This is an old revision of this page, as edited by TenOfAllTrades (talk | contribs) at 21:28, 9 December 2006 (→Discuss, don't vote: Not sure that there was time to establish or discuss either way...). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

StuRat's Rant of the Month

January, 2006

"Welcome to Uranus-Hertz Corp. Your call is important to us, although obviously not important enough to actually hire sufficient staff to answer it. Come to think of it, your call isn't very important to us at all, and neither are you. If you have any complaints, we will be glad to connect you to our call center in India, where they will promptly disconnect you. Actually, it won't be all that prompt, you will have to listen to off-station MUZAK for several minutes first."

February, 2006

I actually prefer dials to digital pads. My current microwave oven has one dial for time and one for power level. It has a handle you pull to open, not a button you have to depress. It has no digital display. I can't stand those electronic pads where you have to enter info in a specific way to get it to cooperate and need to re-enter the time after every power glitch to prevent it from flashing 12:00 all the time (like a VCR). Also, on a TV which lacks a volume dial, it's impossible to turn it on and turn the volume down in the early morning hours without waking everybody in the house. With a dial you can turn the volume down before even turning it on.

Another example of technology run amok is the digital "temperature control system" on my truck. In order to receive "permission" to switch to recirc mode when the truck in front of me is belching diesel fumes, I must first page thru the menu until I set it to the face vents position, otherwise it will flash a red light at me that means "access denied". Good luck doing all that while driving. Then, when I turn the vehicle off, all the settings go back to the defaults, as opposed to a manual system which would damn well leave it how I had set it. I guess I will just have to get used to looking (and coughing) like a chimney sweep. Well, I enjoyed my good morning rant, did you ?

Vicious comments from others (and a few that aren't)

Archives

Award

Thanks ! ...wouldn't you know my first award would be for being a smart ass ? StuRat 02:32, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The E=MC² Barnstar
		For your extraordinary contributions to Misplaced Pages reference desks, I award you this EMC² Barnstar. Keep up the good work! deeptrivia (talk) 03:51, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks ! StuRat 19:29, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I maynot be qualified enough to award anything but I can surely support the barnstar you got. Good on you mate! you certainly deserve it ... (My IP address is not permanent.) As per your request I put the four tildes. 202.161.131.69 19:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, too ! StuRat 22:25, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Discussion timing

I've decided to get some things in my life organised, so I won't be spending too much time on Misplaced Pages for a time. My fingers are itching when I see your latest entries and I've just read a book that provided me with some dynamite to throw at you (wrote an article on it, A turning point in national history, but that doesn't really give the reasonings, just the conclusions). Also, you've set this up for a very extended discussion, with all the subheaders, so it would be a bit of a shame if it ended here. But I have to be firm for once. Misplaced Pages has consumed almost a year of my life, so I should try to get some of it back. But I won't give up completely and might respond to some things every now and then. DirkvdM 13:49, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, perhaps I can goad you into further discussion by saying HA HA, I WIN !, LOL. I read your article and corrected it to identify POV content as claims made by the book, not proven fact. I also added the counter-arguments in the new "Criticisms" section. Also, your English, while quite good, needed some slight tweaks here and there. I left the European spelling in, though, since it's a European book. StuRat 16:46, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

House Ethics Committee

I noticed that you created this stub. I replaced it with a redirect to United States House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, which is its official name and already has a longer article. Please check more carefully when creating new articles. NTK 18:18, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that redirect was sorely needed, as it is almost always referred to as the House Ethics Committee and rarely by it's formal name, even by members of the committee. It could be argued that the more common name should contain the article and the formal name should be the redirect, but I will leave it as is. StuRat 18:24, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Generally speaking "generic" government department, branch, or officer names will have a country designator in the title. NTK 22:50, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Reference Desk and unicorns

Notwithstanding what it may say about me that I haven't written apropos of any of your quality responses to sundry questions posed at the various Reference Desks but that I write now about a jocular comment, I must commend your unicorn leapfrogging entry, about which I laughed a good deal. I should say, of course, that I find msot of your answers to be altogether excellent and that I think excellence in responding to questions at the Reference Desks is to be admired, inasmuch as the Reference Desk is often the first location at which non-Wikipedians encounter Misplaced Pages and its editors, such that one's being well-treated at the Reference Desk may lead one to partake of the editing work, improving the project writ large. Joe 01:13, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks ! And you managed to say it all in just two sentences, LOL. StuRat 01:24, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Talk:A turning point in national history

The rogue states thing was actually something I wasn't sure about including. It was just one example in the book and I won't claim to understand what exactly the authors meant by it. About your reaction, there are indeed loads of countries that have done bad things, including the US. So is the US a rogue state? I suppose what the authors meant was that this is a gliding scale. The term 'rogue state' suggests there are two types of countries. An oversimplification that befits Bush.

The opposite approach, apparently taken by you and the authors, is to say "all countries do good and bad things, so should all be treated equally, all the time". This sounds good, until you think it thru. This would mean countries currently engaged in genocide should be treated the same as those who aren't, for example. Shades of "good" and "bad" are definitely needed, with some countries, like those with current genocide programs, and those threatening their neighbors, treated differently than the rest. If you don't like the term 'rogue nations' for these countries, that's fine, you come up with another name for them. StuRat 19:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Your (!) second point is pretty much what the authors claim. The US has been a force for the good in the last century. But the point is that it has stopped doing that. The US unilaterally broke the alliance (the US did that, not Europe!). So Europe has to come up with an answer.

I dispute your claim that the US unilaterally broke the US-European alliance. We tried to get Europe to support the war in Iraq, and portions of it have, such as England, Poland, and, initially, Spain. If countries like France and Germany refused, that's their decision, not that of the US. StuRat 19:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

About your third point, you wouldn't claim the US never made a mistake, would you? The authors acknowledge that the UN make mistakes, but it's the only reasonable option we have (apart from the EU?). Pretty much what I've been telling you too, over the last few weeks.

You seem to be ignoring my discussion of it's current failures (like Darfur) and my reasoning why it will always be a failure (inclusion of totalitarian countries like China on the security council and Muslim nations, such as those with the death penalty for converting to Christianity, in the main body). If it had made a few mistakes in the past but had since proven it's capabilities, that would be different. As is, it's record, and prospects, are both pathetic. StuRat 19:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Who says Iran has plans for nuclear weapons? All that is needed is a good check on what they do with their material (as should be the case with any country that uses nuclear power). And what is needed for that is diplomacy, not the bullying by Israel (they actually attacked the plant, which is effectively a declaration of war - rogue state perchance? :)

We've gone the route of allowing Iran to develop nuclear power with inspections before, and they have repeatedly been caught trying to build nuclear weapons. They have even imported parts from the Pakistani (A Q Khan) who developed Pakistan's nuclear weapons. It is now the position of England, France, Germany, and the US that they have violated the agreement so many times that we no longer trust them and will not permit them to have their own nuclear fuel cycle, as a result. This does not prevent nuclear power, as Russia has offered to provide them with nuclear reactor grade uranium, and have it returned to them once spent. They have refused this offer thus far, suggesting that they want control of the fuel cycle so they can refine the uranium further to weapons-grade. They also have an abundance of oil, making their need for nuclear power at all highly suspect. As for an attack on Iran, I think you are confused. Israel attacked Iraq's nuclear weapons program in the 1980's. The size of Israel is such that the entire population could be killed with only a few nuclear weapons, so they acted unilaterally against an enemy. It was a violation of international law, but I find it highly understandable, on the grounds that survival trumps international law. StuRat 19:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

By the way, who checks on the nuclear plants of the US? Oh and aren't you all in favour of nuclear power? Then why deny other countries that miraculous power source?

The reason nuclear plants are inspected is to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation. In countries which already have nuclear weapons in quantity, that would be entirely pointless. I am in favor of nuclear power for countries which actually need a source of energy and which won't use it as a way to violate the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or provide terrorists with dirty bomb materials, yes. Iran fails all those tests. StuRat 19:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Joe Carr pic

Joe Carr has posted twice on the Humanities Reference desk asking us to remove his pic. He says it's from his website, and not public domain, and he doesn't want it displayed in Misplaced Pages, since he has received death threats. Just wanted to let you know about the situation, you do what you think is right. StuRat 04:08, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

The image posted is perfectly in co-operation with fair use laws. He has received death threats, but how is that relevant to us? Hundreds of our subjects have received death threats. We still include them on our site. If he's so scared of people hunting him down, why does he run a website? If you want a private life, releasing materials publicly to anyone and everyone over the internet is not a smart move. If Osama emailed us and asked not to have his picture on our site, would we remove it? What about if the Wiggles said they didn't want their pic on our site, would we remove it? -- Zanimum 14:48, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I would actually like to prevent people from being murdered, but apparently most Wikipedians, like yourself, prefer to help the would-be murderers. He also says he has consulted a lawyer and will take legal action against Misplaced Pages if it refuses to remove the pic, which I suppose will be necessary. I wonder, if you said something anti-Islamic here, and had Iran sentence you to death and offer a reward as a result, if you would be as happy if Misplaced Pages posted your pic on an article under your name, and maybe included your home address just to be thorough. StuRat 15:00, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Anyone who wants to kill someone can probably conduct the same research that the Wikipedian did to get the picture or home address they want. Part of the benefit of WP:NOR is that Misplaced Pages can't "reveal" anything that's not already public knowledge. Obviously, there might be crackpots who wanted to kill people but who were only capable of tracking people down using Misplaced Pages. But there might also be crackpots who decided that people who asked that pictures be removed from Misplaced Pages deserved some sort of retribution, so there's no clear benefit from trying to understand the crazies. --Tardis 15:51, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages most definitely could reveal things which are not publicly known. Even if they were eventually removed due to a lack of public sources, they would still be in the history. Also, there are degrees of public knowledge. Something may be on microfiche buried in some library, and thus considered "public", but not nearly as many people will find it there as if it were in Misplaced Pages and found at the top of a Google search. I once fell victim to this. The price I paid for my house is considered public info, and I had no objection when it was on microfiche at the Department of Records indexed under something called a "Sidwell Number". However, it's now posted to the internet such that anyone who types in my address knows how much I paid. I consider this to be a bit of an invasion of privacy. I can think of many such public records to which people would like to limit access, such as some medical records, traffic violations, etc. StuRat 20:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

True, such amplification can occur -- but it seems to me that, really, the status of information shouldn't be based on how hard it is to get to it, but rather the other way around. Put another way, just because it's hard (comparatively) to get to your house price doesn't excuse it being public if it being entirely public (e.g., in the newspaper) would be considered improper. I think that any society would do well to deliberately decide precisely what information about a person/institution is public, and then arrange that that and only that information is instantaneously available. (To be relevant to the original point, I don't think this applies to Mr. Carr, because his complaint is about information that he himself distributed (even if he later came to regret that). But certainly it would be impolite at the least to go rummaging through public records to find "public" things to post online. Perhaps that counts (or should count) as harassment?) --Tardis 19:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I still favor degrees of "public info". My credit report, for example, should only be available to those who I've authorized to use it, or perhaps to those with a legitimate need for it. StuRat 20:32, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Ape?

In response to a comment about humans being apes, you responded "No. The closest living relatives of man are the chimpanzees/bonobos, not the apes." I was a bit confused by your statement: my understanding is that both humans and chimpanzees are apes (for instance, as well our Ape) article. What do you believe apes to be? — Knowledge Seeker দ 04:44, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I stand corrected. I must have been thinking of gorillas, when I said humans are more closely related to chimps and bonobos:

StuRat 04:14, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Dutch complicity in genocide in Bosnia

I just saw a program on TV today, about how the Dutch soldiers in the UN peacekeeping force in Srebrenica, Bosnia evicted thousands of Bosnian Muslims who were seeking refuge at their base. As they left the gates, the men were separated from the rest by the Serbs, then taken off and murdered. I, for one, think those Dutch soldiers should be put on trial for complicity in genocide (in the World Court, since the Netherlands won't prosecute them due to the general atmosphere of complicity in genocide throughout The Netherlands). StuRat 04:24, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

sock puppets

Hi, could you confirm that these are not your sock puppets? Cheers, —Ruud 00:33, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I have never used a sockpuppet, under these names or others. If you view my contribution history, you will see I do not vandalize Misplaced Pages, but have contributed dozens of articles and thousands of good edits. I do have AOL as my ISP, however, and they provide dynamic I/P addresses. So, it is possible that those I/P addresses may have been used by me at some time in the past and either previous or subsequent to my use, those dynamic I/P addresses may have been assigned to someone else, who vandalized Misplaced Pages. It's not me, however, and I would like to see the reasoning by which I am being so accused. StuRat 02:18, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

That's good as they were socks of User:Science3456 (who in turn could be WoW). I'd don't know why you were being accused of being these socks, but it User:O^O who placed tags on it stating they were you. You might want ask him about about that. —Ruud 15:26, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I left the question on his talk page. StuRat 02:06, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Hello StuRat. I identified you as a suspected sockpuppet due to similarities between some edits you made and edits made by known sockpuppets of User:Science3456. Of course, when trying to round up sockpuppets, mistakes in identity can occur. No hard feelings I hope. - O^O

OK, but I'd like to see which edits you find to be similar, please. StuRat 20:20, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Hawaii-Tibet relation

I feel that, in the confines of other topics, my theory of the relation between Hawaii and Tibet was not explained correctly. So, this topic is only about why I see a relationship between Hawaii and Tibet. Tibet belonged to China for hundreds of years, then the British took it. When the British left, the U.N. claimed it was an independent nation, but China was not part of the U.N. and claimed it was always part of China and that the British occupation did not change that. So, they are of the opinion that they sent military forces into Tibet, not as an invasion, but as protection of Chinese interests. So, you have a majority of the world that sees the Chinese takeover of Tibet as an invasion and a minority that can rationalize that the troops were sent in as protection of national interests. Hawaii was an independent nation. The U.S. sent a lot of military there and the American businesses brought in a lot of Philipino workers. The Hawaiians became a minority and, when the Queen of Hawaii said she would make a stand to protect the native people from foreign influence, the U.S. military and militias paid by the U.S. companies overthrew the Queen. The U.S. businesses placed their own government in Hawaii which pushed a vote to turn Hawaii into a state. Most people feel that the U.S. military was only sent into Hawaii to protect American interests. There are some who can rationalize that they were sent as an invasion force to overthrow the government and take over Hawaii. So, you have two events with similar views. The primary difference is that one is seen by a majority as an invasion and the other is seen by a majority as a legal takeover. --Kainaw 12:26, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

There are many huge diffs:

• There was a massacre of those who resisted (and many who didn't) in Tibet. No such massacre occurred in Hawaii. The takeover there was relatively bloodless.

• The Hawaiians have been treated well, including having a voice in Congress, being eligible to be US President, etc. By contrast, the Tibetans have absolutely no voice in how their nation is run. I know of no Tibetans who are influential in the Chinese government.

• If only native Hawaiians (of Polynesian origin) were asked to vote on whether they wanted independence, I'm still quite confident they would vote to remain in the US. Yes, there are always a few nuts out there who will argue for independence, but not the majority. On the other hand, if only the native Tibetans were asked if they wanted independence, then I'm quite sure they would vote in favor.

