This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Reference desk. 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.
Latest comment: 13 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
We remove these, right? Suddenly I can't remember, but I think we do. If this is just me going crazy somebody please put it back. APL (talk) 07:19, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, good removal. We can't be expected to look at photographs and tell that person what is wrong with their dog. --Jayron3207:27, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
Really? Why not answer veterinary questions? If there's guidance or policy, please cite. I'm not meaning to be argumentative, just curious. Veterinary medicine and human medicine are regulated in very different ways. -- Scray (talk) 03:15, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
"I concur" troll has been blocked, will keep monitoring
Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
The "I concur" troll had been warned several times by myself and other editors at various IP addresses over the past few days. After the latest silliness, I have blocked, via a rangeblock on 203.112.82.0/24 (essentially all 203.112.82.X addresses). There are only 6 active IP addresses on that range, and 4 are fairly clearly the same person, based on crossreferencing editing patterns, and a 5th has only one edit ever, 6 months ago. There is an additional IP address which is likely this same person, but has a limited editing history to go by. Given that this range, in the history of Wikipedia, has only been used by one person, our current "I concur" troll, I felt safe issuing a rangeblock on this range, as the potential for collateral damage was quite low. If anyone is interested in double checking me, I have left the 4 addresses used by this person on my user talk page. Additionally, if someone has the correct gadget enabled, you can check all contributions on that range here. I am open to comments and criticisms. --Jayron3203:19, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
From where is known the influence of blood pressure
Latest comment: 13 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
I would like to know how is long time it's known that the blood pressure influence about our life? and in addition, when is the begining of use the blood pressure check. thanks for help.46.210.98.216 (talk) 01:12, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Latest comment: 13 years ago32 comments11 people in discussion
User:Heironymous Rowe modified the post of User:Trovatore in this post on the Humanities Ref Desk, to improve the post or to correct a perceived mistake:[1]. I posted on Heironymous Rowe's talk page requesting that he not do that [2], but got only a dismissive post that he has "been here a while " and saw no problem, and accused me of wanting to "stir up drama," and offering to revert if the edited editor complained. On the Ref Desk, User:Jayron32seems to argue in favor of editing the apparently mistaken postings of other editors, unless they object. If Trovatore wants everyone to modify his postings, so be it, but in general I understood the practice was objectionable. Edison (talk) 06:41, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Normally it's not appropriate to edit another user's posts. But in this case, he's fixing what was a non-existent link due to the name of the link being wrong. I don't see why not. It was obvious what the poster intended. Now, if someone changed it to the 14th amendment of the Leichtenstein constitution, that would be wrong. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 06:52, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
(EC)Is it that difficult to post on the talk page of the presumed blundering editor and let him make the correction himself? Is it difficult to inform the editor that his posted words have been altered for clarity? Is there a guideline or policy related to altering the talk page postings of others? Edison (talk) 06:58, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Better to notify the editor whose posting was changed, even if it is done per "Disambiguating or fixing links" per the WP:TPOC post by Wavelength. This cavalier practice of modifying other editors' posts on Ref Desk without notification of the editor is not something I want to encourage. Edison (talk) 07:02, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
OK, I have now created the needed redirect, so it is no longer a red link. That would have been about as easy as editing the previous post and then posting that one had done so. Next time, I would suggest just posting a following posting with the correct link,formula, date, or whatever, rather than editing another editor's post to make it say something he did not say, even if there was a harmless error on the preceding editor's part. Occasionally, an editor really means "automagic" rather than "automatic," or whatever, and resents the well-intentioned modification of his post. Edison (talk) 07:11, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
It didn't particularly bother me. I did think creating the redir would have been better, not so much to avoid messing with my sacred bytes, as just because it was a useful redir. --Trovatore (talk) 09:41, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Really? If I'd thought of adding the suggested redirect above at the time, I would have done it, believe me.It was not a malicious edit, I noted right under the users post that i had fixed the link, I wasn't trying to hide anything. But this? This is your idea of not stirring up drama? Did we cross paths somewhere else and I not remember it? I cant believe this level of concern is over this one edit. Did I insult you in some way or are you just bored today? Heiro13:01, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
See WP:AGF. I merely suggested that you follow the standard advice not to edit the posts of others. "Are you just bored today" and some of your other comments border on a personal attack.Edison (talk) 14:41, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I AGFed when you left me a note at my talk, which I politely responded to. I AGFed when you started this thread (the first thread started about me personally on a talk or admin page in my almost 4 yrs here) and left notes at at least 2 other users talk pages to let them know you had started this thread so they could be sure to participate. I AGFed through every post you've made here. Til now. For someone who has I do Wikignome activities, and avoid drama as much as possible. on their user page as a guiding principle of their editing here, you have sure kept the drama going over this matter. Everyone has weighted in on the matter, it seems to be concluded, I even left a short message Trovatore at his talk apologizing over the matter. I think we can let it rest. Can we call this over?Heiro15:01, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I notified the parties who were being discussed here not to "create drama" but because it is required when they are mentioned. I never speculated about your motives, or other ad hominem irrelevancies; I just discussed the one issue. I certainly assumed good faith on your part. I'm done. Edison (talk) 15:20, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Some points on this issue:
No rule benefits from blind enforcement. Under many circumstances, we would not want someone to mess with a post of another editor. In this case, the fixing of a redlink (by correcting US to United States) did not represent a "big deal" and, given that Heiro explained what he did publicly as soon as he did it, it doesn't seem to merit much of a bruhaha. This doesn't mean that we, as a practice, allow people to modify the posts of others. This just means in this case, it wasn't worth bringing up at all, doubly so in light of:
Trovatore didn't himself raise an objection. The rule exists to prevent Wikipedia editors from changing the meaning of, or otherwise annoying or offending, the specific person who left the post. If Trovatore isn't bothered, I don't see where anyone else should be. Or to be more specific, other people are allowed to be bothered, but they should keep such bother to themselves. Raising a stink is the prerogative of Trovatore in this case, and if he doesn't feel the need to do so, stinks should remain unraised.
We regularly allow other exceptions to that rule: we redact email addresses and phone numbers from posts, we remove leading spaces from posts so it doesn't do that crazy "no wordwrap" thing in the dashed box, we add headers where the OP forgets to, we change the wording of the header from "Question" to a more descriptive header. In this specific case, Heiro's action was substantially similar to these actions.
In conclusion, there are cases where we allow for exceptions to the "Never edit another person's post" rule, and the only person who can judge if such exceptions are valid are the person whose post is being edited. --Jayron3213:37, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
All of the above are generally rules that I follow here. I never edit anothers comments to in any way change their meanings, and this is a very rare instance of me changing anothers comment at all. I did not think at the time to create the redirect, call it a brain fart, I thought it would be silly to add an other link under theirs rather than just fixing the one, which was so close to being the correct link. I formally apologize to Trovatore for changing his post without first seeking his permission and if I'd known it would cost this many wasted bytes in discussion, I would never have changed it at all. As I explained to Edison in my original comment over this matter at my talk, WP:BOLD and WP:IAR, I thought I was merely being helpful. I'll try not to make that mistake again. Heiro13:49, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Don't let Edison's opinion on this matter influence your future behavior. I would not take it to be anything more than his singular opinion, and as such shouldn't mean much to you in terms of influencing how you think your actions will be perceived by the community at large. --Jayron3214:24, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I have to agree with Jayron et al here. There's a reason why there was such a fuss when SB wanted a blanket prohibitation on editing others comments. As with many guidelines, the prohibition on editing others comments needs to be read with some degree of common sense. The header itself makes this clear since earlier it says we will remove phone numbers, email addresses etc which anyone with a bit of experience will know we is something we nearly always do, and is clearly not a formatting error. In this specific case, I agree simply creating a redirect would have been a better option, but that since HR did mention in that same thread that they'd modified the post and it didn't change the meaning as it appears even Trovatore and I think Edison agrees it's best to just let it be. I'm resonably sure I've had someone do the same for me once or twice. I would note while you should not resolve possible ambiguity or differing meanings yourself, e.g. if the problem had been referring to the 144th amendment, it would be inappropriate to change the comment to refer to the 14th, but instead query either on the RD or talk page or both, there are cases when there would have been no real ambiguity but the need to create a redirect is unclear. E.g. if someone had mentioned the Fourteenth Amendmwnt to the United States Constitution I don't think you can claim there was an ambiguity yet I question if there would be any need to create a redirect so the options are either quering the person (a query on the RD can of course included a correct wikilink) or just correcting it yourself, noting you've done so and I don't see that either of these are worse then the other. Nil Einne (talk) 16:32, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
Editing other's posts is absolutely forbidden (aside from the narrow exceptions noted); period; end of story. Except when it isn't. Like all situations where WP:IAR applies, it's permissible to modify someone else's post on the Ref Desk as long as the change is absolutely correct, it won't confuse or mislead any readers, and it won't upset or annoy the person who posted it. If you meet all those conditions, you're fine, but like all applications of WP:IAR then if you're in error it's on your head.
As it happens, Heironymous Rowe's edit does seem to meet those three criteria. First, the link was corrected to point to the proper article. (And it wasn't really a strong candidate for the creation of a redirect, so there's no particular harm to the original redlink staying redlinked. Moreover, if he had created the redirect, he would still have been well-advised to have called attention explicitly to its creation, so that the OP would know that the link was now live.) Second, HR made it explicitly clear in his post that he had modified the original red link. That meant that anyone who came to the thread afterwards – especially the original poster – wouldn't be confused about how a red link had turned blue in their absence, and would have their attention specifically drawn to the presence of a new blue link to follow. Third, Trovatore has acknowledged right here that he didn't particularly care about the edit—no harm, no foul. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:51, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Interestingly enough, this thread has now provided a perfect example of how careful one has to be before correcting even "obvious" mistakes in the posts of others.
Up above, Nil Einne provided a nice explanation of when it would/wouldn't be appropriate to fix an accidental redlink by adding a redirect behind it, and illustrated his point with a hypothetical accidental link to Fourteenth Amendmwnt to the United States Constitution. Along came another editor who "helpfully" corrected Nil Einne's misspelling [3] (dutifully citing IAR while doing so) -- but completely demolished the meaning. (I've changed it back.) —Steve Summit (talk) 13:55, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
Please see WP:LEW. Although it was completely unintended that I should "correct" the spelling mistake in the exact same manner that HR "mistakenly" corrected the aforementioned RD error, one could say it was a non-disruptive POINT. IAR explicitly states that (paraphrase) if the WP rules interfere with adequate editing and browsing of the encyclopedia, that editors are obliged to momentarily ignore them. Small lapses in judgement are unlikely to cause major conflict, but perhaps this post demonstrates against my example. I initially corrected this because the formatting error that was the incorrect redlink did interfere with readability. RD regulars routinely fix spelling errors by OPs and generic "Question" questions that overgeneralize the question, and so it is potentially difficult to understand the question of why any editor cannot simply fix a linking error, as readers are likely to waste more time searching for the article in question, than the editor is likely to spend in fixing the link; there remains the question of whether the BOLD fixation of linkage disrupts the egos of fellow editors, thereby leading others to question his/her judgement, indeed a strange question of readability that is in question. I deferrently apologize for over-use of the word "question" in the previous statement.
In future cases, I suggest that editors simply insert a small-text note stating the correct link when a conflict begins to erupt labelling any unilateral correction "disruptive". The self-referential question of this topic is whether editors can edit other editors' statements, an example of an incorrect question. ~AH1(discuss!)19:47, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
The error of destroying the point of an editor's posting by "fixing" intentional misspellings is one that is best avoided by just adding a post after the one with the perceived mistake. This last incident reminds me of a sci-fi short story by Frederick Brown, "'The Angelic Angleworm," in which some cosmic typesetting machine which controls our reality periodically slips a cog, creating anomalies like an "angelworm" which has wings and which can fly around. In a reprint of the story, some typesetter "corrected" the text so that a character says "Angleworm! It must have been something to see. Don't know I've ever heard of an angleworm before" in place of the original "Angelworm! It must have been something to see. Don't know I've ever heard of an angelworm before." Edison (talk) 20:01, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
That reminds me - isn't the message of the big grey infobox at the top of every RD corrupted because people rarely read it? ~AH1(discuss!)20:13, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
Um, AH, I wasn't trying to start an edit war, lame or otherwise, and I wouldn't want to seem to perpetuate one here, so I won't try to respond in detail, but I must say, if an intentional redlink on a discussion page "interferes with your adequate editing and browsing of the encyclopedia" (if that's what you were saying), you might want to adjust your editing and browsing, rather than editing the link. By changing an intentional redlink blue, you're definitely interfering with the editing and browsing experience of others (i.e., by confusing the heck out of them). —Steve Summit (talk) 20:26, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
In case people are still confused, it seems clear Steve Summit is discussing AH's modification of my comment here, not the modification on the RD which started this thread. The red link in my post above was intentional and used to illustrate my point. While I don't care much, it shouldn't have been 'corrected' as it meant what I was trying to say no longer made any sense. The 'correction' by AH was not therefore a legitimate correction. (Similar to the long ago automagic fuss.) In fact if I'd accidentally typed Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and someone had changed it to Fourteenth Amendent to the United States Constitutiom, this would IMO be an acceptable correction even if I'd been intending to type what I did above.
Just to clarify my first comment, I didn't intend to suggest it's okay to modify someone's post if you aren't sure you are correcting a genuine error rather then something done intentionally (unless there are good reasons to do so even then like an NFCC image used in the desk, a link to a questionable site, an email address etc). The bigger problem of course is when people are sure they are correcting an error after having read the post, but in fact are changing something done intentionally and where there's no legitimate reason to change it. Also while I didn't really mention this before, I agree with TOAT that if the person you are correcting doesn't like you modifying their post even if it was a genuine error then you shouldn't do it which a lot of the time you're not going to know until after you make the correction. (Personally I don't quite understand why people would care about it when it was a genuine error but I respect that some do.)
