? -- froth t 03:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
I toned down the language in this template, which is nominated for TFD. Please feel free to evaluate it and change it if necessary. bibliomaniac 1 5 04:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Click here to learn more about it. a.z. 18:07, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Can someone review this comment and figure out what (if anything) User:65.163.112.225 is complaining about? I'm currently on the R/V Wecoma in the middle of Dabob Bay with not nearly enough bandwidth to properly investigate. Thanks. — Steve Summit ( talk) 06:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
We have a winner -- Dweller 09:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Should we have a list of regular contributors to the Reference Desks? I think it would be useful to have it in case you're working on an article in need of expertise. bibliomaniac 1 5 00:46, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
And the Computing Desk gets off the mark. Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing#EMail_ID_-_3rd_post -- Dweller 13:02, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to toss this out here, not sure how many computing desk "regulars" read the talk page, but anyway - when somebody comes to use with a question or problem using Windows, can we please refrain from the "just install Linux, n00b!" or "get a Mac, LOL!" responses? In general, those are not helpful to the issue at hand, and I don't think they give a good impression to the questioner. Anybody who wants that type of response can get it pretty much everywhere else on the web. We should not be here to proselytize for our favorite OS (or browser or whatever). Yes, we all know that Windows has lots of problems, and perhaps a complete change of computing platform would be a great solution to all of them. In the meantime, somebody who just wants to change file extensions without an annoying nag box probably wants an immediate solution, not a weekend project. -- LarryMac | Talk 15:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
While there's nothing wrong with "Unfortunatly, that's not changeable in Windows, but it would be in Linux", it's bloody annoying to read through nothing but "WTF windowz sux0rz. Linux 4evah." It's not helpful, it's not answering questions. It's better to not have anyone answer at all - meaning nobody knows - than just "LOL your OS sux0rz." What are we, 12? This isn't the "Switch to Linux" desk, nor the "Non-Windows Computing Help Desk" - the fact is, most computer users use Windows, so if you don't use windows, don't answer Windows questions. It's that simple. It's like, if on the misc desk someone asked "What's the best way to peel an orange?" and the only answer they got was "Oranges suck, use apples, they don't require peeling at all, in fact the peel is good for you!" and then the followup "no, use grapes, they don't require biting either, you just pop them in your mouth whole!". Kuronue | Talk 18:32, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
←(unindenting), (edit conflict)Er, what the heck? If someone wants to respond to my comments, feel free. I'd appreciate, though, the courtesy of responses to things that I actually wrote, rather than worst-case imagined interpretations of what an evil bogeyman like me might have said.
I didn't say that "Libertarians...should leave Wikipedia". I said that some conduct is appropriate for Wikipedia, and that some belongs elsewhere on the 'net. Football is fun, but I don't play in the library—it's not what the library's facilities were constructed for, and it interferes with other people's ability to use the library peacefully and productively. I don't care if you guys want to play football outside, but when you come indoors to Wikipedia's Reference Desk, there's an expectation that we will maintain a certain atmosphere. We're flexible, but certain conduct – mocking or insulting people who come here for help (or other contributors, for that matter); spending so much time and space on jokes that useful answers become difficult to find – impairs the function of the Desk. I'm not going to set up a Ref Desk on the football pitch; is it unreasonable to ask that people not play football in the library?
Libertarianism is a good read for anyone interested in the topic. When Wikipedia works, it's a very libertarian place. The Wikimedia Foundation provides its servers and bandwidth; thousands of editors contribute text and ideas; everyone participates voluntarily in the arrangement and all the parties put their resources to work as they see fit; there's no government coercion involved or required. It is important to remember that we are using the Foundation's property here, and that it would be very un-libertarian indeed to use their resources solely for our amusement, or to interfere with their project's goals. Of course, if one found the Foundation's rules governing the use of their property absolutely intolerable, one could always fork the project. Everything here is licensed under the GFDL, and anyone is free to take their own time and money to start their own web site under their own rules. Using one's own property without interference and as one sees fit is the libertarian ideal. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 15:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Ten that WikiLibertarianism is very close to the Wiki Way, but unfortunately (just as in the political arena) the conservative dissenters tend to be more powerful since their position is easily consolidated. In wikipedia I think there are far too many rules, and that by far most of them are completely unnecessary. The very core guidelines of Wikipedia are WP:TRIFECTA. The whole of wikipedia's rule structure should reduce to these three rules. Matthew 22:40: "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Just as in real Libertarianism, we should stick to our WikiConstitution and not feel like we need to define every. single. thing. as "legal" or "illegal". Or anything at all for that matter- we may come to decisions on how to interpret the trifecta on a specific issue, and use that decision in the future, but there's very much an atmosphere in Wikipedia of guidelines-in-the-making, of being able to simply achieve consensus and all of wikipedia is bound by your new rule. Don't like how some people act on the reference desk? If we can simply achieve consensus then we can write ourselves a new guideline that prohibits such behavior. I think this attitude is totally wrong- the magic of the internet is total freedom, and the only reason that wikipedia works is because of the surrounding internet atmosphere, not in spite of it. The rest of the internet has no inherent rules and it has collectively accomplished far more than wikipedia ever will.. granted, we have a special requirement of at least a bit of academic reliability, and of unprecedented cooperation, but still these are easy to enforce with only a very few rules: the policy trifecta. Not the trifecta + the thousands of other little rules that people make up in their little projects. In fact, the trifecta can be reduced to the very first one and wikipedia would work just as well- the 2nd one is completely arbitrary and unnecessary, but I guess that's Jimbo's decision and it seems successful. And the 3rd is a guaranteed right, not a rule. Actually I just realized I have no idea where I'm going with this- I'm trying to take notes from an audio lecture right now and it's very difficult to do both at once.. but this sounds good so I'll post it :P Something about it being wrong to extend rules from the trifecta- those are our only rules. Wikpedia has no legislative branch- "consensus" is not a legislative body. Our highest WikiAuthority is a judicial body: the ArbCom. They have the wide powers that a high court would be expected to have, but even THEY don't make policy, they just interpret it. So our attitude of just making up a rule every time you don't like something is completely unfounded.. even if interpretation is functionally identical to making up new rules, I think our debates would look quite different if we had that attitude of constantly refocusing on what we're interpreting, rather than just giving the once-over "does this pass trifecta, yeah it doesnt conflict so it's ok". Well that actually wrapped up nicely! -- froth t 18:49, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Can someone go to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives add the appropriate links for October, November, and December 2007? Thanks. — Steve Summit ( talk) 05:24, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