And let me ask, why exactly do you discount the decision of the UN and the majority of the world that Hawaii is a legit part of the US while Tibet is an occupied nation ? StuRat 19:07, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Also, I believe your logic that the US isn't allowed to criticize the occupation of Tibet based on your asertions of the occupation of Hawaii, even if they were true, constitutes a logical fallacy, specifically the Ad_hominem#You-too_version under Ad_hominem#Ad_hominem_tu_quoque. StuRat 20:01, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I feel you continue to miss my point. I do not claim that *I* believe Hawaii was bloodily invaded and I do not claim that *I* believe Tibet was kindly absorbed back into it's mother-country. This all begin by stating that while I lived in Hawaii, I listened and tried to understand those who were active in the Hawaiian Independence movement. Then, working with Chinese, I tried to understand their view that Tibet is and always was part of China. The arguments were very similar - even if you completely disagree with them. Since I don't consider the Hawaiians evil, I find it hard to consider the Chinese pure evil for invading Tibet. Does that make more sense? --Kainaw 20:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

No, it doesn't, because you are completely ignoring the huge diffs in the degree of oppression. That would be like arguing that, since I once made a joke about Jews being cheap with money, I have no right to criticize Hitler's genocide. StuRat 20:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it would be like arguing: Since most people in the United States make jokes about Jews being cheap with money, it is difficult to claim that all Germans are pure evil because of Hitler's genocide. Most people in the United States do not think that there was any illegal invasion or oppression of Hawaii - but some Hawaiians do. Most people in China do not feel that there was any illegal invasion or oppression of Tibet - but most Tibetans do. I'm not comparing the degree of the events - I'm comparing the common threads in the point-of-view of the citizens. Also, keep in mind that the Chinese are basing their opinions on heavily censored information. --Kainaw 15:01, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

When did I say that all Chinese are pure evil ? My point is that the current attitude among many Europeans that the US is evil and China is good is quite dangerous, as it will lead to a realignment with China. There are ample indications that once China becomes the most powerful nation on Earth, it will not be a good thing. The evidence includes Tiananmen Square, the continued occupation of Tibet, it's non-democratic nature, aggressive actions regarding Taiwan, blocking of anti-nuclear proliferation measures against Iran, lack of significant help regarding disabling the nuclear weapons programs in North Korea (which they could single-handedly stop by threatening to cut all aid and trade with North Korea), blocking of anti-genocide measures against Sudan, unfair trade due to their undervalued currency, arrest and torture of members of religious groups like Falon Gong, etc.

Note that all this is while China is on it's "best behaviour" to prevent trade sanctions, etc. However, once they are powerful enough to not worry about such actions, then what can we expect ?

So, everyone should think of China as a dangerous rival, to be contained, not a trustworthy friend. Perhaps, if we can slow the rate of growth of China's economy significantly, it will reform and become a stable democracy before it becomes the most powerful nation on Earth, and thus not pose a danger to the rest of the world. Incidentally, I also think the US is too lenient with China. For example, we should not grant "most favored nation" trading status to such a country. StuRat 16:18, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely. Chinese government cannot be trusted in foreign relations. Of course, I feel that the U.S. government cannot be trusted in MidEast relations either. Also, Mexico treats other Central American countries terribly. Nigeria has terrible relations with its neighbors. It is all around the world from one degree to another. Chinese government is very bad all around. The U.S. has luckily confined most of its terrible relations to oil countries.

My initial point was that the Chinese government did not consider Tibet an invasion because the Chinese government did not consider a separate nation. I never ever claimed that Tibet was considered by the rest of the world to be part of China. Then, after some very nasty emails, I slipped into a second issue of "All Chinese are evil". I get that a lot because I studied Chinese history in depth and, when I explain the Chinese point-of-view, I am called a communist and told to go to China if I hate the U.S. so much. Your comments hit me the worst because I knew, from your previous posts, that you were misunderstaning me. You are obviously more interested in gathering intelligence instead of blocking out all of China behind a stereotype. So, I really wanted to ensure that you understood what it was I was saying (and what I was definately *not* saying). I'm just not very good squeezing in articulate comments between programming and queries at work. --Kainaw 16:49, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps something like this would have worked:

"While the Chinese do not consider themselves to be occupying Tibet, I do."

Note the omission of any mention of Hawaii. Mentioning claims that Hawaii is under a military occupation doesn't do much but make you sound like a nut. StuRat 17:18, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

But, I am a nut. At least that is what the people who take the time to go to my user page, then to my website, then hunt down my email address and email me keep saying. Well, they use worse words than "nut", but it's all the same. The Hawaii reference came later in our conversation. I was explaining what happened to change my opinion of the Chinese point-of-view. I always considered them ruthless until the Chinese I talked to described Tibet in the same way the Hawaiians I talked to described Hawaii. It humanized the whole thing from both sides. I still consider the Chinese government to be ruthless, but not the Chinese themselves. --Kainaw 23:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

There are some probs with just believing whatever a few people you meet say, they could be oddballs out of synch with the majority of the population, for example. Also, you appear to have been biased based on who you talked with. I get the feeling you never talked with any Tibetans, or you would have a very different opinion. In the case of genocide, it can be difficult to find anyone left from the side that was killed off, so any opinions you get in that country will likely be from those who committed the genocide or were complicit in it. That's not a very good way to form your opinions. StuRat 00:18, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Welcome back

Hi StuRat. I always look forward to reading your posts on the Ref Desk, with their trademark clarity and sanity, and even when I disagree with your arguments, they always give me plenty to think about, so whenever you go AWOL you leave a gaping hole. Welcome back, and I hope you were enjoying whatever you were doing. Cheers JackofOz 14:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I wasn't actually away, just reduced my level of contributions as I'm in the process of moving. Next month I should be back to "full time". StuRat 15:55, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Googolplexian (number)

Would you care to take a look at the debate again? Cheers, —Ruud 00:50, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I've never looked at that debate before, since my vote, as noted, was indeed forged. StuRat 03:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Vermiform Appendix

Hello, I am not trying to start an edit war with you. I believe that Misplaced Pages should not provide sides of a debate that don't exist. In other words, if no serious researcher has proposed that the appendix may have been involved with the digestion of raw meat, then that hypothesis is unverifiable (meaning it cannot be verified to exist) and should not appear on the article. I encourage you to keep looking for verification that it is a serious hypothesis, even a minority one, at which point I would fully support including it in the article. --Ginkgo100 14:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know why you were unable to find any info. Here is plenty:

These refs in no way prove that this is the function of the appendix, but they do show this is the opinion of many people, so it should be discussed in the article. StuRat 04:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Excellent! My searches on "appendix" and "raw meat" didn't turn these up, so I appreciate your effort. Those are certainly enough for me to agree that the hypothesis is serious enough to include in the article. I would prefer something peer-reviewed, but since it's only a hypothesis, I think the only thing that needs to be verified is that it exists, not that it is widely accepted. Thanks for your hard work on this. I would use the first link you listed as a citation, as it is stated more clearly than in the last one and it's probably better than using a link from a creationist/ID discussion, since many are suspicious of the facts in such discussions. --Ginkgo100 16:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

My impression was that those sites were debunking ID, not in support of it, so I think the discussion there was fairly rational. I don't know that any of those sites are good enough to be used as references, though, since, as I said, they only prove that the theory exists, they don't offer convincing evidence that it is correct. StuRat 23:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Voice compression

Hello! Are there any sources for the Voice compression article that you can add to it? Thanks. --cholmes75 15:10, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I added a good source, removed the tag, renamed the article, and made the old article into a disambiguation page. I also noted other uses besides advertising mentioned in the source, so might add an "Other uses" section to the article. StuRat 19:36, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Message from Aiman

Actually, The reference about Jambatan Parit Sulong was adopted from Buku Rekod Malaysia Edisi Kedua by Ghulam Jie M Khan a Malaysian author and researcher. - Aiman b Majid 3 July 2006

Image:X_cubed_plot.jpg

I've been deleting things from Category:Images with the same name on Wikimedia Commons. You uploaded a number of similar images to commons, but not this one, though you marked it as being there. An oversight, perhaps? I removed the tag. moink 16:17, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, same thing with Image:X cubed rotated plot.jpg. Though they're not in the deletion log at Commons, maybe since they were identical to the gif versions (but less pretty), and the gif versions are at Commons, someone decided they weren't useful? moink 16:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Yea, keep the GIF versions in commons and delete these, assuming nobody has linked to them since. Do you know how to do the link check in all wikiprojects at once ? I did, but have since forgotten how. StuRat 16:51, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Trampolines

I don't know if you're still working on that side of things, or if you still think it's worth it, but what do you think about Simple Wiki? Don't you think it could accomplish the same thing? Could is stressed because right now not only are the articles simple but they're incredibly short and don't really explain much at all.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  01:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I think those articles are a bit too simple for a general audience. And, as you've noted, it hasn't really caught on, either. I'd rather see Misplaced Pages proper contain an article or section for each subject, suitable to all knowledge levels, at least from average on up. StuRat 02:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course, and hopefully Jimbo does to. Guess I'll wait a couple years and see how things unfold.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  05:01, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Intersexuality/Hermaphrodite

we (would) also need different terms for cancer in people versus animals, for heart disease in animals versus people (and why not different names for hearts as well ?), etc.

Very well said. This would naturally lead to confusion and frustration for users, and as an example, let me cite my own experience:

I heard the phrase "male pseudohermaphrodite" on a TV drama (House MD), so I wanted to learn more about it on Misplaced Pages. There was no article by that name, so I typed pseudohermaphroditism. Confusingly, this redirected me to intersexuality. Why not redirect to hermaphroditism? I guess this is because the hermaphroditism article doesn't exist, but rather also redirects to intersexuality...oh wait, it does exist! But it's not about humans, it's about animals, because its use for humans is somehow not PC!

This was very confusing and frustrating, so I wondered if any other person was annoyed by it. Thankfully, I saw your comments on the talk page of intersexuality. I suspect that you are right, that the term hermaphroditism is commonly accepted by the medical community. See and . So basically we have got to do something about this confusing set of redirects and articles. Maybe we should recruit an expert to settle the matter:

• If "hermaphroditism" is not offensive, we'll merge.
• If it is offensive, we should at least not blindly redirect articles like pseudohermaphroditism to intersexual without providing more context in the beginning of intersexual, like "the conditions previously known as pseudohermaphroditism and hermaphroditism are now known as intersexuality, as such usage is offensive. Pseudohermaphrodism refers to so and so type of intersexuality, while hermaphroditism refers to so and so type of intersexuality".

JianLi 02:53, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I've added this hatnote to hermaphroditism: :''For hermaphroditism in humans, see ].'' JianLi 03:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good, except instead of saying "such usage is offensive", I would say "this usage is considered to be offensive by some", as I suspect that only a rather small portion of the population considers it to be offensive. StuRat 15:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Sturat Industries

Hi StuRat, I just nominated the article Magnificent city council for AfD as a hoax and noticed that the article creator, User:Admin@sturatindustries seems to have referenced your user name in theirs. You might be flattered, but I just thought I'd let you know that someone may be using your name in vain, just in case there's some other issue at play here. I'm guessing the use of the word "Admin" and another user's name violates WP:USERNAME anyway so the account probably doesn't have much longer to live! Regards, --Canley 13:25, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I expect it's just a coincidence, though. I think Sturat is an actual name in India. StuRat 14:54, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I just got an email from the user involved. He's actually a Tasmanian high school student, but you're right, it appears to be just a coincidence that he's used the name as a nickname for some time. He said he's happy to remove the "admin" as he was not aware of the user name policies. Cheers, --Canley 16:03, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the follow up ! StuRat 18:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Reading, England

If you don't mind me asking, I'm curious as to what kind of reading you do outside of Misplaced Pages. I'm assuming you're a reader, mind you. Maybe you listen a lot to education AM radio in India or something.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I pretty much do all my reading online. Besides Misplaced Pages I go to various news sites and do general Google searches for info in which I have an interest. I also listen to NPR (US National Public Radio) and PRI (Public Radio Internationale) and watch PBS (US Public Broadcasting Service) TV. Between those various sources I usually get some reliable info. StuRat 12:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Roger!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  10:03, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Archiving

Would it be possible, when you remove a transclusion, to also update the corresponding archive page, to reflect the changes made. Remove one here, add one there, thank you--VectorPotential 15:21, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

• In the mean time, I'll continue creating the transclusion pages, until someone else is able decipher RoadWizard's somewhat convoluted, template/archive system--VectorPotential 15:21, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

• I thought the archive pages were already created when the transclusions were first done. Isn't the individual archive page what the transclusion points to ? Do you mean the main archive page lacked links to the individual archive pages ? I'm confused. StuRat 21:04, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages:Reference desk archive/Mathematics/August 2006, the monthly pages, although you may be right about the transclusions and the archives being created at the same time. But since I've been doing the catch up transcluding and archiving, and I wasn't really sure, I had been waiting until the transclusions were removed, before adding them to the monthy archive page. Which is no longer made of a single transclusion. Yes, it's confusing--VectorPotential 02:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

• OK, let's each double check our work after we make any change. StuRat 02:28, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

• On that topic, Template:Reference desk navigation is now a whole new template, that only requires the desk topic, and the date of the archive, the template now calculates everything else on it's own.. --VectorPotential 02:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

re: ==Can Nero allow you choose the sampling frequency when you rip?== on Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Computing, Sept. 3/06

Audio. Please respond on my talk page: user:100110100. Thanks.24.70.95.203 16:52, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think you can do that directly in Nero. You must use an audio editing software for that. StuRat 20:32, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

REf desk rumpus

StuRat, bearing in mind the criticism we seem to be having regarding jokey comments, what do you think of the idea of putting the ref desk editors jokes as editorial comments that would not be seen on the main page. You know, using <!this is a comment> ?--Light current 17:31, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I suppose that might be a good idea for a comment or joke that makes fun of the question asker, like the recent "is this a joke or does he really not know how to divide by 10 ?". However, using that for the average joke means I won't see them unless I edit that section, and, of course, I won't edit the section because I don't know there's a joke there. I'd prefer to avoid that. StuRat 17:40, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Understood. But there probably will be a joke there if I know the rest of the ref desk contributors!--Light current 17:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

RD transclusions

Thanks for your concise instructions at the RD but I have had to rescind my commitments to remove old and create new transclusions at this at time. When things get back to normal at here home I'll revisit. I feel very sorry to have let you down.  :-( --hydnjo talk 00:03, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

addendum: I'll force the time to continue with the date headers, that'll cheer me up a bit.  :-) --hydnjo talk 00:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the effort, and I hope you find more time to help in the future. StuRat 04:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Something has gone wrong with WP:RD/M, with most of the questions now duplicated. (See contents listing.) I think this might have happened just after you did something with it(?) but I don't know how to fix it.--Shantavira 14:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, it was my fault, and I've now fixed it. I was doing cut and paste from the Ref Desk to the Archive Page, and I apparently did an accidental extra paste to the Ref Desk, as well, doubling all the entries. StuRat 14:50, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Aversion Desensitization Therapy

Hey, Sturat, your idea got me curious, how exactly would I go about doing that if I were to take you up on it?- Blusher

I'm not sure how old you are, if you're under 18, you might want to try just talking to girls on the Internet, in chat rooms. Try it first without a cam, then, after you get comfortable with that, try it with the cam on. (If you don't have one and can't afford one, skip this step.) Then you're ready to talk with girls in person. If you're old enough in your location, you can go to a night club or bar to talk with girls. If you're younger, then maybe try parties or game arcades. StuRat 01:27, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Note that I used the wrong term, it' actually called desensitization therapy. StuRat 01:55, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

No, I mean like what would I talk to them about?

Well, whatever things make you blush normally. I get the impression that's just about anything. After you get so you can talk normally without blushing, then try talking about things more likely to make them blush, like how pretty they are, etc. StuRat 22:03, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

By the way, how do you cross things out like you just did?

