Misplaced Pages

How about a warning template for those who attack established editors in front of the OP? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 15:30, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Or we could hold a contest to find the RD regular who most closely resembles a currently-prominent U.S. political candidate, in terms of always equating criticism with attacks, and never apologizing, but rather always attacking back. —Steve Summit (talk) 16:03, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

You would be high on that list. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 20:57, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

In view of this, I _am_ making it official. See WP:AN#Proposed sanctions against StuRat. Tevildo (talk) 18:17, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Note that Tevildo's complaint was soundly rejected. StuRat (talk) 22:11, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, as always, there was no consensus for any action to fix one of the Reference Desk's problems, so we have to put up with StuRat's extromissions p.r. for the foreseeable future. Perhaps one day things might change. Tevildo (talk) 09:22, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

The closest thing to a consensus was that if you disagree with an answer you should politely state why you disagree and include your evidence, not run off to ANI and file a complaint. The former is constructive, while the latter is merely disruptive. StuRat (talk) 15:14, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

New form of trolling?

Someone is copy-pasting questions from horse forums (including, in many cases, responses). They come from a wide variety of IP addresses. If anyone sees this, please either hat or delete the question, perhaps leaving a note that makes it clear this is not an appropriate use of this desk. --Jayron32 12:17, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Summer vacation lasts too long for some people. Count Iblis (talk) 21:14, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Double Standards

Why is it that a regular established user can ask a completely non-appropriate question asking for opinion, and thoughts whereas if a not so established user does it, they get hatted or banned? I think it's about time this was addressed. It's as cliquey as it gets. Worth even escalating this the powers "that be" around here.

Although I suspect if they gave a toss something would have been done by now.

So as it stands, if you're an established editor you can circumvent the rules. If you're not, one toe out of the white line and off it goes. That's fair isn't it?185.81.158.144 (talk) 09:51, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Oh look, another drive-by attacking the regulars. Maybe after you've established a colorful personality and contributed 1,000+ edits instead of just hiding behind a number you can have an opinion. Maybe. In the meantime, please, someone ban him. CricketInsects (talk) 10:56, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

This appears to be trolling, since this is CricketInsects' first post. Sjö (talk) 11:04, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Every day, a troll goes hungry. These are not trolls in some third-world country, but right here at home. The growing rate of trolls is alarming. In the United States alone, the number of hungry trolls is expanding at a rate of 1 troll for every 15 Nigerian spam emails.

For example, take little CricketInsects here. On the comments section of his local blog, he does not even gain enough responses to fill an entire Tweet on Twitter. He has been forced to go into Yahoo! chat rooms and pose as an underage girl just for enough troll food to last the night.

Sponsoring a troll is easy. For the cost of sending just one flame or other response, your contribution (along with others) will keep one troll fed for a month. If you include your email address, you can get weekly or even daily letters from your troll. Think of what one post from you could mean to a hungry troll.

Please. Feed a troll today. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:09, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi 185.81.158.144, this is a perennial issue on Misplaced Pages. The essays about it are WP:IPHUMAN and WP:DONTBITE. However, the website is also not set up with any incentives to address the issue. In a sense, Misplaced Pages created the two-tier system by permitting people to register a username when they edit. You may find like-minded people at WP:Teahouse or WP:RETENTION. 184.147.119.135 (talk) 15:29, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Whatever the reason for this is I don't know and don't care but 185.81.158.144 is a proxy server. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:35, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Continuation of the above

As invited by Bugs, I would respectfully request the community's input on this, my hatting of a particularly blatant example of the issue discussed above. I do not intend to restore the hat a second time, so if the consensus is that this sort of material is acceptable, accept it I shall. Tevildo (talk) 19:54, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

You would also need to hat Jayron's guess, or else you're playing favorites. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 20:06, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, the attack on an editor part (and responses) needed hatting, but my initial comment was at least as good as Jayron's "I wonder if..." response, so I unhatted it. (Tevildo, your ANI complaint was flatly rejected, so stop trying to take matters into your own hands.) StuRat (talk) 22:07, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Reference desk for music

I normally use the Entertainment reference desk for music. But I recently noticed somebody used the Humanities reference desk for music. Any examples of subjects that some people disagree on what reference desk to use?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:23, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Sports doesn't really have a good place either. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:08, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