Or in other words, TOAT hit the nail when they said it 'like all applications of WP:IAR then if you're in error it's on your head'. In the original HR it was fine, so there's no reason to make a fuss about it. In fact that case wasn't even an error simply an alternative but legitimate construct and as has been suggested, it would have been better to create the redlink as a redirect but still no biggie. In my case, my post should not have been modified, and while I don't consider it a big deal, some would (and perhaps I would in different circumstances).
Given that it's easy to screw as StS as Edison have said this example illustrates, it's perhaps fair to say people should consider the alternative of not modifying the post but instead post a suggested correction below. (But I do believe that modifying someone's post without issue actually goes on a lot more then people realise which is one of the reasons why I'm opposed to any attempts at a blanket prohibition or criticisng it when it was fine. I do acknowledge there are likely some cases like mine where the modification should not have happened but no one notices.)
Latest comment: 13 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
Hi. I realize most refdesk regulars don't do this, but I will post regarding this anyway. I'd like feedback on my contribution to the desk. Most of the other discussions seem to be pure conflict, which is potentially detrimental to ENC. Thanks. ~AH1(discuss!)20:02, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
Have you done any internal analysis? That is, have you looked at your own contributions to the Ref Desk with a critical, cool eye in order to determine whether or not you believe that your contributions stand the test of time? Do you consistently include useful references – internal or external – in your responses? Do you often find yourself responsible for (or participating in) the derailing of discussions with jokes, insults, or irrelevancies, or do you strive to keep your answers on point? Do you take the time to consider your responses, and acknowledge the limits of your own skills, qualifications, and knowhow, or do you just try to get the first post in? Do you find that you're making a lot of "Me too" posts, or do your comments generally add something new to each discussion? Have you met with any particular conflicts or disagreements about how you follow the Reference Desk's (or Wikipedia's) guidelines and aims? What's your signal-to-noise ratio?
AstroHurricane001 asks for feedback specifically on their own contribution, not for a serve-all tutorial interrogation. AstroHurrican001 posts often to the Science desk and all the posts I have read were well informed and helpful. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 02:29, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Music desk?
Latest comment: 12 years ago10 comments7 people in discussion
I was wondering which desk handles issues relating to musical theory questions?
My thought was perhaps a music or more general 'arts' desk might be appropriate?
I consider all music questions (including questions about genres of “music” which are not really music to my ears) to belong at the Entertainment desk, because people listen to music for entertainment.
A particular type of music might be considered by some people as better than other types of music, and therefore deserving a "sacred" place in Humanities. Alternatively, a particular type of music might be considered by some people as worse than other types of music or as not deserving to be called music, and therefore deserving to be "sanctioned" in Humanities.
I've also posted music-related questions on the Science desk: regarding the harmonic beat frequencies and resonance of radio interference. ~AH1(discuss!)20:09, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
I too might post a music question at a different reference desk if the question is interdisciplinary; and I might still post it at the Entertainment desk. The question might involve the mathematics of music, the scientific or medical aspects of music, the use of computers to generate or record or organize or play music, the language used to describe music, or the humanistic aspects of music. However, I still apply the same criteria to all types of entertainment that are called "music".
Find the Best Laptop Accessory through Online Purchase - Removed "question"
Latest comment: 12 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
I've removed the so-called question mentioned in the title. A search of any quote from that missive can be found all over the net posted by spambots. I don't see the point in having it here. Dismas|(talk)03:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Latest comment: 12 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
I just made this edit, but, due to some formatting errors, it messed up the Maths desk from that section onwards. However, I'm so far failing to find out what specifically caused the problem; even prior to posting I thought I had taken care of getting everything right. Could anyone fix my post for me? --Theurgist (talk) 02:58, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm not seeing a problem there at all, can you be more specific? Alternatively, screw it up worse, and maybe I will accidentally fix the original problem too. :) Franamax (talk) 03:15, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
See everything that follows the tables I inserted. It has an indentation on the left, as if any of the tables is not closed. But I think I closed all three tables (with |}) - including the one styled with no borders that contains the other two. --Theurgist (talk) 03:27, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks to PrimeHunter, who removed the indent of the table. I'm fixing the indents of the subsequent paragraphs, and now everything's all right (although I don't quite understand why this table causes the problem, but this one doesn't...) --Theurgist (talk) 04:12, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Where can I ask deliberately awkward questions about the rules for editing?
Latest comment: 12 years ago9 comments5 people in discussion
Sometimes I come up with dilemmas, usually to do with sources - what if such-and-such happened? For instance, at the moment on the Humanities desk there's a question ("Did Luther really get diarrhea from Kosher food?") in which it seems that a vandal has invented some misinformation, which was then picked up on by an author and published in a book. The misinformation is no longer in the article, but I was thinking: what if somebody restored it, and cited the book? There's no strong evidence that the passage in the book was based on the Wikipedia article. So what would we do? I'd also like to know: is there anywhere on Wikipedia where I can get answers to theoretical questions like this, about perplexing situations that haven't happened yet? Obviously this talk page for the reference desk isn't the proper place; and the help desk has ignored a similar question I asked in the past; and the various noticeboards only resolve questions about things that have actually happened. Card Zero (talk)22:58, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
For the former question, you might try the reliable sources noticeboard. For the latter, you're looking for some sort of discussion forum on another website—conversations about invented historical non-facts are beyond the scope of Wikipedia. (If I felt like being snarky, of course, I would also mention that the questions you've asked here about how to use Wikipedia would have best been asked at the Help Desk. Cheers!) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:21, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
I did ask on the RSN about a previous similar question, about a journalist editing Wikipedia and citing his own newspaper articles, but they only seemed interested in the fact of what had happened - determining that nothing was actually amiss - and not in the theory. That time, I was wondering several things: should I turn a blind eye to other people's unsupported edits, if I believe them to be correct but know there is no source? What do I do if I'm privy to some journalist's research which never made it to publication, and therefore know that some content in an article is just a myth, but I have nothing to cite? And don't journalists have too much power to make up rubbish, sneak it past an unprincipled newspaper editor, and then cite themselves, if they feel like it?
The rules are quite simple: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" (Wikipedia:Verifiability); verifiable statements are not necessarily true, nor vice versa. The policy, though not perfect, is so fundamental to Wikipedia it's impossible to avoid. But per Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, do what you like. (This is why theoretical debates about Wikipedia can't get very far.) --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:11, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
I guess you haven't been following the recent discussions about the change in the wording of the first policy you quote. There are already two full archives on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability (the First Sentence archives below the regular ones), so yes it is actually possible to have some very lengthy theoretical debates about policies. --Saddhiyama (talk) 10:19, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
The clause, "verifiable statements are not necessarily true", is where this thing gets slippery. If you find a verifiable source that the world is square, that doesn't mean we just blindly follow that. Editorial judgment still figures into it. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 10:26, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Just to be clear, what I had in mind was to ask questions along the lines of moral dilemmas, which would help me better understand Wikipedia's rules - not to ask questions with the purpose of causing annoyance. Card Zero (talk)01:55, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Aha, the village pump might be the right place, thank you. I never looked carefully at it before, I thought it was all for proposals and ideas, didn't know it has sections. Card Zero (talk)10:15, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Diet and vitamins
Latest comment: 12 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
I removed this question where an individual appears to be asking for treatment advice for a specific individual, and several of the responses offered treatment advice. I realize that some people look at diet and vitamins as no big deal, but after including the additional concern about depression, and I'd say this thread went well over the line where someone should be getting professional advice and not simply listening to random people on the internet. Dragons flight (talk) 18:39, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Latest comment: 12 years ago16 comments12 people in discussion
I'm often on Lang/Hum/Misc but rarely drop by here. I know the desks go through phases, and the situation isn't bad at the moment, but I'd appreciate some guidance. I am thinking of one recent example, but it is far from unique, so I'd rather not call out the individual. It tends to go like this:
OP asks a question. Respondent A proposes an answer, with wikilinks. Respondent B offers another perspective, with a Google search. Respondent C quotes from a respected source, with reference. And then respondent D comes along with "in my experience", "in my opinion", "I think" or the like. This is all polite and in good faith and attempting to be helpful -- I completely accept that. It isn't joking, which we seem to accept these days. But it isn't referenced either. I thought that these WP desks are held to the same standards one would expect from any library reference desk: to answer questions from verifiable sources, starting with standard works of reference, and not from the top of the librarian's head. Am I correct in this assumption? If I am, what is the best way to tackle editors who attempt to help, armed with nothing but their confidence?
(Also: I'm sure I have offered my own opinion in response to a question over the last few years, and I know I have responded with bare assertions from time to time, when sources were not to hand to prove that, e.g. the sun rises in the east. I am not claiming perfection. But I am aware when I do write a response with neither wikilink nor outlink that I have fallen short of our ideal.) BrainyBabe (talk) 00:30, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I recently refrained from posting a lengthy, anecdotal story about YU55 on the science desk, because it would have constituted WP:OR. I may actually even be a subject-matter expert, and as many desk regulars know, I enjoy ruminating extensively - but I decided that in this case, I would rather keep the reference desk for reference material, rather than personal commentary. There are plenty of other outlets for my creative ideas, personal opinions, and professional expertise. My guidance, when I need to refresh my memory, is the guideline on reliable sources, which discusses the nuances in great detail. If we can't reference a reliable source, we should probably avoid posting on the reference desk.Nimur (talk) 00:45, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I wouldn't expect the same standards from every library reference desk. Which library are we envisioning ourselves as? I always imagine the local library a couple of streets away from me, which deals with questions like "how do I use the internet", "do you have any books on macramé" and "where is my nearest polling station". Card Zero (talk)15:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
It depends on the question. But if you're going to apply the article-oriented principle that something must be referenced, then maybe any question that can't be referenced should be deleted - just like an article would be. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 17:40, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
I hear real life ref librarians giving out general information all the time to patrons, rather than just putting a book in the patron's hand, if the information is something the librarian knows. If the patron asks for a book, magazine, or website as a reference, the librarian will do his best to provide same. Many of us have specialized knowledge acquired from a lifetime of study and work, and know much information beyond what we have books at home referencing. I provide a great many links to Google Book or Google news archive sources. I also have expertise in some areas, and sometimes provide answers without having chapter and verse readily available, but if I had a few hours to dedicate to answering the question, I could drive to a university library and find a reliable source to back up what I say. The readily available online sources are a tiny fraction of the information available in print sources. It is an appropriate Ref Desk function to just answer the question and steer the OP towards likely sources offline. Edison (talk) 21:17, 11 November 2011 (UTC)
What should be avoided are just purely speculative answers, where the answerer has really no specific knowledge of the issue. Any speculation ought to be clearly indicated as such ("I really don't know, but it would seem likely that..."). I think that's where Ref Desk answerers get into territory I find really problematic, when they're just blue-skying something that they know nothing about, and not even taking the time to indicate where their areas of ignorance are. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:27, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
"Areas of ignorance": what a wonderful concept! I shall start on my personal list for my user page later today. I might even be able to rank them, from mild to profound. (If I run out of space, I shall have to re-learn how to do small type.) Thank you, Mr.98. :>)Bielle (talk) 17:14, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm a big believer in the sentiment that only the truly wise know in which ways they are truly foolish. The most dangerous folks out there are the ones who truly think they know, or can figure out, everything... --Mr.98 (talk) 02:13, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Let's see, there are areas where no source is needed, like "Which day of the week is Christmas this year ?". I suppose if there's a dispute you can link to a calendar, but it really doesn't seem necessary otherwise. Then there are areas where no source is possible, like "What error did I make solving the following math problem ?". Just point out the math error. StuRat (talk) 01:49, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
But in that calendar question, I would always expect a link to a reliable calendar, and always provide one: if not, I would give a basic summary of how I got to the answer. I don't see why you wouldn't: it's easy to do, and yet also easy for people to add nonsense intentionally or otherwise, and it gives them a way to solve similar problems in future. I would distrust any answer to that question that included neither reference nor reasoning, and would consider the question unanswered if I were scanning the desks for unanswered questions to help with. 86.163.1.168 (talk) 12:38, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
I guess I'm more trusting than you. Somebody intentionally giving the wrong answer seems unlikely enough that I wouldn't expect people to spend the time to provide a reliable source. (Even if they did provide a source, determining whether it's "reliable" or not would take more time than this Q deserves.) Presumably, if somebody gives a wrong answer, somebody else would soon correct it. At that point sources might be required. StuRat (talk) 00:58, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
My impression has been that it should be fully appropriate to add a related question to a discussion, or to make an off-the-top-of-the-head inquiry about whether the answer resides in some particular area. This would seem to fully encourage speculation, provided it is labelled as such, and provided people understand that it is not the actual referenced answer we are seeking. I suppose that if distinguishing such things became a problem, we could make a fancy template to display question/speculation text a bit differently, say, in green text for example. I think forcing people to separate out every individual bit of speculation/questioning into a new indexed question would lead to a lot of duplicated discussions and would be fairly disruptive. Wnt (talk) 14:25, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
Who said Australians don't tip?
Latest comment: 12 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Remember that big discussion about American/Australian tipping differences?
No, one should not correct spelling of other people. One may note that the spelling error has occured in one's own post, one may remind the person that they made a spelling error, but one may not correct the spelling errors of other. --Jayron3222:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Collapsed in the interests of moving on
So I can remind Jayron32 of the spelling errors that Jayron32 wishes never to correct or have known, that fester in the Ref. Desk archive. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:07, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Some of us do the best we can do by not caring too much about spelling and thereby devoting mental resources to more important matters. Before you jump on this with examples of how bad spelling can cause nuclear disasters and plague, that's not caring too much about spelling. The point being that there is a threshold beyond which excessive care becomes worthless, particularly for people who aren't that interested in words. Card Zero (talk)20:17, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
My memory is that we're more tolerant of corrections in section headings than other places. Personally, I don't have a problem with Cuddlyable3's correction of "Prostrate" to "Prostate" (though the misspelling was good for a grin). I don't think it broke any links.