You do this:

<s>Aversion</s>

To get this:

Aversion

StuRat 22:03, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I will definitley try it, I will tell you if it works, although that may be a little while, like a couple weeks or something. Hopefully I can get it cleared up. :)

New picture at Boolean Logic

I replaced the JPG picture with an SVG one because SVG is better capable of expressing vector information, and also because JPEG files introduce sometimes undesirable compression artifacts. For more information, see Misplaced Pages:Preparing images for upload. -- Peter O. (Talk) 06:21, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Why are you so bloody stubborn

I noticed in a desperate bid to save your ass form a losing battle, you have set up a straw man argument, using english definitions, and claiming my point as incorrect. We are trying to discuss scientific terminology, please dont try to discredit my point with your pathetic whinings, just because your wrong, doesnt mean you have to be a dick. Philc _TC 17:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

My arguments are perfectly sound. You're the one who is wrong, and the one who is resorting to a personal attack (name calling). Calling people names (ass, dick, idiot) is counter productive. If someone disagrees with you, respect their POV, don't insult them. StuRat 22:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

If I am not kicked out for getting into a conversation of two administrators, can I ask what are we talking about? -- 08:48, 9 November 2006 (UTC) (I am from a cyber cafe; there may be others too!).

I "corrected" Philc when he called slowing down "acceleration", and I said that it should be called "deceleration". He then became abusive (some of which you see above). Apparently, there is a diff between UK English (him), where the word "decelerate" is considered to be improper slang, and US English (me), where it's perfected well accepted, even by scientists. However, none of that excuses calling names. Philc and I have since made up. StuRat 17:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The smell of air

http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science#Water --Russoc4 23:56, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

From Loomis (Lewis)

Stu, of all the guys on the RefDesk I find you to be by far the most sensible, and one of the most intelligent. We seem to have an affinity of opinion on so many subjects. I highly value each and every of your posts, as they're usually a refreshingly sensible, amongst all the bullshit flying around...(especially from you-know-who!)

I don't want to make you feel guilty or anything, but I asked a question that was very difficult to ask, and very near and dear to my heart. It took me over two years to come to terms with certain things, and I finally asked it. Again, I don't want you to feel guilty, I just felt like I had to write to tell you that I was hoping for a more serious response, one without a bunch of silly "Dick Cheney" jokes.

In any case, I still have a great deal of respect for you and your intelligence. I guess I just felt the necessity to write this little bit, if anything, just out of respect for my brother's memory.

I look forward to continuing with all the RefDesk fun, and if we can finally figure out exactly where he lives, maybe one day we'll seek out Dirk and give him the wedgie he so badly deserves! :--)

Take it easy Stu. I'm probably just overreacting anyway. You seem like a really decent guy.

Lewis

Sorry Lewis, I tend to use humor to try to diffuse tense situations. Following that vicious personal attack by Philc (see above), I needed to either laugh or risk stooping to his level. I removed my joke. StuRat 02:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

No problem Stu. Using humour to diffuse tense situations is actually an art my people have (for tragic reasons of course) developed a mastery of. Have you ever seen Life is Beautiful? Many Jews are utterly offended by it, considering it to be some sort of mockery of the hell that was the Holocaust. To me, the movie was a masterpiece. Its masterful juxtaposition of deep, deep sorrow with humour was simple genius. Far better than any shitty sacharine tear-jerker that Spielberg could ever produce.

In any case, I know that I have a bit of a problem myself with having a short fuse when it comes to certain things. I'm sure that I must seem like some sort of "frothing-at-the-mouth" paranoid Jew, completely blowing up at each and every of the tiniest hints of anti-Semitism. But I'm working on it, and I hope it's starting to show.

The reason I'm saying this is because, well, I recognize that Phil tends to let his temper get the better of him as I (hopefully used to) do. Yet I don't know if you remember, but I know you were participating in the discussion, but he once went on with a little rant about how "Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tito" etc... Did some good things for their people. Naturally, both you and I pounced on the absurdity of it all, and later on, recognizing what he had said, he wrote me a special note on my userpage apologizing for what he said. It wasn't necessary, but he did it anyway. That's why I feel that deep down, while like me, he can be a bit of a hot-head at times, deep down he's a decent guy.

But who knows...maybe I'm wrong, maybe I just feel for the guy because I think I can relate to his senseless rants and often utterly gauche behaviour because that's how I see myself early on, when I started out at Misplaced Pages. But who knows. I could be completely wrong about all of it.

Of course I know you much better, and it's far less of a guessing game with you. I KNOW you're a decent guy, while, on the other hand, I'm only ASSUMING Phil is. And like I said at the RefDesk, I'm now feeling like I'm sticking my nose far into where it doesn't belong, so I'll quit while I'm ahead. After all, it's your business, and it's totally up to you how to deal with the whole thing.

Lewis

Thanks, but I'm not going to forgive Philc unless he actually asks for forgiveness, as he apparently did with you. StuRat 06:59, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I didn't, I just apologised, and explained my position which had been misenterprated, much as I had with you, and Loomis being the good guy who I respect, saw that I meant no harm, despite what I had said, and that I was sorry, and was willing to forgive me, and that is why I have so much respect for him. But you simply restarted the quarrel on my I-page... shame really... Philc _TC 21:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

And did you also call him a dick while "explaining your position", as you did with me ? I hardly consider suggesting that you should refrain from swearing at other Wikipedians, and treat people with respect, to be "starting a quarrel", unless you disagree that people should be treated with respect. And this was on your "Help me improve" page, which would seem to be the proper place for such a suggestion. StuRat 23:17, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok this really is getting a bit pathetic now, were not even remotely intrested in the original point anymore, would you agree to put the whole thing behind us, and just forget about it, as it really doesnt seem to have any place on wikipedia, and even an argument or this in real life would be pretty sad, so you reasy to just call it cool now... cause I know I am. Philc _TC 23:41, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm fine with calling it quits, but please don't swear at me or insult me in the future. StuRat 23:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm I hate it when people talk down to me, especially when were meant to be in an equal society, I dunno, maybe I'm just a bit of an anarchist at heart. Well I'll let it slide because thers nothin to be gained by being grumpy, so glad to have this behind us. See ya around buddy, most probably on the ref desk! hehe. Philc _TC 00:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Reference Desk

Thank you for pointing out the template on the Ottoman capitals, I guess I was too busy looking for the capitals in the article to notice. By the way, those are a lot of edits you have. | AndonicO 12:01, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome ! StuRat 12:07, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Referece desk

Oh StuRat, Canada stands on guard for thee as we commend you for your incredible selfless robot-like diligence in maintain intergalactic order at RD. I seriously hope you're not getting in shit at work for doing this. I'm not really sure what's happened to all the bot requests, but for the moment I have started laying out a make-shift RD that could be used to transfer the existing pages into a new stream-lined interface once there is a bot willing to handle all of the archiving. After the front page is expanded to include all the rules and stuff, I'm going to add a new RD template to each of the subpages, and see where I can go from there.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  05:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Cool. And thanks. StuRat 06:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of which, I've worked your reference to the previous months archive into the template directly, so it's now a part of the top bar--152.163.100.136 18:21, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good, but is this Fresh ? Just forgot to log in ? StuRat 18:53, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Nope.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  01:34, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, either that or I'm VectorPotential (: The date math in the current version of the template is so twisted I figured I was the only one who would be able to update it at this point (: Even if I am too busy with university work to continue hands-on RD maintenance work -- 172.147.144.217 17:44, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yea, that date math confused me. StuRat 17:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

If I have some free time this weekend I'll try and template-ify some of the date math, to make the header less cluttered. Also, there's still one minor glitch concerning the years, sort of going to be a problem once we get to 2007.--172.165.196.210 10:39, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

OK, cool. StuRat 10:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, that didn't work, just made it more buggy and over complicated--Molecular Hamiltonian 19:19, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, now it does work, but only with subst--Molecular Hamiltonian 19:53, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Language

"RefDeskia". Hehe. I Like it. :) --Russoc4 17:36, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks ! :-) StuRat 17:43, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Marking Ref Desk questions as answered -- unanswered

About the "answered question" thing, I can see why you especially would want a system like that, so let's just go out and try it for 1 week on one of the desks. Do you have any problems with a simple "- answered" tag on the question?

Also, I was thinking that it might work if the requirement is for questioners to tag their own questions when they feel they are properly dealt with. Of course not all questioners come back to check their answers, but if only 50% of them could get checked manually (by a person that can't be challenged), I think it could work all the more smoothly.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  04:42, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Judging by the number of questions which are unsigned, don't list the country where relevant, are obvious homework questions, etc., I doubt if many of the question askers will pay much attention to any request we make that they mark them as answered. The answered tag on the title works for me. I suggest we put it in uppercase in front of the rest. For example: "ANSWERED - How many seagulls can I fit down my pants ?". :-) StuRat 04:56, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Does it really matter if it's in front and in caps? Don't forget that you are possibly the most prolific RD user, the top three probably handling more than a quarter of the edits, and most users won't care for the extra load of information. I would like to have it too, but I think it makes sense to have something that is easy to see, but doesn't stand out so much when you're not looking for it.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  14:13, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I would think it would be much quicker to scan thru the TOC for "ANSWERED" if it's in uppercase, and either right or left justified. Since we can't right justify, we need to left justify, by putting it in front. StuRat 14:40, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

You're kind of losing me now. Unless you're planning on scanning the TOC in like 3 seconds I don't see how this all makes a difference. Anyways, I think I'll leave this alone for the meantime and focus on editing the RD. That and the fact that I haven't actually read any articles in a while!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  15:07, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Old question about Japanese history books

I forgot to respond to your question about your facts:

Which of my facts are a little bit off ? The new situation is North Korea having nuclear weapons and soon being able to reach the US West Cost with them. Once this happens, US threats to respond (if North Korea attacks Japan) will no longer be credible. Thus, Japan needs to be fully self-sufficient militarily. However, this makes the rest of Asia quite uncomfortable until Japan atones for their sins during WW2 ("If they don't say they're sorry for WW2, does this mean they will do it all again ?"). StuRat 12:02, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I was referring to this comment: However, the US and other nations will be uncomfortable with this until there is evidence that Japan can face it's past and thus move beyond it., because it seems hypocritical for the US to be "uncomfortable" when they, in fact, are the ones encouraging Japan to rearm.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  06:35, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why. To use a metaphor, aren't many parents uncomfortable sending their kids out into the world, but still manage to do so, despite this discomfort ? StuRat 06:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you are right on that point. When you say that the US is uncomfortable, though, it seems to imply to me that they are "officially uncomfortable". Rice was quite clear how pleased she was to have this opportunity to pat Koizumi on the head for being such an obedient little democrator, and I assume she knew that he would have a hard time convincing his cabinet to listen to the USians, which is why you wouldn't expect her (or anyone else on Bush's speed-dial) to give the Japanese any impression that they were worried. I'll admit that I don't know much about the US side, and you might be very right that a large portion of the US public would be worried on some level about the re-arming of Japanese forces, but if we're talking about public opinion then it could just as easily be said that most Hong Kongers and Shanghaiese are perfectly happy with Japan's recent conduct, at least the ones that have business in Japan, which is almost everybody.

By the way, did you know that your profile is exactly the same as my dad's?  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  14:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

You're making me feel old ! StuRat 14:25, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks.

Hey, just a quick thanks for helping with my question on Reference/Science: "In tides, why is the eighth wave always the largest?". You're answer was really helpful. Robinoke 21:13, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

You're quite welcome ! StuRat 22:56, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Nick

Hi StuRat, I'm just curious about your username. Does it mean anything? Are you aware that it is the (half-correctt, official is "StR") abbreviation for "Studienrat", the default job title and salary level for high school teachers in German state service? Simon A. 07:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

No, it's a variation on my name, Stuart. My parents once received a letter from my school saying "We would like to congratulate your daughter Sturat on her excellent academic performance. I thought it was so funny that I continue to use it as a screen name to this day. StuRat 18:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Are you a female!!! the name stuart doesnt sound feminine.nids(♂) 18:22, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not, that's what made it so funny. StuRat 18:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

So, your school staff is guilty for double error on the same letter.nids(♂) 18:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they were apparently attempting to compensate for the academic excellence of the students with extreme administrative incompetence. :-) StuRat 19:08, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

RD

How many desks do you think we need? --HappyCamper 17:09, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

At the moment, splitting up the 3 big ones (Humanities, Science, and Misc.) into maybe 4 or 5 each, should do nicely. That gives us around 15-20 total. As the Ref Desk grows in popularity, I would expect to have to break it up further, though. StuRat 18:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't look like a 15 desk RD will be approved, at least not now. I'm thinking of cutting down the list I have right now to about 9 (haven't figured out exactly how yet) and fixing a couple of minor things before proposing it again. I won't change the vertical layout of the list, which would allow for easy expansion in the future, but I'm not sure if RD users are ready for 15 desks yet.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  23:52, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, let me know if you want suggestions on how to break it up into 9 desks. StuRat 00:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

UN Flame War

Hey Stu,

We seem to see eye-to-eye on certain issues, and I'm grateful to know you as as intelligent, articulate person who's able to relate to some of my views, to disagree with me in a civil manner when we disagree, and to back me up and offer further perspective when we agree.

I happen to have unwittingly been caught in this flame war with what I see as this pro-UN nutcase from the UK. At the outset I explicitly tried to may it clear that I'm only interested in friendly, civil debate, but despite my efforts, it just descended into a flame war.

I just don't know what to make of it. As I hope you know by now, if I'm wrong about something, I'm unhesitant about admitting it. Yet this situation is just plain nuts.

Therefore as a favour to me, if you have the time, and if you're interested, I'd be very grateful if you took a look at my talk page and gave me your impression of the whole thing. If you feel I'm wrong somewhere, please don't hesitate to point it out. Otherwise, I'd just be interested in your take on the whole thing.

Thanks Stu, and all the best,

Lewis

Sure, but that would be a whole lot easier if you would sign your post with 4 tildes to give me a link to your user page. StuRat 15:14, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Stu! I forgot this time. My bad.

Loomis 00:07, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

cholesterol

Thanks for your help on WP:RD/S. I see in fact that your answers differ from those of another user, and you'll see from my followup comment that I've decided to take his advice. Please don't be offended by this, it's just that his background seems to be medical (dentistry) whereas yours seems to be computer programming. Your time and effort is still very much appreciated. Slarey 18:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. Beware that "experts" don't always have the right answer, however, such as when the tobacco industry paid doctors to extoll all the health advantages of smoking to the public in the 1950's. In this case, however, his answer looks good to me. StuRat 15:40, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Reference desk comments

Please don't riff on RD misspellings, like this. Adding a smiley to a comment that's fundamentally just pointing out a misspelling doesn't really make it any less rude. In fact, if you would delete this comment I'd appreciate it. I'm sure you're up on my conversation with Light Current about this sort of stuff. Please just cut it out. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I didn't say anything rude about the person (like that they were an idiot), so it doesn't violate the standard I personally use to avoid the blatant abuse of others. In fact, others also pointed out the spelling error, so I wasn't doing anything worse than them. BTW, I don't recognize you as a regular Ref Desk contributor, which, in my opinion, somewhat reduces your authority to criticize those of us who do. StuRat 19:03, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a huge difference between a simple "did you mean ..." and making a joke (at the misspeller's expense) after the misspelling has already been pointed out. The former isn't rude at all. The latter is blatantly rude. And, BTW, this is not about individual authority but about Misplaced Pages's standards of civility, particularly WP:CIVIL. You and the other "regulars" at the RD have no more "authority" over it than anyone else. However, just so you know I am an admin, and if you feel it's necessary we can get all official about it. How about we start with a warning?