What do you mean?? Do any Wikipedians disagree with you on the best reference desk for sports?? Georgia guy (talk) 01:12, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't know but Entertainment sounds more like movies or pop. I guess they could go on Entertainment or Miscellaneous like music could go on Entertainment or Humanities. It's not really a big deal. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:17, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Usually the objection is made by people who consider their Stravinsky more a serious cultural pursuit than idle entertainment, a distinction with which I disagree. The current designated desk is Entertainment. If someone prefers to use Humanities instead, and they feel they will get an answer as good or better there, I have no strong objection. They should understand the effect on the archives, which are an important part of RD. To the extent they use Humanities, music questions will be split between two desks and two archives. Thus they put their own ego-based prejudice and preference before the overall good of the project. I wouldn't do it, but it's their choice as far as I'm concerned. I also wouldn't object if an editor moved a music question from H to E, provided they use the proper move templates as was done for this thread. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:32, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I definitely think there is a difference between classical and pop music, such that classical music questions should go in Humanities and pop music questions in Ents. --Viennese Waltz 07:45, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Well I would put literature and art under entertainment rather than humanities. Perhaps it would be better to rename entertainment to culture (and just hope it doesn't get questions about streptococcus). Dmcq (talk) 08:26, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

But that raises questions like where to put questions about Basil Poledouris, John Williams, Scott Joplin, or Gilbert and Sullivan. Poledouris and Williams write classical stuff for popular purposes (and Williams is just as likely to be known for either), Joplin wrote popular music but is now studied in mostly the same manner as classical music. Gilbert and Sullivan continue to be both classical and popular. The only distinction between high- and low- brow is timing and what people with money think they need to be more serious about, so it's too arbitrary. Plus, there's no reason why one couldn't be engaged in a technical study of, say, DragonForce as a "serious cultural pursuit," nor any reason why someone couldn't come in asking "I got a bitchin' new subwoofer for my car, what's that song with the kickass cannons?" Ian.thomson (talk) 12:30, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

I definitely think there is a difference between classical and pop music - Of course there's a difference. There is also a distinct difference between most Hollywood movies and the more cerebral independent films; should we segregate them, too? I think not. Broad categories are fine, even if it means that responders only interested in classical music and cerebral films have to ignore a lot of questions that don't interest them. They might accidentally broaden their horizons a little, heaven forbid. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:49, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

There is also a difference between Rambo 2 and Rambo 3 - everything is different and unique in its own way. But pretending that there's an objective line in the sand to be drawn between "high art" and "low art" is ludicrous and completely against the spirit of Misplaced Pages. We do not, for example, put our porn biographies and Family Guy episode articles on a different level than our biographies of composers or articles about books of the Bible. I have long been a proponent of combining the Ent and Humanities desks into a single "Arts & Entertainment" desk for this - and other - reasons. Matt Deres (talk) 14:29, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Humanities isn't just about the arts, though, is it? It's about "history, politics, literature, religion, philosophy, law, finance, economics, art, and society." --Viennese Waltz 14:45, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

The history and politics facet of the humanities desk is actually one reason why I'm not quite for merging them: if Entertainment remains separate, there's still a place to ask questions about literature, art, and possibly society whenever the humanities desk gets locked (as it does at the drop of a stahlhelm). Further dividing the humanities desk (and sticking to WP:RBI instead of locking the whole page over a limited and easily exhaustible number of socks by one person) would limit damage. Otherwise, I would be neutral on further division or combination. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:38, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

If Humanities is to be believed, we've already split off its Language component into a separate ref desk. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 12:06, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Sure, taxonomy is a perennial problem, both on WP, and in real life. For some refs and context, see Knowledge_organization, Subject_(documents), Faceted_classification, and maybe this blurb from the SIG from the American Society for Indexing. Traditionally, a librarian (a trained specialist in cataloging) would look at an item and look at the system and decide how to classify it. Even then, there were deep problems and disputes. Here, we ask the user (with no special training) to classify their own items, before they write them. So really it's a miracle that things get categorized in anything resembling as sane matter. So maybe our users do ok at assessing aboutness after all :) SemanticMantis (talk) 16:31, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Personally, I always look at all the desks except for (often) Mathematics, whose questions are almost always too advanced for someone like me who dropped out of a science degree because of shaky maths, and I've even contributed there on a couple of rare occasions. Do not the vast majority of regulars do the same (so the choice of desk used for a borderline question doesn't really matter), or do many really only look at (to use the current example) Entertainments or Humanities but not both? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.123.26.60 (talk) 12:49, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

A more logical split might be "Arts and Entertainment" - Twilight to Harrison Birtwistle, with no implied division between high and low culture - and "History, Politics and Philosophy". Neither really seems appropriate for sport, though. Tevildo (talk) 22:30, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Different number of heart valves in the heart sides

I've taken the liberty of moving this question to Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Science Wnt (talk) 02:07, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Robert McClenon has asked ArbCom to review our conduct at the Ref Desks

See here. So, I guess we should start to behave now :) . Count Iblis (talk) 18:53, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

