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This is just an idea that I have decided to run up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes it. I may turn this into a proper RfC if enough people like it.

There are certain individuals who use the refdesks a lot. They ask question after question, seldom responding to followups. In many cases asking refdesk questions is pretty much all they do. These tend to be especially low-quality questions.

I propose that we set the following limits on frequent questioners:

No more than 20 question in any 60-day period, or productive edits must exceed refdesk questions, whichever limit is larger.

Comments? --Guy Macon (talk) 13:59, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree in principle but have real doubts in practice. The first problem is that it is difficult to define "productive edits". The second is that, if an editor really wants to waste the time of the Reference Desk regulars, they can do so by sockpuppetry, which is more disruptive than just asking too many vague or weird questions. Also, how does the OP plan to enforce it? Presumably by topic-banning posters who violate it. In this case, I think that there is one targeted editor, and the real question perhaps is whether to topic-ban a particular editor who changes their signature confusingly and recently backed off on a very strange threat. I suggest to GM that this idea be put on hold for a while and see if the need for it fades away. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robert McClenon (talk • contribs) 14:13, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Contrary to some opinions, I don't think the editor in question wishes to waste the time of the Reference Desk regulars. He is not a troll. Rather, RD is his social outlet, where he likes to hang out. He repeatedly refers to us as his friends (peeps), which is not what WP is for, not even RD (WP:NOTSOCIALNETWORK). This has been ongoing for close to two years and I don't think it's going to "fade away" by itself. I'm not aware of a significant problem aside from this user, and I don't think one problem user justifies a new bureaucracy. In my opinion the user should be encouraged to become a contributing Wikipedia editor (even the English-challenged can make a significant contriibution) and, failing that, to find another place to hang out. Unless I'm completely off base in my perception of him, he is the kind of person who, seeing a clear consensus on this, would not need an indef block. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:49, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would argue for a more straightforward approach: No new questions until acknowledging the answers to previous questions. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:06, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Requiring him to add a "thank you" at the end of each thread would hardly address the problem. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:10, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it would address the "problem" posed by the OP here. Trying to impose a "question limit" will do nothing to improve Wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:13, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Ref Desk looks more like a science forum where regulars contribute to but where most regulars pretend that it is a real Ref Desk. This cause this whole issue where most questions are asked by the same few people while that kicks off a discussion by the others, to them it's like a new discussion thread. Then if we're then not satisfied with the quality of the questions asked, we should just start new discussion threads ourselves. That may then attract the attention of other people who are just lurking and not participating. It may transform the Ref Desk from the science discussion forum it is now, to a real Ref Desk. Count Iblis (talk) 00:28, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that the cost in acrimony of trying to craft and enforce such a limit would far outweigh any possible benefit, especially since the downside of "too many" questions is so small, especially since they are so easily ignored by anyone so inclined. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:52, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• The unnamed gorilla here is @Russell.mo:, who changes his signature on a monthly basis (so that his trolling can not easily be searched for), who erases his own edits, and who blanks his own talk page, and who asks utterly ridiculous (yes, I said ridiculous) questions to see if he can get anyone to answer, then "apologizes" with a surfeit of irritating emoji gifs that my adblocker would stop anywhere else on the interweb.