(template:Funnybut removed)

Now, please cut it out. And, assuming you're not going to, I'll delete your comment. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:48, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Rather than respond to the implied threats above, let me say that I am hopeful that, per the discussion on the Ref Desk talk page, you now seem more willing to allow the Ref Deskers to deal with their own issues, and avoid the type of unwarranted escalation that calling in other Admins will cause. To your credit, you have shown some ability to limit using your Adminship as an opportunity to bully others, I just wish that was true of all Admins, as there is nothing more dangerous than the abuse of authority. StuRat 15:33, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

If you see any instances of admins abusing authority (at the RD or anywhere else), please let me know. In particular, I would be very surprised if any RD regular would do anything that would actually justify being blocked. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:12, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer. The last instance was when my article linen closet was deleted. I'm not complaining about the deletion, per se, but rather the process used. If I recall correctly, the Admin who wanted to delete it placed it in the area where deletions are discussed. So far, so good. What happened next disturbed me, though. That same Admin who wanted to delete it decided when the discussion should be closed (which allows them to time it so they can close it at a point when the majority favors their opinion). They then concluded that the consensus favored their opinion, when it did not. When challenged on this, they responded that those favoring my POV must be sockpuppets, with the inherent threat to block me. They were not sockpuppets, and I saw no evidence that they were. Nevertheless, I was powerless to defend myself from this Admin's actions. I felt any attempt to bring this up elsewhere would just get me blocked. I think several reforms are needed to prevent this type of abuse:

1) If an Admin refers something to the page where the deletion of an article is discussed, then they shouldn't participate in the discussion, as they might well be biased.

An admin closing a discussion is already not supposed to have been involved in the discussion (I can't find a reference to this guideline off hand, but I'll keep looking). Seems to me nominating an article makes you involved in the discussion (there's generally an implied delete vote). Assuming I find the "don't close discussions you're involved in" guideline, I'll update it to clarify that nominating an article means you're involved in the discussion (it may already say this). Looking at Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Linen_closet, it doesn't look like that's what happened in this case (nominated by user:CarDepot, closed by user:Mysekurity).

OK, my mistake. But do you see what I mean, the majority votes to keep it, yet the Admin decides the consensus is to delete it. Also, can you find the deletion discussion review ? StuRat 02:43, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

2) The time when the discussion is closed should be fixed (say one week after it's opened).

It is supposed to be at least 5 days, plus a variable amount of time "in queue" after that. There are a large number of articles that pass through AfD, so the queue could be several days. In this case, it was closed 5 days + 9 hours after being nominated. Would it help if the "5 days" was easier to find?

Setting a minimum time isn't really sufficient, as an Admin who wants to delete an article can look at the discussion at 5 days, decide that the vote isn't going his way, so just leave it open until the discussion is going his way, then quickly close it before the weight of votes drifts back the other way. StuRat 02:43, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Any admin who picks a "convenient" time to close an AfD discussion shouldn't be an admin. This is a gross violation of process. Is this your understanding of what happened with Linen Closet? -- Rick Block (talk) 03:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

3) Instead of this vague "consensus" concept (where that is determined at the sole discretion of an Admin) a strict vote count should be used. As I'm an "inclusionist" (don't delete things unless you have a damn good reason), I think something like a 90% vote for deletion should be required.

The place to propose this would be Misplaced Pages talk:Deletion policy, but realistically I think there's effectively no chance that this will change (sorry).

That's very bad. The current policy, as I understand it, is that the Admin gets to decide what the consensus is, which essentially means he can ignore the votes and do whatever he wants. Not good at all, we need an objective standard, not a highly subjective one. StuRat 02:43, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

There's a fair amount of discussion about this at Misplaced Pages talk:Deletion guidelines for administrators. The standard is rough consensus. Anyone is free to use Misplaced Pages:Deletion review to get a decision reviewed (although, honestly, it's generally an uphill fight - the issue is there's almost always at least one person who thinks the decision went the wrong way and there's generally a presumption in favor of the admin). If you'd like to get the decision on Linen Closet reviewed, please do. There is no (alright, shouldn't be any) retribution.

4) To accuse somebody of using sockpuppets, an Admin must have some actual evidence, like that both the sockpuppet and user share a common I/P address.

I haven't found the discussion about the alleged sockpuppetry, but per WP:AGF if you simply said you're weren't sock puppeting the admin should have backed off (pending some sort of evidence). Blocking for use of sock puppets does require evidence, generally based on IP address usage (which is not perfect, but pretty close).

I wasn't actually blocked, just threatened, and all those "suspected sock puppets" voting in my favor were ignored to get the consesnsus to go the way the Admin wanted. That was bad enough, believe me. StuRat 02:43, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I understand. Do you care if I look at the history of this? I assume it was roughly a year ago. I don't think there's any way at this point to prove (or disprove) sockpuppetry, however IMO the admin should NOT have threatened you, and probably should not have dismissed the votes. I can't vouch for all admins any more than you can vouch for all RD regulars (probably less so, since there are at this point over a thousand admins), but a very large majority are very reasonable. Lots and lots of admins deal with utter assholes on a near constant basis, and are sometimes overly quick to jump to the conclusion that someone they don't know is an asshole, too. I'm sorry you got jumped on, and this helps me understand our interaction a little better as well. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

StuRat 16:48, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Would you like to pursue any of these further? -- Rick Block (talk) 20:17, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I've started a thread on #1 at Misplaced Pages talk:Deletion guidelines for administrators#Closing an AFD you're involved in. You're welcome to contribute (or not), completely your choice. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:28, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Templates

Also, I wanted to talk about that templates. This one is horribly inflammatory:

This one is better, but still rather unpleasant:

Perhaps it could say something more like this, customized for the Ref Desk, Help Desk, and any other location where questions are asked and answered:

StuRat 03:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

It's one of a series of user warnings, for use on user talk pages not on article pages. Your wording sounds like something for the RD. Is the issue you don't want it on this page? The point is to encourage a user to stop doing something. I hope we're at the point of having a rational discussion. I don't see any particular reason to keep it here. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Our edits seem to have crossed paths. Templates like this are almost never used at the point of reference, but on the user talk page (at the point of reference generally the offending comment is simply removed). The "forum" style pages (HD, RD, VP) are perhaps special, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to have these sorts of templates on the RD. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the last one might be good to let everyone know the question remains unanswered. When I see several pages of replies, I generally assume there's an answer in there somewhere, but this would let me know there wasn't, at least at the point where it's posted. I think I'll propose it at the Ref Desk talk page and see who salutes. StuRat 04:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, ref desk talk page seems like a good idea. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:41, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Temptation: would a doctor help?

Honestly Stu, there is such a rich vein of virgin untapped material building up that I get so tempted to put in just a little funny here and there and that its becoming almost unbearable. What is the best way to get over this craving for joking? See a doctor? 8-))--Light current 11:06, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I mean there was a real 'gift' just recently and I had to back off so hard it hurt. I'll let you guess which one that was. You may or may not appreciate my toned down reply to it. (No I think you will actually) 8-)--Light current 11:12, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Why not list it here ? You know I always appreciate a good joke. StuRat 12:40, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Its not so much a joke but slightly reminscent of the tapeworm saga (well it involves a similar part of the anatomy). As I say its a recent edit, not too hard to find, written by me etc. I could hardly stop lol. But perhaps Im over due for my medicine 8-)--Light current 12:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok its here . Now if thats not potentailly very funny, I must go see my shrink soon!--Light current 13:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Yep, I see some potential there, like "If your bottom is dirty, try to wipe it clean". StuRat 13:16, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Or "Confucius say: Smoking pot with chili lead to stain on bottom." StuRat 13:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank god Im still sane after all this time here 8-)--Light current 14:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I prefer to say: "Thank god I'm still INsane after all I've been through". StuRat 14:15, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Well of course in the old days here when we used to lock mentally ill people away, one of the sayings was:

There are more out than in you know!

Now of course we're all out! HAHAAA HAAAAA! THeyll never get me!--Light current 14:38, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Barnstars

		The Barnstar of Good Humor
		Sorry this is (very) late, but I had meant to give you a barnstar for your comment at the reference desk a few months ago. In answer to how copper wiring was made you said: "Two thrifty Scots found the same penny at the same time." Thank you for lightening up Misplaced Pages. | AndonicO Talk 11:26, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Och Aye but isnt that a bit racialist these days? Plus if you said that in Glasgow.... well I wouldnt! 8-)--Light current 11:38, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks ! I'm partially Scottish myself, and very cheap, so claim the right to make fun of myself. StuRat 12:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah so it was you and your brother who found that penny? 8-)

Chianti and fava beans,

Before you break out the Chianti and fava beans, ...

Well done, StuRat, well done! :-)

Atlant 18:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks ! StuRat 19:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

User Account Drama Cont'd

Just to continue on from the Computer reference desk, where would i be able to find the system files? Croat Canuck Go Leafs Go 14:27, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with where Windows XP keeps it's systems files, but, in Windows 98 they are mostly in the root directory ("\") or in "\Windows\System" on the boot drive (usually "C:"). To find them on your system, try creating a new user profile with a unique name, then doing a find for all files containing that text. To be sure you get all the system files, though, it's probably a good idea to back up the entire boot disk. StuRat 14:53, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

K thanks, if i can correct the problem i'll let you know. Croat Canuck Go Leafs Go 16:35, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

What would you say

What would you say if it turns out there are no guidelines or policies on jokes or humour on WP 8-))--Light current 21:41, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure we need any. The same rules apply to jokes as well as anything else, don't be rude, etc. StuRat 21:47, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I know we dont. But most critisicm against me has been on the basis that there are guidelines on jokes. Hence the (worthless) templates. Get it?--Light current 22:19, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Watch that space (talk:Ref desk) closely in the next day or 2!--Light current 00:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

From Phil

Thank you for your comments. I'm somewhat at a loss to how to respond correctly, as this did come out of the blue a bit. However, I thought it would be polite to let you know I recieved them, and that I appreciate it. Philc _TC 21:42, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. StuRat 21:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Saddam Hussein

Stu do you think this discussion on RD should be moved to talk:Saddam Hussein? i think its clogging up the RD anmd is clearly against the rules about extended discussions. I moved it one but was reverted. Can you help? 8-)--Light current 23:10, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

As long as the actual question was answered, I don't mind leaving it where it is. And, as had been noted, the Saddam Hussein talk page is supposed to be to talk about changes to the Saddam Hussein page, not a chat room about him. StuRat 23:33, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok well chat has now been deleted by another user. So no more problem! 8-)--Light current 02:35, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Stu Im sure you know about it but THIS is where we will get the '4 minute warning' of blocking action. I ve been here before! 8-((--Light current 04:17, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Censorship

Its now started again. This time its User:pschemp (admin) removing my legitimate replies to you on how to deal with skid marks. Any suggestions/thoughts?--Light current 03:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

While gross, it seems serious nonetheless. These "tremors" you mention that leave you with "skid marks" sound like a medical problem to me. StuRat 03:30, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I was of course referring to flatulence and or diarrhea by humorous use of the word 'tremors'--Light current 04:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

No Im talking about imminent blocking of me (possibly you as well knowing this admin). Please treat this seriously and think of a defence strategy. 8-((--Light current 03:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I asked him what his complaint is at Ref Desk:Talk. StuRat 04:34, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

THanks I saw it. Its a her actually! We've crossed swords before (I lost) That why I think she's picking on me again ATM 8-(--Light current 04:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

We (well me really) are now being discussed by pschemp on WP:AN/I 8-((--Light current 05:34, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Please refrain from posting rude comments about adminstrators (espcially those who block frequently :-)). I really suggest that you e-mail each other, exchaing AIM screen names, or find an external message board to solve this dispute abou "skid marks". Cbrown1023 00:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Its NOT a dispute!! Merely an exchange of views!! And why particularly do you think the subject of 'skid marks' is outside the remit of the WP RDs? Is it becuase you are offended by the term?--Light current 00:23, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there are very few terms in the whole English language that offend me. So to answer your question, no. But I do suggest that you find an external way to talk about this so that no one gives you crap. Cbrown1023 21:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Which rude comments are you referring to? And why should high blockers be immune from comment?--Light current 08:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

That's right, talking about it here could allow certain anal people to smear your reputation, leaving a permanent stain on your name. :-) StuRat 00:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah there certainly are a lot of shitty assholes around WP (No names:no pack drill) 8-)--Light current 00:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

FYI, shitty assholes is a rude comment. Cbrown1023 21:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

It wasnt addressed to you or anyone, Cbrown So it is actually none of your concern. Hava nice day!--Light current 21:04, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I was actually referring to your question of what rude comments I am referring to. After you stated that you posted a rude comment and I was pointing it out to you. I can read, I noticed your statement of "no names" but it is still rude. Cbrown1023 21:14, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to pinch off this convo, before something nasty comes out. StuRat 21:14, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah delete it all Stu. We should NOT be using your page for this converstaion. Aploogies! 8-)--Light current 21:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Mathematics Ref Desk

Thanks for trying to help me at the ref desk,I'm afraid maths isn't my strong point.Also,it was really kind of you to actually do the problem yourself.I promise I'll read more about maths so that I don't annoy you too much with my silly questions :) Starkidstar 06:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. If you'll go ahead and list how you did it I will look for any errors. StuRat 06:28, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Why is your name Stu?

I am not trying to get into your private life but I just wanted to know if your name is Stuart.

Yep, you got it ! StuRat 17:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

My parents once received a letter from my school saying "We would like to congratulate your daughter Sturat on her excellent academic performance". I thought it was so funny that I continue to use it as a screen name to this day. StuRat 17:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Can I email you? Will you reply me? Kushal one 20:38, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

E-mail, no, but you can post here and I will respond. StuRat 03:35, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

RefDesk Trolling

Hello StuRat.