But, Cuddlyable3, I do have a problem with your taunting of Jayron here. You have got, got, got to lighten up on this sort of thing. You can't keep harping on the past; it's gotten you blocked more than once. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:39, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree. Cuddlyable3, you seem to require certain others to exercise a degree of discipline about their spelling. Firstly, you don't know that Jayron isn't doing the best he can, so you are in no position to be making snide asides. Secondly, you need to exercise some of that self-discipline yourself about making these sorts of edits, which you have been told are unacceptable. They're a degree of magnitude more serious than mere spelling errors, so a litle bit of perspective would be helpful. Don't preach to others about their errors when in the very act of doing so you're committing a far worse error. -- Jack of Oz[your turn]03:18, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Not necessarily. For instance, I'm correcting you right now. Imagine that this correction is completely vacuous, and, moreover, very longwinded, dragging on and on and never getting to the point, while still managing to give a hint that some point might eventually be forthcoming - just enough of a hint to keep you reading. Do you feel upset, or if not upset as such, at least slightly irritated? Let's imagine that you do - it seems a reasonable assumption; but does it demonstrate an inability to learn, on your part? Does it demonstrate that you are ignorant of anything important, anything that you actually need to know? Of course not, it only demonstrates that I am wasting your time, by saying, for practical purposes, nothing. You see? Card Zero (talk)20:29, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
We've had this discussion before. When modifying a heading, you need to retain the previous heading within the "anchor" template, which I have now done with the item in question. That prevents breaking the links. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 13:27, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes I failed to complete the heading correction properly and Baseball Bugs put right my error of omission. Thank you Baseball Bugs. A while ago I misspelled a word as "arkive". A perceptive colleaguee reminded me that the word is spelled "archive". Mea culpa I did indeed misspell. I must and do admit there is no such word as "arkive" in English and to think otherwise was ignorance. It would insult everyone's intelligence if I should claim the misspelling was just a typo, or due to a faulty keyboard, or Wikipedia not offering a preview button, or a dog that chewed my Internet cable, because the evidencee is plain that I misspelled the same way more than once. I would be seen as incompetente to edit Wikipedia if I brazenly kept on posting sentences containing "arkive" especially if I were deluded that I "modestly improved"e English by persisting in misspelling "arkive", more especially if I preached a double standard whereby "one may remind a person that they made a spelling errore as long as it isn't MY spelling error", and even more especially if I kept trying to cop out from reponsibility using Epimenides' paradoxe of "all my statements are false because I am always wrong". I would be seen as something worse than incompetent if I recognized my misspelling when another editor quoted my posts verbatime (without mentioning my misspelling), wailed that seeing them again made me uncomfortablee, cheered one an admin in deleting that editor's page summarily so that the community would be denied the Deletion Reviewe that might expose what was going on, and then liede on this page about how that page had been "disappeared". Here's the bottom line: I did none of these things. Instead I corrected my misspelling and thankede the helpful colleague. To err is humane but there is no immunity to this adage:
The wise one welcomes correction because it guides towards perfection. The fool defends its error making.
You know, Cuddlyable, the rest of us are more than willing to forget all the regrettable old drama you're alluding to with those little e tags, and move on. Are you? —Steve Summit (talk) 23:10, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The Life of Reason by George Santayana
Any fool can come up with quotes that make their own stupid position seem like wisdom. For example, I remember Emerson had something to say about the people who obsess over consistency. APL (talk) 00:50, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I claim that courtesy is more important than spelling. I also claim that only those who have assented to having their spelling errors pointed out should be hassled about it. As I've said before, I welcome English usage corrections from Cuddly or whoever else. But that's just my way. It's not necessarily everyone else's way. To put it another way, I'm a lot more concerned about my own usage mistakes than about someone else's, as long as their meaning is clear. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 04:05, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Bugs. The refdesks are treated like talk pages where pristine English is not a requirement. To point out unimportant errors is slightly rude. To continue doing so after being asked not to is very rude.
The problem is that spelling errors and obvious ignorance in general can be offensive to people. That's why I think they should be avoided. --Cerlomin (talk) 12:00, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
'offensive' is a slippery thing. Surely you understand that politeness and civility are different than not being offensive to anyone? Many people find Darwinism offensive, and intentionally bringing it up to infuriate those people might be impolite or not civil, but otherwise we can't help what you might be offended by, and can't be expected to go out of our way to remove it, or to allow you to heckle the editors in question. APL (talk) 20:51, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
[e/c] (@Baseball Bugs) How is it different from the widely accepted consensus that one ought not TYPE IN ALL CAPS? Capital letters are harder to read. Misspelled words force the reader like this: "blah blah it is blah blah... heck, it doesn't make sense. He/she meant blah blah its blah blah...". The former line of thought happens in just a fraction of a second, but it's still annoying. --Cerlomin (talk) 23:42, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Summit's comment fits this situation. There are plenty of things I find annoying. Among them are LOL and UR and IIRC and all those other internet abbreviations, but I don't spend a lot of time worrying about it when it's on discussion pages. In articles, it's a different story. As far as the its/it's thing, keep in mind that typos can happen. I've sometimes typed it's when I meant its, and if you want to point that out to me when I do it, I gladly give you permission. But if someone doesn't want you to do it, you should respect their wishes. OR, raise it on their talk page instead of showing them up in front of the OP (there I go, breaking my own rule!) ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 23:52, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
(e/c) There's nothing wrong with making an occasional mistake. But I don't think anyone has the right to be annoying by making the same spelling mistakes over and over again. --Cerlomin (talk) 00:31, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
That's a fair point, the complaining which goes on about capital letters is excessive. Lots of notices in the world around us are printed in capital letters, and they aren't actually difficult to read, so it's just a kind of snobbery. Complaints about it are only to be expected - as are complaints about failures of grammar and spelling and courtesy - but when somebody recently changed the OP's message into lower case, counting it as a "formatting error", that was uncalled for - though if I remember rightly, the motivation was to head off the inevitable complaints, which would distract from answering the question. There is one good reason to object to ALL CAPS, though: it can be seen as an attempt to divert attention to the post, to the detriment of everybody else's posts. This puts it on a par with all bold, or reposting the question several times, or cross-posting on all the desks. Card Zero (talk)00:27, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Just being polite never made wrong into right. A prim Victorian lady declared "We have lately heard that Mr.Darwin contends we are all descended from apes. I cannot say whether he is right, but if he is, I trust that none of us would let that become widely known." But when someone posts to me "For the record, I know the proper distinction between the it is contraction and the possessive third person singular neuter pronoun. While I understand improper grammar when I see it, it's(sic) appearence(sic) in my writing isn't intentional, its(sic) only because I don't give a shit."e, goes on to provoke volunteers here with blatent abuse of its/it's even in the same sentence "It's not how the question is phrased today, its(sic) what we know"e and just hours ago "The point isn't perfection, its(sic) that we do the best that we can."e, and vandalises the Humanities Ref. Desk with "Fuck you for pointing out my mistake."e then this sic person should be politely shown the door before they cause more damage. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:56, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm reluctant to say much more here, because this thread is too long and is bound to get longer, but one point must be made. Given your (Cuddlyable3's) history with the editor you're here carping about, and the number of times you'd been very explicitly asked to stop criticizing the gratuitously unnecessary way you and Belchman were badgering him[12][13][14] about his spelling in that thread, I would have to say that after you pointedly and publicly criticized his grammar one more time, it was pretty darn justified for him to respond with that particular retort[15]. —Steve Summit (talk) 00:22, 28 November 2011 (UTC), edited 00:35, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
The eye-for-an-eye justification you plead for putting into public view on the ref. desk an obscene retort so woefully lacks moral context that it is itself offensive. You insist on linking to named editors which is something that I and others have been careful not to do in this thread. Your post is a mess of strikeouts from which it seems you require everyone to track your incomplete thoughts from 00:22 to 00:46 today. An apology is due to Belchman for your calumny towards him. The page history shows that it took you two tries to get "grammar" spelt right. If you don't like the length of this thread then don't add more unedited bile to it. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 10:36, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I've collapsed what looks to be yet another rehash of this particular argument. Remove if you feel it's needed, but otherwise I'm content to encourage this one to go quietly into that good night. — Lomn19:48, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I posted the IP and user ID's at the top of the section, to point out that the IP has a grand total of 2 edits so far, so something's going on there. Now clarified. Also, I don't see any obvious behavioral connections between the 2 named users. So the IP has some work to do. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 01:19, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
Well, the two named editors both show an interest in Irish topics, and the newer account showed up a few days after Belchman's block (and subsequent disappearance). It's not an unreasonable connection. It's also not a conclusive connection, but I see where the IP is going... --Jayron3204:31, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
I kind of suspected the Cerlomin was Belchman from their first contribs to the main page but didn't have the evidence nor did I care enough to open a SPI. Per BB's point, considering Belchman has self identified as being Catalan in the past Talk:Main Page/Archive 162#On This Day (and a look thru their edit history also reveals many comments where they revealed being a native speaker of Spanish and Catalan and show a clear interest in stuff related to Spain) and Cerlomin also seems to have a little interest in things related to Spain; and meanwhile the IP is from Spain but as BB says only has 2 contribs, and comes her a few hours after Cerlomin's last contribs to make the suggestion, it's easy to guess what could be going on here.... Nil Einne (talk) 11:53, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
I think the comments below are fair evidence but since the block has expired and only one account is being used, it's a moot point. Nil Einne (talk) 05:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Vitamin K deleted question
Latest comment: 12 years ago28 comments10 people in discussion
It was correct to delete advice on rewording a medical question as a nutritional question. However I question this deletion because there is no reason for it by Kainaw's criteria. In short, the OP asks whether it is safe to deviate from what must be the advice of a doctor. Two respondents, Jayron32 and myself answered clearly No. That is the help we can give, plus some sourced references to explain why the colour of asparagus is not known to be related to its vitamin content as the OP suspected. So why not allow us to reply "Obey your doctor" with a good conscience? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:28, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
jobsworth n. person in authority (esp. a minor official) who insists on adhering to rules and regulations or bureaucratic procedures even at the expense of common sense. From Oxford English Dictionary. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 00:10, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
History has shown that if we leave a question in place, even if someone replies (correctly) that we cannot offer advice, it doesn't take more than a few minutes for someone else – in this case, Cuddlyable3, in 3 minutes – to show up and offer that advice anyway based on his own original research. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
We are supposed to observe facts carefully, yes? That applies not least to someone who deletes 3 posts by pressing a button, yes yes? My post is marked as ec (edit conflict) with Jayron32's post and was therefore written without seeing it and in no way trying to be 3 minutes after anyone. I question the presumption that deletions are justified by predicting what a following post, if any, may say. That is unknowable unless you are blessed with crystal balls. I posted 3 relevant Wikipedia article references and no original research. In fact WP:OR policy interdicts OR in Wikipedia articles. The OP asked for the help that we can give. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 09:36, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
There are only two very specific categories of prohibited questions on the Refdesks - Legal and Medical. They are prohibited because neither we as the users of WP nor the Wikimedia Foundation are able to take responsibilty for the consequences of any reply to such questions. Juries in the US (WP is hosted in the US and thus subject to US law) are well known (some would say notorious) for awarding extremely punitive damages to victims of legal or medical malpractice - damages that none of us can afford to pay. A total ban on such questions is the only responsible way to deal with the matter. Roger (talk) 09:40, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Here is what we say (with bold numbers added): The reference desk will not answer (and will usually remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or request medical opinions, or seek guidance on legal matters. Such questions should be directed 1) to an appropriate professional, or 2) brought to an internet site dedicated to medical or legal questions. I think 2) is legally risky but 1) is surely safe, responsible and ethical to say. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 12:12, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