I removed that section. Isn't that sort of reckless to tell a kid what poisons to put in his eyes? See also ANI here. • Lawrence Cohen 13:36, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Big it up for the f**king brilliant Languages Desk. ( [2]) -- Dweller 12:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I feel that I should point out that when you bowlderise the word by using asterisks you aren't actually swearing :-( If you want to say fuck just do so, it's a fine olde english word and our article on it is very informative. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 00:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I recently was bold enough to remove what I took to be a question soliciting medical advice, and caught some crap for it. Actually, it was a question solicting medical advice. Thing is, I see one practically every day on Science or Misc, and I feel a crusader-like urge to sweep them away in keeping with The Guidelines (caps added for irony). Am I the only one who sees it? Please look at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Lights_at_night_appearing_.27blurred.27 on Science and tell me why that is not another of these questions. -- Milkbreath 16:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
What about "...should i be worried? I mean...i'm short sighted and have astigmatism..."? (Note the small i like Bucolic Buffalo.) I don't seem to be able to twist my thinking enough to see that as anything other than an outright request for medical advice. Help me out, here. -- Milkbreath 16:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia has clear disclaimers disavowing any responsibilty for medical infomation on the site (there are loads of it in articles), so people who oppose medical questions are just being unnecesarrily overcautious, much like the copyright Gestapo. — Nricardo 16:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
It seems that this discussion has pretty much dried up, probably since this talk page is the only page on which it is referenced. Does anyone have any ideas how better to promote the color discussion page?--VectorPotential Talk 21:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
It's unimportant but my question was archived but not placed in unanswered questions - I got not replies by the way - here - Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2007_October_13#ray_node_traversal_image
I don't really expect you (whoever you are) to go through checking.. so maybe there would be a way to automatically place unanswered questions in the right place - just an idea. Is too impossible? 87.102.17.46 20:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Time's up! I left a message here for like an hour waiting for yeas and nays before I got impatient and just did it. The desks are now color coded. The desks move through the Hue of the HSV color space as you move down the navigation column, as sepcified by Wikipedia talk:Colours. Love it? Hate it? Leave comments here. I know some of them are kind of ugly- Computing got shafted with beige. Does anyone have any thoughts on actually having the backgrounds of the navigation bar "tabs" be colored with that desk's color? It would require a major redesign, but it would be possible -- ffroth 01:26, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I've got to agree with the above, looks 'cute' - actually the colours are a little pale (ie practically invisible) - if I was using a CRT I'd assume someone had dropped it or had been messing about with a magnet near it. But what's the point? How does this help? ( can I go around wikipedia 'playing' with the colours too? <sarcasm>) Seriously - is there an explanation for stupid people that explains - what the colours mean and why it's been done. Please help 87.102.16.28 08:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC) In the meantime lets all look at this image and draw what meaning we can individually from the text within the image.. 87.102.16.28 08:40, 21 October 2007 (UTC) Comment - I have no objection to changing the main colour in the heading from the usual blue -to another colour - makes a welcome change - but I really think the rest has to go - as it serves no purpose..09:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.16.28 ( talk) I think the simplest explanation is you are either a. Gay b. A 12 year old girl c. Very very drunk?
mainbg accent headingbg borders H30 #FFFAF5 #FFF2E6 #F2E0CE #BFB1A3 COMPUTING H80 #FCFFF5 #F7FFE6 #E6F2CE #B6BFA3 SCIENCE H130 #F5FFF7 #E6FFEA #CEF2D4 #A3BFA7 MATHEMATICS H180 #F5FFFF #E6FFFF #CEF2F2 #A3BFBF HUMANITIES H230 #F5F7FF #E6EAFF #CED4F2 #A3A7BF LANGUAGE H280 #FCF5FF #F7E6FF #E6CEF2 #B6A3BF ENTERTAINMENT H330 #FFF5FA #FFE6F2 #F2CEE0 #BFA3B1 MISCELLANEOUS
The links up in the Choose a topic: box aren't hyperlinked at this time (except for "Archives"). - hydnjo talk 23:17, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
I think I am hallucinating. The top right part of the page with the quick links to other reference desks has colors now ... multicolor bands. Was it always that way? -- Kushal t 14:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC) -->
How can you tell whether a user is a sock puppet? There is a question, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#stay_or_leave, that was posted twice in the space of a minute (21:11 and 21:12) by an IP address. I and another user deleted one each, inadvertantly erasing both. A minute later, a new registered user posted again the exact same words. The question itself is on its face suspect to my mind, but the circumstances are even more so. -- Milkbreath 00:05, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
WTF is going on with the RD hedre header? -
hydnjo
talk 02:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Response seems to be good but people hate the color tabs. The point of them was to make the color coding distinctive like "I can't remember which desk I put my question on, ah that's right it was the bright pink one" or to let regulars find the link to their desk without even reading.. once they get used to it, just look for the color and quick-click. But I've heard a lot of negative response to the tabs.. so it's time for a good old fashioned straw poll! Support or Oppose to having the colors put right next to each other like that in the nav list. If the majority is oppose, I'll make the other tabs the mainbg color, it'll look fine. So choose your fate! -- ffroth 00:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
*OPPOSE HATE HATE HATE the colours, what are they for, no purpose so far as I can see and they slow down the loading of the page. Forget it !!--
88.109.243.56 09:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC) (banned users don't get to express an opinion.
Rockpocke
t 16:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC))
Moral support (Thanks for that phrase, Sluzzelin) It is a daily treat to see how the Ref desk has been changed. No irony: it's always functional, but just a *bit* different. SaundersW 21:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
In the banner at the top, I'd like to suggest the relevant name (Humanities, Computing, etc) be put in ALL CAPITALS, or at the very least, in Initial Caps, to help the name stand out better and lower the risk of people asking questions on the wrong desk. -- JackofOz 06:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I've removed four duplicate questions in the past couple of days, and I know others have removed dupes too. I just wondered if anyone can think of a reason for this sudden spate of them. They don't seem to come from the same user. Could there be something awry with the posting procedure that people are not understanding? Or could there be a bug somewhere?-- Shantavira| feed me 08:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, something is (or somethings are) definitely wrong. There've been a bunch more duplicate questions, and while slowness causing inexperienced editors to multiply submit is certainly a plausible explanation, it's odd that there are so many of them all of a sudden.