This thread should be about warning our supposedly Mongolian and Midwestern troll to cut his shit the fuck out. Other than him, I am not sure whom @Guy Macon: could be accusing. μηδείς (talk) 03:45, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the belated link. I made my comment above without quite a bit of important context. User's motive/intent aside, we clearly have a competence issue here. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:28, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, Russel.mo is exactly as much of a troll as you are ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 16:36, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not entirely sure how to take that. ;) ―Mandruss ☎ 16:37, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's the fun part. You could interpret it as me calling both of them trolls. But for anyone who hasn't been following along, I have a pretty strong record of AGF and not calling people trolls, even if they have at times engaged in behavior that is not entirely suitable for the reference desk. So the much more reasonable interpretation is that I'm implying that neither of them are trolls. Or if the are trolls, it is only to a rather similar and small extent, in my opinion. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:43, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I misread that as a reply to me. Me, the WP:THREAD fanatic. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:37, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This states: Reference desk – Serving as virtual librarians, Wikipedia volunteers tackle your questions on a wide range of subjects. – this I believe is applicable to ‘’registered’’ and ‘’unregistered users’’, a problem (thread fanatics/trolls) what some of us tried to solve a while back rather than moaning about it like some do here, who amazingly done the 20 voting thing too… It did not work out, and I couldn’t support it back (couldn’t guide the ones who supported me, the wrong way) because (a) they are the doers (who can make good things happen), (b) I weighed everything and realised that, the creator of WP done his/her job beautifully, it’s some from within the community are creating issue(s) about certain things because it’s not adjusting with their boring lifestyle/emotions. Further information below stated by SemanticMantis-- Apostle (talk) 04:07, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly oppose limits on questions. Even if you could get consensus, enforcement would be untenable as far as I can tell. I have never seen any user ask too many questions, in my opinion. If anyone thinks a user is asking too many questions, or does not like a question, they are free to skip it and move on. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:33, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's it in a nutshell. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:58, 24 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What about a limit on too frequent responders also: like BB for example?86.187.174.194 (talk) 23:57, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What about a limit on drive-by trolls, like you for example? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:08, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

When registered accounts bring up this problem, the community has shown that it is unwilling to deal with the problem (or just doesn't care), so we simply have to live with it and hope the questioners can separate the gold from the dross. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:59, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the latest edit I can get to, from the starting point of my edit that started the laser eye section (there's no next edit option) - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science&diff=next&oldid=732088860

If you go to the Science desk page now there's no July 29 section and those edits aren't there. Also if I click revision history of the page there's no history of my or anybody else's edits to the two sections under July 29 - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Science&action=history

Anybody know what's happening? 2.102.187.157 (talk) 15:37, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Must be a problem on your end (browser issue? Page did not load completely?) I can see July 29 just fine. --Jayron32 15:41, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Try clearing browser cache, maybe WP:PURGE. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:52, 29 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is a known (recent) issue - see this VPT thread and T141687. Tevildo (talk) 18:37, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I encountered the same situation. What surprised me was that I had a current version when logged in featuring a question I'd posted, but not while logged out. I added "?action=purge" to the desk I was interested in and fixed it - and I think doing that once actually fixed it for everybody that day! One user script anywhere in the world could keep the desks current, if it comes to it. Wnt (talk) 23:19, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At WP:RD/C#Windows 10 N LTSB, someone has asked what the cheapest way of buying five licenses for software, to which User:Tevildo has said we cannot give financial advice.

I would personally interpret not giving financial advice to mean advice on investing money in stocks vs leaving it in your bank account, or similar; not on something such as what is the cheapest way of buying something (though it may of course be that there are far better options online for getting an answer to this specific question, and that this is therefore best not being asked at the refdesk).

Would anyone like to try and clarify what we mean by "we can't give financial advice"? davidprior ^t/_c 22:56, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's a red herring. We're not really here to give advice, period. The folks behind their keyboards don't really put much serious effort into telling which course of action gets you the best deal, and don't know the specific trade-offs that you have to make. The Refdesk is about providing information, but not making value judgments for someone else. People should feel free to provide useful data, but should try to avoid presenting that as a command to "go do this". The disclaimer says that if people do tell you to go do this, and you go do it and run into trouble, Wikipedia assumes no responsibility. Wnt (talk) 23:15, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That, I think, is a reasonable summary of the position. WP:RD/G/M only deals explicitly with medical advice, and the prohibited areas are "diagnosis, prognosis, or suggested treatment". If we extend this to financial advice, questions along the lines of "How can I save money?" would, IMO, be analogous to "suggested treatment", but how the guideline applies to non-medical professional advice is not spelt out in such definite terms. Guy Macon has made the broader point that the guideline does not, in fact, explicitly prohibit financial advice, only "other professional" advice - perhaps this is an area where the guideline could be improved. Tevildo (talk) 23:36, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As I have pointed out before, giving engineering advice ("..now run your Uranium Hexaflouride gas through a gas centrifuge...") has the potential to hurt or kill thousands of people compared to medical advice, which typically can harm or kill one person. Although some here don't want to hear this, the WMF medical/legal disclaimers don't actually say that we cannot give legal or medical advice -- they are disclaimers, not prohibitions. We at Wikipedia are free to forbid such advice, to allow it if there is a disclaimer attached, or to craft any number of other possible policies.

