Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 122

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Reference desk. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 115

←

Archive 120

How do they know?

From time to time some of our more, shall we say, control-minded contributors delete questions, or complain about others treating them as legitimate, "because they were posted by a banned user". How do these people know this? (This is not an accusation that anyone is going off half-cocked; I'm assuming good faith and asking for a citation, or more precisely, asking what a citation would look like.) --69.159.61.172 (talk) 09:36, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

A question which has been asked repeatedly by many editors, and has never been answered. DuncanHill (talk) 11:17, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Recent questions which have been deleted have all been submitted by a well-known troll who likes to ask "questions" that are merely racist or antisemitic attacks. They're rather blatantly so, and easy to identify given the rather similar pattern. --Jayron 32 11:28, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

A great number of removals of questions and answers do not fall into the "obviously racist" category - or even the "cunningly worded, subtly racist" category. It is those for which a proper explanation would be appreciated. DuncanHill (talk) 12:05, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Do you have an example? I can't provide any commentary unless you have a removal you're questioning. --Jayron 32 12:08, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

@Jayron32: @DuncanHill: How about here [1]? Anyone else can find a few similar removals from science desk on Feb 18. Perhaps it's my scientific biases toward skepticism and desiring evidence-based reasoning, but I find it hard to believe that one banned user is the only explanation for some posts about gum trees, apothecaries, and funnel web spiders. I also think the removals are needless and disruptive even if the are from the same banned user, but that's a different matter entirely. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:38, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

That's an excellent example, and I agree that the removals are disruptive. DuncanHill (talk) 15:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I was not involved in that removal, so I cannot comment intelligently on it. You will have to contact the administrator who did that and ask him. --Jayron 32 17:05, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

We're discussing it on the talk page. This thread is not exclusively about you Jayron32. DuncanHill (talk) 17:07, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

If you have actions you have objections to, you need to directly name the person whose action you object to. People who were not involved cannot provide rationales for those that were. --Jayron 32 17:11, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

No-one asked you to. DuncanHill (talk) 17:13, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Banned users, who are not permitted to edit Wikipedia, can normally be easily identified through a combination of WP:LTA, WP:SPI cases, ban discussions, repeated blocks, ban-evading edits, and the users' original accounts and many sockpuppets. A citation would normally look like WP:LTA, but it could be any of the alternatives or none of the above. If in doubt, ask the user removing the post. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 13:56, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I asked this question recently after I was accused of responding to a known troll. Evidently the "decision" in that case came down to a somewhat common spelling mistake that had been made once before by a known banned troll and appeared multiple times in the suspect's question. The IP address of the questioner didn't match any known addresses for the known-evildoer - but they did geolocate to the same (large) city and the same (very popular) internet service provider - narrowing it down to a group of about 700,000 people. In all other ways, the question was perfectly reasonable, non-abusive and very answerable - and multiple people answered it. Personally, I find the evidence only somewhat convincing - spelling mistake + fuzzy-geolocation versus perfectly-reasonable question. I didn't get a clear statement about that evidence from anyone - I basically had to infer it myself.

The question here is not that different to the standards of proof in a court of law. Do we require evidence "beyond reasonable doubt" or merely "reasonable suspicion" or something between those two extremes? Since we're not locking someone away for life - only preventing them from asking a question here - I conceded that "beyond reasonable doubt" is a higher bar than we need. I would say that "Preponderance of the evidence" might be an appropriate choice here. The spelling mistake, by itself wouldn't be enough to convince me, and the geolocation evidence certainly doesn't convince me - but perhaps, the two together rises to the "preponderance of evidence" standard? I dunno...it's marginal at best when you have a completely reasonable, non-abusive, answerable question. If a vandal isn't vandalizing - do we care?

In the case above, neither question nor answers were removed or hatted...which, IMHO, was a reasonable outcome from spotty evidence and zero actual abuse. But there is absolutely no way we can apply that degree of investigative 'depth' to every question we have here so we're somewhat reliant on "gut feel" from self-proclaimed troll-hunters.