The aim should be not to get noticed at all here. Apparently, some editors (not just Robert) don't share this objective. ---Sluzzelin talk 04:15, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Count me among them. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:55, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Maybe I don't understand. The time to have started behaving was in the past, when one started editing Misplaced Pages, and most but not all of the editors here have been behaving. I agree that the aim should be not to get noticed at all. I also have come to agree with User:Guy Macon that this talk page should not be a place to discuss the Reference Desk conduct of other editors (either go to their own talk pages, or go to WP:ANI after reading the boomerang essay, or ignore them), and that attempting to control the behavior of other editors at the Reference Desks is not useful. Every editor here should have known that what they said here was on the record. If you, whoever you are, haven't been uncivil, haven't been a troll, haven't engaged in ownership behavior at the Reference Desks, haven't been tendentious, and have followed talk page guidelines, ArbCom isn't going to sanction you. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:27, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, Robert, it was a bit cryptic. It's not really that easy, and it's often time-consuming, to compellingly justify the desks' existence within Misplaced Pages, especially when we get noticed. Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Refdesk reform RFC for one example of how noticing our sometimes/frequently substandard behavior and competence can lead to a principal questioning of the desks. I'm not worried about anyone in particular being sanctioned, including myself, but, anxious person that I am, occasionally worry about the desks being shut down. I continue to believe that the best means of countering the crap by well-meaning or semi-well-meaning editors (in any event not "trolls" whose stuff can get removed) is by reference (or expertise when it's actually present) and by delivering referenced answers to the question that was asked.

I do agree with you and Guy Macon: We needn't discuss individual behavior on this page. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:48, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

You're saying that RD might be shut down if subjected to close scrutiny, so we should avoid that scrutiny. If it's not easy to compellingly justify the desks, we should maintain open minds and ask why that is. Perhaps the desks are not justifiable. I put community consensus before all, including my own views, and I think yours is a bad approach. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:08, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Approach? My approach is to help the people who ask questions at the desks, to the best of my ability, and as long as it's fun. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:20, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps now, when there is a real possibility that ArbCom will accept a broad case that includes interactions between registered editors at the Reference Desks, we should at the very least agree to try my solution (don't discuss the conduct of other Reference Desk users on the Reference desk talk page; Either ignore them, discuss it on their talk pages, or go to ANI) as a limited-time experiment? That would almost certainly cause arbcom to back off and see if we can fix this problem without them. I fail to see why some here oppose even trying my solution. Is it really better to have arbcom impose a solution on us? --Guy Macon (talk) 04:41, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Where you really should not be talking about other editors is in front of the original poster. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 05:01, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

The Committee are asking for input on the matter here: Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case#The Rambling Man. 213.107.114.104 (talk) 10:23, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I've already commented there. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 10:34, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

If ArbCom does impose a remedy on the Reference Desks, it may be discretionary sanctions, which allow relatively quick imposition of sanctions, typically topic-bans, on disruptive editors. (As you can see, in my statement, I have suggested that the ArbCom consider discretionary sanctions for ITN, DYK, and the Reference Desks.) If you haven't been snarky or hostile, you don't need to worry. I think that ArbCom is very unlikely to shut down the Reference Desks, since the complaint primarily has to do with ITN and DYK, two features that apparently have a lot of quarreling, but are not in any danger of being shut down because they are part of the Main Page. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:28, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Just to be clear (and since my "approach" of trying to improve the desks by actually helping out at the desks in a manner I find helpful has been labeled as "bad") go ahead with your efforts of asking ArbCom to look into it. My personal experience with ArbCom might not make me as optimistic as yours, but I'm certainly not standing in your way. My input was just that, not a plea to abandon your cause, despite the apparent misunderstanding. If you feel like reflecting on it, including reviewing the history of the desks, all the better, if you don't, that's your prerogative, and I'm willing (glad, would be lying) to be proven wrong. ---Sluzzelin talk 02:57, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I may be confused or may have missed something. I am not sure who is being criticized here by User:Sluzzelin. I certainly didn't label anything that they did as "bad". I don't see anyone labeling anything as "bad"(with the exception of trolling, and that isn't at issue). It is true that some of us have suggested that discussing the behavior of other editors here is not useful, but that isn't to say that we labeled it as "bad", and besides, Sluzellin isn't one of the editors who have repeatedly criticized the behavior of other editors. I hardly think that anything that I have said about ArbCom is "optimistic" anyway. I have said that if ArbCom does anything, it may be discretionary sanctions, or it may be topic-bans. I certainly don't see that ArbCom is likely to shut down the Reference Desks in response to a dispute that was originally about TRM and ITN and DYK. No reasonable editor should be "optimistic" about ArbCom, which deals with bad situations. I may be confused; I may have missed something; as Sluzzelin says, there may have been a misunderstanding. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:43, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: I believe they are referring, at least in part, to my comment at 03:08, 25 August 2016. I did in fact use the word bad. 20:44, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The Ref Desks are a bit isolated from the rest of Misplaced Pages, so there is the possibility that if the Arbs see some bad behavior here they may come down to not acting on that, as they may see a net benefit in keeping a de-facto "insane asylum" open :). Count Iblis (talk) 20:49, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The bottom line is that if the Arbcom case is expanded to include investigations into the behaviour of editors at the Ref Desk, ITN and DYK (as I'm led to believe it will), many users here had better start thinking about their defence in the face of astonishingly substantive evidence of time-wasting, misleading "answers", social media tendencies and other such poor behavioural issues. It's going to be a stellar popcorn festival. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:06, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Since you've not commented at the arbcom page yet, I would like your permission to copy the above statement to your designated space there. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:12, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Not granted, not at all. I have no interest in commenting in that lynching, and certainly no interest in you commenting in my "designated space" (whatever that is). This note is simply an advisory to any of you who have flown below the radar for a while, the exposure is about to become bright and unpleasant. Expect sanctions. Expect topic bans. Blame Arbcom and Banedon, not me. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:39, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

