Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 87

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Archive 80

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Archive 85

"My app doesn't work"

Do we really need to entertain discussions over why a particular "app" doesn't work for a few hours, per this thread? How does this benefit Wikipedia? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:19, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The question isn't just "Why doesn't this app work?" The question is "Is there a well-known reason that this app doesn't work?" For example, what if Blackberry just got into a dust-up with Facebook and they mutually agreed to not work with each other anymore. A well-referenced response could explain so and provide links to news articles about the whole situation. Further, why should it benefit Wikipedia? That makes no sense. The purpose of the Reference Desk is not to benefit Wikipedia. The purpose of the reference desk is to provide references for those seeking information. -- kainaw ™ 17:21, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)If you look through the archives of almost any of the RefDesks, you'll find examples of threads that don't directly benefit Wikipedia: typical examples include, "What's the film called where such-and-such happens?" "How do I remove a wine-stain from a white tablecloth?" "When is the next time comet XYZ will be visible from London?" and, "Why are most country's Israel embassies in Tel Aviv and not Jerusalem the capital?"
It's a service we provide. It's helpful. It helps people to learn their way around Wikipedia. It does no harm. People are happy to volunteer to do it. These are all decent enough reasons. ╟─Treasury Tag►Subsyndic General─╢ 17:23, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Just a note: From his edit history, it appears that this is the first time User:The Rambling Man has used the Reference Desk and very well may have many misconceptions about the purpose of the Reference Desk. -- kainaw ™ 17:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Cool, interesting. Yes, I've rarely been to these areas before, and yes, I may have "many misconceptions"^{[citation needed]}, but I've certainly experienced apps that stop working for a few hours, and never felt the need to start a conspiratorial thread on Wikipedia about it. There are half a million apps for iPhone now, some of them will probably glitch for one reason or another. This, and these discussions are wasteful on our resources. The point, I thought, of reference desks was to actually attempt to enhance the knowledge base on WIkipedia. If we need to ask a primitive question like "why does my app stop working for a few hours" just to add "some apps don't work perfectly all the time" then we really are heading downhill fast. So don't worry, I'll not be back here again in a rush, I'll focus on building the encyclopedia, not chatting about apps that stop working temporarily... The Rambling Man (talk) 17:28, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I've certainly experienced apps that stop working for a few hours, and never felt the need to start a conspiratorial thread on Wikipedia about it. I'm not sure why you bothered including the word 'conspiratorial' (not least since it's completely meaningless in that context), but I daresay you've often forgotten the name of a film, wanted to know when a comet will be visible from your city and needed to clean tableclothes yet not started a thread about of it. Fine. Others may wish to do so, and you aren't required to engage with that if you don't want to.
This, and these discussions are wasteful on our resources. What resources? Do you mean the Wikimedia server resources? Because WP:PERF applies. I really hope you that the resource you mean isn't editors' time, because (and this will perhaps come as a surprise to you) the RefDesks are very actively staffed by volunteers who chose to help people, and I see no reason to stop this altruistic activity just because you consider it too trivial. ╟─Treasury Tag►sheriff─╢ 17:33, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

See above: what if Blackberry just got into a dust-up with Facebook and they mutually agreed to not work with each other anymore. And yes, I get the concept of "volunteer". I've been one for six years and do it every day, not just on-wiki. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:35, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I saw above, and I still don't see how the word 'conspiratorial' applies, but suit yourself. ╟─Treasury Tag►CANUKUS─╢ 17:37, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Conspiracy: Facebook/Blackberry not working with each other any more. Nonsense. The app failed for a few hours. That's life. Anyway, thank you, indeed I will suit myself. I trust we have agreed to disagree, you can carry on with your self-declared altruism etc and I shall do what I do. Cheers! The Rambling Man (talk) 17:44, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I think you'll find that I never mentioned FB and BB not working together. Someone else did. So the thread itself was nothing to do with that. (Incidentally, how can two organisations not working together possibly be a conspiracy?) ╟─Treasury Tag►Regional Counting Officer─╢ 17:46, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I think you'll find the indentation of both of your and your colleague's comments was the same. And the point being that someone enquiring why Facebook doesn't work would equate to Blackberry not working with Facebook is way too WP:OR for words. That's the stuff of conspiracy theory. And as I said, good luck with you ongoing altruism, I shall do whatever it is I do from now on and not darken these threads again. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:50, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Rambling Man. This is the Wikipedia:Reference Desk. On it, we answer questions that people might have. It's been going on for awhile. We have some guidelines as to what sorts of questions we won't answer, but they're generally fairly limited. You can see them in the header on the Reference Desk pages. Asking about computer apps is completely germane to the policy. If you are bugged by this, you're welcome to ignore said questions, or use your Wikipedia-browsing time in some other way, but unless a question is seriously disruptive, violates the rules, or is just meant to be trolling of some sort, we generally don't remove questions. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:38, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Hello Mr. 98, thanks for your useful and kind response. I found the idea of a long-term user asking here on Wikipedia why a crappy app had stopped working for a few hours somewhat laughable, perhaps my mistake as I thought anyone who was reasonably used to the way modern technology works would be accustomed to the odd glitch and not seek the wisdom of Wikipedia to explain why. I also don't really get how this particular thread would ever benefit Wikipedia. But as I said before, I clearly don't get it. The use of other pages for "chat" like this is generally discouraged, my mistake to stumble upon this after 6.5 years of being here. In any case, good luck to you and whoever else finds it rewarding to respond to questions like this without any direct relevance to the charity-funded project we're all trying to promote. Perhaps The IT Crowd would help, usually it's just a BSOD; switching it off and on again may help.... Standard. God speed. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:47, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Potential benefit to the main body of articles is not the primary goal of the reference desk. (Though, happily, that certainly happens.) The reference desk serves the encyclopedia by being another channel through which users may gain knowledge. Like a library's reference desk, it's here to supplement and be a value-add for the community. APL (talk) 21:06, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

There definitely is a benefit to articles in at least two ways:

When responders try to link to the appropriate article and section on Wikipedia, they may find the information missing or out-of-date and improve the article

And it is a recruitment and retainment tool. The more that people see and use Wikipedia as a valuable resource, the more likely it is they will decide to become productive editors, and many sustain their interest by answering at the desks as a sideline to their article and project work.

For these reasons, the RefDesks are generlly a more tolerant place than much of the rest of Wikipedia. Franamax (talk) 23:18, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

If I may pipe in here with a dissenting opinion, it has been argued that our purpose is in fact to improve the encyclopedia first, and to help people second. —Steve Summit (talk) 23:23, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I see a few problems with that:

ideally, we should answer every question by citing an existing Wikipedia article: Implies that those people asking questions aren't really all that bright. They can't find an article about a topic that interests them, but the RD volunteers will be able to.
if an existing Wikipedia article doesn't answer it adequately, .. the right thing to do, theoretically, is to .. add that finely-wrought explanation to the appropriate article, and then link to it.: Wouldn't that be nice, you want an article, ask for it and a few days later it's there. Like a library that writes books on demand. I see a few problems, the editors here are not necessarily expert on the topic in question; people don't want to wait days or weeks for an answer; You'll be running out of available editors pretty soon if answering one question involves that much work (and one question could impact more than one article, maybe even a whole category); wikipedia already has a lot of "to do" lists, like Wikipedia:Requested articles, Wikipedia:Translation, Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check, Category:Articles tagged for deletion and rescue ... And let's not forget the biggest of them all, WP:BACKLOG, a category the helpdesks may join if those proposals would become policy.

BTW, "I argued" is shorter and more to the point than "It has been argued" ;-) DS Belgium (talk) 03:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I fixed your category insertion. Generally, category links should have a : (Colon) before them, so the page isn't added to the category by accident. ~ Matthewrbowker ^{Say hi!} 21:59, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Bravo Ummit, and Sluzzelin for preserving it. That's a few months "before my time" and I'd never read it 'til now. That perfectly matches my own understanding of the value of RD vis-a-vis the WP project and is consonant with my own post just above (I think). Read with the explanation of the ways in which those goals are not fully attainable in the real world, it makes perfect sense to me. Franamax (talk) 01:49, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

It's true that these kind of places can feel like a "chat" sort of atmosphere, but at its best it is more like a library reference desk. Computer problems are quite common here (hence an entire desk for them) and range from the totally technical to the "really you should just reboot it and it'll fix itself." Generally we don't discriminate on the basis of something being a stupid question, mostly because 1. perhaps there no truly stupid questions (as the aphorism goes), and 2. the person on the other end might be a child, or someone elderly, or just befuddled. Frankly I'm not sure what it is about the app question that bothers you so, but anyway, it's just a tiny ripple in a much larger pond of knowledge. The Ref Desk has been the start of many an article improvement, and is, I think, a fairly strong resource for Wikipedia to have. Not every question is edifying, I'd be the first to admit, but even if the rate was only, say, one out of every twenty questions, that's still a pretty high return on something that takes up a negligible amount of resources. Anyway, I don't think it's worth getting worked up about. The Ref Desk qua Ref Desk goes back a long, long time — to the earliest days of Wikipedia. One of the first questions was by none other than Larry Sanger, whose edifying question was "why do dogs eat other dogs' poop?" So there you go: a less than illustrious history, but more likely a productive one than a harmful one. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:41, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

To RamblingMan, regarding your most recent sign-off: "You don't want to use that phrase, dude."

Question restored

I have restored this question as I didn't see what rule it violated so clearly as to be removed without discussion here. It's certainly not the best RD question ever asked. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:40, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

And I have deleted it again, as it is extremely offensive and very likely trolling. Looie496 (talk) 01:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

(after ec) I can't see any way in which this "question" is anything except trolling, and racist trolling at that. Black men are either in jail or marrying white women? Outrageous Bielle (talk) 01:55, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I'm naive, but I was assuming good faith. Either way, I think perhaps the best thing to do would be to point out how many African-American men aren't in jail or married to white women. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 02:21, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Will Obama do for starter? HiLo48 (talk) 02:28, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

We don't need a specific rule (WP:BURO) to delete obvious trolling that will in no way improve the project or its reputation. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:54, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

The odd thing is that it came from Canada rather than, say, Indiana. But it looks like a race-baiting question. It's of the "why is/does [something] always..." type, i.e. a gross exaggeration. It would be like asking, "Why are all the obscenely wealthy white guys in jail?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:27, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I find it odd the question asker refers to African-American women and black men. Nil Einne (talk) 09:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Apparently, he respect the former but not the latter.

I have removed the question first, without warning or any note on the RD talk. I don't know if you have to post a note for every question removed. For obviously trolling, I find it better not to feed the troll. Quest09 (talk) 13:52, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

...and no, it is not necessary to post a notice to the talk page for every thread removed. Posting a note is only recommended (not required) if the removal is likely to be controversial, or is best supported by more explanation than will fit in your edit summary. (As you may have gathered, posting an explanation here can also preempt the unfortunate restoration/deletion cycle that took place here—but it can be difficult to guess sometimes what an isolated editor might not realize is trolling.) In general, we try to discourage any practice that makes it more work to remove trolling than it is to put it in. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject members assisting

Probably every question posted on the Reference desks is relevant to at least one WikiProject, and some are relevant to more than one. For convenient reference, a weekly updated list of WikiProjects is found at Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProjects by changes. They are categorized at Category:WikiProjects. A few times, I have left messages at WikiProject talk pages and requested assistance with such questions. If every Wikipedian had Wikipedia:Reference desk and all seven Reference desks watchlisted (and if question posers were more proficient in making section headings both brief and informative), then the answers could be better and more numerous. I propose the installation of a mechanism whereby editors can select one or more WikiProjects from the list, and generate a message on the talk page of each WikiProject selected, requesting assistance and including a link to the relevant Reference desk section, and also a permanent link for reference after the discussion has been archived.
—Wavelength (talk) 00:18, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

What the heck?!?

69.171.160.45 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
69.171.160.77 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
69.171.160.151 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Someone please tell me this is pertinent. I'm not happy with Medeis, who has been deleting my attempts to communicate from their user page[1][2] and now this?!? 69.171.160.45 (talk) 08:40, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Per WP:UP#CMT people are entitled even if discouraged from deleting messages on their own talk page, it's taken as a sign they read them. With regard to the first message, if they deleted it we can take it that means they are aware of the discussion and choose not to participate, it doesn't seem that vital they participate, they didn't AFAIK do anything about the restored question. With regards to your second comment, you are free to open an RFC/U since they didn't give in to your ultimatum. However, although they may not have communicated on the issue, my feeling is any RFC/U is likely to be shot down if the removal of the question, and their refusal to discuss the removal is the only thing you bring to it. (On a personal level, I find a lot of Medeis's comments disagreeable but they aren't the level an RFC/U is needed.) As for that particular comment at WP:RD/M I personally felt it wasn't very pertinent or appropriate but again, it doesn't really seem something to make a big deal about. Nil Einne (talk) 14:55, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I do think the original diff is quite offensive and that Medeis should either clarify that it was a very stupid joke or remove it. It's trolling at the very, very least. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:13, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The reply was actually hidden by 69 I think around the time they came here Nil Einne (talk) 03:34, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Medeis was satirizing the old "conspiracy of Jewish bankers" stuff. If the OP is going to file a complaint (which will likely go nowhere), I wonder how many IP's he'll use in the course of it? He's used at least 3 of the Colorado-based IP's just in this one complaint. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:40, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

If it was satire he did a lousy job. There was no way for anyone to know he was joking, and considering the subject that was in incredibly poor taste. Regarding the OPs IPs, are you sure they are not just on a dynamic IP? --Saddhiyama (talk) 08:15, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

A bit too subtle, perhaps. And I assume it's dynamic, yes. I'm just saying that if he posts an official complaint, he had best make it clear that he's just one guy each time his IP changes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:07, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

There is to me no evidence of satirical intent. Even with a lot of good faith it seems to me to either need clarification or retraction. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Clarification would be good, yes. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

General FYI: Medeis is a she, not a he. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 20:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

That clarifies it. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:30, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

This is the closest thing I got to an explanation from Medeis, who clearly doesn't feel the need to explain himself.[3] I asked a followup question and he deleted it without comment, so that's a pretty good indication of what we're dealing with. I'm sure he'll eventually get the boot, but it might take awhile. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:36, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Either way, may be worth remembering you were just told Medeis is a 'she' (and must have read it because you replied to the comment before this post) Nil Einne (talk) 14:41, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

My apologies to Medeis for my incorrect statement above. I thought I had asked a followup, but either did not do so, or failed to hit "save" and it never posted. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:19, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Trolling question removed

I removed a troll post on the Misc desk. Please restore it if I was wrong, and let me know if I did it wrongly. --Psud (talk) 12:36, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

You're fine. The regulars all know exactly who that was, and it was a good removal. --Jayron32 12:45, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Yay :D --Psud (talk) 13:09, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Indeed! After a bit, you'll have little hesitation as his style is ....let's say ... unique ;-) hydnjo (talk) 20:43, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

So the question was removed because the question asker's style was similar to that of a banned user, right? --Belchman (talk) 21:15, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

By challenging the removal, you are feeding the troll. Way to go. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:40, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

It's the style and the topic (dog genitals and the like). The IP also geolocates to a specific location (Liverpool). I wonder which mental problem this guy has. Quest09 (talk) 21:31, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

The city is irrelevant, it's just where the ISP's servers are based. While I still dispute that there is any real evidence that this is LC, it's clearly the same person from that ISP that has posted all the other dog genital related questions over the last few months (or longer). --Tango (talk) 01:29, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Remove?