The point of saying all that in the rules at the top of the page is that, by the time the OP checks back for an answer, the question may have been removed in accordance with our "... and will usually remove .. questions that require medical diagnosis or request medical opinions". If our own rules foreshadow the removal of a certain type of question, including any answers it may have attracted, then there's no basis for arguing for the retention of such a question, no matter how well-intentioned the answers may be. The only threshold issue could be: "Is this particular question of the type that merits removal?" - and the answer in this case was Yes. So, we're operating within our own policy here. If you want to discuss changing the policy, that's a separate matter. -- Jack of Oz[your turn]18:06, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
We need to keep an even keel here. I see a question like [16] that strays well into medical advice, but we can clearly rephrase it in terms that have no medical advice involved. It doesn't matter if people use information we tell them to make medical decisions, as long as we're not giving medical advice ourselves. They do that every day, when they, say, look up an article about gout and read what foods tend to aggravate the condition, or an article about cholesterol and see what the normal range is and what the range of opinion about what should be done to handle it is. That's perfectly legitimate. As long as we, ourselves, don't represent that we have any special understanding of the questioner's or patient's situation, and confine ourselves to providing useful information about medical topics in general, that's the right thing to do. We should not dissuade, but rather encourage, posters to rephrase their questions in general terms to get useful answers. That will help them better understand what they know and what they don't. Wnt (talk) 16:11, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
And I have removed it, in accordance with the Ref Desk's long standing policy. If you want to revise or eliminate WP:RD/G and WP:RD/G/M, you should seek a consensus to do so; those rules were hammered out over an extended period of time, and exist for very good reasons. You're framing your medical advice in the form of "Some other sources say...", but it's still advice—you're the one choosing what sources to present to the reader. You don't know what other meds the patient might be taking, and giving them a mixed bag of sources may lead the layperson to "Well, I guess it's not that bad, so I won't worry about it...". Someone with concerns about how to take a drug should consult their physician or pharmacist, not Wikipedia's volunteers. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:46, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
I expected as much, though I believe I am the one sticking by the guidelines. These were created as a matter of ethics, and what kind of ethics is it to deny patients information they can use to better implement their doctors' advice? But this is just one person, and from searching it is clear the confusion is much greater, so I added [18] to the Vitamin K article; perhaps I'll cite some more of these documents in various related places. Fortunately I believe it is quite unarguably beyond your policy to interfere with that. Wnt (talk) 16:57, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
I disagree with TOAT's deletion of a post which reworded the request for medical advice so that it became an impersonal question. Once a question has been reworded in such terms, it is no longer a request for medical advice, and should therefore be allowed to stand. --Viennese Waltz17:00, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
I am appalled that we take it upon ourselves to reword a medical-advice question so that it becomes one someone on the Ref Desk thinks he/she can answer. As for Wnt's "what kind of ethics is it to deny patients information they can use to better implement their doctors' advice?", I would answer that is the responsible type of ethic that says "we don't know enough to advise you safely. Talk to your doctor." Bielle (talk) 17:28, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree. Didn't we just go through an argy-bargy about how utterly unacceptable it is to amend another editor's posts except in extremely limited and well-defined circumstances? Same applies to OPs' questions. If we think a question could have been more clearly expressed, we can ask "Did you mean X?", "Maybe what you want to know is X", or similar, and then give an answer to X. But we cannot change the question itself to X. -- Jack of Oz[your turn]19:02, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
No, we do not rephrase and reask the question. Once we know the intent of the question, rephrasing it does not change the nature of the question. We should not tell people to undertake actions which may kill them. Tell them to ask a doctor, and remove the question so that no one else gets any funny ideas. That is how it should always be handled. It always does less harm to remove what may have been an innocent question than to respond to a question with advice that kills the person who follows it. I am utterly unconcerned about people's feeling being hurt. I am far more concerned about people's bodies being hurt. --Jayron3222:09, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Who are you replying to, Jayron. If to me: I can show you thousands of examples where we have indeed rephrased a question (while leaving the original question intact) and then answered that rephrased question. But of course the rules about not answering medical or legal questions override this, and I never suggested we should "tell people to undertake actions which may kill them". -- Jack of Oz[your turn]22:26, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Not you, Jack. That's why I didn't indent it under yours. Just about the general idea of answering questions knowing that the person who asked it intends to use the answer to make life & death decisions based on our answers. --Jayron3200:04, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I would like, just once, to see an OP ask a medical question in impersonal terms, such that it is not phrased as a medical advice question - something like "What is the difference between the Vitamin K levels of white and green asparagus?" - and see what kind of response it gets. --Viennese Waltz23:58, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
That question would have been fine to ask. The problem is, we cannot go back in time an unask the original question. We know the person who asks it intends to make choices about their husband's health based on the results of our answer, so it is irresponsible to provide them with any answer except: ask a doctor. It's not how the question is phrased today, its what we know about the intent of the original asker. Reasking the same question using different words does not mean that the knowledge of the intent of the original question evaporates. --Jayron3200:04, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
You're promulgating a policy that has absolutely nothing to do with what was written and "negotiated". Where does anything written down as policy say that we have to guess a poster's intent? Do we need admins to brand the account with special templates marking that because the person is sick, no one may help him find information? Maybe once those fancy universal electronic medical records is rolled out, you can require everyone trying to log in to read Wikipedia to scan them, so that anyone with a medical condition is banned from reading biology articles? Telling people the vitamin content of vegetables should not be treated like you're violating somebody's trade secret! I am just plain disgusted. Wnt (talk) 00:58, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I get that. My point is this: if every OP were to understand that rephrasing a medical advice question in impersonal terms, thereby masking the intent to ask for medical advice, makes the question allowable, then our medical advice policy would be shown to be built on straw. --Viennese Waltz00:09, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
All rules are built on straw. The point isn't perfection, its that we do the best that we can. If we know the OP intends to use our advice for medical purposes, we don't answer it. If we don't know, then we don't know. That doesn't mean we give up. Rules don't exist because they cover every situation perfectly. They exist because they are the best we can do. --Jayron3200:17, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
We can only know what we are told about the intent behind a question. The question you rephrased could have been asked by someone doing a nutrition project for school, for example, which is innocuous enough. When we are told what the information will be used to decide, and that decision constitutes medical advice, then we can't go there. This argument reminds me of what used to happen in doctors' offices 40 or more years ago when unmarried women wanted a prescription for birth-control pills. In Canada at that time, the only basis for writing such a prescription was for the regulation of menstrual periods; otherwise a woman had to be married and to have her husband's permission to take them for birth control. So, women would go into their doctors' offices and say the code words "I'm having problems with irregular periods", and would come out with that magic paper that was to change so many of our lives. Bielle (talk) 00:23, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
I feel like I've seen this argument before on this talk page, and I fear that it misses the point. Many of the project's policies can be circumvented by a sufficiently determined individual. That doesn't mean that the policies are irrelevant, or that there isn't good reason for us to endeavor to follow them anyway. Is Wikipedia's policy against plagiarism "built on straw" because an unethical editor can lie about where text originated? Is Wikipedia's policy on image use "built on straw" because an unethical editor can add inaccurate licensing and copyright info to a photograph's description? The smooth function (or even non-smooth function) of Wikipedia is only possible because the vast majority of people who come through our door are acting honestly and in good faith. Trying to teach (usually inexperienced) editors how to manipulate and mislead the good-faith volunteers of the Reference Desk in order to extract potentially-harmful medical advice is...well, it's a shitty thing to do. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:04, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
To be clear, the goal is not to teach people to manipulate volunteers. The goal is to make the questioner stop turning to us like we're the Great And Powerful Oz with some kind of expert knowledge of his medical situation, and teach him to start addressing his situation by asking, "what is the established medical knowledge about this condition?" Your position and theirs are the same - one in which they are totally dependent on a few precious words from a doctor, delivered off-the-cuff in a hurried consultation and without anybody taking notes. My position is that the patient should be able to research his condition so that when his doctor tells him to "avoid green leafy vegetables", say, he knows exactly which such vegetables contain vitamin K and how much. If I believed ignorance and dependency were good things for the public why would I ever edit Wikipedia? Wnt (talk) 15:52, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
I think we delete way too many questions these days; it's pretty annoying; we're way too paranoid. So please believe me when I say, this was a really good question to delete, this is not one to argue over, let alone wikilawyer over. Warfarin is scary stuff; we wouldn't want to say anything beyond "get thee to your doctor and ask". —Steve Summit (talk) 02:55, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Reference Section Format
Latest comment: 12 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hello,
I have been searching on how to properly format a reference section and cannot find it. Could you redirect me to this section?
Latest comment: 12 years ago19 comments11 people in discussion
Someone deleted yet another "medical question" [19], this one about "semi-starvation" and multivitamins. I dispute that this is a request for medical advice.
The OP did not say he had any medical problem and did not request any diagnosis. He did not propose a treatment. He merely suggested that he was going to try something short of fasting, I'd assume for purposes of losing weight. Whatever else people want to remove here, we should not count it as "medical advice" to discuss whether mundane actions may lead to medical trouble.
The OP has given us no special information about himself, nor requests any individualized diagnosis. Any response people give him is equivalent to information we would give at articles like fasting, ketosis, weight loss, etc. It is not customized to him - it is routine reference-librarianing.
Remember, there is no legal necessity for any of these removals of questions. And the "carefully compromised" policy certainly doesn't read to me like it bans discussions of the role of vitamins in weight loss. The whole idea that a vitamin supplement - not regulated as a drug in the U.S., and in some ways equivalent to foods - should be automatically viewed as medical in nature seems an abuse of the language. The only asserted justification here is ethical in nature, but what kind of ethics prevent us from helping people in such situations from finding out the benefits and risks of the dietary choices they are contemplating? Wnt (talk) 19:27, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Looks like a good deletion to me. The original poster is considering an unsupervised, self-managed therapy ("I'm thinking of embarking on semi-starvation for a while", presumably for weight loss), and is asking us for advice about the safety of his approach, particularly with respect to certain over-the-counter medications ("Is there any danger associated with taking multivitamins while drastically decreasing food intake..."). This is exactly the sort of question that should be referred to his pharmacist, physician, or qualified dietitian. The fact that the original poster hasn't provided us with any special information about himself just makes it even less likely that we will be able to provide safe guidance for his specific circumstances. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
I am getting the feeling that anything about vitamins, even answering a question about what the recommended daily allowance is, is something you would delete. After all, a poster asking about the recommended daily allowance wants to avoid nutritional deficiency by not taking too little, and avoid overdose by not taking too much. That's not even getting into more "medical" questions about, say, whether supplements containing megadoses are safe or dangerous. Heck, I expect to see banned questions about how much beef liver is dangerous. Wnt (talk) 20:01, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
As you were the one who started this discussion, it would be nice if you could try not to derail it with off-topic speculation. In general, you're welcome to discuss with me any actual requests for medical advice that I might remove from the Reference Desk, but I'll thank you not to offer imaginary examples. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:06, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
Concur with TOAT. The wording makes it clear we are being asked to say whether something is safe for this person to do, I can't think of any other way this Q could be interpretted and I support making it clear both to the poster and to anyone else seeing this as an answered question dangling on the refdesk that we are not permitted to make any such recommendation or analysis beyond "see your doctor". Poster already said he read the labels, which is all WP could say anyway (per WP:RS and WP:V, we can state what they might say, since that's what we would include in the WP articles on the topics we would link for the poster to read). I generally support dicsussion about health, drugs, and related effects, but the question isn't "what's the effect of X on Y in general", but the intro makes the meaning instead "is this going to affect me...", which crosses the no-medical-advice line. DMacks (talk) 20:07, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
I also agree with the deletion, and would only add once again that the OP should have asked "Have there been any studies on the effect on the human body of taking multivitamins while drastically reducing food intake?", to which he would have got his answer and we would not currently be having this discussion. --Viennese Waltz20:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
If my memory serves, specific, personal, questions about dieting have historically always been considered to fall under the "medical" umbrella.