However, my real problem with all of this is that we seem to have arrived at a point where just anyone here feels OK with finding some evidence, making a judgement call and imposing a penalty - and all without discussion. This is a classic case of being "judge, jury and executioner" - and with the persons doing this not even having passed the relatively easy test to gain admin privileges - this amounts to vigilantism - and that leaves us with the rough justice of the wild west. That doesn't sit well with me. At least if an admin takes that kind of action, we have recourse to various WP:GBU mechanisms to call them to task and there are firm standards to which they are expected to adhere.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:43, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with User:DuncanHill that it often isn't easy to identify a post by a troll. I think that some editors are too quick to assume that a particular post is by a troll. It isn't always obvious "out of the box" what is a troll post. I would ask that other editors, first, be cautious in removing posts other than based on their content, and, second, that other editors absolutely refrain from scolding other editors for not recognizing "obvious" troll posts based on supposedly subtle clues. Sometimes, as noted above, a troll post doesn't start off as racist; sometimes the hate speech comes in later, and can be dealt with then. It may be that we have gotten to the point where we need to shut down these Reference Desks, not because of trolls as such, but because some of the regular editors disrupt these Reference Desks by over-reaction to trolls in one way or another. I don't think so and hope not, but I would suggest that in non-obvious cases we err on the side of assuming good faith. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:20, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Do you have any recent examples that we have to deal with? Without concrete examples, we're just taking people's word for it that this is a currently active problem. --Jayron 32 19:19, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

At "Summary and Discussion" above, there was a lot of discussion, some of it not pleasant, about how to recognize "obvious" trolls. Maybe that isn't your question. My point is that it isn't always obvious what posts are by trolls, and that good-faith editors should start with the assumption of good faith. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:46, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree. If a question is reasonable - I'll answer it if I'm able. If it happens to be from a person who is occasionally ill-behaved, but I have no way to know that - then I'm not sure I care. I've known of several vandals and other miscreants over the years who have reformed and quietly sneaked back here and done good work. In the end, we don't block people as a punishment - we block them as a matter of self-defense for the encyclopedia. If you get the idea of "punishment" out of your head and substitute "self-defense" - then there is no reason not to allow reasonable posts no matter who they are from. Abusive posts are a lot easier to spot than abusive people. SteveBaker (talk) 21:04, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, there is one reason, of course: the belief that if a banned user is able to get away with even one post that persists, this will embolden him to vast new vandalistic efforts which we will then have to defend against. Instead, therefore, we must systematically delete every one of his posts, no matter how reasonable, so that perhaps he'll go away. (Needless to say I don't personally agree with the hyperzealous application of these beliefs in all cases, although it's true that the "give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile" concern does have some validity.) —Steve Summit (talk) 19:27, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

The question is only reasonable if there is evidence to support its reasonability. If I have removed a post incorrectly, ask me here on the talk page why I have removed it. If you cannot tell me which removal of mine was unacceptable, then you need to stop accusing me of incorrectly removing posts. I have asked repeatedly for you to bring forward a specific example for discussion. No one has done so yet. --Jayron 32 02:09, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

See my diff link above for an example of about 10 IP posts removed at once, one within minutes of its posting, as I was typing up my referenced reply. (I posted the diff where first relevant, before finishing this thread). For the record, I don't think I've ever seen you make a removal that I personally disagreed with. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:42, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#Global_Marshmallow_production seemed a bit heavy-handed to me. The question was a bit silly - but we have no rule against silly questions. There were some reasonably good efforts at coming up with estimates. Heck, it might even be properly answerable. It was one of those questions that I chose not to answer (the effort in coming up with a good answer seemed to exceed the value of giving it) - but I don't think a hatting was warranted. We're supposed to WG:AGF - and it's possible someone had a reason for asking it. It's no sillier than questions that resulted in a best-selling book being written (http://whatif.xkcd.com/book/) - and if I were writing such a thing, I'd expect to be able to ask questions like the marshmallow question here on the refdesk. SteveBaker (talk) 15:48, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

So corrected. See, that wasn't hard, was it? Feel free to provide him with the references you have found regarding the usual consumption of marshmallows by Ethiopian elephants, since you clearly have those. I apologize for assuming you would not find such references. --Jayron 32 16:58, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