I noticed your "I'm going to start removing all these trolling "foolish culture of the west" "questions" today. I think you're right, that particular question appeared to be trolling couched in the form of a question. The reference desk is the part of WP most open to trolling like this, because of its discussion based format. Is there anything that can be done about it? If we change or delete peoples questions wouldn't this be censorship? --Amists 11:19, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and there have been a series of questions like this, maybe one a week, that all contain something quite similar to that phrase. StuRat 17:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

They are all from one user, kjvenus (talk · contribs), formerly Kartikv47 (talk · contribs).  --Lambiam 07:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

the limits of pattern recognition, and posting homework to RefDesk

Hello StuRat, I recently got my submission to the RefDesk flagged with "Do your own homework." Now looking back at the question posed, it does look like a good candidate for being a homework question: it is explained in detail with supporting information, and the answer is non-trivial and would likely edify its student. But it is emphatically NOT homework. I started from ZERO in framing this question to the end of making a real-life application of its solution. They say that great questions are harder to discover than great answers, and while the question isn't particularly profound in that sense, it nonetheless took me a lot of hours of thinking and study and library trips and internet searches to get where I've gotten so far...and even to find the Reference Desk of the Misplaced Pages was not something that came easily, I've been to Google's Answers and Yahoo! Answers and still haven't found the answer to my question. I did recently get a tip from a friend about using a certain technique, but I don't know if it's the only one or the best or if it will even work (and neither does he), so my search continues...all in all, thanks for listening to my rant about the "limits of pattern recognition" as my question may quack like a duck but it's not a duck (NOT homework, NOT offloading all the work on someone else either)--it's my honest-to-Pete question! --Peter Kirby 05:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Why not list the method your friend suggested, and ask us if that's a valid approach to take ? That's the type of question that gets answered. StuRat 06:04, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I've now done so. --Peter Kirby 07:50, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Ref desk joke that goes too far

Hi StuRat. I think your comment here is the sort of joke that it would be better not to make on the reference desk. It doesn't really help answer the question, and I believe it would be offensive to many Catholics. Can you consider removing it, or at least be more careful with your jokes in the future? Thanks. -- SCZenz 22:21, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not a joke, but an observation on an absurd result of Catholicism, which is designed to be thought-provoking. StuRat 22:24, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Why are these types of discussions taking place on the Ref desk anyway? Futhermore, why are you not just removing them on site if they look stupid or possibly offensive (such as "skidmarks"). (This course of action is acceptable; the reason being the clause of it "not being a soapbox"). Cbrown1023 22:31, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

That type of behavior is likely to lead to edit wars. StuRat 22:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe User:Cbrown1023 didnt intend to link soapbox with skid marks, but he did. Was that intended as a joke in bad taste? That could be interpreted as a blockable action. 8-( Asking how to remove skidmarks from underwear is a perfectly legitimate question. --Light current 22:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

It may be a legitimate question, but it is not acceptable for that page and (possibly) Misplaced Pages. Cbrown1023 22:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

So where do people go to ask about removing skid marks? BTW do you know the best way?--Light current 23:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

idk, I'd just throw them away and buy new ones. Cbrown1023 23:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Which is exactly where I came in!--Light current 00:06, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

You may also want to start at the source, your but and see what's wrong with it or fix it....... lol... awkward! Cbrown1023 00:10, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

That is an offensive comment against me. Please remove it immediately! 8-((--Light current 00:30, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

lol... if that's really true than you can remove it; I was just saying that you should try to fix it. Cbrown1023 00:37, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we don't want to set a precedent where any question about something impolite or controversial is removed automatically. For example, there might be many kids who can't ask anybody else about certain topics but feel safe here, because it's anonymous. We should support that type of welcoming environment, not stifle it by being politically correct. StuRat 22:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

But it is not the job of the Ref desk to handle those questions. If you feel that those types of questions need to be answered some how, then please create a new help desk (maybe Misplaced Pages:Help! I have controrersial, impolite, un-polically correct, or other question that I am too embrassed to ask some where else about). Shouldn't all relative questions be able to be answered by the articles, considering they are supposed to be encyclopedia pages with answers to questions and information? Other wise, I doubt they belong there. Plus, if they have a question about girls or sex; what are their parents, teachers, guidance counselors, trusted adults, or principals for and why should we, people on the internet who they have never met and could be lying about who they say they are, answer for them. Seriously, what are we here to do? Write an encylopedia or answer little kids' questoins about sex or girls? Or just questions aboout removing "skid marks"? Cbrown1023 22:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

It was suggested that, when we split up the Ref Desk further (after volume becomes unmanageable with the current system), we will add a Sex & Relationships Desk. You'd best steer clear, for fear of being offended. Perhaps you need to create a Politically Correct Questions Only Desk, where only proper questions on the proper use of fondue sets are asked by proper young ladies and gentlemen. StuRat 23:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Seems like a good proposal. But as I stated with Light current, very few things offend me, especially not sex. Cbrown1023 23:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

(Reply to StuRat's initial reply) If it was intended as a factual comment, there are three major problems. First, you need to cite actual studies rather than just giving your vague impressions, because I rather suspect what you said isn't true. Second, you phrased your comment as a generalization about Catholic girls, so that it was apparently a comment on what they are individually like, rather than as a statistical statement—young women who self-identify as Catholic have a variety of positions on both pre-marital sex and birth control. Third, your comment was off-topic and was a vehicle for presenting your personal views rather than facts; such a"thought-provoking" comment implying problems with the beliefs of a religion was neither requested nor necessary. -- SCZenz 23:26, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

No, sources are not required with every reply on the Ref Desk. If so, 90% of the questions would go unanswered. My comment was related to the previous response. Your comment here was not requested, so should I just delete it ? StuRat 23:42, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Your talk page is for talking to you about Misplaced Pages content; I am thus using it for an appropriate purpose. Your comment on the reference desk did not fit the purpose of the reference desk, which is to help answer questions factually. Using the reference desk as a platform to randomly give an opinion that is a) not backed up by facts, and b) likely to be insulting to users, is simply not acceptable. -- SCZenz 23:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I was merely pointing out that your standard that only "requested" comments are allowed is inherently absurd. StuRat 23:56, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

He may have phrased it incorrectly, but it is true. Comments that answer the question and nothing else (no insulting items) are supposed to be posted there. It is supposed to help new users (and others) and posting things like that might scare them off. Now, anything can be posted on a userpage but can also be removed by the user at any time as well (i.e. you could delete every single word on this page and WP:DENY). Cbrown1023 00:03, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The primary purpose of the reference desk is answering peoples' questions. If you made an off-topic remark with no other problems, nobody would think anything of it, of course, but your remark had other problems as well. You gave your opinion as fact, and deny any responsibility to justify it, and that hurts the purpose of the reference desk. I would like you to address my concerns a little more thoroughly and carefully, please. -- SCZenz 00:05, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

It would help if you could list them out more clearly, but, I will try to do so for you:

1) Any question which may be taken to be offensive is banned. No, because somebody will be offended by just about anything, such as Turks being offended by any mention of the Armenian Genocide.

2) "You need to cite actual studies rather than just giving your vague impressions". I've addressed this: You are wrong, there is no prohibition on answers which lack a cited source.

3) "Statements should be formed such that they are scientifically rigorous, referring to statistics rather than individual cases" (paraphrased). While this might be a goal, it certainly isn't enforced. For example, on the Language Desk, we are talking about what a "biscuit" means in US English vs UK English. Nobody is capable of citing a study that says "95% of those in England, 90% of those in Scotland, and 85% of those in Ireland, refer to a 'biscuit' when they mean a sweetened desert pastry in the range of 10-50 grams." Instead, we get statements like "What we Brits call a biscuit, you Americans call a cookie." This answer is quite useful despite lacking a statistical analysis or cited references.

4) Replies cannot be off-topic. A certain amount of off-topic discussion is permitted, to foster a sense of community, and always will be. The requirement is more that it be somehow related. For example, in the question about using a hacksaw to cut up a couch, suggesting other methods for cutting up a couch is certainly close enough to be allowed, while talking about dog farts would not be.

5) Personal views are not allowed on the Ref Desk. Yes they are, and, in fact, they are often requested by the OP.

6) Only requested replies are allowed on the Ref Desk. (Wrong, see below.)

StuRat 00:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your my detailed reply; I'm glad this discussion can continue, because I think it is vital to the reference desk continuing to work. My responses to your comments:

1. I'm not talking about banning questions. I'm talking about which replies are unhelpful. Replies that are offensive to no purpose are bad; those which have a clear purpose, of course, are useful.
2. There may be no prohibition on giving your off-the-cuff impressions, but we are a reference desk that should be providing facts and not opinions. In particular, if you say something that's not at all obviously true, you should be prepared to back it up with a reference to a Misplaced Pages article or other source.
3. Yes, this is not rigorously enforced, but it is still good to do it and bad not to.
4. A certain amount of off-topic posting is ok, yes, but it becomes bad when it interferes with the functional answering of questions.
5. I don't know where you get the idea that personal views are a good for the reference desk. It is a reference desk, not an advice column, and it is certainly not a soap box! People should be asking factual questions, and receiving factual answers.
6. I don't care what has been done in the past. The purpose of the reference desk is to answer questions. Off-topic remarks are not a problem, as long as they don't interfere with the purpose of the reference desk.

The way out of this muck is to aknowledge that there are shades of grey, and not to rules lawyer. There are six points above, where I claim there is a preferable approach and a non-preferable approach. Missing some of the points is not a big deal; but your comment missed all of them. That's why I object to it. -- SCZenz 01:10, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't complain about "rules lawyering" when you had asked me to respond "more thoroughly":

1) I had a purpose, to let him know to be careful about birth control. Assuming that just because he is dating a church girl he doesn't need any will cause an unwanted baby or an abortion.

2) I could argue just the opposite: If you say that Catholic girls have a lower rate of premarital sex or an equal rate of birth control usage, then you need to back that up with proof.

3) Not in all cases, as in the one I gave.

4) My reply was quite short, and after several serious answers had been given, so not interfering with getting an answer in any way.

5) Opinion and fact are not as distinct as you think. In language, for example, what the majority of people think is right, is, by definition, correct. Language is nothing more than the summation of human opinions. Much on the Humanities Desk is similar, as are Computer Desk questions about which device is better, and many Misc Desk questions. Even "soft" sciences, like psychology, are mostly about opinion. Only the Math Desk should be relatively free of opinion. And even there, questions like "what math do you think I need to be an economist" are inherently opinion.

6) The past sets the precedent for the future, so you should care about it, especially as the Ref Desk has been functioning just fine (notice the large volume of questions and answers, many by me) without major interference. In short, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

My comment didn't miss all of them, as it was related to the topic, had a purpose, didn't interfere with getting a good answer, and I believe it to be factual (you dispute this, but I await your proof).StuRat 01:49, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

It was not substantially related to the question, but rather a total tangent, unless you were seriously advising him to treat Catholic women according to your generalization. Its purpose was, apparently, to randomly discuss your viewpoint; this does not fit the purpose of the reference desk. It may not interfere (much) with a good answer, but it sure didn't help. Your belief that it's factual is immaterial; you can't just present your views (based on what??) and not be willing to justify them if requeste—the whole point of the reference desk is to help people find information, which means sources rather than just telling them the answers. I don't know what else I can say; I'm happy to explain things as much as you like, but in the end your remark just wasn't appropriate. -- SCZenz 03:06, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

It is related to the question, and particularly related to the comment right before. I am advising him to be sure he ALWAYS has birth control, do you think this is bad advice ? It's not "random", but related to the question. (A random discussion of my viewpoint would have been to insert my preference for direct democracy over representative democracy.) It didn't interfere at all with getting a good answer. And, I'm sorry, but there is no standard that those posting responses must be willing to cite references, if asked. Besides which, I haven't been asked, except by you, and you're obviously not actually interested, at all, just trying to make things more difficult for me. As for it not being appropriate, that's up to the OP to decide, don't you think ? I haven't heard any complaint from them. I've responded to ALL of your concerns; you're just manufacturing a problem when then isn't one, and taking up valuable time I could have used to give more answers at the Ref Desk. StuRat 05:15, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The fact that it was "related to the comment right before" does not make it related to the question; it is rather indicative of the standard chattiness that has become common on the reference desk, and that several users have already expressed concern about. As for the comment being not offensive to me personally, you don't know that—as it happens, I took note of it because I have several friends whose values I respect (if not necessarily agree with) who would be seriously and personally offended... is that good enough to justify my interest in your eyes? (Not that I was required to justify it, but you should perhaps avoid assuming peoples' motivations in the future.) Your continued assertion that you don't have to provide any justification for your claimed statements of fact, when a reference desk by definition is a place that helps people find sources and information, totally defies common sense. We might as well drop this argument now, but you need to understand that community consensus (and my self-imposed obligation to keep Misplaced Pages running smoothly and serving its purpose) are in opposition to you making further remarks like this. I appreciate you responding to my concerns, but this continued behavior remains unnaceptable regardless of your personal views and (I believe) it won't be allowed by the community to stand; please consider this when making comments in the future. -- SCZenz 06:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

My comment was related both to the original question and to the comment directly before it. I don't know what else to say either, I carefully responded and disproved each of your points, and yet you persist. You admit that you were not personally offended, but are just guessing that somebody else might be. That's worse than hearsay, it's more of a "hereguess". You claim that nothing can be stated on the Ref Desk unless it has a source to back it up, despite a total lack of any such rule, written or unwritten. I see no community consensus, I only see you complaining (but please don't go get more Admins to come here and "agree" with you). As for your motivations, I suspect you heard there was a problem at the Ref Desk, so were determined to find one, even if you had to manufacture it. StuRat 08:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I gave you a compromise, I changed it by adding the word "sometimes", in case it wasn't already obvious that I didn't mean they always skip using birth control. StuRat 08:53, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I was merely pointing out that your standard that only "requested" comments are allowed is inherently absurd. To show this, I randomly selected a question, and highlighted those answers which aren't precisely what the questioner asked about. However, the OP did get their answer, so I'm happy with the results. StuRat 23:56, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Blowing up the moon (see above)

As I was watching Mr. Show last night, I had a thought. If we were to drop every nuclear bomb we have on the moon, what impact (if any) would it have for life on earth? --Wyckyd Sceptre 04:35, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The biggest repercussion is that we've have no more nukes on the planet! Besides, how can one drop a bomb on the moon? -- You have to fly it there first. Chris 00:56, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

We'd be subject to a really bad television show about it. Sorry, couldn't resist. 192.168.1.1 9:04, 6 November 2006 (PST)

What impact would it have on Earth? I can't imagine how it would affect Earth. (The title of this question is "blowing up the moon", but we can't possibly blow up the Moon. The asteroid that caused the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event delivered much more energy than the world's nuclear arsenal can possibly deliver, yet relatively little happened to the Earth.) --Bowlhover 05:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

My guess is that if the moon was knocked out of orbit, it would change the Earth's orbit, causing temperature changes. IIRC, the moon does cause the Earth to move in a wave-like motion while following the orbit around the sun. It would also affect tides, since tides are related to the moon. But I'm not sure we have enough nuclear bombs to change the orbit of the moon, so probably just a big crater. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 05:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

My guess is nothing as I suspect every nuclear weapon wouldn't have enough energy to budge it one bit. But just a guess. Remember the Tsunami that affected onle surface water and also earthquakes that are many thousands of nuclear weapons that don't substanitally impact earth except at a very superficial level. --Tbeatty 05:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

More drastically, blowing up the moon would cause an instability in the Earth's "wobble". Scary stuff. Check it out No moon!. --Cody.Pope 05:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

We're going to lose the moon anyway as it is moving away from the earth (over an inch a year I think) and will eventually not be our moon. --Tbeatty 06:25, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

As that won't happen until after the Sun goes nova, I suspect that it won't matter that much. B00P 07:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Fisrt, the Sun is expected to go red giant, not nova. Second, barring such events or an encounter with an intruding body, the change in the Moon's orbit will never cause it to "not be our moon". The change is caused by tidal friction and the fact that the Earth rotates faster than the Moon moves in its orbit. In the long run the Earth's angular momentum is being transferred to the Moon. This can only go on until the Earth's rotation slows enough so that it always keeps the same face turned towards the moon. Then the day and the lunar month will be the same length (about 40 of our days, I think it works out to). Of course the lengthening day will cause havoc in terms of weather and climate, but the Moon won't be going anywhere. --Anonymous, 00:02 UTC, November 8.