If my memory is wrong, or if consensus has changed I'd be happy to see the question restored. Anyone who follows this talk page will know that I usually argue against removing questions. APL (talk) 00:40, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
There I don't agree. It's acceptable to ask, in general terms, about the reputation of over the counter products. The problem is asking about their fitness to a specific personal situation. APL (talk) 21:10, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Definitely a good deletion. How can "Is there any danger associated with taking multivitamins while drastically decreasing food intake?" possibly be anything but a request for medical advice? --Tango (talk) 21:50, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
Comment from user Aspro
(I've moved this comment from the ref-desk to Talk:ref-desk because it doesn't belong on the reader-facing side. APL (talk) 21:07, 5 December 2011 (UTC))
Thinks.... As we don't give medical nor legal advice here, I suppose we should included mechanical contrivances – as this might result in scalding, if the poster takes the advice posted here on the ref. desk and it turn out to be wrong. So instead: You'd better spend a wade of money on seeking the advice of a properly qualified auto-engineer and can some administrator please up date out policy on these matters. Thank you.--Aspro (talk) 20:15, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
I disagree. Certainly if somebody says "just take radiator cap off after you're done driving for the day", that should be unacceptable, as it would certainly cause harm; but otherwise it's good to caution people that there are risks, and what those risks are, but where do you draw the line? How do you know what skills people have? There are some people that probably would not be able to change the oil safely, and there are some people that could take the whole engine apart, put it back together, and not have any issues - both of whom, I might add, could probably come up with a question to ask. Probably we aren't supposed to be giving people advice in general (this is a reference, not a how-to, desk after all), but it would hardly be appropriate to respond to a query about what is the best brand of ladders with "Don't get a ladder, hire a professional, you might hurt yourself if you try to use a ladder. Falconusptc13:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
The point is that some Redictio ad Absurdum arguments are valid, but that does not mean that they all are. Likewise, just because we don't delete every single question on the reference desk doesn't mean that there aren't some that we should. Falconus's absurd conclusion is that nearly all questions are unanswerable because there is a miniscule chance that any answer to almost any question could lead someone to harm themselves. That is a completely invalid way to operate. Requests to answer questions which one would normally get the answer from a physician or other qualified medical professional get deleted. Attempts to claim that other questions don't get deleted, so we can never delete requests for medical advice are an invalid application of reductio ad absurdum. --Jayron3219:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Wait just a minute... Where in the world did I come up with the "absurd conclusion" that "nearly all questions are unanswerable" because of a "miniscule chance" that someone could get hurt? If you reread what I wrote, I was, in fact, arguing quite the opposite - that if we removed questions/pieces of advice because there's a slight chance that they could lead to harm, we wouldn't have any left. Maybe I wasn't being clear, but I said "I disagree" (first sentence) with Aspro; I believe the question should have remained. Note also that I didn't say that "all advice should be given". I just think that in general, as long as it doesn't violate Wikipedia policy, as long as the answer is not unreasonably [sorry, that's subjective] likely to cause harm, it should remain, mentioning of course (if necessary) that there exist risks. I'm not sure how you got "we can never delete questions" (which somewhat contradicts what you said about me concluding that virtually nothing is answerable) from what I wrote, because that's not at all remotely what I said. I was arguing against overzealous deletion of questions. I'm sorry that that wasn't clear for you. Falconusptc20:50, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I removed this contribution from the Miscellaneous desk's beer discussion, from an editor who stated he had never consumed alcohol and that he did not know the answer. I feel this is clutter and answers like this should be removed on sight. I'll notify the user on his or her talk page in a minute. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
The database works by storing a complete copy of each page, per revision. That means that every page version containing material contrary to policy needs to be suppressed. I rechecked the before/after versions and I'm pretty sure nothing substantive has been lost. I specifically looked for the text added by other editors in other sections and I saw it there in the current version. Everything is attributed internally since everyone adds their sig here (except the bot edit), so this is a pretty clean removal. Buddy431, you can check the page logs, although perhaps not the oversight logs. As far as why material was removed - per policy and practice, but expanding any more just repeats the problem, sorry. Franamax (talk) 01:58, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
But Commet Tuttle's revision from 23:37 is left in, and then StuRat's at 23:52 through Dweller's at 00:18 are taken out. Which means that StuRat introduced something objectionable, which I find hard to believe. And why is CT's edit summary suppressed? Did he say something naughty too? And why does User talk:HyperStudent have a note from user:fluffernutter about supressing his content, when the page logs say User:Franamax did it? Are Franamax and Fluffernutter the same person? Buddy431 (talk) 02:11, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
No, you are drawing an incorrect conclusion, StuRat did nothing wrong, you are trying to make sense of an edit history that has been butchered - this does happen when information needs to be permanently removed. Please take my assurance that other editors' contribs have been preserved as far as possible - however, material uncompliant with policy has been removed. I've explained a bit to CT on their talk page, I'm sure they are aware of what was removed, as they wrote it. Franamax (talk) 02:31, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
I think the main question is why this content needed to be permanently removed. This wasn't some major violation, just clutter. It seems a little overkill to me. I don't object to the removal, but I see no reason that the removal can't be documented in the standard way, if it didn't contain information that absolutely must be purged (e.g. BLP violations). Am I missing something? --Mr.98 (talk) 02:40, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
My impression is that there were some personal info removed prior to Commet Tuttle doing his thing. But I'm still confused about the Flutternutter/Franamax thing - Are they alternate accounts for the same person? The logs don't show flutternutter doing anything to the page, while Franamax deleted several revisions. I'm also still confused why Sturat's post was removed after CT's was left in. Revision deletion doesn't change the order of posts, so there was something added in StuRat's post that was objectionable that wasn't in CTs. Buddy431 (talk) 02:48, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
There was a mild hiccup in the suppression process, everything has now been cleaned up. It is distinctly unhelpful to rush in publicly demanding answers while suppression is in progress, and IMO somewhat rude to go poking around trying to discover material which by definition is not suitable for public display. Some policies are mandated by the WMF and not subject to consensus discussion. WP:Oversight is one of those policies. That policy also means that I can't discuss the material between the time I identify it and the time it is removed from public view. I don't believe I'm under any obligation to discuss it afterward either, except to say that material was removed consistent with the policy. Questions about oversight should be directed to the audit sub-committee. Franamax (talk) 19:14, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Please read my first post in this thread, where I say that I checked to be sure no legitmate text was lost. You should be able to match each oversighted legitimate edit to a timestamped sig on the RD/M page. Franamax (talk) 20:22, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I did see that. Meanwhile, we've got editors questioning it. I'm just saying that if anyone things his own pearls of wisdom got zapped, he could re-type them, provided their words don't violate any rules. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 20:48, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
I meant to put a followup comment here: yes, it would be unfortunate if legitimate material was lost. That's why oversight requests need to be done as quickly as possible, and quietly too. I did check so I could roll forward any deserving edits (no I didn't leave out answers I disagreed with ;), and I'm pretty sure it's all fine. It's unfortunate when good material gets lost in the process, and it's unfortunate that other editors are left wondering what happened, but that's the nature of the beast. Oversight trumps everything else. And I don't see any of the editors whose edits were oversighted questioning things here (except Ummit, who is satisfied, and anyway it was just his lowly bot ;). Franamax (talk) 21:07, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
I would think the reasonable explanation is that I am not able to carry out oversight. I, like anyone else here, am able to submit requests for oversight. Also, as an admin, I am able to revision-delete versions while waiting for oversight to be carried out. This is axplained at WP:REVDEL and WP:Oversight. Where Buddy431 is getting this sockpuppet notion, I have no idea. Franamax (talk) 20:22, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Well then probably AGK and Fred Bauder should join in and I think they would all be wondering just what the heck this discussion is actually about. Oversight requests go (via email) to the oversight team, where they are acted on by some of the most trusted members of the project. If the outcome is a decision to suppress, that pretty much ends the issue, the edits are gone. Again, questions should go to the WP:AUSC, or I believe those really interested can apply to join that committee regardless of what permission bits they hold, so long as they are editors in good standing prepared to identify to the Foundation. I'm really at a loss here as to what further questions there might be, other than basic education in MediaWiki software and en:wiki policies (which, umm, aren't you the people who do diligent research to answer questions?) or what exact material was removed, which just isn't going to happen. What more is there? Franamax (talk) 21:20, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any of my material having been removed from that Q, so it looks like the edit summary was just messed up. That said, I still find it troubling when material is redacted so that I can't know what or why. IMO, as an editor in good standing for many years, I, and many others, have earned the right to read and offer opinions on such removals. I'm reminded of the quote from Colonel Anderson in the his conversation in Good Night, and Good Luck: "Wouldn't you guess that the people who have seen the contents of that envelope might have a better idea of what makes someone a danger to his country, or do you think it should just be you, sir, who decides ?". I don't believe it should be JUST me, I believe it should be all of us, not just a select few. (Note that this is a general criticism of redactions, not of this particular instance.) StuRat (talk) 23:54, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Fran's point is that whatever material was removed is something we "don't need to know". Unless you watch a given page constantly and see such material before it gets zapped, you won't know. There seems to be a significant amount of unnecessary censorship going on nowadays. But unqualified freedom of speech does not exist here. The censored stuff is assumed to be on a "need to know" basis only. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 12:19, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
You just contradicted yourself StuRat. When you say "as an editor in good standing for many years, I, and many others, have earned the right..." you are already placing yourself among a "select few", as you are implicitly excluding anonymous or brand-new editors. And presumably you don't also think that you and many others should have direct write access to the underlying database or the ability to configure the servers, so you would probably acknowledge the existence of a select group with greater privilege than you. The fact is that we all choose our roles here, and some roles require vetting. You are free to stand for adminship at any time (see how select you feel after a week at RFA!), and for checkuser, bureaucrat, oversighter and steward permissions. You can become a MediaWiki developer too and ask for commit access to the main software trunk, and you can stand for ArbCom or lay membership of its sub-sommittees. You casn work the OTRS queues and you can man IRC help channels. All of these roles have certain requirements, if you think you qualify, go ahead and apply, the more people taking on these roles the better. But this is a massive site and it's inevitable there will be layers of permission. If it was your name, address, bank info and credit card number/PINs sitting on a page, you might have a slightly different idea of just how many people have "earned the right" to satisfy their curiosity. Franamax (talk) 19:01, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I didn't contradict myself. There are also many others who have been in good standing for many years, as I've said. I am for making the structure flatter. This conversation reminds me of the freshman who complains about hazing by upperclassmen, only to be told "Don't worry, once you reach our rank you can haze the new freshmen". As for removing credit card numbers, etc., I'm fine with that, but see no reason a summary of the action can't be provided that says "Removed credit card numbers".StuRat (talk) 04:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I wish someone would have informed me about this conversation, rather than everyone casting about speculatively for days until I happened to be told off-wiki. Oversight is used to remove private information, damaging information, and other such content which cannot be allowed to remain accessible. No one who is not an oversighter, a dev, or an arbitrator has a "right" to view any such information, as the reason for oversighting is that the information must be hidden for legal, protective, or other reasons. If one wishes to question the wisdom or process of an oversight action, the correct action is to privately contact WP:AUSC, which is vested with the ability to see oversighted edits and judge the actions taken with regard to them. It is never appropriate to point out an oversight action publicly, on a noticeboard such as this one, and I would appreciate it if this discussion, if it needs to continue, could be moved to AUSC, the body equipped to handle such questions. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:05, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
I was following you until your last remark. Why would it never be appropriate to leave a short notice to the effect that something has been disappeared, details are not available, and all discussion on the subject should be directed to AUSC?
I can all but guarantee that without such a notice, this discussion will be repeated every time oversight is used on the ref-desk. We've had a similar issue with conventional reverts of known trolls and such. Because of this page's nature, and its high traffic, mysterious deletions are usually noticed by well-meaning people who immediately come here and ask about them. APL (talk) 04:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I wonder how often such deletions occur? A quick note here could head these queries off at the pass. Comet begins by reporting he deleted something. So far so good. Then confusion sets in. Had someone quickly added, "Sensitive information oversighted", that could have helped defuse things. We don't need to know what specifically was deleted. It's kind of like when they would launch the Space Shuttle with a spy satellite and would downplay the launch by noting that the payload was "classified". Anything beyond that was strictly on a "need to know" basis. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 07:32, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
The quick note is always left, it's when the history entry turns grey. Other than for the editors very directly involved, that is the sum total of an oversight notice. There would have been a succinct notice here too, except some people decided that a short course in drama would be better. If it's not obvious by now, sensitive information was oversighted, as indicated by changes in the page history. And if it's not obvious, I (Franamax) am not able to access the oversighted content. Such deletions occur on a regular basis. Bugs, I would have thought you'd seen oversight happening elsewhere in your wiki-life, and I do believe there is a stats page somewhere if you want a definite number. As indicated really quite several times now, AUSC is where you should be questioning our project-wide oversight policy. Franamax (talk) 10:31, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Who would have put a succinct notice here, and why was this person so easily dissuaded? What would the succinct notice have said if it had been put here in time? If only it weren't too late for a succinct notice and all were not lost because of drama caused by whoever caused the drama. This all reminds me of the words of James Brown, when he said "que pasa, people, que pasa, hit me". Card Zero (talk)15:19, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm still just confused on one basic thing. Is the information that was reported deleted by CT the same information that got "oversighted"? And was it for reasons other than what CT said it was? I mean, I'm happy with someone saying, "oh, yeah, we got rid of it because it included personal info/BLP violations/or other stuff." The problem is that CT's description of it just says it was a guy saying he had never tried alcohol before and thus had no opinion on it, and CT thought it was kind of a worthless contribution. Sounds fine to zap to me! But then there is all of this secretiveness about oversighting it and oversight on the oversight and etc. Can just a tiny bit of light be shed on this, for us minor editors? Just assure me that we aren't oversighting things that are just poor contributions or clutter, that's all. Because that would obviously be overkill. If CT's explanation isn't actually comprehensive of what was deleted, this would make a lot more sense. Is that just the case? --Mr.98 (talk) 19:57, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Things that are suppressed fall under one or more of our oversight criteria, and that is true also for what was suppressed in this instance. That is all the information I'm able to offer about this activity, other than to point out that the way oversight (and revision deletion, for that matter) works is that if suppressable information is added in edit 1 and removed in edit 10, to remove that information we need to remove edits 1 through 10, even if edits 2, 3, 4, etc were the most mild and constructive of edits by the most well-intentioned of editors.
While I understand that curiosity is a powerful impulse and that you all feel shut out, we are really, truly, not permitted to publicly release information relating to what has been suppressed, because the explanation itself would often constitute revealing private or damaging information. This is par for the course in a situation where suppression or oversight is carried out, and the only thing that continually requesting explanations does is have the effect of shouting "Hey! Everyone! Look here, where something private or damaging that we don't want people to notice has been posted!" Needless to say, that's not ideal, and we try to avoid it by not drawing, or having attention drawn, to oversight activity. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 20:40, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
So — just to thoroughly beat this horse to death and to make sure I understand — what you're saying is that CT's description of what the removal was was not comprehensive, and that there was other stuff in it that warranted being oversighted. Right? Because I'm happy with that as an answer! Another useful answer (if true) would be, "actually, the thing CT is talking about is sort of incidental to this removal, and it just ended up being there with some other things." Which is also fine by me! I think all over this excessive secretiveness is generating more interest in this than would have otherwise existed. Surely you can do a tiny bit better at being clear as to what happened here, even without wanting to go into any specifics. I'm a reasonable guy, I'm just confused... --Mr.98 (talk) 23:35, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm familiar with the revdel/oversight policy, but I think the thing that was missing here was not what got removed, but why. I'm of the opinion that Franamax's log summaries are actually not acceptable for two reasons:
1. RD5 was the stated reason, but the RD5 guidelines state (in italics even!) that it is "important that the underlying reason for deletion be made clear in the log summary." This wasn't done. I wasn't around when that guideline was formulated but I imagine it was meant to prevent situations exactly like this.