I'm also having horrible problems with the archiving bot. At first I thought it was just because my DSL seems to be going south, but now I'm wondering how much has to do with Wikipedia wedgitude.
The bot is getting a "server error" on almost every single edit it submits. The edits seem to be going through okay anyway, but every time I get one of those errors, I have to double check to see that nothing got screwed up. (This isn't just paranoia: the bot has screwed up a couple of the desks recently for this reason.) But having to double-check everything kinda defeats the purpose of having an automated bot in the first place, and it's a miserable nuisance when Wikipedia and/or my own corner of the network are so slow.
Some of the desks haven't been archived in 2-3 days, and are now twice their usual size. Unfortunately it's the larger ones, so the problem is exacerbated. And I'm starting to wonder if the problem isn't exacerbating itself in more ways than one: the server errors I'm getting seem to be correlated with submitting an edit to an entire long page (as opposed to a section edit). If this is true, the problem is only going to get worse: the longer a page gets, the harder time the bot is going to have archiving it, and the longer the page will get. If there are inexperienced editors doing page edits instead of section edits, they're probably getting lots of these server errors, too, and if they're assuming from the error message that they need to resubmit their question, that would explain the duplicates (since, as I said, despite the server error messages the edits do generally seem to be going through).
Anyway, enough rambling. But if anyone has any more ideas or tips about what might be going on, please share them. (I haven't had any luck so far with either the wikitech mailing list or IRC channel). — Steve Summit ( talk) 01:50, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
50% consensus is unsettling for an idea I wasn't sure would work well in the first place.. I removed the rainbow of tabs, which incidentally allowed the 'external' parameter to actually work. So it's a good thing, sort of. Dirk seems determined to start votes for every change, so expect those soon I guess.. I don't really see any potential problems with the way things are now (especially no problems with the lack of inconsistent, ugly, redundant icon page :/) so I won't be asking for opinion or changing anything for awhile. Of course if there's consensus that the color coding idea is stupid then I'll remove it; I mean that I won't be making any additional changes. Ya so the rainbow is gone -- ffroth 21:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
I've restored the iconic header (for reference only at this time). Discussion? Also, there are some links there that aught not be so casually discarded. - hydnjo talk 23:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone know why things are so bloody slow tonight. Posts are taking forever! Clio the Muse 00:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
You're having that too? At first I thought it was just my DSL circuit, which I've been having trouble with for a couple of nights. But it's having an impact, at least, on my poor bot's ability to archive the desks properly (the larger of which haven't been archived for a couple of nights... :-( ) — Steve Summit ( talk) 00:47, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Whatever happened to the pictures representing the desks and the captions underneath denoting various subcategories that belong to the desk? Where can I find the template that originally had these? Even if the pictures are gone, I still think the captions should remain as a cue to help people figure out which desk to post the question; I currently have no idea where to post my origami question.
lvlarx 06:50, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Yea, what the hell is going on? The icons were clear and self-explanatory, with sub-divisions letting people know where individual questions should be placed. The whole thing looks terrible now. Is some attempt being made to put people off using the reference desks? It's certainly a lot less user friendly. Look, if something works just leave it alone. Other people must surely agree? Can someone please tell me how I can restore the icons? Stockmann 07:29, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
The old, "iconic" intro page is temporarily here. (As Hydnjo explains, it is "for reference only at this time".) — Steve Summit ( talk) 11:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
As I've said above, you may want to check yourself for a heartbeat. Chances are you won't find one if you "currently have no idea where to post [your] origami question". I'm very suspicious of like 9 people complaining about the same thing within the space of 4 hours when in the 8 hours before there were half as many comments.. >_> -- ffroth 13:50, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Instead of having to 'fuck about' spend effort voting on do which like such and such an aspect of the new scheme - how about a blanket roll back to the way it was before. There was no discussion as far as I could tell of whether or not this cruft addition was a good idea.
Somebody please just remove it. then 'froth' can suggest making changes to the desk here - before carrying them out. 87.102.94.157 12:03, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- thanks you gave me a little giggle - no offence - I liked your new front page. 87.102.94.157 14:51, 24 October 2007 (UTC)Cruft is a term generally applied to something useless or badly designed. It has more specific meanings in the field of computing
In keeping with this section's title, I agree (Froth's boldness aside) that the discussion about this be continued with the "iconic" header in place. Having the "non-iconic" header in place makes it seem a fait accompli rather than a discussion about others' preferences. As I've already done so, I'll not roll-back again.- hydnjo talk 15:34, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to echo Ten and Clio here regarding the new version. Less user-friendly, less inviting and basically offers no advantages over the old one that I can see, yet takes away much that the iconic one had going for it. Is there somewhere specific where you, Froth, enumerate or explain why you feel this version is an improvement over the iconic one? Because it seems like a step backwards to me. As to the colors, I pretty much could care less; except for the fact that I find pastels horrid and despicable and the ones you've chosen are practically vomit-inducing. Baaaa!! Baaaa! I fear change. Baaa! 38.112.225.84 22:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
How about someone putting a couple of links here to facilitate side-by-side comparison (Froth?). - hydnjo talk 15:58, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
From the amount of debate that the color changes have generated, it seems only fair that we revive the color collaboration so that all those who expressed oppose votes, and even those who didn't can participate in a discussion to help select the new colors for the different desks!--VectorPotential Talk 19:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
You have missed that some people don't want any colours, don't think there is a need for colours, and therefor don't want to discuss what colours to have... 87.102.94.157 19:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
First of all, I want to say that I've been worried to death all day that someone would think that mind-numbingly idiotic suggestion of reverting every single header page is a good idea and I'd come back to my room this afternoon to find a totally broken and crippled reference desk.. vectorpotential got it perfect in removing the colors and I was very relieved!