The inability to answer a question because there don't happen to be any references is NOT grounds for hatting a question. Furthermore, how do you, personally, KNOW FOR SURE that nobody will come up with a reference in this case? I wouldn't be at all that surprised to find someplace in the vastness of the Internet where an elephant owner in India remarks that none of his elephants will eat marshmallows...so the answer might well be able to include a reasonable reference that says that the answer for Ethiopian elephants is almost certainly zero. I don't know that such a document exists - but I can't say with any confidence that it doesn't...and neither can you. You can't prove a negative - so you can't prove that no decent answer is possible - so you shouldn't have hatted this one. Also, there are MANY questions (many of which you, personally have answered) whose best answers don't have references. We very often come up with answers that are a synthesis of multiple sources - or some simple, commonsense logic is sufficient to answer them. In this case, we have a Fermi problem - that can probably result in a ballpark estimate - which is all our OP could possibly expect to get. Even article-space contributions do not require reference for facts that are obvious or unlikely to be disputed. SteveBaker (talk) 17:17, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

You're not going to get me to disagree with you, SteveBaker. You're still going to be correct, I am still going to have been in error, and I am still going to have both apologized for and corrected by mistake. No amount of trying to start an argument by you is going to get me to change my position on my own incorrectness, nor I am going to rescind my apology for it. I'm not sure what you are trying to gain here. --Jayron 32 19:15, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

@Jayron32: - did anyone in this thread accuse you of incorrectly removing posts? DuncanHill (talk) 15:45, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

You said "A great number of removals of questions and answers do not fall into the "obviously racist" category - or even the "cunningly worded, subtly racist" category. It is those for which a proper explanation would be appreciated" I asked you directly underneath that statement for an example of such a post. You have not, as yet, provided that. --Jayron 32 16:56, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

See above, where I agreed with SemanticMantis's example. And will you please answer the question - Has anyone in this thread accused you of incorrectly removing posts? DuncanHill (talk) 17:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, when you said "A great number of removals of questions and answers do not fall into the "obviously racist" category - or even the "cunningly worded, subtly racist" category. It is those for which a proper explanation would be appreciated". You said that. I asked you to provide one example where I did "a great number of removals", or even one. You have not done so. SteveBaker had a specific example I was involved in, and I fixed his concerns. So I ask you again, using your words, which of these "great numbers of removals" do you wish me to provide a "proper explanation". I will gladly do so. --Jayron 32 17:03, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I never mentioned you, and did not make such an accusation against you, as is clear to anyone who reads the words. DuncanHill (talk) 17:09, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

You responded to a comment I made directly. If you wish to involve someone other than me into the discussion, you need to name them and invite them to comment. If you directly ask a question of me, as you did above, I can only answer it for myself. I cannot answer it for other people. --Jayron 32 17:12, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I did not make any accusation against you. The thread was not about you. Please stop being disruptive. DuncanHill (talk) 17:14, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Which administrator is it about then? --Jayron 32 17:16, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

It is, as is obvious, about some general concerns shared by some editors about a pattern of removals. DuncanHill (talk) 17:18, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Yeah sorry Jayron I never thought this was about you or any particular user. I only supplied a diff that I thought was relevant to OP's question and an example that fit Duncan's form, and you did ask for an example, I did not think you meant about you, only the general concept of removing material of a banned user that is not obvious racist trolling. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:41, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that most removals need some justification listed in the edit summary, not just "troll". We have a right to know why the person who removed them thinks they are a troll. For example, there should be a link to where the user was previously banned for trolling, along with reasons for thinking this is the same user. Any user, Admin included, who removes a post as trolling without any explanation given should be immediately reverted, with exceptions for truly obvious trolling like "Why did Jews make up the Holocaust ?".