2. If the information was truly oversightable, then RD4 is the right reason, not RD5.
The editor said he <redacted> had never tried alcohol. That, by itself, does not warrant a revdel. So there must have been other stuff said, or maybe "inferrable", which the oversighters cannot discuss openly. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 22:58, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm going to try one more time to explain, then close this thread. Material was permanently removed from RD/M for reasons which are not the same as the reason Comet Tuttle gave for their removal. Editors who had material suppressed are aware of the removals and explanations have been given to them. Any further questions must go to the audit sub-committee. It is not appropriate to speculate here (or anywhere really) what meterial was removed. The speculation is beginning to become disruptive and could be getting into blocking territory if it continues. AUSC will be happy to address your concerns. Franamax (talk) 00:10, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Edit request on 24 December 2011
Latest comment: 12 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
i need to close my account becuse i dont live in california i live in las vegas nv my name is sara huerena my mom took the card from me when she got the mail she hates me that much to do that to me all becuse i have cp and seazuers all my life so please close this account so i can get in a bank in las vegas nv so please always sara huerena
Latest comment: 12 years ago10 comments7 people in discussion
I have removed this question twice now because it is clearly not a valid reference desk question (it's not a question at all). I have informed the user of my reasons on their talk page. I don't want to get into an edit war, so if they post again can somebody else please deal with it? Thanks. --Tango (talk) 22:24, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't know any French at all, but taking a wild guess and searching "Aller phêcher" I found [21]. Looks like they use "pishing" with some frequency. Wnt (talk) 15:45, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
I find it unlikely this is an attempt at phising. It seems clear the website belongs to Virgin. And Virgin would have to be stupid to give sufficient banking details to the person who holds the SIM to make it useful because the SIM card could easily be lost, stolen or voluntarily given to someone else who you wouldn't want to gain access to such details even if given to someone you know well. (The first 2 even during delivery.) There's a slight possibility as Wnt mentionecd that Virgin would allow storage of the details for auto reloads but it seems unlikely they would do this without making it clear since otherwise they risk significant complaints even if the person themselves was still using the SIM. (I don't know about the specifics in France but in NZ if you are setting up a recurring auto-debit they generally either want you to sign something or do it via your banking website.) A bigger risk is the SIM card might be used for criminal activity but even this seems somewhat unlikely here. However the question was inappropriate for the RD. Nil Einne (talk) 04:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
So if you give the phone to somebody who rings up phone sex lines all night and day, they don't charge your bank account? Wnt (talk) 17:15, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not really sure how my situation is relevant. But as it happens, I do have a prepay SIM with my phone like what the OP was asking to order. And I haven't set up any auto reload set up nor do I have that much credit, so if I give someone my mobile phone and they call up sex lines they'll soon use up all my credit and then won't be able to do anything more. If for some reason the mobile company allows them to make calls without credit, well that's their touch luck. Even if I did have a postpaid account, I'm not sure if I would have set up any auto billing. If I didn't, no one could randomly charge my bank account no matter how much I racked up. Although I would generally be liable for any bill and if I refuse to pay they'd likely send a debt collector after me and take me to court if necessary.
Anyway the OP was asking for someone to buy a prepaid SIM card for them. If I understood the site correctly, the SIM costs 1 Euro but comes with 5 Euros credit, apparently some special offer valid for another ~4 days. If the OP or their father calls up sex lines all day and night they'll use the 5 Euros credit quite fast. As I said, there's a slight possibility you may set up auto-topups while ordering a prepay SIM, but that seems rather unlikely since they probably want to do that seperately. And if you do it should be clear on the site you are doing so and I didn't see any sign of that even in the order page, although I don't speak French.
BTW from what I can tell, the special offer is supposed to be limited to one per person going by name, address etc. I presume this includes delivery address. If the OP really is doing something 'dodgy', the most likely thing is they somehow have a stack of delivery addresses that are different enough to fool the site, but of course don't have that many bank accounts or cards with different names to make different orders. And they want to order a lot of them to take advantage of the fact the credit is more then the cost of ordering the SIM. I know people who did something like that in Malaysia when some telco did a similar promotion although in that case you could buy the promotional SIMs in shops.
If the question is asked again, there is no need for such a heavy-handed and unreasonable approach as to delete it. A simple answer can easily be given... Suggest the OP buys a pre-pay SIM card once they arrive in France. Mobile phone shops are plentiful all over France, even at the airport. They can be bought quickly over the counter and activated once some credit is added to the card, which can be done with cash over the counter in the same shop. As for getting a total stranger to buy one for them, even on the promise of being paid back, they can be advised that almost no one will do this due to fears of it being a scam. That said, the questioner claims they are a student from Liverpool in the UK, so I imagine they would be familiar with how mobile phone shops work.
I really don't understand the above discussion about the kind stranger being open to unlimited costs through rebilling. Whenever I have bought a pre-pay SIM card in Europe, I have simply bought one anonomously using cash over the counter in the phone shop, no ID or bank account details are needed. You can get the SIM card loaded with credit at the same time (or more usually it comes with €5/€10 already on it). It is only if you buy online that you have to provide some information for electronic payment and an address for where the card will be sent. Astronaut (talk) 01:58, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
The phisher student was trying to get someone to give their credit card details and the phisher's student's "address" to Virgin mobile. Does this sound legitimate...no. Elen of the Roads (talk) 03:02, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
I disagree that this is phishing. They seemed to me to be unaware of how easy it is to get a pre-pay SIM card in France and suggested a possible way they could get one. I can't imagine anyone would actually go through with that suggestion, but here at the ref desk we can provide answers which might provide alternatives to that suggested by the OP. Astronaut (talk) 01:47, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
BLP removal
Latest comment: 12 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
I've removed (diff) a section from WP:RD/H which seems to me to be a BLP vio, accusing an actor of fathering & abandoning a "love child". Whether someone wishes to hard delete the input edits I leave to a passing admin. --Tagishsimon(talk)02:45, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Either done, or this page no longer exists on Wikipedia. :) I hate trying to figure out the consequences of RevDeletion! Franamax (talk) 04:59, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Happy New Year ...
Latest comment: 12 years ago10 comments5 people in discussion
... to all my esteemed Ref Desk colleagues, and all those who come here to get questions answered. Some of us have a foot in both camps. May this 2012 be brighter and better than any previous 2012. May all our countries do exceptionally well in London in July-August. May the best person win in November. May the best horse win the same day. May nothing apocalyptic happen around 21 December. And may we all show respect and tolerance for one another just a little more and leap to wrong conclusions and take (usually unintended) offence just a little less.
I just spent an hour resealing my car, happened to be walking through the alley and couldn't help but notice the driver-side window was smashed in. Glass shops are all fully booked / out of inventory / closing for New Years. Happy #### New Year. Still got my health though :) Franamax (talk) 00:49, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Heh, nooo, this is Grabcouver, anything in there was carefully covered. And once they uncovered them, they didn't even take the expensive sunglasses, rain suit or torque wrench. Just a few parking-meter coins and a Radiohead CD way down between the front seats. If they were attracted by the detritus strewn behind the driver's seat, I'm consoled to think they spent part of their life fruitlessly exploring a very messy car. :) Franamax (talk) 22:13, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Yep. I'll add that the regular street people in my neighbourhood would never think about breaking into a car, would help you if you asked them to, and are happy to not be in the (getting slowly better, but still pretty much word-scale) pit of misery at Hastings & Main where the perpetrator very likely returned. </rant> Franamax (talk) 01:21, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
On the correctness of your infrared imaging answer—meh. You made an error in your answer, and you can take your lumps for that. Happens to everyone from time to time; feel embarrassed, do your fact-checking before you post, and move on.
On Bred Ivy (talk·contribs) and his 'warning'—he appears to be a brand-new account created solely for the purpose of commenting obnoxiously on your edits. Moreover, the account has been used to comment in a manner that's not merely critical but abusive, making threats that it obviously cannot follow through on. The account was evidently created by a disgruntled but experienced editor (either long-term IP, banned user, or existing regular account holder) who wanted to behave badly without linking his conduct to his 'real' account. If a poison pen writer is too ashamed to sign his own name, then that tells you how much weight to give his comments.
Thanks. My infrared answer wasn't wrong anyway, it was just incomplete (I chose not to mention stuff that wasn't relevant to the OP's question). I have now clarified it. --Tango (talk) 15:27, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
I think your answer was a bit sloppy, in an entirely benign way which makes it comparable to, say, most of my answers to questions. By the look of it, the OP was making an error in specifying near-infrared when they really wanted to discuss thermal imaging, so picking up on that could have led to a more sensitive and thoughtful answer - but so what, really. Card Zero (talk)15:41, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm chuckling at his "You have been warned, continued behavior of this sort will not be tolerated". Clearly, he's already failing to tolerate your "highly objectionable" behaviour, and what he promises to do is to continue not to tolerate it. That's quite some escalation. You must be shivering in your boots. The Laugh-Fest that is the Reference Desk continues. Where would we be without people like BredIvy to give us all something to smile about? I'm sure he didn't intend for us to be having a laugh at his expense; let that be his punishment. -- Jack of Oz[your turn]19:11, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Movie clips
Latest comment: 12 years ago21 comments9 people in discussion
I get tired of long clips being posted with minimal text, like "How do they do this ?". Would it be helpful if we added some rules on movie clip posting to the Reference Desk ? Here are my thoughts:
1) Movie clips should be trimmed to the relevant portion only, whenever possible. If not possible, please provide the time index range in the clip where the relevant action occurs.
While I think, in principle, those would be great, what are you hoping to see accomplished? That we tack these guidelines on and call it a day? Let's be honest, "No medical advice" doesn't stop medical advice questions from being posted, so video-related guidelines certainly won't force adherence. Are you hoping that we remove offending video links? Escalating a poorly-formed question to the realm of a request for diagnosis seems excessive. The status quo, while not ideal, seems adequately functional to me, and your points are already implicit in the "Include context" portion of the header, and as I recall, we've overhauled and streamlined the header in the past to reduce single-issue cruft where possible. — Lomn19:24, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I certainly wouldn't remove those which violate the rules, no, but I might refer the poster to them, for next time. StuRat (talk) 19:39, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure the first guideline is reasonable. If someone has a question about a video, it's probably a YouTube video that they were linked to by a blog or something. So even if the person has video editing software, and knows how to use it, they probably don't know how to capture video from YouTube which requires special software or browser plug-ins as far as I know.
And even if someone did go through all that effort to clip out just the exact part of the video they were on about, I promise you that 90% of the time the first response will be "It's impossible to tell without more context." APL (talk) 20:28, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
This is why I added "If not possible, please provide the time index range in the clip where the relevant action occurs." StuRat (talk) 04:12, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
It's not a matter of being willing to play the video; it's when the OP doesn't provide enough info to figure out what he's asking. And the OP doesn't need to do anything fancy; he could just say, "Please go to such-and-such time marker in the video and explain..." ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 23:07, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
So if you don't have enough info to answer it, then just don't answer it. Why do you feel obligated to try and provide an answer to a defective question? I agree with 82, there's nothing to see here. --Viennese Waltz09:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, but that wasn't really my point. Why bother asking for clarification, even if the OP does come back again? Why not just leave the question alone? --Viennese Waltz18:56, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
If it appears to be a reasonable question, and not one posted by a banned user, we would like to try to answer it, if possible. If the OP clarifies the question, it increases the likelihood that someone can answer it. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 23:06, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
It's recently crossed my mind that some of the sort of posts that StuRat refers to (which seem to have become a little more frequent of late) might just be ploys to get the clips (or pictures) more hits, and I've consciously decided not to click some links (especially if the URL isn't obviously on a "safe" site like YouTube) where the significance of the question isn't immediately apparent, though given AGF I wouldn't raise the suspicion on a specific Refdesk query. It'd be a pity if such an exploit (or suspicion of same) reduced we volunteers' overall inclination to answer. Unfortunately, I don't have any constructive suggestions to address the problem. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.78.5 (talk) 23:56, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I think point 1 is unworkable. As for point 2, it would be nice, but it hardly seems like guideline material. My response to questions that are terribly vague is to just say, "can you be more specific about X, Y, and Z?" Or to ignore it. Either of those seem like good options. I'm not sure what a guideline would do — just give you grounds to make a more pointed complaint? It hardly seems worth it, to me. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:52, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
As many have said, the first part of point 1 unworkable. Even if we ignore the fact many people asking questions will have no idea how to edit a video and forcing them to sign up for an account on some video sharing site to upload a video to ask a question is silly and way too much work, policy disallows us from linking to copyvios. We may let this slide sometimes, but for us to purposely encourage people to create copyvios to then link to is clearly not acceptable. And yes, there's a fair chance this is what we are doing as unless the person has the permission of the copyright holder (whether via direct communication or stated during the release of the original video) it is a potential copyvio when the person can 't legitimately claim fair use (which depends on the country and other factors) Nil Einne (talk) 16:13, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
As far as editing videos, this would be mainly for people who've taken their own video and submitted it here. I expect this to become more common as cell phones start getting video cameras built in. StuRat (talk) 04:16, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
A fair number of the requests we get here are about user videos. It's just not the user asking who owns the copyright and the owner has not released them under a sufficiently free licence (which would enable to be uploaded here) or at least with some licence permitting derivatives in the forming of cropping (which would probably allow the video to be reuploaded to Youtube or some other video sharing site). Also given you just recently upgraded to XP, it may not be surprising you're a bit behind in the tech arena, the mid low or low end 2G (only) and no bluetooth Panasonic VS2 I bought in early 2006 had video recording support. It was only QVGA or something and I think 15 FPS and there was no removable storage so I was limited to the 32MB built in (which was actually fairly high for phones in its price range, one of the reasons I chose it along with the screen). Nowadays you can get a Android phone with capacitive touch screen and removable storage for less then I spent on my Panasonic VS2. (Actually the LG Optimus P500 I received as a gift about 5 months ago is or was during the Christmas sales less then I spent on the Panasonic VS2.) Either way, I think it amply demonstrates that phones with video cameras isn 't exactly something that is just 'starting' to happen. Nil Einne (talk) 11:32, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
I would guess that only a small portion of the human race currently has a cell phone with video recording capability. Hence "starting". StuRat (talk) 00:41, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Well most don't have internet access either. Are you also going to say 'I expect this to become more common as the internet starts to become available.'? Note the specifics here, you said 'I expect this to become more common as cell phones start getting video cameras built in', not 'as people starting getting mobile phones with video cameras'. Notice the difference in tense and in what's being referred to. Also I quite doubt Kenyan farmers etc are going to be uploading videos to wikipedia much, even if they did have a phone with video. And apparently plenty of Kenyans do have phones with video recording capability [22][23]Nil Einne (talk) 15:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Those Kenyan farmers might, once they all have cell phones with video capability. And note that the simple ability to record video is just the first step, we need more apps to do things like upload a video to Wikipedia at the click of a button. StuRat (talk) 00:05, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Prescription first aid kit