So now it looks like it's back to color collaboration. It's my opinion that nothing will ever get done unless someone just does it. Right now every single one of the color collabs is completely broken, but it looks like vector has turned it into just deciding which colors should go with which desk (maybe the page should be cleared out so it's very clear what direction it's taking now), so I won't work on fixing the existing entries.
Antilived has given me a good idea for making the colored tabs less ugly (and making it work) so I'll try to implement that.. if I can get it working it should be very easy to add those colored style tabs, should we ever reach consensus. Which we won't, ever.
Anyway, I'm very happy with the code changes on the backend, and I'll be positively tickled if antilived's excellent suggestion works. I'm very unhappy that the iconic splash page held out, but I can't say I didn't expect as much. I'll try again next year, at least this year I got twice as much good feedback as last.. hopefully if the trend continues I can bring that beast to its knees come halloween next year (I'm bookmarking this post!).
Also, enjoy the "skip to bottom" link, I'm sure that will be very helpful ;) Thank the WP:HD for the idea.
-- ffroth 20:23, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
(I've copied the above list here from froth's talk page, as an example of what the {{ ambox}} inspired nav bar might look like--VectorPotential Talk 23:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC))
Have all the desks be one color, but gradually fade it from say white/blue to medium/blue or blue/green?--VectorPotential Talk 23:53, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
(I've modified the above example so people can have some idea what I'm suggesting, feel free to comment--VectorPotential Talk 00:03, 25 October 2007 (UTC))
Light blue, to dark blue and Blue to black. For comparison.--VectorPotential Talk 00:21, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
So I still don't know if the problems that I, and some others, and in particular Scsbot have been having are Wikipedia-related, or network-related, or what. I'm increasingly convinced that there's something wrong with Wikipedia that's causing the bot to get a Wikimedia Foundation server error for every single page it archives, but I haven't gotten anyone else to admit or confirm this, so I'm still somewhat in the dark.
So I went ahead and implemented a double-check (actually a triple-check, in addition to some others the bot has been doing all along): the bot now re-fetches each big page it submits, to make sure it's the right size. This slows the bot down and increases the server load somewhat (and was a nuisance to implement), but at least I don't have to keep manually double-checking each of its edits.
However, I haven't implemented the double-check for the daily date header insertions (which are handled by a separate pass). So for the time being I won't be having the bot do those at all; it's too risky to do it without the double-check, but I'm getting just sick enough of all this that I don't feel like it's worth implementing the double-check for those, either.
People can manually insert the date headers if they want to, and have the time, and feel like taking the risk. Otherwise, we can live without them with only a slight inconvenience: the bot doesn't depend on them for archiving, and it will re-insert them (as it has always done) into the archived days as they're generated.
— Steve Summit ( talk) 04:01, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Curiouser and curiouser. As I mentioned, the bot seemed to be having more problems with bigger pages. And the last page on its list, which isn't even one of the Reference Desks, but which is equivalently big, and which it had never gotten down to on any of the past three or four nights before I aborted everything in disgust, is Wikipedia:Help desk. But since tonight I thought I had everything as under control as it could be, I let the script run all the way through.
It got server errors on every single Reference Desk page and day it archived (15 in total). But for the four days worth of Help Desk questions it archived all in a row tonight, it got... zero errors.
Now, what's the difference between the Reference Desks and the Help Desk? I'll give you a hint: this problem only started happening on October 21. — Steve Summit ( talk) 04:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Colo(u)r Collaboration - Please Help Out! part 2
Is this the way to go - quote from above section
If no one chooses to express their opinion on that page, then it makes my job easier as I'll just impose whatever colors I feel look best, then we can have another frenzied vote here on this talk page to decide whether it stays or goes.--VectorPotential
How about a request for comment here. I have lost my sense of humour. 87.102.94.16 13:18, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Hey, 87.102, I understand your sense of frustration, but always, always keep cool and, please, don't ever lose your sense of humour. For Humour and her acolytes, Irony and Satire, are the best ways of dealing with things we do not like. Take care, now! Clio the Muse 22:08, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm very sorry to be the one to report this, but there's currently something very wrong with the Reference Desk headers. This explains why many of us have seen such slow editing (and even slow viewing) of our desks lately. It explains why I've been having such extreme difficulty archiving the desks for the past week. It explains, I strongly suspect, why we're suddenly seeing so many duplicated (and triplicated, and quadruplicated) questions posted.
I've verified this in several ways. Here's the evidence:
At User:Ummit/rdslow and User:Ummit/rdspeedy are two nearly-identical snapshots of the Science desk from tonight. One has the normal header, transcluded from Wikipedia:Reference desk/header. One has that template removed. The speedy one takes between 8 and 10 seconds to edit or render for the first time. The slow one takes more like 60 seconds, and I get a Wikimedia server error every single time I edit it. I invite anyone who's interested to experiment on these pages. (Note that they're both brand-new, so they don't have long histories or anything.)
Secondly, I temporarily removed the transcluded header from the Science, Language, and Entertainment desks, and then ran a pass of the archiving bot. The bot got server errors on the Computing, Mathematics, Humanities, and Miscellaneous desks. It got no server errors on the Science, Language, Entertainment, or Help desks.
See also Simetrical's comment in this thread at the Village pump.
I have replaced the nice-looking (but slow) headers at the Science, Language, and Entertainment desks for now, but we're obviously going to have to do something about this.
— Steve Summit ( talk) 01:39, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
...have been temporarily solved with a hack that will last at least until the developers decide to start running the servers with a degree of competence. In a week or so I'll try putting the real header back to see if the server issues have been resolved. Nobody should experience any more performance problems or wikimedia errors on the RD. -- ffroth 03:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Incidentally, as to the mention of WP:PERF: there isn't much of a server performance problem here. You are not hurting the servers at all via this template. You're causing high latency, but not much lowering throughput, since very few people actually visit the Reference Desk. It's the users who try to view the few affected pages that suffer, and so you may want to remove the templates (as has been done) for editorial reasons: because people have trouble viewing the particular page, not because the servers themselves are hurt. This seems to be a distinction that confuses many people.