I'm thinking the "How to find a girlfriend?" thread on Miscellaneous should be collapsed or removed or something. It's not asking for references, and all the replies are opinions and OR. 82.43.90.142 (talk) 03:49, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

In some sense, that kind of question is similar to asking for legal or medical advice. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:35, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Really? I was not aware that giving dating advice required licensing like legal or medical advice. Googlemeister (talk) 14:04, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with the reasoning behind legal or medical advice. It is, however, a topic that is prone to ridiculous and useless anecdotes and generalizations. But at the moment I'm pretty tolerant of that sort of thing, as long as those kinds of questions are the minority of what we do around here. Just ignore it if it bugs you. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:14, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

It's more similar to asking for advice or opinions, which is discouraged but still common (most often for tourist destinations but also books, films, songs, brands of liqueur, etc). The guidelines don't exactly prohibit asking for or offering opinions, only saying it's "better" to ask elsewhere. There may be some factual answers to the question, e.g. scientific research on the best way to find a girlfriend, or even statistics like X percent of people date people at their workplace/at college/etc, X% of Americans find their spouse on eHarmony.com, etc, but nobody's mentioned any yet. --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:51, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The funniest answer from someone was suggesting to the OP that he open himself up to bisexuality. Given the state of STD's in the world, that idea was pretty close to giving medical advice. Although Woody Allen once said, "Being bisexual doubles your chances for getting a date." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:21, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what bisexuality has to do with STDs, Bugs. That's kind of an ignorant point of view you seem to be cultivating there. The advice is stupid, to be sure, but not for the reason you seem to think. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:40, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm lumping AIDS in with the other STDs. Although being strictly straight still allows ample opportunities. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:28, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

One's sexual orientation has nothing to do with whether one will contract STDs or AIDS. One's use of condoms and other methods of effective preventatives does. Plenty of straight people get STDs and AIDS. Heterosexuals of both genders need to be just as careful about that sort of things as homosexual males. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

AIDS is primarily a "gay disease", at least in America. To paraphrase Woody Allen, being bisexual doubles your chances for a date and for STD's. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:37, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Bugs, that isn't even close to true. Relieve your ignorance with some facts. There are multiple vectors for AIDs in the United States, with male unprotected homosexual sex being one of them, but only one of them. Be aware that the phrase "gay disease" is considered to be fairly offensive. HIV is a virus and it infects a lot more than just gay males — it infects heterosexual females, children, etc., even in the US. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:26, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't do PC. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:55, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

You're view is clearly flawed. If the question asker was female then they were already apparently gay or perhaps bisexual. For them to date males may have in fact increased their risk of getting HIV, but it would be because they were in a opposite sex coupling, not because they were in a same sex one. Also if you want to go there, I expect the far riskier thing for the suggestion you mentioned was it appeared to include all nominally available males including those in places where HIV is very widespread like parts of sub-saharan Africa. (Not to mention the question asker didn't say anything about sexual contact anyway so if you're raising the issue and it wasn't something they were considering then you're suggesting riskier behaviour regardless of the sex of the people involved.) Nil Einne (talk) 09:01, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

"You are view"? Where's Cuddly when we need him? Be that as it may... Instead of griping to me for my ~~satiricial~~ satirical comments, how about griping to the bozo that suggested dating men in addition to women. That's far more offensive than anything I've said here. Unless he was also being satirical. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:11, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I already pointed out one flaw of the suggestion in the actual discussion Nil Einne (talk) 15:56, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

When Nil Einne posted I was being gagged by the predatory admin who finds my contributions dispensable. I find no fault in Nil Einne's statement because "You're view" is clearly flawed and correctly stated to be so. It may be corrected either to "Your view" or to "Yaw view" but the latter while grammatical seems unnecessarily dynamical. But "satiricial" ? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 16:18, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Yikes! I'm not even sure how to pronounce "satiricial". However, I blame a faulty keyboard rather than the possibly more obvious explanation: failure to proofread. :( "Yer view" would also work. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

One of the issues is the OP provided very little info. They didn't mention their age, sex, location, experience or even really what they're looking for other than a girlfriend. Where Americans find their spouse may not be particularly useful to the OP if they live in Germany. Nil Einne (talk) 12:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

removed question

Is this legal?

LightCurrent trolling

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

- [[4]]? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.138.237 (talk) 10:12, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

- - I really wish you'd have mentioned what this was before linking it. I saw it was youtube and thus assumed it was work safe, but clicking on it was greeted by the title page "Dog semen collection" which I closed imediately. Just a warning for anyone else thinking about clicking the link. I didn't watch the video but collecting semen from animals is legal in most countries (as far as I know) and is an important part of modern Animal Husbandry 192.84.79.2 (talk) 10:36, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

- -

The OP (the banned user Light current) didn't say what it was because it would have been immediately deleted, as usual. Instead, he tricked you into watching it. His obsession with this topic reminds me of one of Tom Lehrer's jokes about a friend of his "who practiced animal husbandry, until they caught him at it one day." It's fair to say that we know way too much about LC's personal life. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:44, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

- -

I don't know who this LC guy is, but he seems to be the usual accused. Wikiweek (talk) 12:21, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

-

I don't really know who he is either, as he was banned before I even heard of the ref desk. The best I can tell you is that he seems to be the most persistent ref desk troll. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:29, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

- -

But, how can you know it's the same person? Wikiweek (talk) 12:42, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

-

WP:DUCK. —Akrabbim^talk 12:45, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

- -

When someone from that ISP goes straight to the Reference Desk and posts this type of question, we know who it is. Further, if we delete this question and put a notice that it was deleted on RD:talk, another IP address from this ISP (and user Wnt) will complain that all questions should be answered and unless we have undeniable proof that it is LC, then we can't assume it is him. -- kainaw ™ 12:59, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

-

- - What's that? A reliable source you say? Preposterous. Buddy431 (talk) 18:25, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

-

The first responder's complaint was that the link was not work-safe, thanks to LC's little ruse. But if you've provided a reliable source, maybe LC won't ask that question again. And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. Some assembly required: File:35wbridge2.jpg ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:47, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above was placed at the bottom of the page by 92.28.82.8 (which geolocates to Liverpool, the birth place of the Beatles, but also of LightCurrent). I'm removing it, since it got enough attention yet and is disturbing other discussions. Wikiweek (talk) 11:10, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you so much for not letting me know on my talk page that you removed my post. I really appreciate it when the helpful information I provide, entirely in line with the purpose of the reference desk (to provide references) is deleted, but I am especially happy when nobody feels the need to tell me this. Buddy431 (talk) 20:44, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

...and no, it is not necessary to post a notice to the talk page for every thread removed. Posting a note is only recommended (not required) if the removal is likely to be controversial, or is best supported by more explanation than will fit in your edit summary. (As you may have gathered, posting an explanation here can also preempt the unfortunate restoration/deletion cycle that took place here—but it can be difficult to guess sometimes what an isolated editor might not realize is trolling.) In general, we try to discourage any practice that makes it more work to remove trolling than it is to put it in. Wikiweek (talk) 21:36, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Look, it's bad enough when editors delete other folks' contributions that were made in good faith, and in line with RD guidelines. But when you do it to me, I'm going to demand that, at the minimum, you let me know, and I'm going to complain about it. Because, you know, I do put thought and effort into my responses, and I don't like it when other people unilaterally decide that they don't deserve to be seen, just because some of the people in the thread might not be acting in good faith. Buddy431 (talk) 00:10, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your continued contributions to feeding the troll. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:42, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Look Buddy431: it's an established procedure here: if removing trolling would cost us much more time than producing it, the troll has won. In this question there was not just "some of the people (...) not be acting in good faith." It was more like the question was annoying from the beginning. Wikiweek (talk) 12:47, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

It's hardly established procedure. It's what a few editors believe, perhaps, including yourself. I disagree. I believe that if you remove or modify somebody's signed comment, it's just common courtesy to let them know. Buddy431 (talk) 16:54, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Why do you want to feed the troll? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:14, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm starting to get tired of hearing the constant refrain of "why do you want to feed the troll". Nobody here has any idea what feeds the troll. Maybe he likes seeing the condescending remarks handed out to anyone who has the temerity to complain that their good-faith content has been removed without notification. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 17:31, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

And I'm well beyond tired of hearing excuses justifying feeding the troll. Anyone who has paid attention knows what feeds the troll: It's the back-and-forth about it. When something gets deleted and no one comments, he doesn't pop his slimy head in here. When you and others insist on arguing about it, he loves it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I have never argued against the removal of a question. I am arguing against being a dick about it. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 18:46, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

You're arguing toward the wrong users. You need to point that vulgarism at the enablers, i.e. the ones who argue against the deletions. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:41, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Bugs, why do you want to keep feeding the troll?

(Also, why do you hate America?)

This kind of rhetoric only works on bumper stickers. Just as no Americans hate America, they just have different ideas of what's best for it, nobody wants to feed the trolls, they just have different ideas of how not to. In my mind you're one of the worst offenders in this area (Specifically regarding this troll in particular.), but I'm sure you don't think of yourself as a "troll enabler", you just have a different opinion on how to deal with the troll.

Pretending that people intentionally want trolls to continue trolling, only makes yourself look like a complete catch-phrase spouting idiot. I'd like to believe that's not really the case, but it gets harder to believe every time you try to shut down a discussion by shouting a catchphrase like that. (Also bad: trying to shutdown a discussion of a particular question's relevance by saying "Oh yea? Then what's the answer? Huh?")

You really need to keep in mind that a difference of opinion on how to combat a problem does not mean that everyone who disagrees with you secretly wants the problem to continue. It's possible for someone to disagree with you, but not be evil. (Except on cable news! Zing!) APL (talk) 01:05, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

It has been explained to you and your fellow enablers, time after time after time. It's not "a matter of opinion", it's that you and your fellow enablers don't care. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:38, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't speak for User:Buddy431, but I do care, and firmly believe course of action you keep espousing is a exacerbating the problem. I've explained my position before but you seem to always assume that it's a disingenuous justification for allowing the trolls to win, so I won't bother again.

However, I'd like to amplify my jab at the end there, your attitude on this, that you know the one and only way to deal with a situation, and that anyone who disagrees with you must therefore not want to solve the problem, is very reminiscent of the TV news, and is very clearly an error. APL (talk) 07:03, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The issues I have with the enablers are (1) their frequent refusal to acknowledge the obvious; and (2) even when it is obvious even to them, their refusal to acknowledge that it matters. I have surrendered to the enablers' attitude in one way, in that I no longer request that LC's socks get blocked. The enablers have de facto un-banned him, and so have I. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:57, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Haha!, Those are exactly the things I find frustrating about this debate. I'll bet we're thinking of different "obvious" facts, though! APL (talk) 17:33, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

removed BLP violation

This seems blatantly inappropriate [5]. μηδείς (talk) 18:03, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Concur, I considered removing that myself but chickened out since I didn't want to get involved in any long discussion which unfortunately often seems involved any thread removal particularly if you don't notify everyone who responded. Nil Einne (talk) 18:26, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I have gone and notified everyone who was involved, and I continue to believe that it is just plain rude to delete someone's good faith, signed comments without dropping them a note. It took like 3 minutes - I don't know why people aren't willing to extend this basic gesture of respect towards their fellow editors. Buddy431 (talk) 19:37, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I thought the question was being handled well, and I would have left it. The fact that Grandiose was actually able to find references related to this very question indicates to me that it's pretty pertinent at the moment. While we are not in the business of making baseless speculations, we are in the business of answering questions with references. The answer at the moment seems to be "nobody knows, but a lot of people are talking about it", and I think that's a fine answer to give - even if we can't answer the exact question asked, it's perfectly acceptable to reference what others are saying with regards to that question. Gandalf and Elan also brought up points that are, I believe, appropriate and relevant to the discussion. Buddy431 (talk) 19:44, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

We have a high threshold for a serious BLP issue such as this. I agree with removal of the thread. Speculation in blogs is not enough. Speculation in tabloids is not enough. There have been Parliamentary inquiries, but only into issues of how tax dollarswere spent, or maintaining security, not so much with respect to the specific issue raised by the OP. There have been many cases in the recent past of politicians being accused of hanky-panky of various sorts. When the politician discusses the issue at a press conference, or issues a press release, or if the specific issue is the subject of mainstream news reports, or legal action is taken, then we have included it in their bios in the past. Edison (talk) 19:56, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

(EC) Keeping with my above comment I'll keep this brief (yes the wonder!) I wouldn't accept those sources in any article involving that person as allowing us to comment on their sexuality so nor would I say they are acceptable on the RD as BLP applies everywhere. If you disagree and wish to reinstate the question, you are free to take this to WP:BLP/N or if you don't wish to do so yourself but still want to re-instate the question, ask me, and I will. Nil Einne (talk) 19:59, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure, BLP prevents us from making un-verifiable assertions about other people, but I don't think it prevents us from making any mention of what other people are saying about other people. I understand that there's a balance between providing information and becoming a gossip rag, but to me, providing sources that talk about the recent attention (even if they don't pass muster as "Reliable Sources" for article space) is well in line with the reference desk's goal. And here's the critical part - we aren't commenting on his sexuality (nor should we). But that shouldn't prevent us from bringing up sources that do. Buddy431 (talk) 20:10, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually we are, there's is no way you can ask the question without commenting, and that particular question was a rather egregious comment on the person's sexuality. It doesn't matter if it's in line with the RD's goals if it's a clear cut violation of BLP as the RDs goals are always going to be secondary to that. And BLP does basically prevent us from making mention of what other people are saying about living people, unless it relates to improving an article. There's usually some tolerance for commentary on highly notable people as well as generally commentary that is not likely to cause offence but we shouldn't push it too far since if it comes down to it, BLP is almost definitely going to win. Nil Einne (talk) 20:24, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't mind whether it stayed or went. Personally I found no harm in pointing the OP to two sources by named sources with their own WP entries, neither of which appeared to show any bias. Having said that, it was becoming obvious that it could degenerate. I don't feel strongly. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:03, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I can see why one might be cautious and remove it it, although it is the subject of some documented speculation. I appreciate the heads up from Buddy431 Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:00, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

As you may deduce from my response I did not consider this an appropriate question because the very action of asking makes an insinuation, but neither did I want to make any ripples. I am pleased it has been removed. Thanks for the notification. Best to all. Richard Avery (talk) 22:03, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Per my comment in the topic I support the deletion as a clear BLP violation, in fact I think it's a candidate for revdelete. Thanks for the notification. Roger (talk) 06:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Since I have already had the answer (that there is no definitive answer in the public domain) I don't mind it being deleted now. -- Q Chris (talk) 08:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Why did Republicans block Obama jobs bill? - question removed

I came across this interesting quote on the BBC website and was curious if the same tone of reporting appeared elsewhere or if other media skipped that quote favour of a Republican view. Maybe, my question was poorly phrased, but I disagree with Shadowjam's assertion in the edit summary that it was a "pure political discussion with an intro and all. no way RD can realistically answer a question here, pure political question". I'll be happy to consider some rewording if my question could be reinstated. Thanks. Astronaut (talk) 11:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I emphatically disagree with the removal of this question and have reinstated it. Just because questions involve politics does not mean we cannot discuss them. That is a ridiculously low bar for getting rid of questions. If the discussion does devolve into just arguing and soapboxing, hat the discussion. But preemptively removing questions because they involve American politics is ridiculous. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:50, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The wording of the question is somewhat inflammatory, but I am not going to assume that it is soapboxing straight out of the gate. Only if the OP begins to engage in blatant soapboxing would I support removal. Googlemeister (talk) 14:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems to be asking about the truth of a quote by the President of the United States. I'm not sure what's inflammatory about it. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The question is in good faith, and I think it is perfectly fine to use reliable sources to fact-check statements made by public figures. However, I do think that it will quite difficult to definitively answer this question in a neutral fashion. I don't think that there is general consensus on this topic right now, and most published material that addresses this type of question while the events are still happening tend to be opinion pieces. I don't know if those factors would lead to a satisfactory outcome here. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 15:50, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Politics is currently in the Humanities Reference Desk scope. For those of you who think political questions should be deleted, would you prefer a separate Politics Reference Desk? It's not like we've been overwhelmed with politics questions. If we ban them then trolls will just waste our time trying to pin down the dividing lines. Dualus (talk) 18:17, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The problem with the question is that it implied that every single Republican voted against the bill and every single Democrat voted for it. If it left "Republican" out of it and asked if there was truth to the statement about "they", then it wouldn't be politically charged. Basically, it is nearly impossible to assume good faith with political questions because there is no room in politics for good faith. -- kainaw ™ 16:38, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

How did the question imply that at all? He just said "Republicans", as in Republican senators in general. And even if it did, what's the problem with that? Fact of the matter is, 46 out of the 47 senators that voted against it were from the Republican party. Besides, the media is using the same language, so why should a question be viewed as problematic just because it isn't 100% neutral? This isn't article space, for goodness sake. —Akrabbim^talk 17:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

As I stated, there is no room in politics for assumption of good faith. This response clearly does not assume good faith in any way. I was attempting to explain why the problem wasn't a simple case of "this is a political question". Someone (not me) apparently read this as a bad faith slam against Republicans. -- kainaw ™ 18:07, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Not that important but it was 47 Republicans and 2 Democrats who voted against the bill or 47 out of 49. Nil Einne (talk) 05:16, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

For legal and ethical reasons, volunteers at the Reference Desk cannot answer questions regarding current U.S. politics - such discussions have been linked to coronary disease, repetitive stress disorder, debilitating migraines, and chronic headdesking. If you suspect you are involved in an online argument over a Congressional filibuster, please consult your doctor immediately. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:08, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Question about the end of Look Japan

Does anyone know when Look Japan stopped publishing? Did a Japanese newspaper state this?