Note that the "punishment" aspect of removing a troll is much greater, if good faith answers are removed along with it, as all the time those people spent on finding an answer, which may well be of use to others than the OP, has now been wasted. And I also agree that punishment shouldn't be the goal here, just protection of the Ref Desk. When the removals do more harm than good, they aren't protecting it. Silly questions can just be ignored, they don't need to be removed. StuRat (talk) 18:42, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. Which is why I didn't answer the "Marshmallow" question - and didn't react when others did. As it happens, I learned something there - that a Marsh mallow is not only a real thing, but actually is the origin of marshmallow making! Wow! So even if the question was junk, there was value in the answers. SteveBaker (talk) 16:28, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

How for Idealists to Go Forward

I would like to restate concisely a few previous observations on how the "idealists", who think that the Reference Desks provide a necessary service to unregistered editors, so that periodic semi-protection is unacceptable, can go forward. There are two ways that they can go forward. First, Option A, they can offer an RFC at the protection policy talk page to state that the Reference Desks are exempt from the protection policy and should never be semi-protected. (This is not the place for such an RFC. We cannot create a local consensus that overrides the global consensus on the policy.) Second, Option B, they can offer an RFC here (not just another straw poll) asking whether a redesign of the Reference Desk, so as not to use ordinary Wikipedia pages which are user-edited and so subject to protection when necessary, is needed in order to ensure that unregistered editors are not locked out of the Reference Desks. In my opinion, those are the two ways that the "idealists" can go forward. Does anyone else have a different opinion? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:17, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Option C: Revert and block repeatedly until the trolls get bored. --Jayron 32 02:05, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

...or until the ref desks die of starvation...whichever comes first. SteveBaker (talk) 17:02, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

This is a fine option, and I can agree with it almost unreservedly, but in the current climate there is yet a further wrinkle.

Typically, when a troll/vandal shows up, someone will revert, and the tro/ndal will revert, and someone will revert, for anywhere between 2 and 50 cycles. At some point, the defenders get bored, and an admin shows up, and temporarily protects the page, let's say for 2 hours. That's fine, we just about all agree that temporary protection is reasonable and justified in an emergency.

But suppose the trondal is not deterred, and patiently waits 2 hours for the block to expire. The question then becomes, who is more patient and zealous, the trondal or the defenders?

Case C1. The trondal is more patient and zealous. He waits 2 hours plus one minute, and reinserts the vandalism, but no one notices, so it sits there for another N hours, during which time the page is (a) visibly vandalized but (b) usable by everyone who either doesn't notice the vandalism or doesn't care. Eventually, someone does notice the reinserted vandalism, and rereverts it. If by now the trondal has gone to sleep the cycle ends, otherwise it repeats.

Case C2. The defenders are at least as patient and zealous. They wait 2 hours plus one minute for the vandal to reinsert the vandalism, and pounce on it immediately. A new cycle is guaranteed to begin immediately, leading shortly to another bout of protection.

The end result is that as long as the defenders are at least as patient and zealous, we are more or less guaranteed to get multiple back-to-back two-hour protections, which might as well be merged into a two-day protection, or two months, or two years -- the end result is the same. This is the autoimmune disorder which dooms us if we try too hard. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:58, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Option D: Declare a moratorium against all reverting, blocking and hatting - and let the idealists see how well it works. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:10, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

You've offered this before and I'm willing to try it but I don't think it will ever get even close to consensus. Even if we could get consensus, that puts us in this messy situation: User A removes a post as trolling, and it's an obvious bad racist post. User B knows we have consensus to let things stand, as an experiment. So user B is now reinstating bad faith posts to follow consensus. So even though I like the idea, I'm pretty sure it can't be tried. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:55, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