But basically, this slowness is a known and recognized problem. It will be dealt with eventually, but whether that means within a year or within five years (keeping in mind that MediaWiki has existed for less than four years) I can't say. This issue with the reference desk is among the smaller of the problems it's caused, directly or indirectly. When Tim introduced the template inclusion limits, hundreds of heavily-used pages and templates broke, and some months ago a template used on the Spanish (?) Wikipedia crashed several sites until it was tracked down and deleted. Unfortunately, as I say, the problem is not easy to solve while maintaining backwards compatibility, and with only two developers who are paid to work on the software, there's no timetable for this particular issue. — Simetrical ( talk • contribs) 19:52, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
User:Gurch took it upon himself to (badly) transform all header code to (broken) flat code and transclude it on all desks, replacing the working already-flat code that I implemented last night, then blanked the entire header and nominated it for speedy deletion on the grounds that it was bloated, so that somehow fills an imaginary WP:CSD of his. So that's why for most of today every desk has shown up as Miscellaneous and random spaces were all around the header.. Let me repeat: while sever performance problems continue, the header has already been replaced with fast, flat (unmaintainable) code hosted from my userspace to keep things running smoothly. Leave it alone! This is ridiculous. -froth
Ents Desk finally gets off the mark -- Dweller 11:02, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
When the header code had a bug, several questions ended up posted on the article C instead of their intended destination(s). I have moved them all to WP:RD/Misc, that seemed better than trying to assume which desks they had been intended for. I imagine they might get my name on them from SineBot, I'll try to deal with that if/when it happens. -- LarryMac | Talk 20:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
To be quite frank, isn’t this color question taking up a rather ridiculous amount of time and energy? I have nothing against adding a few aesthetic touches to the desks to make them more appealing, but we’re all supposed to be here to write an encyclopedia. Don’t we all have obscure Indie albums to write about or something? One thing I do strongly advise that we leave alone is the iconic header which is important for people who do not know Wikipedia well. -- S.dedalus 22:57, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Nice. hydnjo talk 23:25, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
What's up with this thread on the Science Desk? The questioner doesn't know the difference between a turbofan and a ducted fan and catches a bunch of grief over it.— eric 04:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Eddymania7 20:14, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn`t we have a Video Game Reference section?
Eddymania7
Urgh...Supercheats is a CHEATS website and it answers questions! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eddymania7 ( talk • contribs) 20:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I am blown away by the farsighted responses of Wikipedians on the issue of Baby computer OS. even though I am not the OP, I would award a barnstar for the answer about wooden blocks. Congratulations, Sean and SteveBaker! Regards, -- Kushal t 03:14, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I think this is the farthest back (23 November 2001) I've ever found an incarnation of the Reference Desk- I have no idea (and no way to tell) where it was before this (the talk page was very helpfully deleted last month by an enterprising sysop), but apparently the help desk was moved to wikipedia:Help desk in 2002 by the original creator of the mediawiki software (so says the Wikipedia help desk page history, but Wikipedia:Help desk has no intact history before 2004), but a few days later Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous showed up on the scene full of the same questions we saw in 2001. We have no history for Wikipedia:Reference desk prior to 2005 (when apparently it was split into Miscellaneous, though that seems to conflict with the fact that we have history for Miscellaneous 3 years earlier) but it DID exist before our oldest copy- the page log at least shows protection activity 3 months before our first diff. Also if anyone cares I tracked down for User:Ruud Koot the origin of the "ask a new question by clicking here" that was causing problems with the flat headers- it dates back to January 2004! He found the exact point where the code was added that ended up breaking things though: August 2005- a few days (I think) after the rd header was separated into "How to ask and answer" -- ffroth 23:52, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
What's the problem with the rat question? Granted it isn't very "scientific" and perhaps a bit naive, even maybe worded in a way which is a bit impolite, but invalid or rude? I'm not seeing it, are you suggesting the question is too stupid to ask? You know what they say about stupid questions.. Vespine 23:55, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
We get these boy loves girl questions all the time. We could practically have a dating desk! I wonder why we almost never get girl loves boy questions. I guess women just innately know how to handle these things. -- S.dedalus 19:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Do not request regulated professional advice. If you want to ask advice that "offline" would only be given by a member of a licensed and regulated profession (medical, legal, veterinary, etc.), do not ask it here. Any such questions
may be removed. See
Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer and/or
Wikipedia:Legal disclaimer. Ask a doctor, dentist, veterinarian or lawyer instead. |
Good idea / bad idea? To be used to replace the text deleted from a medical enquiry. Comments please.
Lanfear's Bane |
t 14:07, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
To respond to DuncanHill's concern raised above, I agree that there's nothing wrong with asking for an explanation of a biological phenomenon. Indeed, I doubt that there's any disagreement around here on that point. However, asking for an explanation of a specific individual's symptom (as in, "I have noticed strange thing foo happening with my body, what could cause that?") crosses the line into medical advice. The poster at that point is looking for diagnoses to explain his particular condition. One can call them 'explanations' if one prefers, but it doesn't change the fact that the individual may choose to make medical decisions on the basis of our advice and response. In this case, we ought to tread particularly carefully, since it's obvious that we're not even dealing with an adult.
In a section further up this talk page, I gave some examples of questions that sought medical advice and compared them to questions that simply were on a medical topic. I hope that that discussion will help to clarify the boundary.