Won't the tidal forces imparted by the sun continue to force the moon away from the earth? --Tbeatty 04:10, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The only impact I could imagine is that the explosion would be visible from Earth, provided it was on the near side of the Moon and was during night at your location on Earth, and when the Moon is above the horizon. StuRat 06:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Assuming you're old enough, did you feel anything when any of the American or Russian nuclear tests were done? Not even the Tsar Bomba had any noticeable effect outside of the immediate area. Heck, the U.S. army used to blow up bombs near Las Vegas and nobody was disturbed. (Trivia: John Wayne supposedly died of cancer he contracted from filming The Conqueror in the area.) It would take vastly more than the entire nuclear stockpile to budge the Moon, much less blow it up. Clarityfiend 07:22, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay I know very little about the physics of explosions but would it be possible if you carefully organised the explosions? Rather then just dumping all our bombs on the surfaces and exploding them, I'm thinking of tunnelling perhaps to the core in multiple locations (of course, this is probably outside our current level of expertise). Maybe even designing the bombs in such a way to try and blow up the moon rather then flatten a very large area. Nil Einne 10:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

OT but looking at the John Wayne article, this might not have been the case. He had a 3 pack a day cigarette habit and contracted lung cancer. The radiation he may or may not have been exposed to may or may not have contributed to his cancer but I wouldn't exactly say he contracted the cancer due to the filming. Indeed given the complexity of cancer, I would be reluctant to ever say someone got cancer from something. More accurate to say it was a major contributing factor. In any case, he actually died from stomach cancer 15 years later when he was 72 (and smoking cigars instead of cigarettes) and the article doesn't explicitly say it was a reoccurance of the lung cancer... Nil Einne 11:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Further OT, but in regards to The Conqueror and cancer, our article mentions that 91 of the people involved with the film had contracted cancer by 1984, three times the number you'd expect in a group that size (220 people). Yeah, they smoked, but that's still a lot of people. Matt Deres 00:33, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

How much energy does the world's nuclear arsenal have? 60 000 megatons? Assuming that all of this energy is converted into kinetic energy, and that all of the kinetic energy goes toward pushing the Moon, the Moon's velocity will change by 8 cm/s. Not exactly enough to "blow up the moon". --Bowlhover 17:16, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Re

How about expending a few carefully-placed megatons to give 2004 vd17 a moon-impact trajectory? Repeat as often as necessary. In a few hundred years, Earthlings could destroy the moon. Its a real David and Goliath kind of scenario. Lowerarchy 04:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Just reread my own nonsense. Two hundred years isn't enough time to find sufficient movable mass in the near solar system. Are there any Deimos-sized objects floating about loose out there?Lowerarchy 04:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Total world megatonnage is probably a lot less than that. I ran some calculations awhile back and came up with around 2,500 MT for the entire US arsenal at the moment (you can see them at Image:U.S._stockpile_size_2006.svg). If we say that Russia's arsenal is probably comparable to that, and figure that the rest of the world probably doesn't make up more than 1,000 MT at most, we're talking about 6,000 MT max — an order of magnitude less than 60,000 MT. --Fastfission 03:53, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

CHRIST ALL MIGHTY PEOPLE, HAS ANY ONE THOUGHT ABOUT THE TIDES???

Destroying the Moon (or even just slightly modifying its orbit) needs a LOT more energy we currently have. You can find some "useful" data on this page , . --V. Szabolcs 16:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Biodegradable corrosion

Hi StuRat,

Thanks for your reply. But I want a more specific definition for the type of corrosion. I am a Lecturer and this question has been asked in the university exam. I have to give a solution to the students and am not getting any reference.

I know microbiological corrosion which is caused directly or indirectly by bacteria, algae, moulds or fungi, singly or in combination. Swati Bhise 03:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure you have the term right ? Doing Google searches, I've found the phrases "biodegradable corrosion inhibitor" and "biodegradable corrosion protector". In both cases, I take this to mean that the biological agent prevents corrosion. In short, there doesn't seem to be any mention of "biodegradable corrosion". There is "biological corrosion", of course, if that's what you mean. StuRat 04:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

"Not sure if it's all that famous"

I went ahead and edited Burst of Joy substantially since you may have last viewed it. I'm also copying over my response to you from the reference desk.

I've never seen that pic before, so I doubt if it's all that famous. StuRat 20:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Dude, it is all that famous, and I was unaware you were the authority on what was notable or not. ;) As far as fame is concerned, the Minnesota Historical Society recently featured said photo along with the Iwo Jima photograph, and Ruby shooting Oswald. Mike H. I did "That's hot" first! 03:07, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

If you have any questions for me regarding the "validity" of this article, by all means, go ahead and send me a message, because you're one of the very few people who questioned the notability of the picture. Mike H. I did "That's hot" first! 00:22, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Why didn't you include the other people's responses, some of which said it was familiar, and some of which said it was not ? StuRat 03:39, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Because I figured if you cared enough, you would go back and read it yourself. I just wanted you to see my response first and foremost. Mike H. I did "That's hot" first! 14:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

On Vacation

I'll be back on Monday or Tuesday. Until then, I may or may not have a chance to check in from the road. StuRat 15:10, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Template:AndonicO's version of Randfan's Happy Thanksgiving template

Thanks ! I'm thankful that turkeys don't jam stuffing up MY butt and cook ME for dinner. :-) StuRat 07:38, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, so am I. :-) Shouldn't Thanksgiving be renamed "Turkey massacre day"? AndonicO 16:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

SCZenz

I responded on my talk page and put a warning on on his talk page. DirkvdM 19:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Reference Desk

Please see the discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Reference desk#The tone of the Reference Desk. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:38, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Please read this

Please check out WP:VIE, WP:CON and WP:POL and realize that Misplaced Pages guidelines are created through discussion, not voting. This has nothing to do with vandalism, which is explained in WP:VAND. (Radiant) 10:16, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to read all that while you're busy vandalizing the Ref Desk Talk Page. If you have a specific section you want me to read, put it here. StuRat 10:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• And need I really point out the irony that you are deleting my comments, whereas I have not in fact deleted any of yours yet? (Radiant) 10:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• I tried to put yours back, but the way you delete ours at the same time you add yours and keep at it constantly makes it quite difficult. If you add your comments without deleting anybody else's comments I won't touch yours. StuRat 10:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Read WP:TPG. StuRat 10:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Before you start accusing people you should read the lead section of WP:VAND. Thank you for your time. (Radiant) 10:51, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

That says:

"Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Misplaced Pages."

I consider deleting the comments of others to be a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Misplaced Pages. If we can't add comments to talk pages without having them deleted, then no discussions can take place, and no consesnsus can be reached. This will destroy the integrity of Misplaced Pages. StuRat 11:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Spot on. You see me suggesting a different way of doing things and carefully explaining why I believe this is so, and you conclude that this is a deliberate attempt to compromise the encyclopedia. I clearly state that I am encouraging further discussion and you mischaracterize that as an attempt to stifle discussion. This is why WP:FAITH is an important policy. (Radiant) 11:47, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Deleting the comments of others never "encourages further discussion". StuRat 11:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• • • That is another mischaracterization. Polls are known to stifle discussion, polarize the issue, and cause strife. Hence, changing a poll to a discussion does indeed encourage further discussion. (Radiant) 11:57, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• We had already discussed this before, in the sections noted in the intro to the poll. It was now time to see if there was enough interest to bother going any further. So far, it appears that there is, based on the 3 to 1 poll results. Of course, I'd like to see the opinions of others before actually making a change, as 3 people isn't exactly a consensus. Trying to read through pages of comments and side discussions to figure out what the consensus is would be damned near impossible, and everyone who tried would likely come to a different conclusion. A poll makes it simple to determine if there's a consensus. StuRat 12:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

more on RD

Hi - I hope I didn't offend you with my latest comments on the talk thread. I get the impression you are sincerely trying to find a path to a solution and very much appreciate the effort you're putting into this. Like I say, I'm busy in real life at the moment so don't have (and will not soon have) much time to participate in this discussion. I suspect this whole thing has been quite upsetting for you - please don't give up. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks ! StuRat 16:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Please reconsider your approach to the reference desk

You seem to be using the RD as a chat board. This is not helpful to the project- please don't do that. A typical example is your helping someone come up with ideas for a school play here- how is this encyclopedic in any way? If you want to chat, go find a forum. Friday (talk) 19:21, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

That was the answer that the question required. You might be interested in the proposed test "Strict Rules Ref Desk", where such things would not be allowed. You can even volunteer as an "enforcer" for that Desk, and go through and delete anything there you don't like. StuRat 02:47, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe IRC is what you're looking for? That's meant for chatting, whereas Misplaced Pages is meant as an encyclopedia. Friday (talk) 22:10, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

What is the purpose of the RDs in your opinion?--Light current 22:12, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

See WP:RD. It's meant to be like a library reference desk, where people help you find the information you're looking for in the encyclopedia. Somewhere along the line it lost its way and turned into a chat room for the kiddies. Friday (talk) 22:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm so library staff dont talk amongst themselves?--Light current 22:22, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The analogy only goes so far. I'm sure librarians talk in places that are appropriate for conversation- what I suspect they don't do is write notes to each other in the margins of the books. Friday (talk) 22:34, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Where is an analogous place then?--Light current 22:43, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Writing in the margins of books would be equivalent to writing on an article page, not at all the same as talking at the Ref Desk. If you went up to a reference librarian and asked them a question, say, what the saltiest lake in the world is, one might say "I think it's Great Salt Lake, Utah", then another might say "No, I think it's the Dead Sea", then they would look them both up to see which was right. This is exactly what we should allow here. StuRat 06:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment formatting

Hi StuRat. Could you please consider creating your own section, rather than interleaving your comments with mine? I'm worried that what you're doing will make it unclear who said what, especially if you reply to more points. Thanks, SCZenz 05:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Answering point by point, right after the point is made, is far easier to follow. Also, responding after your entire post would make it necessary to repeat large portions of your post in my answers, making the discussion much longer than needed. Please add signatures after each of your points, and/or put something like "Where we stand, according to SCZenz" in the title, to make it clear. StuRat 05:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

This brings up a controversial subject: Talk page layout and protocol. 8-(--Light current 21:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Find out what users are admins

Not sure you'll notice, but I answered your question at Misplaced Pages talk:Reference desk about how to find out if a user is an admin. The answer is Special:Listusers is definitive. WP:LA is a manually maintained list. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. StuRat 06:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Wheels

Just wondering if you could keep an eye on a do gooder reverting my inputs on Wheels on Science whoops Humanities (what a strange place) RD . Thanks!--Light current 22:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Please provide a link. StuRat 06:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

HRT

Also someone deleting legit Q on HRT. Can you keep an eye out 8-) ?--Light current 22:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean HRD ? StuRat 06:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you kids go play someplace else? Friday (talk) 22:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:AGF. WP:NPA WP:CIVIL--Light current 23:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Friday, I'm amazed to find out you are an Admin, as you don't seem to know how to talk with people properly and don't seem to understand even the first concept of how the Ref Desk works (you talk like you're about 12). Your idea that anyone should feel free to delete anything they want for any reason shows this total ignorance. Please leave the Ref Desk discussion to more competent Users and Admins. StuRat 06:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess we have a difference of opinion. To me, playing games and chatting at the RD is the childlike behavior here. I think I usually know how to talk to people, but I'll admit my patience wears thin when dealing with people whose goals here don't line up with the project's goals. I don't believe I've ever suggesting that anyone should feel free to delete anything for any reason- this obviously would be in conflict with the wiki process determining content. Friday (talk) 15:51, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

That's right, you're the one who wants to delete the Ref Desk entirely. StuRat 16:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I asked the question once, I believe, of whether it should go away. You appear to be the one repeatedly bringing this up. My question was answered- yes, the RD is useful for some purposes. So now I'm trying to move forward in a useful way, by identifying and supporting the RD's useful goals, while removing the irrelevant timewasting aspects of it. If you wish to help with this task, that's great, I would appreciate it. If you wish to stand in the way, you may find we continue to disagree. Friday (talk) 16:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Since we know your real goal is to remove the Ref Desk entirely, I suspect that every suggestion you make is designed to sabotage it to achieve that goal. StuRat 17:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm so you think you are a good judge of 'the RD's useful goals, and the irrelevant timewasting aspects of it' Nice to be so confident! How do you differentiate exactly? 8-)--Light current 00:41, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Asking a question once has now convinced you of some evil ulterior motive on my part? I doubt you'll find that you can work well with me with such a bizarre attitude. I admit the "why don't you kids play somewhere else" was needless rude- I apologize. Can we move on now? If you want to discuss how to improve the project, we have some common ground. If you just want to flame me, you're in the wrong place. Friday (talk) 17:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, but before you make "suggestions" which are total changes in how the Ref Desk works, you should read through the rest of the Ref Desk Talk page, where many of the things you've discussed have already been discussed and rejected, like not allowing any jokes in Misplaced Pages. Having a constant stream of Admins come in, with little Ref Desk background, and wanting to change everything, is very annoying. I'm not looking forward to the next dozen Admins who come in doing the same thing, with me having to explain everything all over again. StuRat 17:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

What do admins have to do with anything? Do you really just mean "experienced editors who are familiar with the goals of the project"? I gotta admit- this last response only convinces me more of the need for significant change at the RDs. In every case I can remember, when someone complains that people keep coming by, talking about policy, and wanting to change things, the essential problem is that someone's been misusing Misplaced Pages. In such cases, the people wanting to use Misplaced Pages as something other than an encyclopedia are in the wrong. This is similar to someone using Misplaced Pages as a personal diary or phone book- they might complain that people keep coming along screwing up their contributions. The essential issue, in that case, would of course be that Misplaced Pages is not meant to be a personal diary, or a phone book. Just because something exists on Misplaced Pages is not an endorsement of it- it's possible that activities contrary to the goals of the project have been going on for a long time at the RD, but this doesn't make it OK. I don't care so much about humor- humor is welcome here, on project or talk pages- but hopefully these are remarks relevant to the issue at hand and not just jokes for their own sake. No amount of "explaining" why you don't want a certain Misplaced Pages page to be in line with Misplaced Pages goals and policies will help. A consensus cannot override such core issues. Friday (talk) 18:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Right. You're yet another Admin who is going to ignore the carefully built consensus of all the Ref Desk regulars who have patiently worked out issues, instead planning to unilaterally decide what's best for the Ref Desk and what's best for Misplaced Pages. The many people who man the Ref Desk couldn't possible have valid insights, only an outsider who has never actually worked on the Ref Desk knows how to make it work properly. What exactly is the point in us having a talk page where we work out issues, if outsider Admins are going to come in and destroy everything we've worked to build ? If the problem is that you don't respect the opinions of anybody except other Admins, try talking with user:Rockpocket. He, at least, is a Ref Desk contributor, as well as an Admin, so has some basis for his opinions of the Ref Desk. StuRat 18:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I've missed something, but what's getting destroyed here? People are allowed to have different opinions on what is or isn't appropriate. I don't think we should be doing original research for RD but I see little value to me attempting to enforce this opinion. Blatant junk, on the other hand, I may try to do something about. It sounds to me like you're trying to own your edits a bit too much- this isn't a good way to look at things, with this being a wiki and all. It may well be that the RD people are mostly a different set of people from the encyclopedia editors, and perhaps there's a different culture and a different set of expectations. But, like it or not, the RD is part of the project. FWIW, I have taken a few stabs at answering RD questions lately in an effort to help out (and understand the RD better). I've been accused of having an anti-admin bias before, but I think this is the first time it's been suggested I have a pro-admin bias. Such a bias would be harmful and I'll endeavor to make sure this isn't the case. Friday (talk) 18:32, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, maybe I've misjudged you based on your "Why don't you kids go play someplace else?" comment and suggestion to delete the entire Ref Desk. After that, when seeing your "let's assume anyone posting a RD question wants a useful answer", I assumed the worst, that you wanted to eliminate all humor, side comments, answers lacking references, etc. (in short, destroying the sense of community we've built here). Perhaps I'm wrong, and you just didn't read or understand the meaning of the "strict template". But you should be more careful when joining a discussion on a project which you are not familiar with, rather than just charging in "like a bull in a china shop". Think of it from our POV, if you had worked for months or years on a project, then I came in and suggested deleting the project, then told you to get lost, how would you feel about me ? StuRat 18:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