Also what was its corporate name in Japanese? WhisperToMe (talk) 15:50, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I cannot find any issues after 2004. The last I can find so far is April 2004. -- kainaw ™ 16:34, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Alright. So April 2004 was the last.

Do you know if there are any articles discussing the closing of Look Japan, or if the April 2004 issue says "we are closing - goodbye" ?

Thanks,

WhisperToMe (talk) 18:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Folks, "The purpose of this page is to discuss Wikipedia:Reference desk". This question and its answers belong on either the Humanities or Miscellaneous desks. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:49, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Alright - I'll move the last question onto the Humanities ref desk. Sorry about that... WhisperToMe (talk) 19:16, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Medeis vs. Jack of Oz

The above thread got seriously side-tracked, leading to its premature closure. Thanks to Nil Einne for his support, but the issue has nothing to do with the names of cooked potato products in the USA or anywhere else.

The issue is, or the issues are:

my alleged "stalking" of Medeis
my alleged "continued personal comments" about my opinion of her
my alleged failure to "remain polite and refrain from personal attacks"
my alleged "baseless opinions and personal insults".

These alleged personal comments, attacks and insults have allegedly targetted Medeis's:

race
sex
sexual orientation
nationality
native tongue
knowledge, and
ignorance as an American (her words, not mine).

Then there's:

my alleged practice of making "racist ni99er jokes"
my alleged lack of "a sense of irony or self-awareness"
my so-called "school-marm tut-tutting", and
my propensity to address personalities rather than issues.

Quite a litany of errors and character flaws there. Some of these allegations were made above; some on my talk page, but linked above.

Medeis sought to mollify me by saying she has no wish to see me banned. How nice and reassuring, coming from an editor who's been around for a few months, to one who's been a Ref Desk Regular for over 7 years but who has clearly lost the plot and is on the way out.

She further sought to appease me by telling me she occasionally finds my comments of more than average interest. How lovely. I haven't been patronised like that for many a long year.

Medeis has come out and made these charges, but refuses to discuss them. She has demanded I not reply on the Ref Desk or here on the talk page; she has demanded I not reply even on my own talk page (I've never heard of such impertinence), despite the fact she is not watching it anyway. That leaves her own talk page. I went there and challenged her to substantiate these charges or withdraw them and apologise. Her response to that was to remove my challenge, with an edit summary saying she would provide diffs to any third party who asks (but not, apparently, to me).

Now, even if I were guilty of everything she has accused me of (I'm not), I would still be entitled to know what the evidence against me is. It is unacceptable to make allegations and then refuse to back them up, refuse to withdraw, refuse to apologise, and refuse to enter into any dialogue at all with the aggrieved party.

If this were just a private disagreement between Medeis and me, we could work it out together. But it is no longer that. She changed that by raising my behaviour here. She must come to the party by producing the evidence I require. But I know she won't be able to do that, so she must therefore acknowledge her charges are as baseless as the opinions she accuses me of having. She must make that acknowledgement as explicit as the original charges were. And she must apologise.

I await her response with interest.

PS. After I drafted the above, Medeis came to my talk page saying she would drop the matter if I promised to make no further comments on her personal identity. My incredulous response is there. I showed her a draft of the above and invited her to respond to it on my talk page. She has opted not to do that. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 05:27, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I was going to suggest you remove this thread. Yes people should be willing to provide evidence or withdraw their claims but normally provided the respondent doesn't repeat the claim it's best to just let the matter drop even if you don't get a satisfactory response, particularly if the claims are made on your talk page so can be deleted at your discretion. But since μηδείς has suggested they would respond here, I don't see any harm in leaving this thread be for now. Nil Einne (talk) 10:53, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Most of these accusations are a matter of opinion. But being accused of blatant racism is a pretty serious charge that requires a response from the accuser. If it were me in Jack's shoes, I would demand that Medeis either give evidence, or a give profuse apology if there is no evidence. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:22, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the Reference Desk's talk page is the correct place to hash out a dispute like this. Nevertheless, I have asked Medeis on her talk page to present diffs to support her charges, since she explicitly offered to do so here. If Jack has been engaging in sexist, racist, homophobic attacks, then obviously this is a matter which would be of interest and concern to Wikipedia's administrators. Contrariwise, if Medeis has been making unsupportable accusations of such attacks, her own conduct should be subject to very close scrutiny and possible sanction.

I don't think that there is anything to be gained by further comment in this thread until Medeis has supplied us with the relevant diffs. (If other editors have relevant evidence to add, they may do so, but I would urge them to keep commentary to a minimum.) If no diffs (or other explanations) are forthcoming in the next day or two, then I would caution Medeis now that we will proceed on the assumption that such diffs don't exist. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:36, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems highly unlikely that Jack would make a "homophobic" remark, but we'll see when/if Medeis presents the diff. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:40, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

It is entirely false that I have accused Jack of making homophobic, sexist, or racist attacks. My sole request (collapsed above and removed from his talk page) has been that he cease making ad hominem statements based on his surmises about my personal identity, which he has rejected, instead continuing this personal drama with this new section. But I am not about to respond to people's distortions of my statements while my actual statements are collapsed and deleted. See my original comments, which are limited and justified, restored above, with examples given of just a few of his comments about my person.μηδείς (talk) 02:56, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't even know what's going on here, and I've read this several times now. It's probably better to just let it go at this point, since no one seems to be biting. 207.81.30.213 (talk) 03:24, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

You have accused Jack, quite specifically, of making "...personal comments based on race, sex, sexual orientation, nationality, native tongue, and your opinion of my knowledge, ignorance as an American, etc." You have further accused him of "stalking" you: [6]. Looking at the diffs/links above, as far as I can tell, you haven't even bothered to try to substantiate the extraordinarily offensive asserting that JackOfOz made any slurs based on race or sexual orientation. The three pieces of evidence you have offered for the other accusations is, frankly, less than compelling.

The first discussion involves a question of English usage and grammar. I don't see Jack suggesting you aren't a native speaker of English; he only notes that the proper usage of certain verbs ("tell, say, and speak") is sometimes difficult for non-native speakers.
The second diff, which you offer as evidence of Jack attacking you for your gender, isn't even a comment by Jack. It is an offensive and sexist and poorly thought out joke from Baseball Bugs (who ought to know better and whom I have cautioned that any further remarks in that vein will draw a block). Jack's comment which preceded it ([7]) merely identified your gender; he didn't comment on it, draw conclusions from it, or invite inferences based on it. His only purpose seems to have been a good faith attempt to ensure that the correct pronouns were applied to you while you were being discussed.
While we don't want to encourage bickering, it is sometimes necessary to point out – for the benefit of people reading the Desk – when a response is erroneous, or when a person responding to a question appears to be following an unproductive, unconstructive, or overly narrow line of reasoning or discussion. In the third discussion you cite, JackOfOz noted that your response was from a U.S. perspective, and that your absolute answer didn't account for variations in English usage in other countries. When it was suggested that the term for oven-baked potato products might be different in other countries and that your response (and attempt to discourage further discussion by mocking other editors: "...why is this so difficult?") might not be helpful, you became belligerent, offering the advice that the other volunteers at the Ref Desk need "some sort of professional counseling" to help with their "apparent inferiority complex".

I get that the two of you rub each other the wrong way. However, Medeis, you're reading insults that aren't there into the words that Jack is saying, you're responding with attacks of your own, and you're raising accusations which are offensive, disproportionate, and unwarranted. If you can't manage to be civil around Jack, then just stay away from him. Ignore his posts; don't respond to his comments. When you're about to fly off the handle because of something you've read, step back, take a deep breath, and re-read what was written to consider that ambiguous remarks might not always be intended as egregious attacks.

With the above material, I'd say that you're on rather thin ice. Most troubling, however, is that in the last three days you've twice accused Jack of making "racist ni99er jokes" ([8], [9]). That's about as inflammatory a statement as one can make. You need to either substantiate that claim or withdraw it immediately, or you will be blocked. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:27, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The issue is not insults. I have not claimed to be insulted. The issue is Jack's speculating about my personal identity (where did I out myself to him as a female or a non-native English speaker? Let him provide the link.) and making ad hominem comments about my arguments in violation of Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Read that policy and the thread above this one where my own actual words are posted. I'll have no further comment here because this section says I have accused Jack of homophobia, etc., when I have done no such thing. Read my own words, please, and stop making threats based on what other people say I have said. I am simply going to assume at this point that Jack knows what he shouldn't do and won't repeat it. μηδείς (talk) 04:41, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I found out you were (presumably) female when you identified yourself as a former waitress [10], an occupation title typically only applied to females (I remember that because I was somewhat surprised reading that, because I had, up to that point, assumed you were male as well). I also agree with Ten that I don't think Jack was intending to imply that you weren't a native speaker, but I can also see how it might be interpreted that way . I'll offer essentially the same advice that Ten is giving - you don't have to get along with someone, but it isn't acceptable to make offensive and disproportionate accusations against them.

I'll offer a personal anecdote, that I hope the other person I mention doesn't object to and if he does, he has my permission to remove this section without asking or telling me. Goodness knows that I don't get along with user:Baseball Bugs particularly well - you can see some fallout on my talk page from a few months ago. Though I might have some choice words for him, and generally believe him to be a net-negative on the reference desks, I refrain from accusing him of acting in bad faith. At one point he did feel that I was getting into the personal attack territory, for which I apologized, and the issue was subsequently dropped. He and I both realize that, while we aren't obligated to like each other, we do, at the end of the day, have to learn to get along if we both want to edit these pages. Buddy431 (talk) 05:58, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, not exactly. I do basically agree with the drop this suggestion above. But, First, Jack was referring to my female status (which I have never affirmed or denied) long before that post, and, I started off as a cook, remember? Well, people who began as cooks were mocked by the other cooks as becoming "waitresses" (pronounced waitrices, like matrices) regardless of gender if they switched to wait staff. In any case, the issue is not insult but ad hominem even if I am a Jewish male from Uzhgorod or a black waitress from Long Island or a bi mulatto from Woodbridge, NJ there is no reason for my statements to be criticized based on my personal identity, especially the fact that I am (I out myself) an American. Read Wikipedia:No personal attacks under ad hominem. Second, I have no problem with Jack personally, even though he seems to with me. Like I said, some of his posts are quite enlightening. I want him to keep posting. I don't, however, want to have to deal yet again with his bizarre speculation based on his notion of my personal identity. It's wikipedia policy that he not do so. μηδείς (talk) 06:15, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

On the advice that I drop this I am again unwatching this page. μηδείς (talk) 06:20, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, isn't that great. Would it surprise anyone to know there are some responses I would like to make to what Medeis has had to say? It seems Medeis* won't be around to read them. Not until Medeis rewatches this page, as Medeis surely will in time. Medeis is aware of the time difference between Medeis's country and mine. I'm not sure how one would characterise the action of making a series of points in relation to an editor, and then vacating the scene before said editor has had a fair chance to respond. Some would call it cowardice; some would call it expediency. Me, I dunno. All I know is that the notion of natural justice that pervades Medeis's many appearances elsewhere on Wikipedia seems curiously denied to me. (* In line with Medeis's wish to protect Medeis's personal identity, I will never again use any personal pronouns to refer to Medeis.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 11:10, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

First let's be clear it was BB who said that being female explained anything. JackofOz just noted the fact most likely because some females dislike being referred to as 'he'. (And yes I've seen this on wikipedia.) With regardess to the 'waitress' thing, it may be that from your POV that did not imply you were female. However from my POV now that it has been brought to my attention (I had noticed the comment but didn't think of it at the time), it does. It's not that we don't have male wait staff in New Zealand, we do, it's just that we do not call them waitress(es) but waiters. It may be that cooks refer to them all as waitresses, I dunno. But I think most New Zealanders (or for that matter Malaysians) would assume when someone say they are or were a waitresses that means they identify as female. (Sadly in Malaysia if you say you are or were a nurse many people are going to assume you are female even though a male nurse is obviously going to refer to themselves as a nurse.)

I'm not an expert on WP:Outing but I'm resonably sure if you've made a comment that is intepreted to mean you are female or male on wikipedia, it is acceptable for people who've read that comment and made that intepretation, to refer to you as that gender from that point forwards. And it is even acceptable for said people to correct others when they refer to you as whats said people believe is the wrong gender, unless you've specifically asked them not to. It is of course your pregorative to ask people not do so, you don't need to offer any explaination.

This doesn't mean it's acceptable to make ad-hominem attacks nor to dismiss your views based on the assumption (or fact), but nothing I've seen from JoO could be interpreted in that fashion to me, and it seems I'm not the only one. The only thing JoO seems to have done is make a resonable inference based on some comments you made here on the RD and noted this fact when they felt was pertinent, i.e. when people were using what they thought was the wrong gender pronoun to refer to you. As I said elsewhere, if you don't want JoO to do so, the best thing to do would have been to make a simple request that they don't do so. (As for Bb, to be blunt he makes a lot of dumb comments, I felt his comment was dumb at the time and I still don't know what he was trying to say but it's best either to just ignore him or challenge him directly in the thread or on his talk page when it happens.) BTW you say JoO has referred to your female status long before the post about being a waitress, it may be this is the case but you haven't show this. The comment above was clearly after the waitress thing. If there are places where JoO has dismissed your views or made attacks based on you being female, you'll need to show us these if you want us to consider them.

Nil Einne (talk) 06:57, 11 October 2011 (UTC)/09:43, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Next about the native issue. I will note I'm not sure if TOAT is reading the right comments, I presume the comment of primary issue is "There's no telling how non-native users of language can make serious errors in their choice of expressions. I assume good faith, naturally, but assumptions do not always reflect reality".

However I still agree it doesn't seem clear JoO was trying to dismiss your views based on an assumption you were not a native speaker. Rather as with TOAT and Buddy, it seems to me he was simply noting some parts of the English language can be difficult to non native speakers. As with Buddy I can see how it may have been intepreted as suggesting you were not a native speaker and were therefore wrong, but unless there further evidence it was meant that way, there's no reason to think it's the correct interpretation.

(Not that it really matter but I will note you were there first person to raise the possibility someone (Jack) may not be a native speaker in that thread, although I don't find what you said there very problematic.)

Nil Einne (talk) 11:43, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Nil Einne's comments on potatoes, collapsed by NE for readibility

Okay about the potatoes thing, I will discuss this one more time and then not speak of it anymore unless requested to on my talk page. Let's be clear several people disagree that the thread solely or even primarily concerned what they were called in the US. There was some discussion about what they were called in the US, but your reply was not directed to this part of the discussion so for some people, it was not obvious what location you were intending to refer to. Except that several of us were aware you were from the US and you later mentioned you were from the US. Me and JoO and possibly others have explained why we feel the thread was not about what they were called in the US and have explained why we feel it wouldn't have been obvious at the time what location you intended your reply to refer to. It appears you still don't agree, I don't see much point pursuing this further so I'll agree to disagree. But it would be nice if you consider how we feel and therefore in the future consider making it clearer if it's likely your reply only applies to one location.

It perhaps also helps to remember that although our first goal should normally be to help the querent, many questions are of interest both to others who watch the RD and to people who read the archives. Therefore it's common for there to be answers which may not be what the OP was looking for (although obviously I still do not feel it was clear either querents only wanted answers relating to the US).

Also from your comments it appear you believe that the discussion solely concerned 'baked' or 'oven' and that this would be consistent everywhere. I would disagree. It seems clear that one person, despite knowing they were called oven chips in the UK, felt they may be called 'baked french fries' in the US. Intrinsicly, there's no reason to think 'baked' or 'oven' has to be the same in all varieties of English, nor to be consistent with the usage of 'fries' or 'chips'.

Speaking generally, here in NZ, while they are usually called 'chips' including in all of the take away outlets and in much general conversation. But very often the shoe-string ones are called fries. And some fast food outlets do use 'fries' even for the larger variety (notably Wendys). And in terms of the frozen stuff, whether intended to be cooked in the oven or whatever, the thicker varieties are sometimes labelled fries even though the product is intended for the NZ or Australian and NZ market. McCains for example calls all their stuff 'superfries' which I guess is their trademark. Watties calls their shoestring and beer battered ones fries but but the rest chips. From memory, everything labelled 'oven' is always labelled 'oven chips' but of course some may call it oven fries [11].