The one most likely to put it back is the original poster. And, as usual, pre-empting it by saying "it won't work", without actually trying it, is the unfortunate norm here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:56, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, we'd need consensus against a more nuanced set of guidelines - some sort of metric for success - and some agreed period for the experiment to run - but under the right conditions, I think it's a valid experiment. SteveBaker (talk) 17:02, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Which is why nothing ever happens. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:06, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Don't poison the well, Bugs. I said I agree that it would be interesting to try, and gave an opinion that it would not get consensus. Below, Guy is considering posting another RfC on exactly this topic. So why not encourage that effort rather than grouse about my prediction? After all, I hope I'm wrong :) SemanticMantis (talk) 22:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Maybe something will happen this time. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:57, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Option E: Work together to come up with some other solution. SteveBaker (talk) 17:02, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Good luck. You'll need it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:06, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Let the RfC above close, it's only got a few more days right? Or perhaps someone wants to request closure form an uninvolved editor? It looks to me like consensus is to support both proposals, and I don't think there's any real problem with the claim that this local consensus in any way changes higher-order WP extant consensuses. :I'm not so extreme as to think we should never semi-protect the desks. My contention from the start was that a three-month protection instated by one admin could stand so long against apparent consensus that it was not necessary. If the RfC passes, any admin can and should immediately change long-term protection to 48 hour protection. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:55, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

For "periodic" see "almost always". For "until the trolls get bored" see "it ain't happening". It's hardly idealist to try to uphold the fundamental tenet of Wikipedia being an encyclopaedia "anyone can edit". Try solving the problem rather than continually bludgeoning the symptoms. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:06, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Robert's assessment of the situation is way, WAY off. I don't think anyone is saying that we need a rule at arbcom type levels saying that admins are forever barred from using semi-protection on this page. Sure, that's an idealist position - but I don't think anyone here holds that position. What we need is a way to provide an alternative solution to the vandalism problems that do not require us to lock half of our users out from our service. If the only tool we have is semi-protection, and if admins are over-using it - then we need to provide a better alternative because for 100% sure, what we're doing now ain't working...and it's actually killing the ref desks. Fine, leave semi-protection as an emergency measure - if it's used for a few days a year - fine, no problem. The practical problem is that it's being WAY over-used. It's the classic case of "when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail". We need more tools in the toolbox.

When you persist in trying to hammer screws into fine antique furniture - you damage it. Please stop doing that.

We need people here to open their minds - use those gigantic brains that can come up with answers to almost everything - and find some more tools for the toolkit. SteveBaker (talk) 16:51, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

How about some limit on the number of days a Desk can be protected ? 3 days per calendar month ? (We could put a limit on how many days each Admin can semi-protect a Ref Desk, but then they might just call in their buddies to do it for them.) Of course, how we would get this to be official policy and enforce it is still an open Q. StuRat (talk) 19:03, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Option F. -- Apostle (talk) 19:11, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure why User:SteveBaker says that my analysis is off the mark. Steve Baker did complain at the RFC, which is still running, that never semi-protecting the Reference Desks was not one of the options. He then proposed a redesign of the Reference Desk in order to avoid the need for semi-protection. My comment was that Option A, never semi-protecting, would require an RFC to change to the Protection Policy, and that Option B, some sort of redesign, should be done by an RFC. I was only saying that those were the only two options that I saw that were consistent with the idealistic position. Steve Baker may be softening his opposition to ever semi-protecting. If so, he is still in the idealist camp, but less so. Option C, revert and block until the trolls get bored, doesn’t say whether also to use semi-protection, in which case it is a pragmatic position. Option D, to declare a moratorium on hatting, deleting, and blocking, is not consistent with Wikipedia policy that disruptive editors should be blocked. Guy Macon appears to have proposed a moratorium on hatting and deleting. Option E isn’t a defined option but a suggestion to define another option. Steve Baker hasn’t said why my analysis is off the mark. So far, I only see two ways forward for idealists, either a policy change or a fundamental redesign. Other ways forward are pragmatic. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:41, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I personally don’t see that the Reference Desks need to be treated as a special resource to unregistered editors, because anyone can register, but that is my opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:41, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Would you approve a rule that only registered users could read wikipedia articles? I don't think so.

I don't like the "editor/reader" distinction - I prefer to think in terms of "content-creator/content-user". In article space, that's exactly the same thing as the editor/reader distinction.

But here in the ref desks, the clunky mechanism we have for asking questions forces content-users to become editors. And *THAT*, right there, is the problem we have here.

In article space, a troll has to become a content-creator (ie, an editor) in order to disrupt - so we can block the content-creator pathways to stop tolling without disrupting content-users in the slightest. Semi-protection works by shutting down the content-creator pathways to IP users - but doesn't disrupt the content-users at all.