Latest comment: 12 years ago86 comments17 people in discussion
I'm moving this comment here (it was on the desk itself) because I don't think there is much point blanking something if you put a link straight to it right there. --Tango (talk) 18:14, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
As usual, I believe that editors should be notified when their signed comments (especially constructive comments made in good faith) are removed. I have done so. Buddy431 (talk) 18:20, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for doing so. If it had been one person, I would have done so, but since it was quite a few people it seemed like too much work! I expect they all have the page watchlisted, so they would find out sooner or later. --Tango (talk) 18:33, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Nope, the watchlist is entirely useless for notifying us of deletions, because it doesn't do section-level watches, only page-level. The result is that your deletion was obscured on the watchlist as soon as the next change was made on the page, which was 4 minutes, in this case. The way I (and I suspect others) monitor Ref Desks for changes to questions where I have posted is to do a find on my name, but deleting my name prevents this from working, too. So, we are then down to finding it by searching through every question on every desk, unless somebody is kind enough to notify us. StuRat (talk) 18:43, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, that depends on whether you have your watchlist set to show every edit or just the most recently. I find things I'm following on the ref desks by looking at the links in the table of contents that are a different colour due to me visiting that specific section, which happens automatically after I save an edit (if I read a section without posting to it, I would have just scrolled there, so the link doesn't change colour). If I'm having to take time to deal with people's poor judgement, I don't think I should obliged to spend more time telling them all about it. --Tango (talk) 18:57, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Doing things properly is time consuming. And even if the OP made a mistake in posting, that doesn't mean that everyone who responded did. In my first reply, for example, I just asked for a clarification of what they were asking. StuRat (talk) 19:08, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Given a choice of leaving an inappropriate question standing or removing it "improperly", I would choose the latter every time. --Tango (talk) 19:18, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
But, obviously, those weren't your only choices. You've now spent more time defending the sloppy removal than it would have taken to do so properly. StuRat (talk) 19:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
I see no request for a diagnosis or legal opinion, and anything we suggested would be reviewed by an actual doctor. She just wanted a list of meds to suggest to the doctor, who would then decide which are appropriate for the "first aid kit". StuRat (talk) 18:26, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Not at all. It's quite common for any project to start with solicitations of suggestions from the general public, which are then subjected to review by various experts, until a decision is made. This approach gets the best of both "many voices" and "expert knowledge". I believe the reconstruction of the World Trade Center is following such a process, although, obviously, the general public is not qualified to fully design a building, that's where expert architects come in. StuRat (talk) 19:26, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Our usual definition of medical advice is anything involving diagnosis, prognosis or treatment. Recommending prescription drugs definitely falls under the category of treatment. --Tango (talk) 18:33, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
A specific drug for a specific patient would be a treatment, but just listing drugs it's nice to keep handy isn't. StuRat (talk) 18:40, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Nobody should be keeping any prescription drugs "handy" unless a doctor thinks it is a good idea for them, as a specific individual, to do so. We should have no involvement in that. --Tango (talk) 18:57, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
As the OP said, a doctor was going to decide what drugs are appropriate for each individual. We didn't have any part in that. As for keeping prescription drugs handy, I believe it was argued some time ago that everyone should keep some, like Cipro in their medicine cabinet, in case of epidemics. The alternative is large numbers of infectious people swamping hospitals and clinics to try to get it after they are already infected, resulting in a far higher death count. StuRat (talk) 19:18, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Suggesting drugs is an involvement. Argued by whom? Inappropriate use of antibiotics is a major cause of antibiotic resistant bacteria. If the people that are actually supposed to make such decisions thought everyone should have Cipro then it would have been made an over-the-counter drug. A prescription drug that everyone should have doesn't make sense. --Tango (talk) 19:24, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Suggesting drugs FOR A PATIENT is involvement. Most inappropriate use of antibiotics is due to doctors prescribing them for viral infections. The point in keeping them prescription is so that everyone can get some, but not an unlimited amount, which might indeed lead to people taking them all the time "just in case". StuRat (talk) 19:30, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Is there anyone besides StuRat who thinks this question should be restored, making a sound argument that the Wikipedia's policies have been misapplied? Until such an individual comes forward, there's no need to continue this discussion, and I don't think we need to post further on it to satisfy one individual who consistently makes the wrong call on questions regarding medical advice. (I'll note in passing that a number of editors also endorsed Tango's removal of the question on his talk page: [24].) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:39, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
As usual, you have ignored the OP's own opinion. Their arguments for keeping the Q were deleted along with the Q. StuRat (talk) 18:51, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
I read the OP's arguments before I deleted the section and decided they were not sufficient to justify keeping the question. --Tango (talk) 18:57, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Even so, the usual practice when doing a deletion is to post here and copy over any discussion about the deletion from the Q itself, so everyone can form their own opinion. StuRat (talk) 19:10, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
I suspect the OP knows what the OP said, owing to the fact that they said it. I've had enough of this discussion. It is clear that the general consensus is that I acted properly. You will just have to accept that. --Tango (talk) 19:35, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Can you remember everything you said over the last few days ? As for a consensus, so far I only see three people posting here that support the deletion, including you. StuRat (talk) 19:37, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
At this point you need to starting counting the editors who oppose the deletion, instead of pointing out how many are in favor (count me as the fourth, by the way). I do wish that the original redactor had taken the five seconds to post a diff to the talk page, however. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 20:07, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
So far there's me and the OP, and perhaps a couple others who posted there and didn't argue for removal (presumably they didn't post in hope that their answers would soon be deleted). StuRat (talk) 20:26, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
This sort of bullying is why it's not worth our while to continue engaging with StuRat when he's the only editor who's disagreeing with Tango's perfectly reasonable deletion. StuRat, if your position has such great merit, then you should make your argument clearly and succinctly and then let the consensus develop. Other editors aren't idiots, and don't need you to argue with each and every comment that they make. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
Bullying ? By what possible definition is engaging in a debate "bullying" ? And you continue to ignore the opinion of the OP, as if it doesn't matter at all. StuRat (talk) 21:14, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
By what possible definition of "engaging in a debate" is "And you commented on that, hoping your comment would be deleted ?", StuRat? I commented, with a background awareness, as with all that is written on WP, that my thoughts might be deleted, and agreeing with the rationale for the deletion when it was made. It has happened before, and will likely happen again. YMMV. Bielle (talk) 21:24, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
It not just a knowledge that it may be deleted, on your part, but a hope that it will be. Seems odd to me, but it's your time, not mine. At any rate, my pointing this out is certainly not "bullying". StuRat (talk) 22:29, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
For the record, I do oppose deletion (though not strongly). This has only been up a couple hours, and is basically an argument between two or three people. Maybe we should wait for some more input before trying to force a headcount. Doctors prescribing such kits is fairly common for people traveling overseas - my Dad had one prescribed when he went to Taiwan, which isn't particularly notable for lots of nasty diseases running around. It would of course be best if someone could provide actual references for the types of drugs typically found in these kits, rather than just sprouting off whatever comes to mind. I agree with StuRat that we are not making a diagnosis or advocating a certain treatment, and are not running afoul of our guidelines.
I continue to maintain that, while perhaps not strictly required by the rules, it is just plain common courtasy to let editors know when their signed contributions (outside of article space) are deleted. Buddy431 (talk) 22:10, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
My two-pence/cents. I can see some decent reasons to remove the question - medical stuff always comes across as dodgy ground on the site and it was certainly odd that the questioner is apparently working in a pharmacy/as a pharmacist and thought the best people for advice were strangers online. That said I did try to provide a reasonable response by linking to government policy (at least Uk healthcare policy) on first aid kits and vaccinations etc. when travelling abroad. The responses given were sensible and I didn't notice anything that could be construed as (specific) medical advice - certainly not more than can be found through searching in articles such as First Aid Kit. ny156uk (talk) 22:51, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
I was particularly concerned by StuRat's recommendation to take a tourniquet. At least in the UK, tourniquets are no longer taught to first aiders because they usually do more harm than good with them. That is why we don't give any medical advice - we are not medical professionals and don't know enough to be sure our advice wouldn't be harmful. --Tango (talk) 23:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
That's in the UK, where presumably medical help is close at hand and there aren't a lot of poisonous snakes to worry about. If you are days away from medical help, you'd best have a way to handle such an emergency yourself. But, in any case, this would be decided upon by the doctor who has the final say over the contents of the kit. StuRat (talk) 00:54, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree with StuRat that there were some appropriate answers which should not have been deleted. No one said "Oh, my breasts are swollen, my period is late, and I throw up every morning; I have a severe pain in my lower right abdomen; I have been losing weight and urinating a lot and have blurry vision; and I have a severe headache which gets worse when I tilt my head back and look at the light. Am I pregnant, and do I have appendicitis, diabetes and meningitis, and how should I treat them?" They are just asking what drugs would be appropriate in a first aid kit, and there have been reliable sources published with such lists. Edison (talk) 00:38, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
The only possible "appropriate" answer to the question would have been, "We don't answer those kinds of questions." The entire premise of the question sounds bogus and possibly illegal. If a doctor and a pharmacist can't figure out what prescriptions should be such a kit, neither should we. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 01:14, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Going back to my World Trade Center example, do you think it's inappropriate for the architects to solicit ideas from the general public ? StuRat (talk) 01:24, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, it's inappropriate. They should consult experts: physicians, EMS workers, etc. Not anonymous internet users. If they actually relied on the general public for something so vital, they should, at the very least, have their heads examined. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 01:27, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
They could consult the public on the aesthetics, but they shouldn't be asking the public where the load bearing supports need to go. --Tango (talk) 01:30, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Bingo. The analogy with the first aid kit would be that the public could provide some optional input on what color the kit container could be. It's up to the experts to figure out what the kit's contents should be. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 01:33, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
In architecture the process of collaboratively soliciting advice from prospective users and the general public is called a charrette and is commonly used in projects with significant public interest. The advice solicited usually involves use patterns, design emphasis and the like. Fire codes, structural design and basic engineering aren't part of the process. Acroterion(talk)01:35, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Since the location of load-bearing beams is both aesthetic and structural, perhaps the public could suggest where to put the beams, and then the experts could decide if that can work, or not. When a rich person hires an architect to design his house, he often has a great deal to say about the final design, unless he had the misfortune to hire Frank Lloyd Wright. StuRat (talk) 01:42, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
We have had questions like "What size wire should I use in an electric circuit fused at 15 amperes?" It would be inappropriate for me to answer simply "I think 14 gauge copper wire would be good." It would be appropriate to say "Section XXX of the US Electrical Code says that a 15 amp circuit requires number 14 copper wire." It could similarly be appropriate to cite reliable sources in response to general questions about first aid kit recommendations. It would be odd to reject any reliably sourced response to any questions at all. Edison (talk) 02:15, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
And I am still stuck way back at where StuRat seems to have concluded that I was "hoping" to have my comments deleted. Where did I, or anyone, even suggest such silliness? Bielle (talk) 01:44, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
I think he's neglecting the possibility that you simply made a mistake and have now seen the error of your ways and is assuming you held the same view when you responded to the question as you do now. --Tango (talk) 01:49, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
If you add a comment to a question you hope to see removed, then you hope your comment, along with the rest of the Q, will be removed. Simple as that. StuRat (talk) 01:49, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
A charrette is usually guided by the designer, who might present a menu of acceptable alternatives while noting tradeoffs in cost, functionality, etc. I am often asked "can't we just move that post?" The answer is, of course "how much money are you willing to spend to get rid of it?" since it's usually more expensive to do away with conveniently-placed props. Any actual design work would (and must) be done by a licensed professional, but it's certainly possible to discuss structural alternatives, if done appropriately. Acroterion(talk)01:45, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
And no, I don't think giving any sort of advice on stockpiling prescription (or any other kind of) medication is appropriate on the refdesk. Acroterion(talk)01:56, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
That is indeed a completely straightforward medical advice question. "What were you thinking" is absolutely what comes to mind here. --Saddhiyama (talk) 01:48, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
I oppose deletion because the question was from a pharmacist who would take the answers to a doctor for, um, vetting. What are we going to say, "don't solicit ideas from us, we might corrupt your professional discernment, instead see another professional"? Seems silly. Card Zero (talk)05:21, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
What's wrong with the notion of turning to the public for inspiration, and subjecting their ideas to informed criticism? How is this unethical? Card Zero (talk)05:26, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
It's unethical because we are not qualified to recommend prescription drugs. Only a doctor is qualified to do that. The notion that a doctor would even ask this question of a pharmacist is ridiculous. It would be like a surgeon turning to the public for inspiration on how to do surgery. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 05:31, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
I am the OP and I was going to leave things as is, but this is just ridiculous. Tango, in reply to "Our usual definition of medical advice is anything involving diagnosis, prognosis or treatment. Recommending prescription drugs definitely falls under the category of treatment." I am not asking anyone to do any of the above you listed. I never asked "What may be wrong with this person," I never asked for a likely outcome, nor did I ask for help treating anything. Did you even read anything at all or did you just want to abuse your power once again?
Then you go on to say: "Nobody should be keeping any prescription drugs "handy" unless a doctor thinks it is a good idea for them, as a specific individual, to do so. We should have no involvement in that." Well if the doctor is prescribing the first aid kit, he or she sees it as a good idea, right? You are having no involvement in what actually goes in the kit, contributors are just having involvement in ideas of what should.
You keep making the argument that a few people wanted the post removed. It is very interesting that the few people including yourself could not even make one valid argument since the rules were not broken. The rules were not broken and that is that. The few supporters of the removal know nothing about the medical field or how it operates or even about drugs.
You give wikipedia reference desk a bad name because you are too quick to remove almost anything that has to do with medicine, even when most people are not asking or giving medical advice.