The situation in Malaysia is probably even more confusing. Because of the influence of US culture and fast food and the lack of much local tradition of the product, I believe 'fries' or 'french fries' is the more common description, although chips is also used. (You get stuff talking about the 'fries' you get with fish & chips.) However although oven ones are fairly rare there, from my searches it appears most people who discuss them call those 'oven chips'.

In other words, it is or was possible they could be called 'oven fries' in one place, 'oven chips' in another, 'baked fries' in another and 'baked chips' in yet another. And there's no guarantee they've going to be called baked/oven 'fries' just because the products are generally called 'fries' in that location. Therefore the question of what they are called involves all words, and knowing what location any named is intended to apply to, is important.

And again just to be clear, this has nothing to do with you being an American. I would say the same to an Australian, or someone from the UK or Japan or India or Malaysia. I cannot speak for JoO but I do not see anything in that thread from them which can be intepreted as a slant against Americans nor do I see any reason to think they don't feel the same as me and would have reacted the same if the person was from somewhere outside the US. (Although I don't think the tone of your reply to StuRat helped.) AndyTheGrump's could be interpreted as an offensive remark about Americans, but in the context of the discussion which had already turned fairly hostile I can understand it, even if this doesn't mean it was okay.

P.S. It just occured to me that my joke above about 'inferiority complex' may have been intepreted as a slant against Americans. If so, I apologise. I admit in the context of the discussion which had already turned fairly hostile, it was probably ill-advised but it wasn't intended as a general slant against Americans. I was trying to make a joke about the suggestion the problem was aome sort of 'inferiority complex' on the part of those suggesting the response was unclear; as well as trying to emphasise make my earlier point in a more a humourous fashion about it being desirable if people specified which location their answer applied to because we come from all over. The reason why I mentioned the US was because that's what applied in this case.

Nil Einne (talk) 12:34, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Medeis has finally indentified the "racist nigger joke" he has repeatedly attributed to JackOfOz. Apparently, Jack referred to this gag, which has been described as "the standard schoolboy joke" on the topic.

Who made the first transatlantic flight?
Sammy Davis Jr.
No, it was Alcock and Brown.
That's what I said!"

This gag and its variants are a relatively standard part of British aviation lore. I just can't bring myself to equate a mild riff on an ethnic stereotype with one of the most potent and offensive ethnic slurs available in the English language—and Medeis should not do so either. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:49, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Just as a note, μηδείς did identify the Alcock and Brown bit in their first explaination as the racist joke they were referring to [12], although it seems it was missed by some. I noticed it earlier and do agree that it's an ethic stereotype and can understand completely how it's offensive. In fact, before this reply I considered asking JoO for an explaination but decided to wait since I wasn't sure I understod the context (and I didn't). But if it is a common joke I also agree with TOAT that it's difficult to equate it with said slur. Nil Einne (talk) 14:13, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

As an aside, I did blow that one — I examined the bulleted points in Medeis' comment, but missed the original Sammy Davis reference. I take full responsibility for not catching it sooner, and I apologize to Medeis for mistakenly claiming s/he had not explained that allegation.

I stand by my evaluation of Jack's comment, however. More broadly, comedians like Chris Rock and Russell Peters tell jokes involving ethnic stereotypes—does that mean that they should be labelled as "racists"? (I admit that Chris Rock isn't particularly funny, but that's a different conversation.) In the case of Jack, he told – well, repeated – a joke which relied on its audience being familiar with a mildly vulgar word, the ethnicity of a celebrity, and a stereotype often associated (particularly by comedians) with that ethnic group. I can't stretch that to be the same as "Jack told a racist nigger joke", no matter how hard I try. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:23, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

It's perhaps worth considering that standards and views surrounding jokes concerning ethnic or racial stereotypes vary between countries and cultures. My impression, and again I hope I don't offend anyone in any country by this, is that these are more acceptable in the UK and even more acceptable in Australia then they are in the US, particularly when told by someone who is not from said ethnicity/race and even more so if the person telling them is white (i.e. the majority population). (Of course not everyone agrees [13].) Also sensitivity towards different ethnicities or races varies. For example, because of the low black population and the limited direct history, there doesn't tend to be the same level of awareness about sensitive issues surrounding black people in NZ or Australia. For Australia, there is the infamous example of Hey Hey It's Saturday#The Jackson Jive and this KFC ad which IMO somewhat illustrates the point. I'm not saying this is much of an issue here, but I think it's always helpful to consider where someone is coming from. And just to be clear, I'm also not saying anyone is wrong to take offence at such jokes or comments, or the converse that people are always wrong to make them. For example, on a personal level I've always dislike the term gweilo (although admitedly not for reasons of race), when used to refer to me in Malaysia, which was fairly common in secondary school (although I don't care as much now as then), even though I know some embrace the term. On the other hand, I often describe myself as part pākehā even though I know some dislike the term (which I respect when they have decent reasons for). Nil Einne (talk) 15:34, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I concur, I was about to say the same thing. Speaking very generally, in multicultural situations, I find that often the intention is more important than the words or actions. Even something as simple as eating dinner carries different, and sometimes conflicting etiquettes. Jokes, which hinge on cultural norms and values, would be even a greater problem - I would imagine both with people missing intended insults and with people finding insult where absolutely none was intended. I am not attempting to pass judgment with this post; I think it is something for all editors to at least think about. Do we have a WikiPage on working on Wikipedia as a multicultural project? If not, I might create one. Falconus^{p t c} 15:59, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't want to beat any more poor horses, but I might just note the irony of Medeis being upset over the above joke, when the user in question had themselves just made some very curious remarks about Jews very recently, which were, apparently, some kind of reference to some old joke. See the "what the heck" section above for diffs and discussion. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:55, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I wonder if there's still some confusion about what they were trying to say, μηδείς seems to refuse to offer any explaination. From what I can tell, μηδείς was suggesting the slavery thing is nonsense and is akin to other random conspiracy theories concerning Jewish people. See [14] if you haven't done so. I'm not defending the comment, it was a dumb thing to say particularly since when they replied you had already noted that the bank did have some limited connection to slavery and the bank themselves had acknowledged that (after required to by law). So regardless of whether people think it's a much ado about nothing or something significant, it's not the same thing as completely bullshit claims about Jewish people and for this reason can be seen as offensive to Jewish people even though I believe there intention was actually to 'defend' against anti-semitic nonsense. It's obviously also offensive to the OP and to anyone else with the same question to suggest their concerns had anything to do with anti-semitism. Nil Einne (talk) 19:53, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Some general observations by Nil Einne (talk)

Collapsed by NE since there is already a lot of stuff by NE

I don't want to come across as dominating this thread even though it doesn't directly concern me so I'll just make one final comment. While researching some of my answers and trying to check some things I thought I read, I've seen stuff which may help those still struggling to make sense of this kerfuffle and hopefully also help to resolve some of the issues. I was aware of some sniping and comments between μηδείς and JoO (and others) in RD/M and RD/H, but it seems there has been a fair amount in RD/L. As I hardly ever go there I wasn't very aware of this and it does help put the dispute in more context.

Another thing, it seems μηδείς has mentioned quite a few things which (seem to) reveal personal details about themselves on the RD.I think we need to be clear as with the gender thing, when someone mentions such details, anyone who noticed these comments may remember what (they think) has been revealed. I don't think this is a bad thing, most of us regard ourselves as part of a community and knowing more about each other often helps us understand each other. Also, although wikipedia isn't a social network, I think many do find it interesting and surprising to read stuff about their fellow contributors. As with the gender thing, it's not acceptable to dismiss someone's views or make ad-hominen attacks based on this, nor to raise it in an offensive way or where it's irrelevant (although plenty of people don't mind jokes based on these details). However people are normally free to raise or imply that info when they feel it is cromulent to the discussion, and this isn't generally considered outing or a personal attack. To use an example, above Bb suggested that it would be odd for JoO to make homophobic remarks. (I know μηδείς says they weren't making that accusation.) Bb didn't say why, but I'm pretty sure the reason is because JoO identifies as gay and has said so in the past. (It was something I was thinking.)

Partially echoing what I've said before, if person A doesn't want other people to mention something about person A which they may feel germane, person A can politely request they don't and people should respect person A's wishes. But it would be better for person A to take care not to reveal such details since the general assumption on wikipedia and particularly the RD is it's acceptable to mention such details when it matters. Remember that even if people don't mention details about you, they may still know them. (Hopefully not influencing in a bad way how they react/behave.) My interpretation is this is the case for μηδείς, but I'm not sure, so I made the recommendation in general terms.

P.S. Just to be clear, I wasn't stalking anyone, I was looking for threads I thought I'd read to confirm stuff, and also once tried to see if I could find anything about the gender issue and in the process came across various comments.

Nil Einne (talk) 22:19, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

OK. We've identified the problem, now lets focus on solutions

μηδείς and Jack: are you equally fault? Is one of you an innocent party? Is one of you more sinned against than sinning? Please don't answer: we've identified the problem, now lets focus on solutions.

I would suggest that a "good enough" solution might be:

μηδείς - who had offered to drop the subject - please just drop this.
Jack - and see Wikipedia:What would Jack do? - please just drop this.

I would urge you both to simply disengage, drop it, let bygones be bygones, water under the bridge, and any number of other cliches. As always, I am more than happy for better and wiser analyses and opinions than mine to be put forward. And hope they focus on solutions, not on the problem.--Shirt58 (talk) 10:35, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

i just happened on this argument - what seems clear to me is that medeis is full of rubbish - makes an immature anti-canadian remark and then pretends to be upset about gynophobia, homophobia, racism , whatever - utterly specious, - a grossly immature and inflammatory editor seems here to be insulting another editor for no reason and thats about all I can see here. Sayerslle (talk) 10:56, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Not just racism against Canadians. Dualus (talk) 18:25, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Canadians are a race? Eh??? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Sayerslle, in light of the nature of this conversation, I would recommend taking care to cite all accusations at the time that you make them (and realize the potential for jumping right in the middle of a very large conflict). I would further recommend keeping opinions about the people involved here (and believe me, we all have them, of one sort or another) on the low burner for the next few days. Falconus^{p t c} 15:38, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The first use of "she" in reference to Medeis may have been made by me, here, back in July. I can't say for certain at this remove why I thought then that Medeis was/is female, except that, not being a reader of Greek, I associate the user name with "Medea" who was definitely female. Medeis's self-referential "waitress", as linked above, would just have confirmed this in my usage. However, I will turn to neuter pronouns if this is a problem, however inadvertently begun. Bielle (talk) 17:38, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Neuter? So we should refer to Medeis as "it" now? -- kainaw ™ 17:43, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Just as a general FYI, looking at that thead I can perhaps better understand μηδείς's complaints about the US-centrism and JoO. As I noted elsewhere, despite complaining about the issue myself, I do feel sometimes people go to far. I didn't want to name names, but HiLo48 was actually the only one I had in mind. However from my brief look through that thread, I can understand why they may have disagreed with JoO there. I do not want to discuss this, it's one of the reasons I wasn't aware, I mostly gave up on looking through those US centrism discussions as I started to find them boring on both sides. And it's mostly OT to this discussion anyway. I respect JoO and HiLo48 probably don't agree with my view, it's not a big deal to me, I'm just noting it since previously, I found it difficult to understand μηδείς's complaints but this helps slightly.

Also I can understand Bielle's problem, I know at least one case where I made an assumption about an editor's gender based on their wiki-name but later found out from some external OR (i.e. I cannot name the user here so please don't ask) that I was mistaken. I think it also happened before when I found out I was wrong from their userpage.

Nil Einne (talk) 18:23, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Response from Jack of Oz

It is not my intention to re-stoke a fire that might appear to have subsided. I have been counselled to drop the matter and let it go. I want to do that, but there are some things I want and need to say first.

Back on 11 October, Medeis made some statements here, and then announced Medeis was unwatching this page forthwith, “[o]n the advice that [Medeis] drop[s] this”. (If only Medeis were so willing to respond so positively and so immediately to “advice” elsewhere on WP - but we’ll get to that issue presently. Medeis has since made further edits to this page, but it’s not clear whether that means Medeis is watching this page once more or not, because Medeis has not said anything about it.) I said that it was unfair of Medeis to make those statements and then quit the scene before allowing me to respond to them. That was part of the reason I have said nothing else since then. Another factor is that a bunch of other editors had points of view and comments to make, and I wanted to hear what they had to say, unencumbered by the influence of my interlocutions. Another factor was my general wiki-unavailability over the past few days, due to work and personal reasons. (I’ve only managed 10 edits in the past 5 days, when I can often make 10 edits in half an hour or less.)

But I was always going to respond sooner or later, because, while Medeis seems to think the matter has been favourably resolved, that is certainly not my assessment. There are some things Medeis has said that I cannot in conscience allow to remain unchallenged, and I want to place my responses to them on the record. And there are some editors I want to thank for their support. Then and only then will I be able to let it go. Whether Medeis reads this or not, I don’t anticipate a response from Medeis, but that's up to Medeis.

So, where to start? Medeis wants whatever Medeis says to be treated on its merits, without regard to Medeis’s personal identity or what editors assume or believe about Medeis’s personal identity. That’s a perfectly reasonable request, completely in keeping with Wikipedia’s principles. I do not have the slightest issue with that, and never have. Problem is, Medeis’s demands intersect with cultural and linguistic norms of behaviour. When someone describes themselves as a former “waitress”, it’s not unreasonable for others to believe Medeis is telling them Medeis is a woman, or at least someone of the female gender. It is normal for people of the female gender, including women, to be referred to by the feminine 3rd person pronoun "she". It is usually considered inappropriate, disrespectful and wrong to use the masculine pronoun "he" in regard to such an individual and specific person. If Medeis is not of the female gender, or is but does not want to be referred to as such, why did Medeis call Medeis-self a "waitress", and not use the gender-neutral term "waiter"? Medeis has argued that "waitress" is not necessarily indicative of a female, and talked about the word "waitrice" …… How many people had ever heard of the word "waitrice" before Medeis mentioned it? Very, very, very few, I would suggest. It gets all of 504 ghits and is unknown to wiktionary. But we here are somehow supposed to magically know all about this word and realise it was what Medeis was on about? Well, hardly. In any event, "waitrice" was not what Medeis called Medeis-self - it was the unambiguously feminine word "waitress", and any discussion of "waitrice" or any other etymology was so much hot air. Therefore, it is disingenuous for Medeis to say that others are not entitled to draw their own conclusions from Medeis’s own words.

Medeis has also mentioned Medeis’s boyfriend. What does this mean? It could mean Medeis is a gay male. It could mean Medeis is a straight female. Or it could mean Medeis is a bisexual of either sex. I couldn’t care less what the truth is. But this statement is certainly not inconsistent with the already-established belief that Medeis is a female, and it would tend to reinforce that belief.

I don’t say any of the above in order to speculate about Medeis’s gender or sexuality. I say it to explain, once more, why I and some other editors formed the view that Medeis is a female, and why I advised in an FYI that Medeis is not a “he” but a “she”. It was a mark of respect, pure and simple. I would have formed exactly the same conclusion about any other editor with a gender-neutral user name who latterly described themselves as a masseuse, actress, dominatrix, fiancee, or what have you. That Medeis distrusts my motives speaks volumes about Medeis. Medeis has never denied Medeis is a female; neither has Medeis ever confirmed it. Medeis has, however, charged that I have, effectively, discriminated against Medeis on the basis of Medeis’s gender, or what I assume Medeis’s gender to be. I agree that such behaviour would be unacceptable. Had I ever done so, I would withdraw and apologise. But I have never done so, to Medeis or anyone else, and I have nothing to apologise for. There is simply no rational connection between my FYI, which was made in an RD:Talk thread in which I was not otherwise involved AT ALL, and any other edits I have ever made that addressed Medeis or referred to Medeis. It is simply not open to Medeis to conclude that I believe Medeis’s gender, whatever it is, explains anything about Medeis’s activity on Wikipedia. I am not even going to challenge Medeis to produce any evidence to the contrary, because I know in my heart there is none.