On a meta-discussion note, I would strongly urge all the participants here to confine their discussion of appropriate versus inappropriate questions to this talk page. There's no reason to slug things out on the Ref Desk itself—it just confuses our readers and seems to encourage edit warring and incivility. This is why we have a talk page in the first place. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 15:51, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
My apologies for adding so many sections to the talk page today. Entirely coincidentally, I just finished a draft today of an essay meant to explain the reasoning behind our medical advice guidelines—why they exist; what we hope to accomplish with them; who is protected by them. Comments are welcome. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 16:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail
Maybe we need a larger selection of tools for dealing with the "medial advice" problem. Wikipedia does not give medical advice and many reference desk participants do not want to even allow discussions that might include answers that can be interpreted as medical advice. Some reference desk participants end up labeling as "asking for medical advice" anything that they fear might lead to a reply that could be interpreted as constituting medical advice. Maybe in the "welcome" instructions for "
How to ask a question" we should include something like: "Please do not describe personal health, medical or legal problems. Only ask general questions that can be answered by the type of general information that is found in an encyclopedia." When people do provide personal health/medical/legal information, we could provide them with a link to a subpage that explains what a wiki website is and how to ask a general question rather than a personal question. --
JWSchmidt 20:54, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to explore the extent to which Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers and Wikipedia:Assume good faith are being applied at the reference desk. I think some editors are making the bad faith assumption that reference desk participants are liars, so we cannot trust them with medial-related information. My view is that if someone asks a general health/medical-related question then reference desk participants have the right to provide links to Wikipedia articles that are related to the question. I object to deletion of reference desk material when that deletion is based on bad-faith assumptions about how information might be used. The basic "do not bite the newcomers" approach of Wikipedia includes empowering newcomers and telling them the correct way to do things....without making bad faith assumptions about how they will behave and use that knowledge. -- JWSchmidt 00:12, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I started this thread by suggesting that we could decide to ask reference desk participants not to describe personal health/medical problems. I also suggested that when people do provide personal health/medical details, rather than answer their question we could provide a link to a page that explains the difference between asking a personal health/medical and asking a general medical-related question that can be responded to by providing links to encyclopedia articles. These simple suggestions for how to improve the reference desk were met with several replies (#1-4, below) that illustrate how bad faith assumptions are at work both on the reference desk and on this talk page:
reply #1: "I'm not sure how valid the assumption that everyone reads the instructions is" <-- Nobody made "the assumption that everyone reads the instructions".....I explicitly included the idea that, "When people do provide personal health/medical/legal information, we could provide them with a link to a subpage that explains what a wiki website is and how to ask a general question rather than a personal question." I think it is not constructive to suggest that since some people do not read the instructions we do not have to have good instructions. I think it is an assumption of bad faith to say: "Note that we don't want to get too cute—offering instructions along the lines of 'We're sorry; we can't offer medical advice here. But if you rephrase your question in the following magic way (wink, wink), I can give you the medical advice you're looking for without anyone noticing.... won't fly." We should provide instructions that show people how to ask general medicine-related questions that can be answered by providing links to relevant Wikipedia articles. We should not be deterred from providing instructions because of a bad faith assumption about how some people might interpret medical information as medical advice. "Newer editors don't know not to offer medical advice" <-- So because some people might offer medical advice we cannot allow people to ask medical questions? Wrong. Don't delete general medical questions, delete the medical advice when it is given and educate the newer editors. I think "answers" on the reference desk should emphasize links to Wikipedia articles and providing such links in response to general questions does not constitute medical advice. Make sure that you are honest about what constitutes medical advice. Do not delete discussion comments that you fear might be interpreted as medical advice. Let's work to keep the questions general and not personal and lets work to keep answers focused on directing people to Wikipedia articles.
reply #2: "Everybody lies." "What the OP may have done is unintentionally lied by omission." <-- Yes, reference desk participants might lie. But we cannot create a system within Wikipedia that is based on bad faith assumptions about what some people might do. We should assume good faith and provide reference desk participants with instructions about how to ask questions that we can answer. "Take off the little aprons and surgical masks you have manufactured for yourselves" <-- This is a bad faith assumption about reference desk participants. Answering general medical questions is allowed and providing links to Wikipedia articles that contain medical information in no way involves "little aprons and surgical masks". "There are a set of rules and they are being followed" <-- Questions have been deleted from the reference desk not because they ask for medical advice but because some participants fear that answers will be interpreted as medical advice. This is a bad faith assumption and it is not following the existing rules. The proposed solution is to make sure that personal health/medical details are not included as part of questions and that we "force" questions to be general medical questions that can be answered by providing links to Wikipedia articles. "it is safer to air on the side of safety" <-- I take this as an admission that some reference desk participants are going to continue to violate the guidelines and remove medical questions that do not ask for medical advice. As far as I can tell, this arrogant and willful disregard for the guidelines is based on bad faith assumptions that 1) reference desk participants will respond to medical questions by providing medical advice even when it is not asked for and 2) reference desk participants will interpret general medical information as constituting medical advice. In my view, this attitude is a violation of the Wikiversity Wikipedia:Assume good faith ideal. "when an equally obviously regular person asks a question that would require my violating the guidelines of the desk to answer. Good faith doesn't enter into it." <-- When you invent a bogus interpretation of the guidelines (calling general health/medicine-related questions "requests for medical advice" when you only imagine that a thread might involve someone offering medical advice or when you fear that someone might interpret medical information as medical advice) that is motivated by your bad faith assumptions about Wikipedia participants and "it" is very much involved with failure to apply the Wikipedia guideline assume good faith.
rely #3. "Wikipedians abhor rules." <-- This comment seems to be motivated by a bad faith assumption. I have complained when reference desk comments/questions are removed for bogus reasons. It is silly to suggest that people like myself are complaining because we abhor rules. What we abhor is self-appointed tin gods who delete reference desk content based, not on the guidelines, but rather, on their fantasies and fears that involve violations of Wikipedia:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. It is bad for Wikipedia when we delete edits and lie about why we delete them. Deleting an edit and lying about why it was deleted is a terrible way to treat an editor. "I agree that we should take pains to be as courteous as possible at all times, especially when slapping some poor supplicant down for asking the wrong question." <-- It is clear from this statement and deletions of content from the reference desk that we have reference desk participants who feel that their job is to "slapping some poor supplicant down for asking the wrong question". This is wrong and I am going to do what ever it takes to correct this problem.
reply #4. "I genuinely don't see how this is a question of bad (or good) faith" <-- This really does not surprise me. Many Wikipedia participants have adopted an attitude that is blind to the meaning of
Wikipedia:Assume good faith and
Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. This corrosive attitude is now a matter of regular discussion at the highest levels of the Wikimedia Foundation. Personally, I'm tired of watching disruption of the Wikipedia project by participants who do not respect
Wikipedia:Assume good faith and
Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers. I think the reference desk is being disrupted by deletions of content that are motivated by bad faith assumptions and that involve "biting" reference desk participants. Maybe people who do not respect
Wikipedia:Assume good faith and
Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers need to step aside and stop blocking good faith attempts to improve the reference desk. I think that the self-appointed owners of the reference desk have long gotten away with bullying, but I intend to change this. I am confident that if we eventually have to push this to the level of arbitration committee review, the principles of
Wikipedia:Assume good faith and
Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers will be upheld. A lawyer for the Foundation has already made the point that our medical disclaimer covers Wikipedia on the medical advice issue. There is no need for reference desk participants to delete general health/medical-related questions out of fear for what might happen if Wikipedians discuss those questions.