Baseball Bugs, who cares if I am asking anonymous internet users. All questions on this reference desk are answered by anonymous internet users. Please make a decent argument so we don't lose all the respect we have for you. Just because people here are anonymous internet users, it does not mean that none of them work in the medical field, have some type of experience or idea, don't have a similar kit at home, or have not gone traveling and hoped they had a similar kit. Ideas are just ideas, good ideas can come from anywhere.
You also mention "No ethical pharmacist would pose such a question. And our only ethical response is indeed, "Talk to a professional."" So would it be wrong for a pharmacist to ask patients what they would like in a first aid kit if they were traveling? It's the same type of question, the customers are not professionals.
Another poor response from you: "It's unethical because we are not qualified to recommend prescription drugs. Only a doctor is qualified to do that. The notion that a doctor would even ask this question of a pharmacist is ridiculous. It would be like a surgeon turning to the public for inspiration on how to do surgery"
I never asked what you should recommend to treat a symptom, that is what a doctor can do. If you knew anything about anything, you would know that pharmacists know much more than any doctor about medications. Doctors know how to better diagnose. There have been several hundred times where doctors have called the pharmacy and asked what the pharmacist recommends to treat an issue and prescribed that drug. Doctors don't know much about medications, even though they probably should. Most doctors prescribe at 50 different drugs, anything outside those 50 commonly prescribed drugs, they don't know much or anything about. That is when they pull out their big drug book, smart phone, or call a pharmacist. And in most cases, because of laziness and lack of knowledge, they ask a pharmacist.
I can't remember who made a post saying that a patient should not self diagnose or self medicate. That is by far the dumbest comment in this whole thread, here is why:
Does a patient with a epi-pen not self diagnose and self medicate? It could have been something other than a be that stung them, right? But their diagnosement is that they got stung by a bee, they are going to have a severe allergic reaction, and then they self treat by hitting themselves with an epi-pen.
What about someone who gets migraines? They self diagnose, self treat, and the doctor gives them the drug beforehand.
What about someone with asthma?
What about someone who has anxiety in certain situations or panic attacks, or seizures? Many drugs in these cases have "use as directed" or "as needed" on the label.
What about prescription allergy medicine?
What about anti-inflammatory drugs and muscle relaxers?
What about anti-nausea drugs such as zofran?
Many of these drugs are prescribed as "as needed" drugs. So since I have shut down every argument, no valid opposing argument has been made other than "I think" type opinions and arguments, like "I think this question should be shut down." And I have the support of other members, this question should be re-instated and an apology should be given. You have abused your powers, no different than the way many police officers do. Sure there are a few people who think police brutality victims deserved it even when the officer was not threatened or even provoked, but a majority and the rules and laws are against it. The rules of wikipedia are against what you did, and your small group of supports cannot provide a valid argument that is supported by the rules of the wikipedia reference desk. Why don't you follow the rules for once, rather than asking everyone else to do so. How about that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.173.30.220 (talk) 07:51, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Your story makes no sense. If your doctor doesn't know what should be in such a kit, then he's incompetent to practice. That's assuming your story is on the level. Which it ain't. You're a troll. Go away. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 09:40, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
The story makes perfect sense. To judge the Dr.'s competence on the OP's question is ridiculous, and to declare the OP a troll is nothing but a personal attack. A simple Google search as recommended by one of the RD responses [25], produces many good examples of kits available and legitimate reasons for their use (Kits designed for seafarers, prescribed to the ship's name and secured to the ship's captain for one). Obviously Bug's opinion overshadows his clue. Bred Ivy (talk) 12:37, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
What power have I abused? I have no power that any other person with an internet connection doesn't have (at least, not that are relevant to this - I have rollback). I just edited the page the same as anyone else and I could have been reverted as easily as anyone else. The power belongs to us all collectively. --Tango (talk) 12:59, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Reliable sources with answers to the question exist. They may advise that procedures be performed or prescription drugs be administered only under the direction of a shore-based doctor, via radio. See "Cruising Guide to the Hawaiian Islands" (2006) by Carolyn Mehaffy, Bob Mehaffy, pages 40-41. A physician, Mark Anderson, made recommendations for prescription meds and equipment for an extended cruise in Chapter 10 of "Cruising for seniors" (2000) by Keller, pages 97-126. It must be noted that medicines fall out of favor all too frequently due to side effects, and that new meds are always coming onto the market. A pharmacist should know what's what without our advice. Edison (talk) 19:50, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
I find bugs comments very interesting, especially last few where he calls people trolls and gutless trolls. HE HAS NOT REPLIED TO ANY OF MY ARGUMENTS BECAUSE HE KNOWS I'M RIGHT AND HE CANNOT INVALIDATE ANYTHING THAT I HAVE SAID. SO HE ATTACKS. He sounds like Bill O'Reilly when Bill is debating. When he is losing a debate and can't defend himself, he calls people all kinds of names and tells them they are crazy and out of their mind. Well Bug, your doing the same thing, just calling people names because you are losing this argument. Very mature, good job. Aren't personal attacks against wikipedia rules?
Now about my whole "story." I am an intern pharmacist and I have been given this as a project. Its required for me to work at a pharmacy while in school. They set me up with different types of pharmacies (chain, private, hospital, etc...). Throughout all of this I will be and have been given different projects and have done presentations. Every pharmacist has to do something similar while in school.
So far, you have not been able to invalidate any one of my arguments, nor has anyone else. Do I have to tell everyone my life story every time I post a question? Most of you are ridiculous, you would rather stir up drama than help a user. I appreciate the help that some of you have provided, especially StuRat. Tango, I am no expert on posting and editing on the reference desk, but since you especially have not been able to invalidate anything I have said, why don't you please do everyone a favor and restore the questions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.171.252.238 (talk) 05:54, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
When you report your results, please be sure to tell the people charged with deciding your suitability and qualifications to be a pharmacist that your idea of seeking out information is to ask random strangers on the internet (and that you got into a big argument with those strangers). They may have some comments on thw wisdom of such a strategy. Franamax (talk) 06:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
When you ask a question on the reference desk, you expect people who have some knowledge and background to reply. That is what I expected. Some of the people may be pharmacists, doctors, or in the medical field. So I don't find anything wrong with asking random strangers on the internet. Also, people who do not have any medical background may provide information that is useful, for example, someone who has been on a cruise or any other type of travel where they became ill, one way or another and wish they had the appropriate drug to treat their illness. I am supposed to provide information for putting a kit together, so just about anyone can provide useful information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.171.252.238 (talk) 06:26, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I believe the process of asking a wide range of people for ideas at the start of a project, with the idea of removing the chaff later, is brainstorming. The idea of asking a sample of the general public about what they would want also sounds a bit like a focus group. BTW, glad I could help, and sorry you've been so abused by others here. StuRat (talk) 06:37, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Baseball Bugs, have you had anything useful at all to contribute? I doubt anyone on here thinks you do. Rather than argue against the real issue, you just argue against stupid little things that don't matter at all. Two examples are the definition of a focus group and claims that people make of their profession. Some people in this world don't have the confidence to admit they are wrong and you my friend are one of them.
Did I say I was asking people what their profession is? Or ask only people in the medical field to reply? I could care less, a person who is not a pharmacist or doctor may provide a greater contribution to this question than one who is. Once again, stop making a fool out of yourself. Have at least a little bit of respect for yourself. Don't make everyone else lose respect for you as well.
I was just asking for ideas, like StuRat pointed out, this is done all the time. Just because someone provides an idea of what to put in the kit, does not mean it will be in the kit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.171.252.238 (talk) 09:05, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
I suggest you go ahead - perhaps the people there will be kind enough to explain to you what a personal attack is. --Tango (talk) 22:53, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Latest comment: 12 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
A while ago, I posted a question about inductive/deductive reasoning. Following a response that asked for clarification, I wrote a long expository explanation concerning the meaning of that question, but never got the chance of completing it. I will now post the largely-unedited version below.
AstroHurricane's question
---
Hi. I realize that my Language Desk question was vague, so I'll attempt to interpret my own question from the POV of the article, Logic.
Please excuse any irrelevant statements from here-on-in. It is productive to this topic to establish focus.
Hang on tight. Please buckle all your seatbelts. Your [sic] about to be accelerated to infinitespeed...wirrr-voosh-zz!
[In the event of a collapse in reasoning, headache, nausea, physical pains, feeling of heaviness, vision disturbances, uncontrollable laughter, self-implosion or any of the above, please close all windows. WP:Medical disclaimer.]
Simply put, we conclude that a statement cannot be both true and false, as this is an example of deductive reasoning. In the context of the Simple English article, however, it can be both raining and not raining: it could rain in higher levels of the troposphere, before evaporating lower down–this is called virga, which often occurs during dry thunderstorms.
Put more broadly, Logic is divided into four categories: Informal / Formal and Symbolic / Mathematical.
However, we often ignore a statement when it is too philosophical, too broad or without establishing context. We must, therefore, symbolize our logic using universal quantifiers.
However, one requires objectivity. Recursive logic can have logical consequences. On Wikipedia, objectivity in determining NPOV may fall on multiple planes–that is, it may need to be politically objective, scientifically objective, logically objective...
In any logical system, we typically try to avoid self-reference and self-contradiction in order to ensure consistency. Deductive reasoning is typically consistent and valid, yet by induction our arguments may remain incomplete, meaning we need to ensure that they are sound.
Since the above ascertains an example of "critical reasoning", our thoughts from this particular POV break down when we are introduced to creative thinking (reasoning, interpretation, conceptualization, thinking, or method by induction).
When two topics share a common premise, it is easy to group those topics into one category. However, what happens when those topics are opposite? Just be sure to discuss your interpretation!
In our logic, there are often many interpretations for everything. When one must, does one's willinduce logic? Or, has the previous statement been irrational?
In avoiding illogical thought-transfer, one must also avoid—
Anyway, back to the topic. When a person's rhetoric is persuasive, it establishes intent. The thinking causes infinite regress (circular reasoning), causing the other party to...
Thus, one requires critical thinking to resolve the problem. However, does one form of thinking control the other, or does the brain and the self virtually co-self-non-control?{{clarify}}
Of course, the Church-Turing thesis in no way implies a religious robot. Even thoughts based on mathematics can remain incomplete. When thoughts are incomplete, one must not conclude.
AstroHurricane, you may get better answers if you state your questions more concisely. I made an honest attempt to read your posting, but it's pretty incoherent - so I hid it. I searched for "?" characters, and found several questions, but they all seem rhetorical. Please remember that the talk-page is for discussion related to the operation of the reference desk. It is not your personal web-page to post whatever you like. Nimur (talk) 19:54, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
To me this seems like a collection of disconnected statements. Individually none of them seem very profound or interesting. I assume you're trying to lead up to something interesting, but I honestly could not guess at what. APL (talk) 10:48, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
How did you deduce that that response was asking for clarification. When I read it, it clearly stated that you need to ask your questions one at a time and provide context so the questions make better sense. -- kainaw™14:29, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Actually, it could be that I didn't deduce that idea, but rather that I induced it. That was the whole basis and premise of my original question. The topic I referred to in this "incoherent" mess hidden above was logic itself, which would establish no context - indeed, I was asking why the context was required for communication in the first place. That's why I posted it in Language. This applies whether we are trying to use inductive or deductive reasoning to establish a conclusion, or indeed, whether a conclusion is utmost necessary. I will refer to the reason why this is relevant to the RD talk, but firstly the article on relevance states (at last check) the likelihood of an action (relevant or irrelevant) of accomplishing a goal. This can be done for any article. Also, a possible way of improving the reference desk operation is to be able to discuss rhetoric and answer rhetorical questions without self-incoherency. Is that ontologically possible?
Latest comment: 12 years ago11 comments10 people in discussion
There seems to be a dispute on the Language ref desk about a deleted question. User:Dominus Vobisdu deleted a question from the Language reference desk for being rude, and the OP restored it; if you're brave enough to risk the savage language, the diff is: [27] --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:48, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong that I can see in the question, and it should not have been deleted. I've left a note on DV's talk page asking him/her to contribute to this discussion. --Viennese Waltz10:51, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree that the question should not have been deleted. I suppose the problem is that the last sentence was percieved as a slam against Americans for talking in a funny, ambiguous way, but it doesn't have to be read like that. (Incidentally, given the topic, I enjoy the irony of not being able to fully understand the intent behind the last sentence.) APL (talk) 10:57, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, I did interpret it as a slam. The OP has explained, though, that they are not a native speaker, and were unaware that the question could be interpreted as a slam. I've answered the OP's question on their talk page. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 11:09, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
If it's a slam, then it's one about the American English accent. Who is going to take that very personally? I mean, it's not like any of us came up with it independently or anything like that. If the accent leads to ambiguity at times, so be it. (If I noted that Russian cursive practices led to very difficult to read certain words at times, would that be a "slam"?)--Mr.98 (talk) 13:51, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
The only possible "slam" I see here is the fact that the OP called the American accent a "severe" problem, as opposed to a British accent. The rest of the question seems perfectly valid. ~AH1(discuss!)17:59, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
And almost everyone, except those who studied linguistics in the womb, has at one point described an accent as "ugly" (Fargo, highland Scottish?) or "sloppy" (Cajun, Cockney?) or "uneducated" (AAVE, Chav?). A Language Desk contributor should probably know that this is an extremely-common, global, bias. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:44, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Of course it shouldn't have been deleted. I wonder what User:Dominus Vobisdu would make of the song Why Can't The English? from My Fair Lady? While condemning people from certain English social classes for being unable to correctly pronounce their native tongue, it contains the wonderful lines... "There even are places where English completely disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!" Now, we Australians don't have an accent at all.... HiLo48 (talk) 07:05, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
Done. RevDeleted. --Jayron32 04:38, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