These comments apply equally to Medeis’s race and native tongue. Medeis has recently outed Medeis-self as an American. But as far back as 20 June, Medeis made an edit that very strongly suggested Medeis is Rusyn. On 9 July, Medeis referred to Medeis’s having a “dialect”, in a thread about Czech proverbs. On 22 July and again on 18 August, Medeis said Medeis is a Slav. What does this mean? It could mean Medeis is of Slavic ethnicity and was born in such a country, coming to the USA as an immigrant. Or it could mean Medeis was born in the USA to parents who were either the descendants of Slavic immigrants, or Slavic immigrants themselves. In the latter circumstance, it is entirely probable that Medeis’s first language was something other than English, despite being a natural-born American citizen. But there’s no way of knowing, and I don’t care and I’ve never cared or let it influence anything I’ve ever said to or about Medeis. What I do know is that, for a person of Medeis’s obvious mastery of linguistic jargon and concepts, and ready wit, Medeis makes too many English language blunders to pose convincingly as a native speaker of English, and I have made it clear that such is my belief and has, by the way, been my belief since very soon after Medeis first started editing the Ref Desks, which was my first exposure to Medeis. Not that I’m saying Medeis has ever claimed to be a native speaker; Medeis has made no statements about Medeis’s native tongue, and is certainly not required to. Some other editors have defended me by saying they did not read into my remarks on the “say/tell/speak” thread (Language ref desk, Verbs that take dative (in)direct objects) that I was saying Medeis was not a native speaker, but just that people who are not native speakers often find the uses of these words difficult to master. Well, I thank you for your support, folks but, as it turns out, it was misplaced. I was indeed saying that Medeis is not a native speaker, and Medeis was indeed struggling with these words. But it certainly wasn’t said maliciously or to make any sort of point or in any sort of discriminatory fashion. I was trying to help Medeis because I perceived Medeis needed help. That’s what I do around here and have always done around here – be of service and help people. If Medeis is offended by being helped out in the area of English, something Medeis seems to want to think Medeis is an expert in and is beyond help about, that is a serious problem that Medeis is going to have to come to terms with, sooner or later. It’s called intellectual arrogance, among other things.

I’ve been accused of making personal comments about Medeis’s sexual orientation. Me, of all people. The one and only time I have ever made even the slightest allusion to Medeis’s sexual orientation is in this very post, up above, where I opened with “Medeis has mentioned Medeis’s boyfriend. What does this mean?”, and finished with “I couldn’t care less what the truth is.”

Medeis has said that Medeis has no problem with me personally, but I seem to have a problem with Medeis. That proposition can bear some examination. I’ve had a close and honest look at the history of our interactions, and the results are interesting. There have been 32 Ref Desk threads where we’ve interacted with each other (it feels like more, I must admit, but 32 it is). In 22 of those cases, the interactions have been positive or neutral or whatever challenges there have been have been resolved satisfactorily. In the remaining 10 cases, they’ve been negative. In some of those latter cases, they started out Ok, but degenerated, sometimes irretrievably. I’m not going to go through the whole catalogue of disasters, but some things are worth noting.

The very first time there was ever any animosity between us was on the Language ref desk thread on 12 June, English Words with Accents. After some initial to-fro, Medeis came out with:

Jack of (sic) doesn't know what he's talking about, wavelength, your first example was a perfectly cromulent counterexample to his challenge

Who could fail to note the offensive and pointed message implicit in "Jack of", without the Oz? Whence did such offence arise? And there were many positive and assertive ways to counter my position other than that I “don’t know what I’m talking about”. Medeis’s repertoire of language skills is extensive and Medeis had a choice, but chose to play the man rather than the ball.

Meaning, of course, that you, Jack, were personally not aware that a "read" (as well as a play and a resume, of course) can be a noun

I’ve never encountered such dismissive arrogance, and it was further personalising the issue. Was Medeis saying that there is nothing Medeis is not personally aware of? Is Medeis claiming to be omniscient?

It would save us all ever so much time, J of O, if you would simply post for us what we would have meant to say had we actually thought what we thought we were thinking, before we bother to do so for ourselves

It took Medeis three goes to come up with that incomprehensible rubbish.

I ended the thread with: Yes, sometimes editors unnecessarily display a tad too much animus. Boy, was that an understatement, as I later discovered. I can’t imagine why anyone would ever come out with such shitty stuff, particularly when not provoked. But it was clear back here on 12 June that Medeis had a problem with me, and Medeis’s personal attacks of me have continued intermittently until now.

The next negative episode was 8 July, on Verbs that take dative (in)direct objects. It started out OK, but degenerated. I said “A native would not say ….” (based on my belief that Medeis is not a native speaker). Medeis made no comment on this. Later, Medeis said “You make me laugh”, I asked if this was a compliment or a put-down; Medeis’s reply was “Do you seriously expect me to tell?” (in other words, it was a put-down). I said “There’s no telling how non-native users of language can make serious errors in their choice of expressions. I assume good faith, naturally, but assumptions do not always reflect reality”. Later there was a discussion of Russian accusatives and genitives. Medeis got defensive, I commented on that tendency, and I was in turn accused of belligerency and defensiveness.

On 10 August, on “What does tolerasty mean?”, Medeis over-reacted in a massively extreme way about a statement I made that complemented but did not deny Medeis’s statement.

You have the ability to contradict things which have neither been said nor anywhere implied. Wow. You can gainsay the non-existent, contradict that which has not been dicted, and stand in opposition to the admittedly unreal. … Oz’s contrarian moralistic nonsense is typical and doesn’t surprise me. I don’t think documenting it is helpful, but if you want diffs pointing out his holier than thou hypocrisy let me know and I will provide them.

Medeis was called out by 82.24.248.137. I objected to Medeis personalising the discussion, to which Medeis said Yes, I am perfectly happy with that description. You saw an "opening" and went for it.

Is anyone starting to see a pattern of personal animosity from Medeis towards me here? I certainly was by this stage. It went on and on:

15 August: Can you please spare me this and future such delicate lectures, O teller of иiззəɾ jokes?
22 August: Medeis was unnecessarily rude: ... is there some objective answer or actual help you are looking for?, when my question was abundantly clear. Medeis referred to my knickerbunching over this as a typical overreaction. That is, I personally was the target of this, not just my words and behaviours. Medeis also accused Andy the Grump of racism, which he asked Medeis to withdraw. Afaik, no withdrawal ever occurred.
13 September: Medeis came out with an unnecessary criticism: JoO entirely confused the issue by …, after I had already acknowledged I had done exactly that. I thanked Medeis for rubbing salt into my wounds. It seems that Medeis just couldn’t help Medeis-self.
23 September: Interesting, Jack, that you both pose the question as if you are ignorant, and dismiss the answers given as if you were an expert. Which is it? I find it hard to credit that you fail to undestand deep means profound only when the surface is the superficial. Nor do I think you fail to comprehend the contrast of high versus low. You play the sophomore par excellence.

Diffs are available for all these, if anyone’s interested. And now, after all that, Medeis proclaims that Medeis has no problem with me personally. Does anyone understand why I find that statement so extraordinarily hard to swallow? True, in between these negative episodes were some positive or neutral interactions. But for there to be so many negative ones in such a period of time means there is a problem. Medeis’s problem, because in each and every case the unprovoked insults and incredible rudeness and utterly unprofessional garbage were of Medeis's doing, not mine.

I’m pleased to say I kept my cool in amongst all this, and never descended to Medeis’s preferred low level of abusive personal relations. I’ve only very recently become aware of Medeis’s astonishingly frequent appearances at ANI and the blocks that have been imposed. Not wanting to sound holier-than-thou, but I’ve been on WP for almost 8 years yet I know nothing about ANI or how it operates. Zilch. As far as I can remember, I have never even visited that place. I’ve never had my wiki-behaviour called into question, except for the most minor of peccadillos, for which I’ve immediately apologised. Medeis’s behaviour, on the other hand, speaks for itself. Medeis has shown utter contempt for the administrative system, and has said that “Wikipedia is, as a moral enterprise, a joke”. Yet, on 25 August, Medeis pleaded to have a block removed, promised and promised again to be compliant, and seemed truly contrite and grateful for having been given a hearing. It seems even contemptible administrators have their uses when one is in a position of powerlessness. It seems the noble family tradition of dying rather than collaborating has not translated to Medeis personally. I used the word “expediency” in relation to Medeis recently. I was on the money there.

But Medeis’s new leaf was soon overturned once more. On 29 September, Medeis responded to a post from Edison by stating that Edison is an administrator here. That’s all Medeis said - as if that was somehow relevant or germane to what the discussion was about, which was prison rape. It was not an untrue statement in itself, but it was clearly meant as a put-down along the lines of: What would an administrator know about anything? Why should anyone listen to anything an administrator has to say? No wonder Medeis’s earlier pleadings to be unblocked and Medeis’s promises to be on Medeis’s best behaviour were simply not believed. Why would they be? Previous promises had been unceremoniously broken, and here Medeis was again being inflammatory and aggressive and insulting – but without the slightest provocation. Talk about having “an emotional impediment to rational discussion”. This is the sort of person Medeis is. By their fruits ye shall know them - never a truer word was spoken. Yet Medeis dares to lecture me and everyone else about morality and ethics. I seriously wonder what keeps Medeis on Wikipedia at all, when Medeis has such a low opinion of the administrators and such a low opinion of the morality of Wikipedia. Surely, anyone with any sense of integrity would choose not to be associated in any way, shape or form with such a low institution. Medeis seems to hate Wikipedia and everything it stands for (unless Medeis was actually lying when Medeis made those statements), yet pleads to be allowed to continue to be involved. Such self-loathing would make an excellent case study.

Next issue is the charge that I am a “teller of nigger jokes” (plural). That is the (dishonest) formulation Medeis has used. Anyone reading those pages would assume that I am generally prone to telling racist jokes, or for the pedanticists, that I have no less than twice told a racist joke, and that there would be evidence of those multiple instances. But no such evidence has ever been adduced – because there is none. I have told exactly one (count it: 1) joke that is relevant to this charge, the one about Sammy Davis Jr, and Medeis knows there was only ever one (1).

Was it racist? Yes, it was, there’s no getting away from that.
Am I proud of it? No, but pride was never the issue.
Do I regret it? Yes.
If I had my life over, would I say it again? No.
Am I ashamed of it? Honestly, no, it doesn't merit shame.
Was it a hanging offence? No.

It was no more a hanging offence than Medeis’s satirical jab at the French, or at Pakistani Muslims. Other editors have also mentioned Medeis’s reference to Jews and that Medeis’s mentioning of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is quite ambiguous, perhaps intentionally so, but no response to that has been forthcoming, so the ambiguity is allowed to remain, which says something more than it said by being there in the first place. In the spirit of candour and honesty, let me acknowledge that on 4 August, on “well up herself”, I made what could have been seen as a xenophobic comment (it wasn’t) and I later voluntarily and without any prompting went back and marked it as the humour it always was. So, let us put this into some sort of perspective: my one inappropriateness versus Medeis’s at least 2, possibly 3. If anyone is a “teller” of such jokes, it couldn’t be me, but it could be Medeis. Not that I would ever make such a charge on such flimsy evidence, but for those who would, the evidence is before you. So, to sum up, there was never any truth in the “teller of nigger jokes” label, and Medeis knows this. But honesty doesn’t seem to be one of Medeis’s strong suits. Making pointy points and attracting personal attention seem more Medeis’s style. Which is a damn shame because Medeis obviously has a lot of positive stuff to offer in amongst the crap. I just wish Medeis can find the maturity and discipline to keep Medeis's work here positive.

Finally, Medeis accused me, more than once, of deleting from my talk page comments made by Medeis. The link Medeis provided to supposedly prove this does not prove it, because I did no such thing. Medeis is welcome to come up with a diff that says otherwise, but I think Medeis will be searching in vain. I do not remove and have never removed stuff from my talk page - I archive it when the time comes but it's all still there. Medeis, on the other hand, regularly removes stuff from Medeis's talk page.

I would like to thank the following for their support in this matter. None of it was solicited in any way by me. In alphabetical order:

Baseball Bugs, Bielle, BoganwholovesBach58, Buddy431, Dualus, Falconus, Mr98, Nil Einne, Norwegian Blue, Sayerslle, Shirt58, Sluzzelin, Tango, TenOfAllTrades, 86.163.1.168. If I’ve missed anyone, sorry, and consider yourself thanked too.

So, let us conclude by reminding ourselves that Medeis came to the Talk page to request that a third party suggest to me that my continual personal comments about my opinion of Medeis are not in comportment with the goals of the reference desk, and to suggest to me that we remain polite and refrain from personal attacks.

I note that it's now a week on and nobody has made any such suggestions to me. Any messages that have been directed at me personally have been supportive of me, and Medeis’s arguments have been thoroughly debunked. In blunt terms, Medeis has utterly failed to have the Ref Desk Regulars do Medeis’s dirty work for Medeis. Yet Medeis considers the matter favourably resolved. I wonder if this sense of achievement and fulfilment of purpose pervades other aspects of Medeis’s life.

Medeis has, however, succeeded admirably in having the mirror turned back on Medeis-self. Look deep and long into the mirror, Medeis. Your true self is in there waiting to be summoned. He or she may pleasantly surprise you. And us. It's time to stop being no one and start becoming someone. Some people call it "growing up". -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 02:35, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

More BLP nonsense

This post wasn't even a question. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous&diff=455355539&oldid=455355135 Leaving it in place, even redacted, invites people to find the comment in the history and serves no other legitimate ref desk purpose. μηδείς (talk) 11:30, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Accusations of criminality are defamation per se. Under no circumstances should we be serve as a forum for them or entertain the need to provide advice that should come, if anywhere, from an officer of the court. see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous&diff=455473275&oldid=455470180. μηδείς (talk) 02:45, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I have filed a report about the thread at WP:BLPNB. [15] μηδείς (talk) 03:16, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Accusations against who? Murdoch? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:11, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

If you want oversight, don't warble about it here, go to WP:Oversight and send in a mail through the proper channels. I'm not even going to revdelete the original post, it's just silly fluff. I'm OK with you removing the thread, since we really shouldn't keep threads where everyone laughs at the OP, but I don't see anything more needing to be done. It's over. But you can take it up with the oversight team, they respond very quickly, so knock yourself out. Franamax (talk) 06:51, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Why would it need to be oversighted? Because of the mention of a public figure? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:51, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

The original question before the name and job title were redacted made 2 specific criminal accusations (cheque fraud and harassment) against a named individual (with job title and organisation) without sources so is rather problematic. I'm not sure whether the question after the name and job title were redacted is really much of a BLP issue ~~or needs to be revdeleted or supressed~~ since it seem unlikely the accused can be identified from the info that remains, although deleting it was ~~probably~~ still best. Edit: The original question before redactions is gone,, revdeleted [16] for now. Nil Einne (talk) 08:33, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I have revdeleted the versions before the name was redacted. It should probably be oversighted as well. Please, in the future, when such serious WP:BLP violations are posted, people shouldn't reply to it, but should be handled according to Wikipedia:Revision deletion#How to request Revision Deletion (for non-admins) or Wikipedia:Revision deletion (for admins), with a request for oversight for serious cases (like this one). Please familiarise yourself with WP:BLP as well if necessary. Negative unsourced or badly sourced comments about any living person should be removed on sight in general. Fram (talk) 08:57, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

And I have now contacted oversight about them as well. Fram (talk) 09:05, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

And the five revisions before the name was redacted have now been oversighted. Fram (talk) 10:31, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

apparent trolling removed

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous&diff=455461813&oldid=455457845 μηδείς (talk) 00:46, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

This was obviously one of our regular, long blocked and banned trolls. Good removal. --Jayron32 03:58, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Lol. Well, evereyone knows that ( dog x penis = troll ). I am more worried about the as of yet unoversighted criminal accusations made in the thread above that I have reported to WP:BLPNB. μηδείς (talk) 04:12, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, darn, got trolled then. Oh well, happens. Also, didn't realise this had a talk page. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 17 Tishrei 5772 17:19, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

[I have moved comments regarding a BLP violation to the proper thread above, this thread is unrelated]

So, how about Ref Desk/Troll

Now, it is actually closed

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I am shutting this down before someone says something which could cause them problems. This is not going to be a useful discussion at all. Consider this a warning to all: Find something else to do except this. --Jayron32 00:21, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

For a place to post joke questions and "conditional" insults? Would make everything more efficient. μηδείς (talk) 20:28, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

What's a "conditional" insult? --Belchman (talk) 21:24, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Dear Medeis,

my questions might sound funny, but they are not joke questions. It's possible to answer them with links to factual information, even if I could have phrased them in a more sober tone.