In WP:RD By having content-users having to edit WP:RD in order to ask questions and thereby consume our content - we arrive at a situation where trolls can behave like content-users - and using our only tool, we have to block editing to stop them - which in turn screws up other content-users.

That's why semi-protection is such a major PITA here - whilst being a fairly elegant and effective tool in article space. SteveBaker (talk) 16:47, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected etc.

In WP:RD/L#Person + wanderlust, please add this below the comment dated 00:37, 27 February 2016:

Wanderlust guy may not be an expression that would be used in general conversation, but it could come up if there was prior context. ("Okay, there are three of them and I've looked into what they all like. Smith is into pretty young women (specifically, he's a leg man), Jones is after power for its own sake, and Largutroyd-Jacksville has a serious case of wanderlust."—"What did you say the wanderlust guy's name was again?") Here wanderlust guy means guy with wanderlust.

Also note, in that last example, that leg man doesn't mean man of leg, but something like man who evaluates women based on the appearance of their legs. --69.159.61.172 (talk) 19:51, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Done [2] clpo13_(talk) 20:03, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 February 2016

This edit request to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

On the Science page, for the question "Science papers with photographs of the authors on the first page", please add the following response:

It depends on the field and journal, to some extent. Generally speaking, I've found it's rare to see it on research papers, but it does sometimes happen with review and perspective articles. For example, Angewandte Chemie (a highly respected journal in chemistry) doesn't do anything like it for its research papers, but all of its review articles have photographs and short biographies of all the authors as part of the article itself. (As does ChemBioChem, from the same publisher.) Chemical Society Reviews and some of the other journals from the Royal Society of Chemistry do this as well. ACS Chemical Biology doesn't attach pictures and biographies to the papers themselves, but does have a separate "Introducing Our Authors" section, which has selected pictures and bios for both review and research authors. In contrast, the Journal of the American Chemical Society (by the same publisher as ACS Chemical Biology) normally doesn't provide any sort of biography or photographs at all. - To make an unsupported generalization, I'd say including photographs and biographies on reviews tends to be more prevalent in European journals, and less so for American ones, though that's not hard-and-fast. -- 160.129.138.186 (talk) 20:22, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

160.129.138.186 (talk) 20:22, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Done ―Mandruss ☎ 20:36, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

archiving instabilities likely

I am once again traveling, with sporadic Internet connectivity, so archiving may be intermittent for the next 3-5 days. Feel free to add date headers if you see them missing. I doubt anything will get so overloaded that manual archiving will be necessary. —Steve Summit (talk) 03:17, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

How do they know?

From time to time some of our more, shall we say, control-minded contributors delete questions, or complain about others treating them as legitimate, "because they were posted by a banned user". How do these people know this? (This is not an accusation that anyone is going off half-cocked; I'm assuming good faith and asking for a citation, or more precisely, asking what a citation would look like.) --69.159.61.172 (talk) 09:36, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

A question which has been asked repeatedly by many editors, and has never been answered. DuncanHill (talk) 11:17, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Recent questions which have been deleted have all been submitted by a well-known troll who likes to ask "questions" that are merely racist or antisemitic attacks. They're rather blatantly so, and easy to identify given the rather similar pattern. --Jayron 32 11:28, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

A great number of removals of questions and answers do not fall into the "obviously racist" category - or even the "cunningly worded, subtly racist" category. It is those for which a proper explanation would be appreciated. DuncanHill (talk) 12:05, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Do you have an example? I can't provide any commentary unless you have a removal you're questioning. --Jayron 32 12:08, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

@Jayron32: @DuncanHill: How about here [3]? Anyone else can find a few similar removals from science desk on Feb 18. Perhaps it's my scientific biases toward skepticism and desiring evidence-based reasoning, but I find it hard to believe that one banned user is the only explanation for some posts about gum trees, apothecaries, and funnel web spiders. I also think the removals are needless and disruptive even if the are from the same banned user, but that's a different matter entirely. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:38, 26 February 2016 (UTC)