--
JWSchmidt 17:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
There seems to be some confusion about the types of advice that are allowed on this board. Obviously, doing anything that would be considered the 'practice of medicine' is right out; we're not doctors, and the environment here is inappropriate for that for any number of reasons. However, it was (correctly) pointed out by Dreftymac a fair while ago that making a determination as to what constitutes the 'practice of medicine' is very much a legal matter in and of itself. As far as I know, nobody currently contributing to these Desks is a malpractice lawyer, nor does any participant sit on a Board of Medical Examiners. Consequently, we have no one here qualified to judge what does and does not constitute the 'practice of medicine' from a legal standpoint—and even if we did have such people, they have good and sound legal and ethical reasons not to offer such opinions here.
Still, it was widely agreed that giving out medical advice in response to people's posted problems was a risky practice, with potential emotional and physical impact on the person who asked the question, personal and legal repercussions for the editors replying, and potential harm to Wikipedia's reputation. (See my essay for an informal but fairly thorough discussion of the downsides of medical advice.) The risk that bad advice will be offered is not hypothetical—we have seen, in the past, bad advice that runs the gamut from the merely incomplete, through ineffective, to inappropriate (recommending the wrong drugs, offering overly-benign explanations for symptoms, arguments that toxic substances are 'harmless', advice to not worry about a doctor's concerns because doctors like to 'overdiagnose'). Every time a layperson on the Desk offers an explanation for a person's symptoms, every time someone suggests a home remedy for a perceived illness, every time an editor says "Don't worry; it's probably nothing", we're playing Russian roulette. So far – and as far as we know – we've been lucky. There's no guarantee that that luck will continue to hold.
Recall that Wikipedia was in the news for weeks over a two-line hoax sentence added to a biographical article (see Seigenthaler controversy). Jimbo spent a whole pile of time being grilled about it on CNN, in The Economist, and damn near everywhere else, and it led to a great deal of embarrassment for the project as a whole—not to mention what was then described as draconian new policy. We'd rather not be in a position where, again, a single editor brings down the wrath of the press on Wikipedia—and you can bet that we won't be treated kindly if we've actually given advice that caused a kid somewhere physical harm.
So, what to do? A set of guidelines evolved. They are necessarily more restrictive than the minimal 'avoid the practice of medicine' theshold, both because deciding what creates a doctor-patient relationship is beyond our expertise and qualificaions here, and because the potential for harm exists even with 'unregulated' types of advice. We established standards that were intended to be as straightforward and 'bright line' as possible, to make explaining, understanding, and implementing them as easy as we could. To summarize Wikipedia:Reference desk/guidelines/Medical advice, we don't offer any response that is likely to be interpreted as a diagnosis, a prognosis, or a treatment. We also remove any question that can be reasonably be interpreted as asking for those things. It's not out of malice; it's out of a desire to protect the poster, the responders, and the project as a whole.
Unfortunately, because 'regulated professions' are mentioned in the header (that's a relatively new formulation, I think) there's the completely understandable – but incorrect – perception that only advice that would regulated by a professional governing body is forbidden. I think that's the root of Lanfear's Bane and DuncanHill's argument above. Though I'm not qualified to give a legal opinion, DuncanHill is likely correct that the advice described doesn't meet the test of constituting the 'practice of medicine'. Lanfear's Bane is correct that Wikipedia's test is stricter, and that the advice doesn't meet our standards.
I know that this is a challenging issue, and I expect it always will be. People who contribute to the Ref Desks are generally both smart and helpful. As a rule, they don't like to be told that they're not qualified and not allowed to help when presented with any problem. I have no doubt that some individual editors here may be comfortable with the legal and/or physical risks that they may be taking by offering medical advice (within Wikipedia's definition). Indeed, were that the only consideration then I would be offering suggestions for some 'minor' medical issues, too. What single editors cannot do is decide to accept a risk of harm to other people (particularly minors) who might post here, nor can they decide on behalf of the entire project to expose Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation to a potential public relations disaster. TenOfAllTrades( talk) 13:54, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Anyone know why the science desk is apparently in Category:Wikipedians with BA degrees? I can't seem to find the link that's causing that. Someguy1221 19:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
The following has been removed from the Humanities desk and placed here for further discussion: -- Milkbreath 00:12, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
The thing I noticed is that the original poster in no way suggested he was contemplating doing the illegal/unethical thing. He just asked a question, and potentially a pretty interesting one at that. — Steve Summit ( talk) 02:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
This is ridiculous! Are parents and teachers illegally practicing law when they tell their children "now billy, prostitution is illegal, you wouldnt want a police officer to come around the corner"? Knowing the law and sharing the law with others is not practicing law- that only applies to actually filling out legal paperwork and advising someone on a legal case. Do you seriously expect americans to learn the law by paying a lawyer $400 an hour to sit down with them and go through the lawbooks one by one? Judges and lawyers interpret the laws, and news agencies and wikipedians are certainly allowed to disseminate the laws and their interpretations. And no, this comment doesn't count as legal advice. -- ffroth 03:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Whoa, let’s take a step back here. The OP was not asking for legal advice. He or she was asking a legal themed question. If he had said “Would it be illegal for me to hire somebody to write my essay?” that might warrant removal from the desks, although I favor simply leaving a polite message stating that we cannot help with legal matters and reverting all subsequent messages. However, this question is entirely appropriate. In fact there are numerous examples of “Is it illegal questions:
[4]. They range from constructive: (
“Is it Illegal to not be a Muslim in Saudi?”), to odd: (
“Is it illegal to ejaculate in a urinal?”) to silly/troll: (
"Is it illegal to kill a man while hitting him with a cactus?”), to defiantly troll: (
Is it illegal to reach your hands down a woman's pants on the street if you're wearing a mask?) Obviously the last two would have been good candidates for revert! Let’s put this question back on the desk ASAP. --
S.dedalus 04:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I've said this before and I'll say it again Wikipedia does not give legal advice etc, means Wikipedia does not give legal advice not Wikipedia editors are not allowed to give legal advice. Anyone who takes advice from a bunch of geeks on the internet is a bloody fool. I clarified this with brad patric who was wikipedia's lawyer at the time ie I did take legal advice from someone qualified to give it. We need to lighten up on the whole removal issue as removing questions and answers is rude. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 07:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