ThanksQuest09 (talk) 21:48, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, you seem to be trolling us pretty good right here. So I guess that works.

Belchman, Medeis is just trying to stir the pot regarding his or her vendetta against certain users. The term "conditional insult" specifically comes from this discussion a little farther up the page. APL (talk) 00:12, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Vendetta? What are you talking about? If someone calls someone a jerk, they call them a jerk. I don't even remember who was involved. BTW I am going to collapse this discussion, since declaring it closed while leaving it open is hardly fair. You may notice that the above was reopepend against my judgment and I have left it open. Vendetta indeed. μηδείς (talk) 02:58, 16 October 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.

Continual personal comments from JackofOz

I have reopened this discussion to retain context of my actual statements- μηδείς (talk) 02:48, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

goodfiath but preamture closing

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I'm BOLDly collapsing this thread, because it's clearly pointless. I apologise to those that have attempted to be constructive. If people wish to discuss the correct names of certain kinds of cooked potato, please do so in the relevant section of the ref desk itself, not the talk page. If anyone wishes to complain about the conduct of another user, please link to the relevant diffs and explain what policies those diffs violate and how. Vague, unsubstantiated complaints are not going to achieve anything, so don't make them. --Tango (talk) 15:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Can someone besides myself or 86:163:1:168 suggest to JackofOz that his continual personal comments about his opinion of me on the reference pages are not in comportment with their goals or the suggestion that we remain polite and refrain from personal attacks? I don't think anyone cares what his opinion of my ignorance is, or reaally wants to hear me respond to him once more. Given that I talk of events and facts and give links, and in response he talks of me and my faults in his eyes, I think some sort of advice that he lay off is in order. μηδείς (talk) 04:00, 9 October 2011 (UTC) [bolding added, μηδείς (talk) 02:48, 11 October 2011 (UTC)]

I have advised Jack here [17] that assuming he simply ends his comments this is all over so far as I am concerned. If her makes no comments here, on my talk page, or on the reference desk pages I will do the same. I am unwatching this page in the hopes that will be the case. μηδείς (talk) 04:18, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

And I have challenged Medeis here to substantiate these charges or withdraw them and apologise. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:15, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

potato diversion

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I originally replied to the thread but finding this discussion have moved it here. As much as it pains me to agree with an Aussie, I do agree with Jack here. (Although to be fair come next Sunday, Aussies are going to be the ones in pain so it isn't that big a deal.) Bubba73 started the thread with this question:

What do you call "French fries" that are baked instead of fried? I've heard them called "baked fries", which doesn't make good sense. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 14:26, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Some discussion followed concerning what they are called in the UK and US. μηδείς's first reply was a direct reply to this question by Bubba73 where μηδείς said

They are called oven fries. μηδείς (talk) 19:00, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

However as is obvious from above, Bubba73 never said in their original question they only wanted answers for one region. Bubba73 did later indicate that they are from the US but that was in a followup thread that μηδείς did not reply to. More importantly, they still gave no indication they were only interested in answers concerning the US. Any reader unfamiliar with μηδείς was therefore left guessing what location 'they are called oven fries' applies to. Greece for example? Or is μηδείς claiming that they are called oven fries everywhere?

StuRat later asked a follow up question

Do they sell them pre-fried and then frozen to be reheated in the oven ? If so, what do they call that version ? StuRat (talk) 00:13, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

StuRat is also from the US, although did not say so in the thread and did not specify that they are only interested in answers from the US (again it's obvious they did neither in their question). Once more, μηδείς's reply was direct to StuRat and they said:

Oven fries? Why is this so difficult? μηδείς (talk) 02:14, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Which again left the reader guessing what location this refers to. The astute reader may make the assumption μηδείς was intending to refer to the same location as their earlier reply (although they may still be unsure which one). However, the tone of the reply seems to imply that it was a dumb question. The reason here may be that what StuRat referring to is basically what the earlier discussion was mostly concerning. But this would not be obvious to everyone, an easy thing which could happen instead would be to re-enforce the view that μηδείς is implying that they too are called oven fries in most or all places (and therefore there's no reason to query further).

It's clearly not an inferiority complex on the part of those asking, that people are clear if they are giving an answer that likely only applies to one region, when there is no way to know from the thread what location is being referred to. We cannot expect everyone to know or remember where each contributor comes from. Even if that info in someone's user page, it is unnecessary for people to need to check a user page to know where an answer is likely to apply to. This is of course not something that is a problem for all those from the US, as this thread and plenty of others can atest, plenty of people from the US do understand that it is helpful to everyone if they indicate where their answer is likely to apply to, or where their experience comes from if they are giving an answer from experience rather then sources.

I acknowledge that there have been some cases when people have perhaps gone a bit too far, e.g. asking people to specify where an answer concerned when it was fairly obvious from the thread but that's not the case here.

Sometimes of course it may not occur to someone that their answer likely only applies to one region or they may just forget to do specify what region, mistakes do happen and it's no major deal if people are willing to offer an explaination when questioned. However it is obviously a bigger problem when someone later tries to claim they did not give an answer which likely only applies to one region without specifying what region; or implies that others are somehow at fault for not understanding their answer was only intended to apply to one region when they didn't specify this at the time. (It is of course also a silly thing to do when it is clear to anyone reading the thread that this is not the case.)

P.S. There's a small chance I may need to ask for this thread to be oversighted on Sunday to save my life, so I hope this is resolved before then.

Nil Einne (talk) 14:09, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

If you want 'inferiority complex'.... On further consideration I realise we are in fact at fault. No human is interested in hearing what we subhumans (people from outside the US) call the mythical things in our grunting camp fire chats in-between sacrifices to the sun and moon god, and pillaging other caves. It's not like we have potatoes, or ovens anyway let alone freezers. Therefore it should be obvious to all any answer is only intended to imply to humans. Nil Einne (talk) 14:09, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Had anyone bothered to look, they would have seen that Bubba73 is American. So an assumption that he was talking about the US would be reasonable. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:55, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be missing the point. We all know Bubba73 is from the US since they said so in that thread (but not the part μηδείς replied to). No one has ever denied this. However at no time did they say they only wanted to know what they were called in the US. StuRat incidentally while also from the US doesn't say so on their user page, nor did they say so anywhere in that thread. Nil Einne (talk) 18:33, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

reopened

I have reopened the above comments to restore the request that opened this matter. I don't think I should have to explain why constant ad hominem responses are inappropiate or prove they shouldn't continue. Here is exactly what I said on Jack's user page, after warning him to stop following me around making personal remarks, which he has conveniently deleted[18]:

You are quite aware one need not template the regulars. This is very simple. I am sick of your personal comments based on race, sex, sexual orientation, nationality, native tongue, and your opinion of my knowledge, ignorance as an American, etc. It can all stop now with your doing what I shall do--refraining form further comment in public space. I am unwatching this space. Don't comment here and don't make personal comments on the ref desk spaces and this all ends now. μηδείς (talk) 12:14 am, Yesterday (UTC−4)

Note that none of this amounts to a charge of "racism" or "homophobia" on my part. Only a desire that the personal/ad hominem comments cease toward me. Besides the side issue of this race joke made on the ref desk [19] "Alcock and Brown? Wasn't that Sammy Davis Jr's nickname?" (obviously meant as a joke and not directed at me, but nevertheless offensive to me, loved ones, and family) there are repeated incidents of ad hominem behavior towards me including such things as:

Jack arguing that since I am not a native speaker of English (even if he knew this as a fact, which he doesn't, it is ad hominem) that there is no accounting for my opinions on English grammar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2011_July_8#Verbs_that_take_dative_.28in.29direct_objects
Jack "explaining" in a thread above discussing gender and orientation http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk&diff=453966914&oldid=453965972 that my being female (even if he knew this as a fact, which he doesn't, it is ad hominem) explains my comments.
Jack, once again, turning a discussion that has nothing to do with nationality into one about supposed American (and my) bias when the question is not even related to WP:ENGVAR (fries versus chips) but whether said potato food is described as "oven" versus "baked". [20]

This is a very simple matter. I am not asking for an apology, a cease to joking, that any editor be convicted of any sin, that there be a witchhunt across WP talk space, or that Jack in any way be punished.

I am merely asking that it be suggested to him by a third party that his personal comments toward and about me cease.

I am entitled to make contributions without constantly having another user make ad hominem statements and explaining myself on his (rather bizarre and largely baseless, if not entirely irrelevant) view of my personal identity. μηδείς (talk) 02:48, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh really, or as my mother says "the camel only sees the hump of his brother, never his own". Near the beginning of your reference desk career the two of you must have rubbed each other the wrong way, and ever since we get to witness this mini-feud. If you want it to stop, make the first step by completely ignoring anything he posts that has nothing to do with you. ---Sluzzelin talk 03:08, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

In case wikipedia policy on adhominem is unclear: (See Wikipedia:No personal attacks

Shortcut

WP:NPA#WHATIS

Using someone's affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views—regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream.^{[disputed – discuss]} An example could be "you're a train spotter so what would you know about fashion?" Note that although pointing out an editor's relevant conflict of interest and its relevance to the discussion at hand is not considered a personal attack, speculating on the real-life identity of another editor may constitute outing, which is a serious offense.

I am sorry, Sluzzelin, what do you mean I should completely ignore anything he posts that has nothing to do with me? Is there some example of me butting in to comment on his personal identity? The oven fries thread is a perfect example of the problem. He was not involved. In a thread where it was clear that the subject was set in an American context, and the question was about the adjectives baked versus oven-, he leapt in arguing bizarrely that as an American I shouldn't be insisting that the word for chips is fries. (!) read the collaapsed section above, if you care.

In any case your easy retreat to moral relativism would be helpful if you could show where I go around interrupting threads in which I have not been involved to say that silly Jack's comments are what you might expect from an Australian and a male. I seriously don't think I'll have a problem not using Jack's gender, nationality, or other matters regarding his personal identity to criticize his comments, but I promise not to do so nonetheless. μηδείς (talk) 03:31, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Bad news everyone!

I mentioned the possibility oversight may be needed to save my life in the comment on potatoes above. I'm happy to report this won't be necessary. Well JoO and HiLo may not be happy but that's somewhat beside the point.... Nil Einne (talk) 13:48, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

medical diagnosis

request removed [21] μηδείς (talk) 23:40, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Direct personal insult

So now, in addition to this question, which is at best a request for a medical opinion and, more likely, just plain trolling, we have a direct personal insult with an editor being called a jerk, outright. [22]. 00:31, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Most editors' responses have treated the question as a pretty silly one by using humour. What you see as an insult, I see as just another attempt at humour. The point is that he wasn't called a jerk outright. HiLo48 (talk) 00:54, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

"You, name, are a jerk" is not an outright insult? It also be should be noted that you are the one who restored the thread. μηδείς (talk) 00:56, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

It was a conditional insult, built on the statement of the other editor. I still believe it was intended as humour. I didn't restore the thread. I responded to its restoration with attempted humour. I guess I failed. HiLo48 (talk) 01:00, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

It's clearly meant to be a joke. And I don't at all see the original question as violating our policy on medical questions. Have a look at Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Guidelines/Medical_advice. It's quite clearly not a violation if you look at the examples. It's maybe a dumb question (though not necessarily). But it's not a violation of the medical policy. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:37, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

It cannot be a dumb question, since there are no dumb questions. Quest09 (talk) 13:57, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

So our grade school teachers have drilled into us, but I'm not sure it's true. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:36, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, they probably meant that it's dumber not to know than not to ask, but OK, some questions take us further and others have obvious answers.

I think the OP has been overusing the ref desks for questions he/she does not really needs answers to, and I wish we could figure out something to do about it, but I don't see anything horrible about the specific question or the responses to it. Looie496 (talk) 02:27, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I think it's irrelevant how many questions someone asks or if he really needs the answers. Questions could simply go unanswered, if they are too much. And even if in many cases it's obvious that no answer is needed, since the questions don't have any practical use, there is no rule about "only useful questions." Remember also that the RD is not just to help the posters of questions, but also those who answer obtain some benefit and those who just read the questions and answers. Quest09 (talk) 12:15, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but until you have consensus to overturn the policies on such things as WP:CIVIL and the ref desk guidelines you can say all you like that we should ignore out of bounds comments and you are free to do so, but others are entitled simply to remove them. μηδείς (talk) 03:04, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

In saying that you have chosen to ignore those of us who believe the comment was a joke, and hence not intended to be a personal attack. HiLo48 (talk) 03:29, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

In saying what, I have done what? I am guilty of what now? Not of disobeying you, but disagreeing with you, of "ignoring" you? Do you think my belief is a matter of debate and consensus? I don't, and I hope your beliefs aren't. I said that until you can overthrow the policies the policies stand. Do you disagree they stand until overturned, Hilo? On the other hand, I haven't deleted the "joke" again since this began--have I? That is what is subject to debate here, the action to be taken, whether consensus supports deletion or not. Not my opinions or what you think they should be. Arguments and actions are separate things and if you not only want me to follow the majority but to think like the majority your moral metaphysics is messed up. When we become Borg and you become the Queen stop the world and let me off. μηδείς (talk) 03:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

It says up the top "This page is for discussion..." A few of us thought the comment was a joke, and raised that possibility here. Can we discuss that possibility please? HiLo48 (talk) 04:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

What do you want discussed? I am not reverting and have not but for the first time ever reverted the edit. What does it matter that I happen to think that what looks like a direct personal {"you are a jerk") insult is inappropriate? Even if it is really a joke, a supposition which I find plausible? Please be satisfied by the fact that I am content not to revert the edit. I am happy to physically refrain from pushing the buttons to revert the edit. Are you not happy with that? Or do you insist on my conforming spiritually to the idea that the edit is a worthy thing I should endorse? μηδείς (talk) 05:08, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Meh. I just thought we could have a chat. But whatever. I certainly don't want a fight. HiLo48 (talk) 05:36, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Uh, Medeis, it was you who posted the intial comment [23] with a sub-heading title. On Wikipedia talk pages, that is pretty universally seen as a signal that you wish to discuss something. Even if you say right out that your staement is for the record only, people are still going to comment. There is no such thing as "having the last word" here, and I would posit that one of the very fundamental WP rules is: if you don't want to be disagreed with, don't post anything. You opened a topic on a discussion page. What discussion were you hoping for? Franamax (talk) 09:14, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Everyone other than you is a member of the refdesk Borg collective, Medeis, and HiLo is our queen. You can tell by the way we agree on everything, do not need to discuss any action we take, and never argue. You will be assimilated. 86.163.1.168 (talk) 08:39, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I am sad that my joke got deleted as spam

But it could have been worse. Dualus (talk) 10:09, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I can't speak for the IP but to be fair, your joke barely relates to the question. It can be considered a followup to μηδείς's reply but if that was the intention it's location and indenting doesn't lead to the conclusion. Nil Einne (talk) 13:38, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

"the intention it is location"?. You speak English good. --Belchman (talk) 15:00, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Sorry Belchman, Nil Einne's sentence is ~~completely~~ almost right. The same cannot be said of yours. Quest09 (talk) 15:14, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

He's got an extra apostrophe in there for his "its" but this is completely besides the point. (The apostrophe in "it's" is not possessive. One of English's nice quirks.) --Mr.98 (talk) 15:33, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, that apostrophe makes Nil Einne a complete illiterate, Belchman is right. Quest09 (talk) 19:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I always thought my English wasn't that great as I only got a C3 in my 1119 Nil Einne (talk) 13:44, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Can we just delete all of the above from Belchman down? It's an idiotic side-distraction that verges on trolling and troll feeding. I had thought we were of the agreement that pointless grammatical pedantry should be zapped rather than argued over. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:52, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

As noted in Possessive pronoun, all of them that end in "s" lack an apostrophe: his, hers, its and so on. I had an English instructor who said that a phrase like "the farmer's field" was actually short for "the farmer his field" (still a common form among the less educated). I can't find verification of that, though. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:44, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

There are examples of music from the time of Elizabeth I of England, called "Lady Rich Her Galliard", "Queen Elizabeth Her Galliard", etc. Today, we'd say "Lady Rich's Galliard", "Queen Elizabeth's Galliard", etc. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 08:44, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Favorite questions

what is your favorite question here in ref desk? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.112.82.128 (talk) 20:31, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The one you just asked. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:13, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

This. 82.43.90.142 (talk) 21:18, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Sadly, that OP turned out to be a sock, and was flushed a couple of days later.[24] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:39, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Isn't it a bit naff to say your own non-question was the best question? Nil Einne (talk) 02:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

One question asked by User:Keenan Pepper about the Google hits of the words "daaa...ng" with 3, 4, 5, 6 As. --Belchman (talk) 19:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Why can't you answer my medical question? We get those a lot. Dualus (talk) 00:20, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Blut und Ehre

Is this: "I also apologize for only having had the opportunity to defend mine and my own by stabbing or pummeling people into submission, rather than ever having had the honor of shooting anyone to death" an acceptable comment by a regular contributor to the reference desks? It may be found on the discussion page and was written by user Medeis.
If so, I ask for my account to be disabled by a suitable administrator. I feel revolted by the thought that a human being can express such a barbaric sentiment without instantly being banned for life. Under the circumstances, I wish to disociate myself from Wikipedia. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:47, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

For clarification the comment was made Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Klingon vs Esperanto. I've collapsed the discussion as it had little to do with the question at hand even if the diversion was started by the OP (μηδείς). George Soros was simply given as an example as a native Esperanto speaker, not as a reason for the existence of the Esperanto wikipedia and his character was not brought in to the discussion before then. Also once again I would like to remind people discussions on living people should be carried out with care particularly when they don't relate to a question. While the facts here may be supported, our personal opinions of them should be kept to a minimum per WP:BLP. I won't say this is a clear cut violation since we do usually allow some leeway and it does happen particularly with controversial people (e.g. quite a few current and former world leaders including those from the US) but still something to keep in check. Nil Einne (talk) 13:58, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I do have to question Medeis' reason for participation. He/she seems terribly unhappy here, sees conspiracies behind every comment, see offense in every answer, feels the need to respond with anger and harshness at every opportunity, and generally does not seem to be too interested in cultivating or preserving a very civil atmosphere. I am a bit confused as to why he/she continues at this, what he/she is getting out of it. I might humbly and honestly recommend he/she takes a little break and get a little distance and perspective, rather than starting a fight every other day for now over a week. There will be no joy for anyone if he/she continues in this direction; just more squabbling and probably an eventual banning for trolling or incivility. (I have no power to ban; this is not a threat, just an observation from having been around these parts for something like 7 years now.) --Mr.98 (talk) 15:05, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM, do not allow the abject follies of other editors to cause you to consider cutting yourself off. Those follies will all receive due treatment, as will their creators. What goes around comes around.