Let me give everyone here some legal and medical advice; feel free to report me at ANI if you think I am in violation of Wikipedia policy. I am not qualified to give medical advice, but my unqualified advice is that you should not take methamphetamine thinking it is a treatment for cancer. Ask your doctor if you want a more authoritative answer. I am not qualified to give legal advice, but my unqualified advice is that buying heroin online is a really bad idea. Ask your lawyer if you want a more authoritative answer. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:52, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The Ref Desk is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.FDA

Others with strong views on this issue (and I think we all know who they are) will doubtless want to contribute, but it's unlikely there'll be a consensus for allowing postings which give such advice as long as they're prefixed with "This isn't professional advice, but...". However, I can see the case for removing "other professional advice" from the guideline, so that it's clearly restricted to medical and legal advice. "Other professional" does not appear in the page headers, after all. Tevildo (talk) 06:29, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

About the only safe financial advice is this: "Buy only good stock. Wait till the price goes up, and then sell it. If it don't go up... don't buy it!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:21, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Buy sheep, sell deer." -- ToE 12:09, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Should the wording of the Reference Desk guidelines on giving advice (WP:RD/G/M) be changed? Tevildo (talk) 10:06, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Based on recent discussions, it may be time to reconsider the wording of WP:RD/G/M. The relevant sentence currently reads:

The options I'd like to propose are:

• Option A: "medical, legal or other professional advice"
• Option B: "medical or legal advice"
• Option C: "medical, legal, financial or risk-management advice"

Relevant information on options

Option A

• Status quo.
• Editors may use their discretion on defining "professional advice".
• Not inconsistent with WP:FAQ section header - "medical, legal, financial, safety, and other critical issues"

Option B

• Consistent with reference desk headers - "Legal or medical advice is prohibited" (WP:RD landing page header), "We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice" (individual page headers).
• WP:MEDICAL and WP:LD exist - there's no separate disclaimer for financial advice.
• Scope of guideline is well-defined.

Option C

• Consistent with WP:General disclaimer - "medical, legal, financial or risk management"
• Consistent with WP:FAQ body text - "medical, legal, financial or risk management"
• Scope of guideline is fairly well-defined, although "risk management" is not as clear-cut as the other three topics - WP:RISK doesn't really cover the issue.

Discussion

• Option C is my preferred choice. Tevildo (talk) 10:07, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Please remove the following false statement from option A: "Status quo. (Always an advantage)." The addition restriction was added without consensus to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines on 10:21, 29 January 2016 by ShakespeareFan00.[1] with the edit summary "Add new section, per concerns expressed at WP:ANI". The ANI discussion is at [ Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive912#Can editors at the ref desks offer legal and financial advice? ]. Nowhere in that discussion is there anything justifying ShakespeareFan00 changing the policy from the existing status quo, and to characterize this now-reverted[2] change as the status quo is demonstrably false. Option B is the status quo. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:52, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've removed "Always an advantage", but Option A is the current wording. Note that this discussion is about WP:RD/G/M, not WP:RD/G. "Other professional" has been the wording of RD/G/M since September 2007. Your point about RD/G is, of course, a valid argument for Option B, but Option A is the status quo for RD/G/M. Tevildo (talk) 17:31, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yeah we probably should discuss RD/G as well but it seems fairly confusing to talk about option B being the status quo when the discussion made clear from the beginning this was about RD/G/M and the links provided by Guy Macon are all to RD/G. Nil Einne (talk) 18:02, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • My mistake. I didn't look carefully and notice that someone was considering applying Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice to something that is not medical advice. If we want to create a policy based upon the phrase "The Wikipedia reference desk is not an appropriate place to request medical, legal or other professional advice" in a guideline that is otherwise 100% about medical advice with a medical advice title, we really need to forbid engineering advice as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:33, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Where is Option D, "advice"? Reference desks are about hard, verifiable facts. The only advice that should be given is on where one might find more information relevant to their question. Oh how we love to complicate things, apparently for the mental exercise. And the thinking shouldn't be constrained or influenced by the current structure and organization of guideline pages. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:40, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to point out that, at present, RD/G/M is about the type of posting that can be deleted, and contains detailed instructions on how to determine if a medical question constitutes "diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment advice". If we want to make the guideline more aggressive, perhaps "advice, opinions, predictions or debate" might be suitable words to use, but I doubt if wholesale deletion of such material would prove popular, and the guideline would need to be altered to cover the wider range of unacceptable material. But please feel free to add such an option to the list. Tevildo (talk) 07:39, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how unpopular it would be to simply revert (R) improper responses (B), then optionally subject to discussion (D), per WP:BRD. Excessive reverts subject to the well-established responses to WP:Edit warring or WP:Disruptive editing. I don't see how RD needs different treatment than mainspace articles, and that system works fairly well when used (as well as anything works at Wikipedia, that is). I think much of the conflict has been around what to do with improper questions. As to that, I think an improper question could be handled as follows. The proper response to an improper question is to the effect of: "Sorry, but that is an improper question." Any other response would be reverted as described previously. If the questioner reads the improper response before it can be reverted, there is nothing we can do about that as long as anyone can respond to any question. That is simply a limitation that we have to live with. I see no need to delete anything wholesale, if that means entire threads.
This still leaves the problematic issue of 3RR as a bright-line rule, but again that's true for mainspace as well. If there are not enough editors present to deal with problems without exceeding 3RR, we would just have to leave problems undealt with, or seek outside assistance, as in mainspace. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:31, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Since the page is not just about medical advice, it should not be called "Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice". It should be retitled "Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines/Advice" and the content broadened to make mentions of non-medical issues more than just passing references. I like Mandruss's suggestion, and it should be encased in gold and emboldened and made the primary sentence of the lede para: The only advice that should be given is on where one might find more information relevant to their question.