(exdent) Suppose someone asks: "Is it illegal, in the UK, to be under the influence of illegally supplied drugs?", and I answer, "No, unless you are operating machinery or driving", is that a form of venturing a legal opinion that should be avoided? And what if, instead, I reply: "Our article entitled Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 contains this snippet of information: it is not illegal to be under the influence of illegally supplied drugs once ingested/injected unless operating machinery/driving."? Should that sentence perhaps be removed from the article because, under some interpretation, it can be construed as Wikipedia giving legal advice? We must distinguish between supplying information about what the law (including case law) says about some issue – which, I feel, is fine – and offering an opinion as to what that means when applied to a real situation, about the particulars of which we have only heard the questioner's viewpoint, and then only those bits that they deemed relevant and prudent to reveal. As to the definition of legal advice, please don't assume that everyone operates in a common law jurisdiction. The lines we draw should equally apply to a Swiss editor replying to a question coming from France. -- Lambiam 15:16, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
It says, "If you want to ask advice that 'offline' would only be given..." But of course what we mean there is "would only properly be given" or "would only officially be given", but those two aren't quite right, either. (But my point is, out there in the real world, and whether they should or not, ordinary lay people ask and give each other medical and legal advice all the time.) — Steve Summit ( talk) 11:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
There are at least three factors to consider when trying to determine whether we're talking about improper legal advice. The first two come from the formal, legal definition of " legal advice":
To those two points I believe we can legitimately add one of our own:
According to our legal advice article, as far as the law is concerned, it's "legal advice" if and only if the answers to questions 1 and 2 are both "yes". And for us of course the answers to both are virtually always "no". So from that standpoint we're theoretically in the clear. (But only theoretically. There are certainly other things to worry about.)
What if the answers to the first two questions aren't both "yes"? Again according to the legal advice page, if a professional gives advice for free, that's pro bono. And if a non-professional pretends to be a professional and gives advice for money, I think that's pretty much the definition of "practicing law without a license". And we certainly don't want to go anywhere near there.
I don't think the law much cares about whether the advice is abstract, theoretical, or practical. If you ask a professional lawyer a hypothetical question, and unless he's a personal friend who owes you a favor, he's going to charge you just as much for his professional opinion on your question as if you'd asked him about a specific legal pickle that you personally were in.
But of course we don't care so much about what professional lawyers do (or have to do), because we're not. And if we want to place more stringent limits on what we can do, that's fine, too. (Wikipedia has a pretty long history of this -- for example, we insist on public-domain, GFDL, or creative-commons-licensed media in situations where we could get by perfectly well with fair use; we choose to set a higher standard for reused work than fair use allows.)
But since we're not professional lawyers and we're not accepting money for our services, we're going to have to muck around with things like question 3 if we're going to set any additional limits.
Personally, I think it's fine for us to offer opinions on abstract questions of legal fact. Most of us believe (and I agree) that we shouldn't be offering opinions on people's specific legal problems. Personally I think hypothetical questions are okay, too, although those are obviously considerably more debatable.
I think the same arguments hold in a parallel way for medical advice, too.
There are a couple of other issues that keep getting raised, which I think confuse the question more than they clarify it.
I think the only remaining problem is that since there is no clear-cut law against anything we might be doing here, since there is in fact nothing legally wrong with anything we might be doing here, the rules we set for ourselves are going to be based primarily on our own consensual opinions, not on any statute or case law or anything. So we can (and probably will) debate it forever.
My own bottom line on all of this is that we ought to have guidelines against asking (and answering) professional-advice questions, but at the same time, that we can be reasonable about enforcing them. We certainly don't have to apply them massively or expansively stringently; there's absolutely no need to take anything that even remotely smells like a legal or medical question and knee-jerkily categorize it as a prohibited one.
— Steve Summit ( talk) 00:01, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Can we find practical ways to help reference desk participants efficiently navigate the gray area between "general medical questions" and "questions that seek professional advice"? The practice of medicine relies on a flow of information about a patient's condition to the medical professional. Asking a general medical question does not require any information about a particular patient. We have some reference desk participants who have been deleting questions because they contain personal health information. These deletions are usually "justified" by saying that the question was seeking professional advice even when, in fact, it was just asking a general question and happen to include some personal information. Providing personal health information creates a slippery slope towards medical advice, so why not craft some rules for dealing with questions that include personal health information? It seems to me that we could just say, "Do not describe personal health matters on the reference desk." When people do include descriptions of personal health matters as part of a general medical question, rather than delete the question we could provide a link to a page that explains why the reference desk does not want questions that include personal health information and that page could explain how to ask a general medical question that does not include personal information. I suspect that a restriction against descriptions of personal legal matters would also help to guide reference desk participants away from asking for legal advice. The only objection I've seen to asking reference desk participants not to give personal information is that in some way doing so would be a "game" by which people would end up asking for medical advice in "code". I think that argument is a [red herring] and violation of the Wikipedia ideal of assuming good faith. If our rule was that we will respond to medical and legal questions that include personal information only by providing a link to instructions for how to correctly ask general questions then I think that would go a long way towards educating reference desk participants about what a wiki is, what they should expect from the reference desk and it would reduce the potential for reference desk discussion that involves asking for and giving medical advice while at the same time solving the problem of inappropriate deletions of reference desk content. The current system of not explaining how to ask questions and lying about why reference desk content is deleted is not acceptable. -- JWSchmidt 18:55, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I have such a strong desire to say "Meh" that I'll probably sound like a sheep. There's such a need for so many people to recover some perspective, you're way past WP:TEA... You've inspired a new essay WP:BOSTON TEA PARTY. -- Dweller 14:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Erm. This Is Not America. Sha la la la la la. -- Dweller 10:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)