Only yesterday I advised the editor in question to stop being no one, start becoming someone, and to grow up. I appreciate your concern is way beyond a mere lack of maturity, however. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 18:54, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I should add that the possibility has occurred to me that Medeis may be a highly troubled individual who, under the guise of insults and hostiities may call out for help. The obvious problem is that neither I, nor anybody else on the ref desk, can provide such help. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:24, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

To me, it seems that Medeis merely has a rather dark sense of humor. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:29, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Many of us here have and/or can appreciate a dark sense of humour. But most of us are not fronting up at ANI every second (metaphorical) day, pleading for forgiveness yet again, and then immediately going out and committing further egregious atrocities, often against their fellow editors. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 19:52, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Could people post links to things they wish to discuss, so it is possible to see the context, rather than simply quoting something which is obviously excerpted from a longer contribution? Making a threat against another Wikipedia user is a far more serious business than expressing an idle wish to kill a third party whom you may never come into contact with, so it is very relevant in exactly what context the statement was made. If we banned anybody who had ever expressed the desire to shoot, stab, or otherwise do away with a human being, there wouldn't be many people left, but equally there are contexts where it would be totally unacceptable and even illegal. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:33, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I see Nil Einne posted such a link above, which merely proves my point that the statement was taken out of context and refers only to the vaguest wish to kill evil-doers. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:41, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

"Egregious atrocities against their fellow editors"? Oh, my''. My thanks to Colapeninsula and Baseball Bugs for their reasoned and exactly spot-on reactions. (Although my response to Cookatoo was literally true in all points in this case, not an example of my sometimes irony). μηδείς (talk) 21:39, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I do sometimes wish there was some kind of ignore function in Wikipedia. Medeis sole purpose on the ref desk seems to be to write generalising bigotry thinly disguised as elaborate jokes (while himself being amazingly fast to pull the generalisation and PC card when called out on his behaviour). I don't know if the purpose of this is to steer questions off topic, but it certainly is the result (as the American Potato thread is a good example of). The petition for a troll-ref desk he posed above is perhaps a good pointer as to his objective? --Saddhiyama (talk) 17:32, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

If you are going to accuse me of bigotry you'd do well to point it out. μηδείς (talk) 01:17, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I thought I already did. Are you asking for difs? The numerous threads on this page alone points to some. I have taken the time to gather a collection here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. --Saddhiyama (talk) 01:00, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Not much "bigotry" in those diffs, just dark humor. The first one reminds me of a couple of things. Mark Twain, speaking on some outrage or another, said, "That is un-English! It is un-American! It is French!" Then there's this comment from Tom Lehrer's "Who's Next?": "France got The Bomb / But don't you grieve / 'Cause they're on our side / ...I believe!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:26, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Ein Volk! Ein Wiki! Ein... oh wait, this isn't about that at all! Can't you guys just chill out for once? I thought that Wikipedia was one of the few places on the internet that had the drama under control, yet it seems like being in high school again or some idiotic gaming forum. Everyone needs to stop fretting over small things and minor indiscretions and making big deals out of nothing. You're supposed to have fun doing this, being refdeskers and all (when you also answer the questions ofc), but it seems like a lot of people here let little things turn into huge problems and then they allow these problems they have aggrivated to wreck their experience when they start fighting. So can't you all just relax? Seriously, why do you want to add yet one more stressful element to your lives? Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 24 Tishrei 5772 05:40, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

'I thought that Wikipedia was one of the few places on the internet that had the drama under control' - I take it you've never visited WP:ANI or WP:Arbcom or the plenty of other places like that? Nil Einne (talk) 00:33, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I only really look at ANI when I see the words "legal threat"; those are always a good laugh. Outside of those two then. :p RefDesk shouldn't be that way. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 25 Tishrei 5772 00:51, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I see nothing specifically objectionable about this comment, apart from it being chat at the Refdesk, a very common sin indeed. (now [25]) Wars happen and I'm not going to try to judge this person when I don't know where or what or who or how. If anyone here is that intent on being a humanitarian, please find a way to stop the next war. Thank you. Wnt (talk) 14:36, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Odd edits

I don't know if it's a problem or anything, I just thought I'd point out that this ip, has taken to making minor edits to a few threads after those threads scroll off the main page. APL (talk) 21:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I've restored the substantive content (there were some hat templates removed as well; I didn't bother restoring those). There's a pretty clear pattern with these edits, which is to remove material discussing the actions of User:Bowei Huang 2. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 22:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Bowei is not currently blocked, but it was nice of him to betray his IP address for future reference. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm lazy to check the history but I'm reasonably sure BWH has done this before and been told before they couldn't do it. I'm pretty sure when they got in trouble for sockpuppetry or misusing the RTV, it was explained to them that while they can delete most stuff on their user page, they can't hide their edit history in general Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive591#Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive589#User Bowei Huang/A1DF67 (ongoing). Despite some confusing claims at the time, they eventually admited one of the reasons they'd try to change accounts was to remove some edits [26]. In any case, I'm going to tell them they need to stop it and suggest they don't edit if they're going to later regret it and want to remove edits. I know they did edit from an Australia IP a fair while back. Nil Einne (talk) 18:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

User:Mr.98 & User:Medeis

Medeis's remarks here, where he/she claims that the Democratic Party is essentially Communist and comparable to the Insane Clown Posse with regards to "policy and civility" strike me as blatant, ugly, unnecessary, stupid trolling. I've removed them before they derail the discussion just like Medeis's trolling comments always do. I'm loathe to begin Wiki-bureaucracy efforts but I feel that this particular user is simply devoted to trolling, debating, offending, and so on, and is completely without regard for warnings, requests for civility, and so on. I'm generally a live-and-let-live sort of editor, but hasn't this gone on far enough, or should we just abandon this page to the troll? I am getting sick of this. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:46, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It is blatant, but not necessarily trolling. There are many people who honestly believe that Democrats are communist. Just as there are people who honestly believe that Obama was not born in Hawaii. I, personally, find any strong political beliefs of any kind to be a sign of ignorance, so I find all Republicans and Democrats to be rather idiotic. I'm therefore not offended by such stupid remarks about either party. -- kainaw ™ 00:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

User:Medeis has an obvious pattern of inflammatory, unproductive, and distracting remarks. They spawn threads upon threads (see above) debating whether or not they cross the line, they endlessly distract from the main goal here, which is answering questions. That is a perfectly fine definition of trolling if you ask me, when combined with an unwillingness to engage civilly, spurious accusations against others (see above threads), and a total and complete refusal to adjust the problematic behavior despite multiple and repeat discussions.

I think this is all going too far. I don't want to draw a line in the sand, but let me just say: I've seen plenty of great users on here decide "to hell with it" when catering to trollish users goes unaddressed. Medeis creates far more discord than quality for my tastes. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:55, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Then, sick BB on it (I believe we are supposed to use neuter terms to protect this users feelings). BB used to be an ass of a user - which I believe he will admit himself. He eventually took responsibility for the problems he was causing and became a good user. So, he should know best how to handle this type of user. -- kainaw ™ 02:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

More commonly spelled sic. But that would just be cruel. I agree with Kainaw - Responding to inflammatory posts with inflammatory labels is not productive. Medeis needs to tone down the political commentary, but Medeis isn't the only editor who needs to do so. This is the political silly season in the U.S., and there are a number of editors who could back away from the commentary. Buddy431 (talk) 03:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

You know, it's polite to notify someone when you are talking about him. (As for pronouns, that's your bugaboo. I only objected to the ad hominem of having my opinions attributed to my supposed nationality and gender. I don't care whether you like he or she better.) Outrage at a difference in political opinions is not grounds for calling someone a troll. My answer was quite clear and the OP seemed to find it helpful. The insane clown posse comparison (to describe the unprincipled show-boating of the two major parties) aside, what was your problem with my links to Ruwart, Chomsky, the Libertarians, the Dems and the Greens? This is not some sort of PC preserve where opposing political POV is to be shouted down as trolling. Policy allows one to delete personal attacks. That does not include drawing a comparison between politicians and a stage act. μηδείς (talk) 02:45, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and BTW, Mr.98, you need to read the Communist Manifesto. Its planks include a single state-run central bank, a heavy progressive income tax, death taxes, free universal public education, government control of the roads and media, and the nationalization of employment. Those are all standard Democratic policies. You removing my comment [27] for making that comparison is simple vandalism. μηδείς (talk) 02:54, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Many of the communist demands were implemented during that period of the early 1900s when the Democrat and Republican parties in the U.S. hadn't assumed their modern-day positions; in any case, I think few Republicans now seriously oppose ending free public education outright, nor privatization of all roads, nor an end to the Fed arrangement. More to the point, I'm not convinced that agreeing with some more sensible little-C communist demands is the same thing as being a big-C Communist. Still I think that editors are entitled to have opinions, as long as they're sort of aimed at answering the question according to their own beliefs and perceptions. And with that I'll add that personally I believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that property rights exist as a tool to make those things possible, but I don't believe they're a law of nature. New types of property are added every year, for better or worse, - carbon emissions rights, patents on business models, patents on genes. We have the right to roll back certain property rights a bit if we want - we could say, like Finland, that people can hike and camp on private land, or like in the Old Testament, that people can walk onto farmland and eat as long as they don't carry away grain in containers. We could say that stock trades can have a tax placed on them so that poor people have a right to basic housing. We can make up any rules of the game we want, and those rules don't have to kill people, and it doesn't mean we believe in even-steven Communism with giant monolithic apartment buildings and statues of Stalin in every courtyard. It's our democracy and we can do what we want with it. Wnt (talk) 03:37, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

When you say "oppose" there, do you mean "support"? Card Zero (talk) 11:26, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Ooops, yes! I've been finding recently that trying to lose weight quickly causes all sorts of incoherent things to emerge from my keyboard. :( Wnt (talk) 16:45, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that User: Mr.98 has a tendency to remove content he doesn't like without warning and to insult other users. --Belchman (talk) 09:26, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I remove overt trolling or totally pointless, distracting responses. That's it. I don't insult if I can help it, but I do call it as I see it. I'm willing to bend over backwards for people who I think are trying to do the right thing. For people who are just looking for a place to be an ass, I will say so. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:49, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, you're basically acknowledging what I said. You admit removing —what you consider to be— "trolling or totally pointless, distracting responses" which in practice translates to content you don't like and you admit insulting people "if you can't help it". --Belchman (talk) 23:23, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not "content I don't like", it's content which doesn't fit into Ref Desk guidelines and is meant to just distract or distort. I don't issue insults as a general rule, but I do try to describe behavior accurately. Some people like to pretend to be insulted by that, but I can't help that. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:50, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

It's impossible for me to believe that Medeis is doing any of this in good faith. He/she is going way out of her way again and again to get a rile. He/she derails threads before they even start with his/her nonsense. It is seriously reducing the quality of the Ref Desk answers. If you can't tell the difference between "someone who you disagree with" and "someone who enjoys derailing things," then perhaps the direction all of this ought to go, anyway. I am perfectly tolerant of people being wrong, ignorant, or foolish. I am incredibly intolerant of people being jerks for no reason. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:49, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, as you can see the troll brigade looks after its own. I'm afraid the only obvious response left is to ignore them. --Saddhiyama (talk) 23:35, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Not targeted to anyone...

..but the best way to deal with our current "issues" is for each editor to do two things: answer the question as asked with no fluff, and to provided those answers with references. If neither can be done, then don't answer. Mingmingla (talk) 14:32, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Great idea! So what do you do when your not-targeted-to-anyone people refuse to do this? Obviously if all people could be trusted to self-police or read the guidelines we wouldn't be having these discussions. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:51, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

No idea, but I figured a reminder was warranted. I know I am naive in thinking that sometimes that's all we need (this is the internet, after all), but it's worth a shot. Mingmingla (talk) 01:04, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

wut happens if i ask too many question

wut if i ask too many question instead of googling or looking up on articles for myself. i like to ask question but don't want to ask TOO MANY. what is the limit and what is the consequences for asking too many question. Can someone be ban from the help desk if they ask too many questions, even if the questions are serious and not joke questions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.228.90.14 (talk) 16:37, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The basic principle is to not give the people who watch the Ref desks the feeling that they are being abused. Just think about how you would feel if you were the person answering the questions. Looie496 (talk) 17:00, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

if they dont like to answer question they can do something else because it is a free country (unless they are edit from North Korea), they can go play video games. i do not think this is a good answer, no one is force them to answer question.--24.228.90.14 (talk) 17:13, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

But, asking excessive questions means that it is much harder to find real questions through all the junk. That is what people find annoying. If you have an important question, please ask. If you just want to see how many idiotic things you can get someone to ignore, then it is purely an act of disrespect and borderline trolling - which does cause people to get blocked from editing. -- kainaw ™ 17:18, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Note to other editors: This editor has been trying to cause trouble. For example, this editor complained that there is a picture of cocaine on the Zirconium dioxide page and, after being told that it isn't cocaine, complained that it looks too much like cocaine. This is not a serious user. It is an obvious troll (assuming that I have to use the polite "troll" instead of "immature brat who needs to start listening in class instead of trying to be a pest here). -- kainaw ™ 17:21, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

This selfsame IP address also asked this question a few weeks ago: [28]. I'll let it speak for itself. --Jayron32 17:45, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

24.228.90.14, You basically just said "It's OK if I'm rude, because it's a free country and you don't have to listen to me." If that's what you really meant to say, I think most of us would probably prefer if you stopped asking questions and went somewhere else. APL (talk) 06:04, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

closed fox news debate

Not one single reference was provide in this debate. [29] The word caveman was used (where is Mr.98 when you need him?) but not one single reference and only one link, to Noam Chomsky. So I have closed the thread since we do not involve ourselves in debates and requests for opinion. μηδείς (talk) 22:18, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

An election year is coming up. It is going to get worse as people who blindly give all faith to the democratic party find every excuse possible to call anything remotely republican idiotic and people who blindly give all faith to the republican party find every excuse possible to call anything remotely democratic stupid. Then, as the political mudslinging takes place on television, there will be seemingly endless crying about various uninformed conspiracy theories. Perhaps we need to add a "politics" desk and auto-block anyone who posts to it. -- kainaw ™ 02:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Aphrodisiacs