While we're at it, we should ban answers to questions seeking guidance on the morality of feeding pigeons or whatever. Morality is an exquisitely subjective thing, and the only guidance anyone ever needs is their own conscience. Cited references may tell the OP how other people have felt about a particular matter, but no reference can tell an OP what's in their own conscience. And as for respondents simply telling an OP "Yes, it's moral" or "No, it's not", or words to that effect - they apparently have no understanding of what we do here. This is not and has never been just a general forum for getting answers to, or sharing opinions about, any question one could possibly dream up. It is confined to questions for which there exist references. And that excludes a whole swag of questions; if such out-of-scope questions are asked, they should be treated appropriately, which could include a range of measures, but a respondent's brain dump is not one of them. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:08, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You say "Morality is an exquisitely subjective thing . . . ," which is true as far as it goes, but many cultures (in the broad sense) have formed concensuses about morals. Would you not think it permissible to refer such OPs to articles (or external references) about what various religions and/or philosophies and/or specific discussions (e.g. The Moral Maze, flawed though it is) have concluded or discussed about the morality of comparable or relevant situations (assuming there are any)? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.123.26.60 (talk) 10:04, 8 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's a slippery slope. Say a question is about the morality of capital punishment. One respondent is all for it, and they will be able to track down a lot of references supporting it, while omitting those that oppose it. Another respondent is dead against it, and they will be able to track down a lot of references opposing it, while omitting those that support it. We cannot assume that there will be a balanced coverage, as the supporters or the opposers may well dominate the responses. Now, if an OP asks for references specifically supporting capital punishment, or opposing it, we can help out. But "Is it moral?". Give me a break! Would a reference desk librarian countenance such a question? However they respond, they certainly wouldn't just say "Yes" or "No". Maybe we ought to have a tutorial that teaches OPs how to ask questions we would welcome and can assist with. Or maybe we should just transmute all inappropriate questions into appropriate questions and then answer them. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:51, 10 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's why it makes sense to ask the OP, "Define 'immoral'". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:48, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Although in this case, the OP 91.205.144.62 (talk · contribs) isn't going to respond to that or any other question, as he's a one-shot drive-by. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:40, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is is possible to add a template for questioners to the effect that "If StuRat answers your question, please ignore it entirely" and "If your question is not about baseball and BaseballBugs answers it, please ignore it entirely"? There appears to be no way to actually stop them from answering, so maybe this would be a useful solution. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:29, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]