No need to worry, a violation of Misplaced Pages:Waste of Time only requires a payment in the form of carbon credits to be made to the Wikimedia Foundation. Count Iblis (talk) 21:42, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The arbcom case may be a waste of time, but it will detrimentally affect this project's regulars' ability to "speculate" and chat. For the overall good, of course. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:48, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

There is a vacant section titled "Statement by The Rambling Man". That's what I meant by your designated space. FYI, I defended you. But your commenting on it in various places outside of that page does not help your case. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:53, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

The point is it's no longer "my case", it's "our case" and you, amongst many here, will be a key person in that ongoing discussion, no doubt. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:54, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

You plan to provide evidence? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 21:57, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Should the abuse of the ref desk come up in the case, definitely. I have hundreds of examples. Literally. But it depends on how much time I have, after all I spend most of my available Misplaced Pages time improving things for our readers and not doing this drama crap that most others get so "invigorated" about. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:00, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Passing of a Ref Desk contributor

If this isn't appropriate, just delete it, no big deal.

But User:KageTora died on 6 July 2016.

Can supply his obituary if required, but I'm not sure if that's appropriate.

All he ever did was contribute on the Ref Desk, so here felt like the most appropriate place to post. 82.4.218.94 (talk) 17:21, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Please see Misplaced Pages:Deceased Wikipedians/Guidelines; we would need positive confirmation that the person who died was in fact the Wikipedian by that name; also per WP:OUTING and the like, we avoid linking Misplaced Pages accounts to real people's names unless they do so themselves. If it is true, I do mourn his death; however we cannot publish such information if it is not reliably confirmed. If we cannot confirm the death without violating WP:OUTING, then we really shouldn't say anything. Thank you for the information, and any confirmation you can give would be most appreciated. If you have any more questions, you may be able to contact someone at Misplaced Pages:Deceased Wikipedians/Members who can give you more details on how to document this, if it is true. --Jayron32 17:46, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

His talk page uses both his alleged first and last names at various points. ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 18:45, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Sad news. What was the cause of death? 119.141.244.160 (talk) 18:47, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Unspecified. (I am the IP who posted the news.) Vimescarrot (talk) 07:05, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

His names aren't "alleged". The obituary notice is here: . 213.107.114.104 (talk) 10:12, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I've seen it. How do you know with absolute certainty that it's the same guy? ←Baseball Bugs carrots→ 10:31, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Besides the name, the age details and location seem to match up with KageTora revealed in the past. (KageTora lived in various places, but Liverpool seems to be where they were originally from and they have said in the past they lived with/look after their parents Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2014 December 25.) Nil Einne (talk) 14:15, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate that I am not a reliable source, but for what it's worth I did know him personally. Vimescarrot (talk) 18:40, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Peace to his family and friends, and thank you for letting us know. I'll miss him, and I'm additionally saddened that his last edit on Misplaced Pages was reverted by me. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:03, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you Vimescarrot, and peace to us all. And Sluzzelin, don't feel saddened, but instead find joy that it was you with your gentle edit summary -- "reverting sneaky KageTora" -- who made the reversion. -- ToE 03:46, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, ToE. Upon reflection, I believe it might have made KageTora smile. ---Sluzzelin talk 03:53, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for notifying us, I think he will be missed here. He was generally helpful and useful to all, and I know I learned a few bits about language from him. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:10, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I read this with tears in my eyes though he and I were not especially close associates on Misplaced Pages. I guess it's just the feeling that we'll all be gone in good time, and what will we have accomplished. The thing that comes to mind is MEDITATION XVII, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Edison (talk) 17:44, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Einstein had the right perspective here

Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

Count Iblis (talk) 18:20, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Song Identification

Do you remember the post here: This post

I have finally identified that song as: You to me are Everything by The Real Thing.

Thank you. Collegiate199861 (talk) 21:32, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm glad you found your song and thanks for letting us know. I copied your answer to our archive so that anyone searching there can see it. -- ToE 03:54, 26 August 2016 (UTC)