I'm uncomfortable with the question about pheromones and aphrodisiacs. I'm having ethical issues just like the born secret neutrons and isotopic separation questions. On one hand I want to spill the latest medical journal reviews because they are fascinating and striking. On the other hand, the question seems profoundly creepy and I have no doubt at all that the information is probably already facilitating terrible, unprosecutable rapes. Does anyone have thoughts on this? Dualus (talk) 02:39, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

What question where? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:59, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science#Human pheromone, sextual attractant Nil Einne (talk) 05:57, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I have no doubt at all that the information is probably already facilitating terrible, unprosecutable rapes <-- I think you're overreacting. If pheromones had that power we'd all be using them...! The Masked Booby (talk) 05:04, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I hope so. I could be seriously misinterpreting the word "modulation" in the context. Dualus (talk) 06:27, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with one thing. The question is creepy, because of the caps.... Nil Einne (talk) 06:00, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe this stuff about "born secret"; I especially don't think there's anything wrong with discussing public knowledge here. Al-Qaida has people researching this stuff, so why shouldn't we know what's going on in the world too? (Seriously, think of how many people we have coming in on student visas from the Arab world to get science and engineering degrees, and now we're going to worry about a few people chatting on Wikipedia? The only thing offensive about us is that nobody paid for access)

The question of pheromone ethics is an interesting one which might well be worth raising at the Humanities desk. I do feel that pheromones are quite potent, but is the advantage more unfair than, say, plastic surgery or cosmetics are for those people who like that kind of thing? I also have to wonder whether past societies where bathing was uncommon were exposed to much higher levels than we are now, etc. Could be very interesting. Wnt (talk) 15:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't really agree with Dualus but I don't see any reason why should I have any real fear of how many Arab students there are getting science and engineering degrees. Nil Einne (talk) 15:42, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

To clarify I was not proposing a ban. Nonetheless, people like Abdul Qadeer Khan do study at Western universities (though not the U.S. in his case), and it is easy enough to be nervous. Wnt (talk) 16:02, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Well for starters he isn't from the Arab world. Anyway so did a lot of US politicans and frankly I'm more nervous of certain of them. And both the US and other countries have plenty of people who have worked or are working on questionable things, this isn't something unique to the Arab world (and apparently Pakistan). Nil Einne (talk) 16:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Khan was not dangerous because he studied at Western universities. He was dangerous because the Dutch company URENCO gave him unsupervised access to classified centrifuge designs and he nicked them. There's a big difference there. If he hadn't had that access he wouldn't have been any more dangerous than your average metallurgist. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Nitpick: "born secret" only applies in US jurisdictions and even then it is not clear it would actually stand up in court. It has been brought into court exactly once and in that instance it probably would have been overturned if the government had not found an excuse to withdraw from the case. Neither the US government nor the IAEA have ever relied on "born secret" as a means by which to deter proliferation or nuclear terrorism. Unless you have access to actual created-by-the-government secrets, it's unlikely you're really going to help anybody do anything awful in the nuclear realm. Even then it is unlikely to be the case that information alone, of the sort that can be given in a Ref Desk answer, is really going to be the part of a bomb-acquisition program that makes the difference. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

General ethics questions

[Moved to WP:RDH#General ethics questions. Dualus (talk) 23:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)]

Is this better here or on Humanities? Dualus (talk) 20:30, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Are you trying to influence Ref Desk answering policy primarily? Then here. Are you trying to genuinely parse out ethics of dangerous information? Then probably Humanities. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:43, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

These are frivolous questions that don't belong here or anywhere on the Ref desks. Looie496 (talk) 21:39, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Why? They are serious questions. I thought they would be best here because they all have to do with which questions we should answer and how. But based on Mr.98's comment, I am inclined to move them to RDH unless anyone objects. Dualus (talk) 22:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Done Dualus (talk) 23:32, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Not really an appropriate question in the first place, because it's an invitation to debate. If there are citations available about this, you could find them on Google. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:52, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

What is the difference between a question and an invitation to debate? Dualus (talk) 18:40, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The difference is between questions which can be answered with a reference and questions asking for opinions. Examples: "which is the biggest known planet outside the solar system?" or "What is the biggest put-off by dating?" Quest09 (talk) 22:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

So, if someone asked for opinion polling data, would that be appropriate? It's hard for me to think of reasons to exclude questions that don't involve asking for professional medical or legal advice or how to commit terrible crimes. Dualus (talk) 22:51, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

You don't have to think about any reason to exclude questions. It's the reference desk, it's meant to provide references not to be used to discuss future events, political questions or whatever.Quest09 (talk) 01:52, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

If you're looking for opinion polls about the subjects raised by your questions, you can do the same thing we would do: check Google for that info. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:58, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

In the context of ethics, is Google superior to DuckDuckGo? Dualus (talk) 18:20, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

If you mean is one site more "ethical" than the other, that's another debate question. If you only mean which one is a more reliable source for poll results, that would depend on how broad-based each site is. Maybe you could find some information on that question. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:01, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree that coverage is important. Dualus (talk) 06:11, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

If those questions are about the reference desk, the answers are easy. In all cases I would provide public references if they existed and I knew where to find them. I would endeavor to not allow my personal knowledge of how to build a bomb, or my own guesses on what the person on the other side wanted the information for to influence my responses.

(Also, I would build the bomb. Just to have one.) APL (talk) 04:34, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Just FYI, the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 does explicitly prohibit the private construction or ownership of atomic bombs, punishable with up to a $2M fine and a minimum of 25 years imprisonment (up to life). (It used to include death, but they removed that after the death penalty was abolished in 1969, and never added it back in.) Incidentally, if I tipped them off, I would be eligible for a handsome sum under the "Atomic Weapons Rewards Act of 1955". So let me know if you're going to ever go ahead with that... ;-) --Mr.98 (talk) 15:41, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

They'll never take me alive! APL (talk) 19:23, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

You don't have to go to that extreme. Find yourself a remote, unclaimed island somewhere, create a micronation (maybe called APLonia), develop your nuke there, and then demand ~~payola~~ foreign aid from the US to refrain from using it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:17, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea! I mean the US has 2 options (well they have many more but lets not overcomplicate things), blast to smitherens some tiny remote, previously unclaimed island somewhere who's presuambly only inhabitant they can easily call a nuclear terrorist (even if all they have is one nuke and no way to deliver it) or give in to said nuclear terrorist and give said terrorist a bunch of money they can't even use on their tiny, remove previously unclaimed island. Why wouldn't they chose option 2? (Let's ignore for now how this hypothetical nuclear terrorist manage to bring all the material to their tiny, remove, previously unclaimed island without anyone noticing and deciding that it would be convenient if said nuclear terrorist had an 'accident' on their tiny, remote, previous unclaimed island while trying to develop a nuke.) Nil Einne (talk) 16:24, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not really interested in taking the world hostage unless I've got a true doomsday device. A more normal sized nuke I'd just like to have for the sake of having one. It'd be a good conversation piece. APL (talk) 06:26, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Katherine McCoy

I am unsure of how to use my sources in terms of organization. A lot of information that I have found on multiple reliable websites and books intertwine with one another. Im not sure of the best manner to how to organize my sections. Ellebrager (talk) 14:31, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi! You should probably ask this question at Wikipedia: Reference Desk/Humanities, not here. I assume (from looking at your talk page) that you are working on an assignment to edit the article Katherine McCoy. You should make that clearer in your question; you'll get better answers. Generally speaking, your two main options for Wikipedia biographies are to organize them by chronology (just a narrative of a life) or a mixed chronology-theme (where you may not be going roughly chronologically, but jumping around by important themes in their life — e.g. their time at one company versus another). --Mr.98 (talk) 14:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Urge to kill

In Heart of Darkness, I didn't quite understand why Marlow wanted to kill Kurtz when he was crawling in the grass. Why was this? 81.68.255.36 (talk) 20:22, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

You may want to ask this question at the entertainment desk. Try WP:RD/E. --Jayron32 20:27, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Personally I think literature falls under WP:RD/H. Entertainment is more for, "who was meant to be Marlow in Apocalypse Now?" --Mr.98 (talk) 13:33, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Good website to find info on musicians

This question was moved here, to the Entertainment Desk, where it will receive better answers. Nimur (talk) 01:00, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Belchman

This edit by Belchman bothers me, particularly straight after he just reported another editor for alleged incivility.

But this reversion by Acroterion bothers me just as much.

Shouldn't Belchman have to remain responsible for his outrageous slur against homosexuals? If he had withdrawn it and apologised, that would be the end of the matter. But that is not what happened. Acroterion just reverted it, making it appear as if the offensive edit had never been made in the first place. Denial is not the way we deal with these things. Regardless of the reversion, the offence stands until its author, Belchman, does something about it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 01:23, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I see he's been blocked now. -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 01:26, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

We generally remove disruptive editing from the reference desk: when somebody's simply trying to pick a fight, it has no business staying on the reference desk. As my edit summary stated : "rv obnoxiousness." And he was made amply aware of his responsibilities as an editor by four or five separate parties. Acroterion (talk) 01:33, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I endorse Acroterion's action. Please bear in mind that, short of rev-deletion or oversight, all edits remain available for review in the page history and the contributor's history, regardless of whether they are removed from the current version of the page. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:36, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) For the record, I am on Jack's side on this issue: The only person who is shamed by Belchman's comment is Belchman. If he felt the need to express such a disgusting thought in public, I see no reason to not leave such a thought next to his name for all to see. Inane and disgusting comments like that reflect poorly on no one except the speaker, and Belchman needs to be exposed for making such comments. However, I also think it is not worth warring over. If it is so important for Acroterion to defend the honor of Belchman by masking his offenses, he can... --Jayron32 01:39, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

"Defending the honor of Belchman?" That's certainly not how he sees it, nor I. I would have blocked him myself for disruptive editing if my internet connection hadn't been molasses-slow. We generally remove disruptive comments (ii.e., commentary designed to disrupt, having nothing to do with the reference desk), do we not? It's not Usenet, we don't permit flaming, and comments like that simply aren't appropriate for those boards. I see no value in allowing deliberate baiting to persist in an otherwise cordial, but increasingly tangential discussion of people's perceptions of their ancestry. Acroterion (talk) 02:28, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to describe Acroterion's action as "defending the honor of Belchman" given that Acroterion gave him a final warning and he was sooner after blocked. I think it would be better to describe it as freeing a Wikipedia page from a blatant and gratuitous insult against all the members of a minority group. I also think there's not much more to be gained from discussing this further. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:42, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Again, I don't see where anyone except Belchman is shamed by his statement. Covering up his bigotry serves no one especially well. It was a blatant and gratuitous insult, and Belchman should be marked as a blatant and gratuitous insulter. I'm not sure why this is something which mature people cannot discuss. I have already stated that I am not interested in warring over this, but I am trying to understand why, if Belchman is so proud of his bigotry he's willing to post it for the world to see, that we should work so hard to make it seem like he's not bigoted. I wish to understand the perspective that thinks such comments needs to be deleted. --Jayron32 01:56, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

This entire discussion has me baffled. The comment was a personal attack. Do we not remove personal attacks anymore?--Jac16888 ^Talk 01:59, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Define "we" and "anymore". I don't remove them, and I have not. I have warned users, and I have asked them to reconsider and remove such comments themselves. I have blocked users for making them. But I have not made it a general practice to remove such comments for the reasons I have outlined above. Now, if Belchman comes and removes it and indicates that he was wrong in leaving it, I would find that a wise move on his part. --Jayron32 02:09, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Since when do we just remove personal attacks, Jac16888? -- Jack of Oz ^{[your turn]} 02:12, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) He's currently blocked for two weeks, so is unable to do so, and in any event, has shown no sign of understanding that what he wrote was offensive, or why. Bigger picture, I'm not sure this continued discussion is very productive. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:13, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Then please make it productive. I'm not trying to argue with you Newyorkbrad, I am trying to understand your position on this issue. It confuses me, and I'd like to understand better. --Jayron32 02:20, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

If someone interrupted a thread on the reference desk with an irrelevant, insulting remark about black people, or about Jews or Muslims or Christians, or about women, or the like, would you expect it to sit there in perpetuity? This is really no different, in my view. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:24, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I can understand why someone would want to delete that stupid comment. However, there were several consecutive off-topic comments (starting with the previous gripe by Belchman). So maybe put the offensive comment back, for "historical" reasons, and then box up that little section? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:26, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

No, how about let's not do that. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:30, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Then how about just deleting all the comments that would be boxed up, starting with Belchman's lecturing someone for taking the original question somewhat outside the box. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:36, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

@Newyorkbrad: I have never said that it was any different than any of those situations, so I still don't understand your position. It's not the specific target of Belchman's comment that is of concern for me, it is the need to delete it that I am trying to come to terms with. Help me understand. --Jayron32 02:32, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

If someone randomly insulted black people or Jewish people or Chinese people or whatever in the middle of a reference desk discussion, would you want to just leave the insulting comment sitting there, or would you agree it should be deleted? If you think we should just leave it there, we'll have to agree to disagree on this issue, because I emphatically wouldn't find that acceptable. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:38, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Because it was specifically designed to bait another editor, and was disruptive editing? I had hoped it would simply stop once he was called out on it, but that didn't happen. Based on his talk page comments, I'm quite certain the reference desk would have become a short-lived battlefield until the disruptive user was blocked. It's the reference desk, not a gallery of flame-bait. Acroterion (talk) 02:42, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Newyorkbrad: I wouldn't leave it sitting there, I would a) make a statement following it which pointed out how bigoted and disgusting such a comment was and b) contact the person who made it and would immediately request that they modify or remove it. Such comments should NOT be ignored, I am absolutely NOT advocating that. People who make such bigoted statements should be called to task and should be identified for what they are. We don't make bigotry go away by hiding it. We confront injustice and demand change, we don't shuttle it away as though it didn't happen. You're position that we either leave it alone or delete it ignores my position, which is to NOT delete it and to NOT leave it alone. It's better to take a public stand for tolerance and against bigotry than to merely ignore bigotry. There is no antiseptic like the light of day. --Jayron32 02:46, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Did I not contact the editor and demand he stop? Again, my connection at the time was crap, taking 30 seconds to load a page (damned DSL!). If this is somehow vital to the operation of the reference desk, feel free to put in <personal attack redacted> followed by the original timestamp and signature. Acroterion (talk) 02:50, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

You did. But you also deleted his comment. That is what I am not understanding. Why is there a need to remove the comment? --Jayron32 02:53, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

You know, in retrospect, I am being rather pigheaded here. Actoterion's and Newyorkbrad's position is quite respectable here, and while I disagree it is the best course of action, I can respect that they are trying to keep the tenor of the Reference desks appropriate. In thinking about this deeper, I can see and now understand that the goal here isn't necessarily to call speakers of bigotry to task, it is to provide references. I got carried away because I failed to take that perspective. I apologize for this. I am still somewhat uncomfortable with the effect of deleting comments, I still think that people who make bigotted statements of any kind need to be publicly and directly confronted as an example for all; but I can understand and respect that the Reference desks may not be the place to do that, where the goal is to help people find answers to their questions. Again, sorry for being such an asshole about this. My overactive sense of justice sometimes gets the best of me. --Jayron32 03:00, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I understand and respect your sense of justice, and the way you've described your concern doesn't upset me. I think we are just working toward the same goal in different ways. I don't see the reference desk as an appropriate place to allow disruptive comments like that to remain. Practically anywhere else outside of article space, I'd have followed your philosophy and left it there in all its shining obnoxiousness. Perhaps the best way to describe the way I see it is that the reference desk is somewhere between talkspace and article space, and not a free-fire zone for bigoted pontification. I see justice in this case as a laudable goal, but secondary to the operation of an encyclopedia. Acroterion (talk) 03:06, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm of the "remove the comment, report it, and eventually block the offender if they keep it up" school of thinking on this. The comment does not need to stand in order for there to be repercussions, but reporting it is necessary if it is going to be part of a record. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:31, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

May a newcomer, newbie, whatever air his view: The mission should determine the appropriate action. Comments worthy of trial, pilloring, drawn in quarter, etc. should be hastily removed so as to not steal effort from the main task.

Perhaps there is a need for a village "stock" or pilloring stake, just as there is for the village pump.

Then we who detest letting such antics stand (although removed) unbemet, have some place to brand the offenders foreheads. Please note this was written in appreciation of your efforts, but with a bit of a tongue in a cheek.

Idealist707 (talk) 21:22, 12 November 2011 (UTC)