To the extent that the RD functions like a chat forum, this needs to change. If this means irritating a community of non-editors who enjoy using Misplaced Pages as a chat forum, I won't mourn their loss. The encyclopedia is our goal here, and editors who aren't doing work relevant to that goal belong at another project. I'm really struggling to understand where you're coming from here- if "let's assume anyone posting a RD question wants a useful answer" causes you to assume the worst, I can only only conclude that your goals here are vastly different from my own. If someone asks for information, my first assumption will be that they want the information they asked for. Why on earth would suggesting that answers be informative cause you to assume some nefarious goals on my part? Friday (talk) 20:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, you said that in response to the suggestion that we provide a template for those who ONLY want a serious answer, without jokes, opinions, side remarks, etc. Therefore, in that context, it means "we don't have to ask users if they want a serious answer only, and don't want any jokes, opinions, side remarks, etc., because we can assume that is what all users want...thus we should ban all jokes, opinions, and side remarks outright". If that's not what you meant, then what did you mean ? Perhaps you weren't following the discussion about the template ? StuRat 20:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

If you see me removing a joke, then it's a good assumption that I think jokes should sometimes be removed. Until that day, why make assumptions? Sorry if I was unclear (we could all benefit from improved communication skills) but I think it would help if you assumed I meant only what I said. I make enough mistakes in what I say as it is- I'd hate to have to spend time clearing up misconceptions about stuff someone thought I might someday say. Friday (talk) 20:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, apparently your comment was just unrelated to the section topic. StuRat 20:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

XMAS colors

		The Barnstar of Good Humor
		When asked why red and green are Christmas colors, you said:"I did have another theory about why red and green are the XMAS colors, but I think it's probably only my family who celebrates XMAS by putting frogs in blenders." I keep wondering how many of these you are going to get... | AndonicO 16:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks ! StuRat 16:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome. But thank yourself too; you earned it, and made me laugh very hard in the process. :-) | AndonicO 17:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again, my goal in life is to make everyone wet their pants. (I secretly own the company that makes Depends.) StuRat 17:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well then, get back into life! ;-) | AndonicO 18:04, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Is "get back into life" their slogan ? I thought it was "good to the last drop". :-) StuRat 18:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well that too. :-) | AndonicO 19:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Now if it didnt seem like sycophancy or loyalty or something, I would award StuRat with something! Im not sure what yet! Lets wait and see what comes to mind.--Light current 00:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, you give him a barnstar; it wouldn't look good if I gave him two in a row. | AndonicO 00:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

My respect for StuRat is worth more than a truckload of Barnstars!--Light current 01:28, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I concur; I won't say "more than a shipload" because it would seem childish.

What we need is an award for StuRat putting up with gigatons of irrelevant bullshit presented as coherent and sensible argument--Light current 01:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

What, you mean they aren't coherent and sensible arguments? ;-) | AndonicO 01:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

E-mail

Email Should be open now. --Light current 16:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Yours, or StuRat's? | AndonicO 16:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Both. StuRat 16:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, but I don't understand what that has to do with the previous discussion, the one about your genius and absolute brilliance. ;-) | AndonicO 17:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Quite right, it needs a new section, which I've just added. StuRat 17:05, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Users against heavy-handed Ref Desk removals and blocks

From: User talk:SCZenz/Reference desk removals:

• Admin:Durova:
• Admin:TenOfAllTrades:
• Admin:Zoe:
• Admin:HappyCamper:
• User:THB
• User:Froth:
• User:Gandalf61:
• User:Edison:
• User:Justanother
• User:Light current
• User:DirkvdM
• User:StuRat
• User:Carcharoth:
• User:Dweller:

This is starting to be a rather substantial list. (If I've misrepresented any person's views, I apologize, this is the best I could do by trying to interpret pages and pages of comments.) StuRat 10:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

My rules for deletions

Unnecessary escalation is both rude and nonproductive. The proper procedure should be followed:

1) First, mention the post on the author's talk page, and politely list your objection, and request that they remove it.

2) If they refuse, and if the comment is so outrageous as to warrant further action, then bring it up here, again politely.

3) If a consensus is reached here to remove it, then the author can again be given the opportunity to remove the comment. At this, point, however, once community consensus exists that it should be removed, other members of the community may delete the comment, if the author refuses.

4) If, and only if, the author replaces the comment three times, should an Admin be summoned, via a 3RR violation complaint.

There are also grounds for a "speedy deletion" by anyone, such as death threats, etc., but only the most severe cases warrant such actions. And, even in these cases, the author should still be notified of the deletion (on their talk page) and the reason (policy violations) given.

Perhaps we should also discuss the reasons to do things according to the above procedure:

a) To be polite. Politeness goes a long way.

b) To avoid "revert wars". (If a comment is removed without consensus having been reached to do so, then the author is entirely justified to disagree with the opinion of the person who removed it and restore the comment.)

c) To avoid a POV bias in the removals. For example, a politically liberal editor might tend to delete any slightly off topic politically conservative comments, and vice-versa, even though they would leave such comments in if they were more in line with their political ideology. This could escalate to having all liberal statements removed by conservatives, and vice-versa, even if entirely on-topic.

d) To avoid personal vendettas in the removals. That is "you removed my post, so I'll remove yours". If a consensus is required for such removals, this type of petty behavior is unlikely.

StuRat 17:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Please put down the torches and pitchforks

I've lifted the block of Light current and paroled him, for reasons described here: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Light_current (diff).

Friday has agreed to this approach, and I think is being quite reasonable.

For your part, I would ask that you refrain from making further attacks on his integrity and judgement . While Friday (apparently) disagrees with both you and me about the utility of the Ref Desk, that doesn't disqualify him from commenting on its activities. Nor does it bar him from acting in what he believes are Misplaced Pages's best interests—as in cases where editors may be detracting from the Ref Desk's functioning by telling off-colour jokes or engaging in newbie-biting.

I'm a bit concerned at the section on your talk page right above this one, and I hope that you're not trying to create an advocacy group to harrass admins (or other editors) who are trying to do their best to do a fairly thankless job. I hope that you (and everyone else involved here) will attempt to adhere to the highest standards of civility and courtesy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I was concerned because there appears to be a steady influx of progressively more unreasonable Admins into the Ref Desk. The first, User:Rick Block, was somewhat reasonable, the next, User:SCZenz, was a bit less reasonable, but at least pretended to discuss things. Now, we have User:Friday, who, rather than discussing things civilly, seems to resort to insults, suggests removing the Ref Desk entirely, and then imposes a lengthy block on a user for the most minor of offenses. Thus, I feel the need to keep track of those Editors and Admins (yourself included), who are at least willing to discuss things rationally. Rather than being an advocacy group to harass Admins, this is an advocacy group to prevent Admins, like Friday, from harassing Editors. I still feel that User:Friday should move on to "policing" other areas, as his presence at the Ref Desk causes disruption, rather then eliminating it. StuRat 16:30, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

(added after edit conflict with above, though I think my remarks definitely apply) ...That's what I get for not reading closely, I guess. I am surprised to notice that you added me to your 'posse' up above. I'm afraid that I'm in favour of removing comments from the Ref Desk that are very off-topic or off-colour; I'm also in favour of blocking editors who repeatedly reject advice to remedy that type of behaviour. Call me heavy-handed if you will—it's up to you. Frankly, I think that 'heavy-handed' is an unnecessarily loaded term that poorly reflects what is most likely a continuum of opinions, and that your choice of terminology is more likely to divide and polarize opinion rather than result in a productive dialog and resolution of the problems we've been seeing. I do hope that you will reconsider your approach.

As an aside, I will also note that Friday has reevaluated his position on the utility of the Ref Desk and has stated his intention to start helping out answering questions there. I think that the two of you have gotten off to an unnecessarily rough start and I hope that you two can set your differences aside. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The word "heavy-handed" is there intentionally. I do not object to all Ref Desk removals and even blocks, but believe they should be used rarely, and only after the proper courtesies are followed: . Since I believe you also oppose heavy-handed Ref Desk removals and blocks, I included you in the list. StuRat 16:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

May I ask... Do you really think it's better, if I think something needs to be removed no matter what, for me to request its removal first (and then delete it if the user doesn't agree)? Is it a courtesy or duplicity? That's an honest question, something I've been wondering about. -- SCZenz 17:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it's duplicity. However, you are missing the deeper issue. The whole reason to discuss it with the user first is to have an honest conversation with them. We have had many examples where an excessively negative interpretation of something (usually the OP's question) turned out not to be the case at all, like the question taken to mean "which races are superior" when it was really asking "which races were considered to be superior according to 19th century thinking". Thus, you need to be open to an honest discussion. If you "talk" to someone, already having made up your mind to ignore everything they say, then that is indeed duplicity. StuRat 17:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Howdy

(This is in response to your AN/I post but it seems more on-topic to reply here.) I just wanted to let you know something- I'm very, very against treating admins as a seperate class of people from editors. I've probably said this many many times in various places, but of course I can't expect you to magically know this. I've gotten flak from other admins before for criticizing admin actions that I've disagreed with. I'm often the guy that argues for leniency when people get blocked. I've written a few rambling essays on admin abuse and related topics. One that seems relevant is User:Friday/drama if you care to have a look.

I know that my "there is consensus among admins" probably gave the opposite impression, but the simple fact is they're the only ones with the technical ability to change the block. I like to try to drive home the idea that "we're all just editors", but this isn't always doable when dealing with software functions that not all editors have. I think we got off on the wrong foot and I'll admit this sure looks like it was my doing. I hope that my ill-tempered remark has not permanently convinced you that I'm a jerk, fool, or anti-reference desk crusader. TenOfAllTrades has jumped in to help out with Light current, and I think this is for the best. Anyway, this may all seem like disingenuous bullshit to you, but I really hope it doesn't. Friday (talk) 16:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, but I don't understand how the Admins being the only ones with the technical ability to add or remove blocks matters when building a consensus to add or remove a block. If, as you claim, you respect the opinions of all Misplaced Pages editors equally, then I would expect you to say "Apparently, the total consensus of all users, including both Admins and Editors, is against this block, at least in it's current length. Therefore, since I respect the opinion of all Misplaced Pages contributors equally, I will now remove the block, and apologize for acting in this manner without having first obtained a consensus." StuRat 16:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I started soliciting input from others well before the block. The problem with blocking is, many people will say "He's my friend! the block is unfair!" with no other reasons. Many editors have a solid understanding of the goals and policies of the project. If people who I've seen around before and I feel have solid judgment are saying one thing, and people whose judgment I don't have confidence in are saying another thing, I give more weight to those I feel have better judgment. This has nothing to do with being an admin or not. I realize this sound elitist, but I think if you think it through you'll see that there's really no other way to go through life. If someone cried "Block him! He's a jerk!" I would give little weight to that opinion too. There world is full of reasonable and unreasonable statements, and there's no getting around the need for human judgment to tell which are which. Friday (talk) 16:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

That simply isn't a logical way to proceed. A person will naturally consider anyone who disagrees with them to have poor judgment. So, by saying you only respect the opinions of those "with good judgment", you are really saying you only respect the opinions of those who agree with you. StuRat 16:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

That's something we all need to watch out for, isn't it? But what's the alternative, agreeing with people who disagree with you? This would lead to an endless flip-flopping of opinion. FWIW, well-reasoned arguments sometimes do get me to change my mind. I've already changed my mind on the RD- my snap judgment about itwas in response to the worst parts of it. The solution is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater- the solution is to improve it, as people correctly pointed out. Anyway, I'll stop rambling. The point I apparently failed to make is: I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot- I'm taking the blame for that one. I hope we can move on and work together in a useful way. Friday (talk) 17:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

We all need to watch out for it, yes, but, in the hands of Admins, assigning different significance to the opinions of different users can lead to far more serious consequences. Thus, Admins need to work even harder to be unbiased. And, if they can't be unbiased, then they should become a normal Editor again, and leave the Admin duties to those who can be unbiased. StuRat 17:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, the alternative isn't "agreeing with those who disagree with you" it's "respecting the opinions of those who disagree with you". StuRat 17:27, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

StuRat, I really don't think that you're being fair here. Friday seems to be reasonable guy willing to be swayed by reasonable discussion and reasoned argument. To take the most recent available example, I offer his rational, polite, and agreeable tone when I lifted the Light current block.

All of us in this discussion have been on Misplaced Pages long enough to get to know a lot of other editors, to see how they work, to see how they argue, to see how they behave. Through that experience, we are able to evaluate the judgement of other editors; if we are honest enough with ourselves, that evaluation will be based on factors beyond Joe Schmoe always agrees with me, so he must have good judgement. I think it's rather unfair – not to mention a bit insulting – to suggest that Friday only considers those who happen to agree with him on this particular issue to be people of good judgement. I hope that you're not trying to pick a fight with Friday, as you're both generally helpful, productive, reasonable people. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence that User:Friday can be swayed by anyone on the Ref Desk who disagrees with him, and is not an Admin ? StuRat 17:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I give up. He's trying to be reasonable, I hope that you'll do the same. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

If he's trying to be reasonable, then why did he undo a permanent block on a deletionist sockpuppet troll, which just happens to support his position:  ? StuRat 18:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

By their fruits shall ye know them--Light current 09:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

A modest proposal

Hi StuRat - thanks for keeping the conversation alive on the RD - I think I'm going to call it a day, and I think I'm going to leave things as is. I've written all there is which needed to be said I think, and it's time for me to move on. There's a lot of good nuggets there, so hopefully some Wikipedians will pick up on what I've tried to get at. In the meantime, I cannot guarantee that I will be around the RD for a sustained period, but do keep an eye out for my edits there - I have a feeling that some normalcy can come back to the project soon. Cheers, HappyCamper 20:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I am afraid that User:Friday's tendency to do things in a unilateral way will return, however, without another Admin prodding him toward building a consensus with the rest of us. May I call on you if he drifts back in that direction ? StuRat 20:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm always around. :-) --HappyCamper 20:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Ref Desk

Hi. I don't intuitively understand SCZenz's wikilawyering and I really can't be bothered traipsing through the articles to get my head round it. IMO the Ref Desks have worked pretty darned well since I came here and if LC cools it a little, they'll be just about perfect. --Dweller 09:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I am cool man! 8-)--Light current 09:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that quoting pages of general Misplaced Pages policy is not constructive, as many don't apply to the Ref Desk, and there are policies that will allow you to do anything you want, like the infamous "ignore all the rules" page, for example. Instead, we need to build consensus, document that consensus in a specific Ref Desk Policy Page, and follow that. With any luck, our Ref Desk Policy Page will not be as confusing and contradictory as the general Misplaced Pages policy pages are. StuRat 09:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

They may appear contradictory because, at the end of the day, one just has to use common sense. For example, WP:IAR says to ignore rules (judiciously) if it's needed to improve the encyclopedia; intent and effect are both critical. -- SCZenz 17:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

And hence we come back to 'common' sense-- whatever that is. THe only commn sense were going to get here is that upon which we agree.--Light current 17:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, that's how Misplaced Pages is run. You're gonna keep encountering people citing common sense, and there's nothing you'll be able to do about it. -- SCZenz 18:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and "common sense" is code for "I get to decide how to apply the rules, unilaterally, ignoring the consensus". StuRat 18:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Appreciation of constructive discussions

Hi StuRat. I appreciate your contributions to the ref desk talk page over the past few hours. In particular, it appears to me that conversations between the two of us have taken a turn for the constructive. I'm going to bed now, but I just wanted to let you know that I intend to do my best to keep them that way. -- SCZenz 09:17, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I hope you see that I am willing to abide by consensus, it's just one person telling me that I must do what they have personally decided that I object to. StuRat 09:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I know you won't agree that this is what I've done, but I'd like to note that my intention has never been to unilaterally impose my personal views. Rather I have been acting (and continue to try to act) according to my understanding of existing Misplaced Pages-wide policy and consensus. Good night! -- SCZenz 09:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I really see the two as synonymous. Since general Misplaced Pages policy is sufficiently vague that anyone can interpret it to mean anything they want, we all will tend to interpret it so that it corresponds with our personal views. Thus, any one person deciding which Misplaced Pages policies apply at the Ref Desk is the same as imposing their own rules. Have a good night, and be sure to dream of consensus-building solutions, LOL. StuRat 09:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

You don't seem to have the experience with broad Misplaced Pages policy that I have. You may rest assured that, whether you agree with my views or not, they are based on my understanding of consensus from many past policy discussions and incidents. The rules are thus not "my own," even if they may seem that way to you. Now, that's only clarifying my intent, not saying I 100% promise I'm right. -- SCZenz 16:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

As you say, they are based on "your understanding". As we've discussed before, many of the Ref Desk volunteers also have broad Misplaced Pages experience, including myself, so we don't just accept that your interpretation is always right and ours is always wrong. And, when interpretations vary, that's when consensus should decide the issue. StuRat 16:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

You don't have broad policy experience, frankly, and it shows. That's no criticism, but it is true, and it does mean that you tend to invent new solutions to problems for the reference desk rather than using those that are consistent with the rest of Misplaced Pages. Of course I have to use my judgement about what policy says—everyone does! I tend to be bold in the use of my judgement, because (outside the reference desk) my judgement is generally regarded as good. -- SCZenz 17:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

That's because those applications of Misplaced Pages policy to article pages is appropriate, while it's not appropriate at the Ref Desk. A different project requires a different application of policy, it's not "one size fits all". StuRat 17:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

You're arguing about something that already has an accepted answer. The RD is in "project" space, not "article" space. Yes, standards are a bit different. Friday (talk) 17:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not arguing it, I'm saying that is why you two are incorrect in applying policies that are designed for articles, such as when you say "nobody owns an edit" so anyone can delete it if they feel it improves things. That's quite true of an article, but it's not at all true on the Ref Desk. A much higher standard must be met before deleting comments from a talk page, such as the Ref Desk. That is exactly the type of thing that apparently needs clarification for Admins, in the form of a Ref Desk Policy Page. StuRat 18:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Input

I am at work now but will leave my input this evening. Thanks for asking! --Justanother 13:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Work ??? Get your priorities straight, quit your job and get back to Misplaced Pages immediately ! :-) StuRat 13:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Man cannot live by Misplaced Pages alone (not until thay start paying us that is). Hey do you think we'll get royalties on the first printed or CD versions? --Light current 16:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Yea, I have to go put in an appearance at work, myself. Why doesn't the boss understand that I have more important things to do ? :-) StuRat 17:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Cos hes not a nutcase Wikipedian like us 8-)--Light current 17:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy

I just wanted to remind you again of this. Once again, you seem to be wanting a very formal, everything-must-have-an-exact-rule approach, and then you want to vote on it. This is not how we do things here. We don't need to have rules against disruption at the reference desk or any other specific page- disruption is already disallowed, by policy, tradition, and common sense. Friday (talk) 15:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The need for rules and consensus should be quite obvious to everyone by now. This sounds very much like you want to go back to saying "some of the Misplaced Pages rules apply to the Ref Desk, and some don't, and I will be the one who decides which do and which don't, so no consensus is needed, just do as I say". Again, if you don't respect the consensus of other editors, might I point out that a number of Admins have said the same thing as I ? As for disruption, the questions of what constitutes disruption, and what constitutes disruption of a level sufficient to require action, and what that action should be taken, these are all issues to be decided by consensus, not by unilateral action. StuRat 15:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages has a number of policies already. If you want to nail down some specifics about the RD (it is different from most pages in some ways) that's great. Of course we all need to respect consensus. But "disruption" is a tricky one- there's a reason we don't have a page that exactly describes which exact actions are disruption. It's a judgment call. If nobody's ever been able to make such a description before, what on earth makes you think we can come up with one at the RD page? I just think if we focus on other areas, we may get a useful result. Trying to nail down a definition of disruption? That's not doable. Friday (talk) 15:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree, we can at least nail down the major categories of disruption. The concern here is that you, or somebody else, will just call anything they don't like "disruption" and ignore all the rules we are setting up for how to properly handle disputes. Incidentally, I also consider such actions to be disruptive. Your block of User:light current is a prime example, you took his behavior to be disruptive, while many people, including Admins, disagreed. Thus, we have proof that your unilateral judgment is not sufficient in these matters. For a quick definition, I would say something is disruptive if it prevents the Ref Desk from functioning. I have a hard time seeing how LC's comment did that. The block, on the other hand, certainly did prevent us from answering many questions, as everyone involved had to spend a great deal of time discussing the block to get it overturned, time that took away from the Ref Desk. And, of course, LC couldn't answer any Ref Desk questions during the block. Therefore, this block violated the goal of working to minimize disruption. StuRat 15:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Light current was very obviously trolling just before the block - see the discussion at AN/I. This is hardly in dispute. Friday (talk) 15:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I saw the AN/I, did you ? There most definitely was a dispute about whether he was trolling. StuRat 15:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I wasnt actually, I was busy apologising and removing 'offensive' comments and trying to save my skin (failed tho)--Light current 16:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's just disagree on that then. If you want to talk about disruption specifically, maybe WP:DIS is a good place to start. Unless there's something I'm missing, there's nothing special about the RD that suggests we need different standards of disruption there than anywhere else. Friday (talk) 16:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

That page strongly supports my case. First, it doesn't contain any actual way to determine what disruption is, meaning that the definition is left to be decided elsewhere (like on the Ref Desk Policy Page). They then warn that "...it is tempting every now and then to use the word to refer to certain acts that, while they should not have been committed, do not actually disrupt anything, either. Please try to avoid this." I believe this applies to your characterization of LC's actions. They certainly were no more severe than "small-scale vandalism": "For instance, one user gratuitously insulting another user, while inappropriate, is not disruptive. Neither is simple small-scale vandalism." They then follow up with an example quite similar to what happened with your block of LC: "Furthermore, don't cause actual disruption in an effort to fix a perceived disruption. An excellent example of this is the Great Userbox War of 2006; several users who claimed userboxes were disruptive, set about deleting and trying to stop further creation of such userboxes. The ensuing fight was orders of magnitude more disruptive than any supposed disruption for which the userbox opponents were able to provide evidence. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it is disruption. Disruption is a large-scale hindrance of Misplaced Pages's ability to function, whether technically, administratively, or socially. An insult, or even a string of insults targeted at several users, does not do this." They then finish up with: "Please note, however, that 'disruption' is often Wiki-code for 'something admins don't agree with', which also seems to be exactly what is happening here. StuRat 16:16, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I removed that last sentence. It was added recently by a user with only two edits, and was a throwaway line does not accurately reflect the intent of the essay or community consensus on Misplaced Pages; it simply didn't get fixed quickly. -- SCZenz 16:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

It has stood since October 13th, so many people apparently agree with it, including me. StuRat 16:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

It was reverted as vandalism, and then forgotten about and later restored. It's clear it's not a highly trafficked page. It was a cheap shot at admins by a disaffected user. I'd rather not argue this point further though; I don't think we need to take our disagreements onto random essay pages. -- SCZenz 16:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

We may agree with it Stu, but I still dont think it belongs on that page--Light current 17:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

As a side note, I firmly believe that administrators who use "disruption" as an excuse to remove things they simply don't like should be held accountable. (In fact, I've seen it happen.) Perhaps you guys believe this is what I have done, but all I can say is it's not what I meant to do—and I believe many other admins have reviewed my actions, with none censuring me for acting in bad faith... although two did tell me I shouldn't have blocked DirkvdM as I did. The point is, that remark shouldn't be in that essay not because admins are perfect, but because that page is a description of how things ought to be handled. -- SCZenz 17:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

They also list two other cases where things don't work as they should (somebody calling things disruption that aren't and a reaction to real or imagined disruption which causes more disruption than the original trigger). StuRat 17:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

As illustrations of what can be done better, not generalized cheap shots. -- SCZenz 17:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Disruption

Regarding this, we've had this conversation before. I'd rather not repeat it, but if we must, please direct concerns about me specifically to my talk page, not a project page. Friday (talk) 00:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

No, because it has a direct bearing on whether we are willing to let you unilaterally decide what disruption is, which is precisely what we are discussing at the Ref Desk. Therefore, it is entirely relevant to that conversation. StuRat 00:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I assumed you were complaining about the Light current block. If your issue is relevant to the RD, you could make that more clear. Friday (talk) 00:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It is related. Your lack of judgment in that case, and others, is why we need to go to formal rules. If you and SCZenz actually only performed "out-of-process" deletions for things which were truly disruption, then nobody would have a problem with that. However, you both delete things which fall far short of being disruptive, then place blocks on users who disagree with you. This is simply not acceptable behavior. Since you don't seem to know what disruption is, we apparently need to define it for you. StuRat 00:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You're misunderstanding what people call "out of process deletions", by the way. I've never blocked an editor for disagreeing with me- I endure all manner of insults quite regularly and disregard them. The Light current thing is over (or, I wish it was). It was discussed at AN/I. I'm fine with how my actions were viewed in that discussion, because many experienced editors who well understand how Misplaced Pages works agreed that the block was appropriate. Many people gave the same reasons I did for why his actions were disruptive. And yes, I see that many people disagreed also. I'm fine with discussing what I think should or shouldn't be done, and I'm fine with discussing whether or not something I did was a good idea. Hell, anyone who wasn't wouldn't function very well here. If you have something new and relevant to say, I'm all ears, but if you just want to flame me, that's not helpful. Friday (talk) 00:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

What I want is for you to stop trying to disrupt the process of building a consensus on RD rules and work with us to achieve them. Saying "we don't need any rules, I know what's best" (paraphrased, of course) is not helpful. StuRat 00:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. Not sure if it's rhetoric or edits that you're unhappy with, or some of each. If it's rhetoric, let's just agree to disagree, alright? If it's specific actions, object to them as they come up in the approrpiate place and we'll discuss them. Have I done something since the block that you're objecting to? Friday (talk) 00:55, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you did an "out-of-process" deletion of the question by User:Kjvenus. While the deletion itself may have been acceptable, had you followed the proper process, having you decide the issue unilaterally is not acceptable. StuRat 00:59, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

If you're objecting to process but not outcome, I'm afraid I'll rarely be sympathetic. There's a general tradition here regarding product and process. Friday (talk) 01:07, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Humourlessness

I'm glad you're in conversation with the happy guy, as well. Of course, I'm much more 'useless' than you... --Zeizmic 14:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean User:HappyCamper ? StuRat 15:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Barnstar of Good Humor
		For a funny comment at the expense of Microsoft: "I actually like the name 'Windows' for the O/S, as it accurately portrays how paneful it is to use." I recieved a barnstar for a similar comment so I thought I'd spread the love froth 20:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks ! StuRat 20:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Please

Again, please: if you're just picking on me, do it on my talk page. We need to struggle to stay on-topic at the RD talk page. Friday (talk) 23:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I merely meant to say that you are bound to be more proficient at apologizing, since you need to do it so often. :-) StuRat 23:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I wish you would heed the advice of the editors who've asked you to put our personal conflict behind you. Friday (talk) 23:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Just having a bit of fun. StuRat 23:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm asking you again to please keep the flamebait on my user talk page rather than on project talk pages. Actually, stopping with the flamebait altogether is even better. Friday (talk) 19:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not flame bait, it's the truth, you seem to be intentionally lying about what the template says to try to get it removed. It does NOT say "You must add this template to get a useful answer", which is how you keep misrepresenting it. StuRat 20:10, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I was expressing my opinion about the impression the template gives. Reasonable people can disagree reasonably without it requiring one of them to be intentionally lying. Friday (talk) 20:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

You couldn't possibly think the template means what you claim: StuRat 20:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

If you would prefer a more formal response, put Template:Strict at the end of your question. Editors will try to include references in their responses to your question, and will refrain from posting responses not specifically applicable to your question.

Iraq

Man what a shitstorm I got myself into! Oh well, that's life, and it seems to me that even if they don't entirely agree with me, most of the folks involved are smart enough to realize what's what.

Anyway, with regards to Iraq, I hope you didn't take my comment the wrong way. To your credit, you tend to hold a very finely drawn position on many issues. Sometimes so fine that I can barely make it out. I was only surprised because if I remember correctly, you seem to hold a very cynical view of things like Halliburton and the like. I only assumed, therefore, that your cynicism would include a belief that the whole war was "all about Americans stealing oil from Iraq". I suppose I assumed wrong. Take care, Lewis Loomis 20:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I think it was about Bush getting revenge for Saddam trying to kill his father. There has been one positive effect of the war, though, huge numbers of terrorists that would have been launched against the West were instead sent to Iraq. StuRat 20:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Discuss, don't vote

You may want to have a look at WP:DDV. I think you're confusing the majority votes you've been conducting with consensus. Friday (talk) 20:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Since you and a couple other Admins pretty much oppose anything we do on the Ref Desk, the majority is the best we can ever hope to get. And, I didn't see anyone argue against the template when it was implemented, so we did indeed have consensus, at that time. If you want to remove it, you need to get consensus to do so. StuRat 20:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

When have I ever told you I was an admin, and why does this matter? You seem to think there are admins throwing their weight around, but I don't see it. I'm hardly opposed to "anything" people do at the ref desk- there's a lot of good work going on there. I agree with some things on the talk page, and I disagree with other things- this is normal. I'm made quite an effort to explain to everyone, and specifically to you personally, where I'm coming from and why I think what I think. I realize I'm far from a perfect communicator, but I'm doing my best. As to the point above (which really belongs on WT:RD) there's active disagreement over this going on at the talk page right now- this means we don't have a good consensus. Friday (talk) 21:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

You've had that item there for 2.5 hours, and now, just because you and one other Admin want it removed, you want to ignore the previous consensus, cut the conversation short and do as you please. This is unacceptable. StuRat 21:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I think you're disagreeing with me just because it's me. I can only recommend you read Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk/Archive_15#POLL_-_start_a_new_.27strict.27_ref_desk_.28as_a_test.29_.3F. I'm bowing out- I've already tried my best to explain where I'm coming from. Friday (talk) 21:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Er, can't speak for everyone else, but the most recent thread on the Ref Desk talk page is the first that I even noticed that the {{strict}} template even existed. I can't be on Misplaced Pages all the time, after all. (It looks like the discussion mentioning it was inadvertently archived very soon after the template was announced.) I'm not trying to do some sort of end run around consensus, but I don't think that there really was a clear consensus established to begin with. Sometimes it's a good idea to let these proposals simmer for a bit longer before jumping in and adding them to a high traffic page.

I would appreciate it if you didn't cast this debate as some sort of holy war between the good and fun loving gnomes of the Ref Desk and the big evil admins who want to suck all joy out of helping others. For the record, I'm a big evil admin who happens to help out a fair bit on the Ref Desk (and I enjoy doing it), and I think you're doing yourself a disservice, StuRat, by drawing a line between yourself and the 'Admins'. Much obliged. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:28, 9 December 2006 (UTC)