Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 2

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Email

several ppl come here, left their question together with their email and they wait from us to send them the answer in their mailbox. I would prefer if they could come back in RD after some hours or days and check for the answer by themselves. Do you think we should write something at the top of RD like "It would be better not to give ur email and come back after a few hours or days to check for answers" ? Optim 17:03, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Lots of the questions with email addresses are from very naive users. I don't think that would work for them. We should suggest it as a better thing to do, but expect to bear with the email thing. On the other hand, if you are answering someone's question who did this, it's probably best to answer on the page and add to your remark the fact that you are emailing as well. -- Jmabel 00:11, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Zap moving pages

Since Zap's been moving things around, Reference desk has been moved to Ask Wikipedians... I don't really mind the new name all that much, but we should be all going through consensus decisions first, so you can express views on a possible move to a new name here. Dysprosia 11:27, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I like the current name just fine. I think it adds a touch of class. Plus most people arriving here with a question won't know what a "Wikipedian" is, or why we're worthy of being asked. Reference desk is good. Jwrosenzweig 18:02, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

'Post a question' link

I made the 'Post a question' link more prominent at the top of the page, as it was previously easy to skip past it. I think it's slightly more usable this way, but it's easy to change back if anyone disagrees. Chopchopwhitey 03:05, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Appropriateness of new questions going to the bottom

Do you think it's appropriate for new questions to go to the bottom when actually they need more visibility?

-- Sundar 05:48, Apr 26, 2004 (UTC)
Well, it needs to be consistent is the most important thing. You can easily scroll to the bottom to find new questions, and general convention is that discussions get added to the bottom of pages. This makes sense, given that English is generally read left-to-right top-to-bottom (i.e. it feels natural for time to progress as you go down the page), and it's even enshrined in the software, in that there is a feature for appending a new section to the page. It also avoids defining where the "top" is (i.e. where the intro ends and the questions should begin), since there is nothing beyond the bottom of the page (well, there's a footer, but you can't interact with that).
So in short: yes. - IMSoP 15:48, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
In short, Thanks. ;) -- Sundar 12:18, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

Guardian story about finding information with Google.

The Guardian has a story comparing Google's speed of retrieving information against other, more traditional, research methods. I thought it'd be fun to see how Wikipedia compared. (Please note was absent in the following)

  1. List the titles of all the books written by Piers Morgan, editor of the Daily Mirror
    • This information was absent.
  2. Where and when did Margaret Thatcher say: "There's no such thing as society"?
    • This information was absent, though I thought Wikiquote would be a more reasonable place to expect to find it (also absent) (I put it in the wikipedia article Mark Richards).
  3. Who is the vice chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on back care?
    • This search came up blank. The answer is Janet Dean. Again, the information was absent.
  4. What proportion of the Slovenian railway system is electrified?
  5. What did Sophie and Edward Wessex do on Tuesday?
    • Wikipedia isn't an appointments diary, so it isn't reasonable to expect to find this information.
  6. What was unusual about the British gold medal victory in the 400m in the 1908 Olympics in London?

Jim Regan 21:57, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, you can't have it all. Interesting conversation piece, though. -- Itai 11:24, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
I thought so. That's why I posted it instead of just adding the missing information :) -- Jim Regan 19:31, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
Ack, I hate inline replies :-P I added a note to the Margaret Thatcher article referring to the wikiquote page--the full quote (and therefore context) of the quote is given there. This quote was often taken out of context (though arguably more apropriate in that form). -- Jim Regan 19:41, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
Seems odd that neither WP nor WikiQuote lists her St. Francis of Assisi quote on the 10 Downing Street doorstep in 1979... anyone have the full citation? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 19:49, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
Is that the where there was hope, may we bring massive unemployment? I think it was slightly different to that, but is that the one you mean? ;o) --bodnotbod 20:12, May 8, 2004 (UTC)
You got it almost exactly right: "Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope." Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 20:21, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
The quote is "Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope." [1] I've added it to Wikiquote, as well as the version attributed to St. Francis.
As for mass unemployment, well "We back the workers, not the shirkers" :) (Drat, drat and double drat! Need to find a source for that now!)
And I'm not updating this for another edit conflict! -- Jim Regan 20:23, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

"Please check back?"

I'm wondering if there should be an instruction to people who post questions like "Please check back here for answers in the next couple days" or something. I just happened to notice one question where someone left an e-mail address, and I'm worried he didn't realize that he should check back here for an answer. —siroχo 15:26, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

Reference desk cleanup policy

Well this is probably the single largest page I've seen on WP as of yet. I'm currently on an ISDN line here, and I can tell you it hurts! Is it really necessary to keep entries several week old? Since we have a proper archive, why not set a sharp policy. I propose archiving any question where the latest entry is a minimum of 5 days old. -- Solitude 20:20, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's only half the size of Wikipedia:Village pump, and that page is cleaned out weekly (or faster). I'm not much bothered by the load time; I generally have a 28k connection but find these pages tolerable.
We should at least keep unanswered questions for two weeks, since some questions are not answered until this much time has passed. From what I've seen, further comments sometimes have a delay between one and two weeks. Five days is too short. --η♀υωρ 20:58, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Quick info about citing Wikipedia

Lots of people come over here asking about how they should cite Wikipedia on their essays and such. So, I suggest we here (and in Help Desk as well) something like the following, somewhere in the top of the page :

But, of course, with some changes for clarification (I'm not particulary good at that myself). I think that would help some of these users. — Kieff | Talk 04:59, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

I think half the problem is some people don't know the word "cite" (or at least don't recognize it without more context). I added the text "how to reference W in a research paper or bibliography" on the RD header template, and the number of questions has dropped quite a lot. Sad but true.... Catherine\talk 04:34, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Anencephaly

Someone asked on Wikipedia:Requested articles#Social sciences and humanities

I would like to find out who doscovered Anencephaly and when. I need this information for a biology report. If you can post it, it will help a lot. Thanks!

The question concerns Science (either Anatomy or Medicine), rather than Social sciences and humanities, and that distinction is worth learning. But there is no answer to the question as you pose it. Anencephaly is a condition that has no doubt been occuring in humans (and proto-humans) throughout our evolution as a species; it must have been independently observed by many midwives and shamans, and probably even independently identified many times as something distinguishable from other birth defects. Understanding of it in other than magical terms has surely been a process of too many small steps to identify, in general understanding of the world, and eventually in the field of embryology. WP articles linked in this response, including cephalic disorder, may be of interest to you.
--Jerzy(t) 01:48, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

Though there is an interesting article that points out that anencephalics are lacking in the archeological record [2],, and another that points out that one scientist who was instrumental in the (relatively recent) beginnings of teratology and studied and classified anencephalics was Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire [3] . You will find other articles at the PubMed index by searching various other combinations of "anotocephaly" "anencephaly" "teratology" "history" and "paleopathology". -- Nunh-huh 03:29, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mental age

How about the old standard: insisting they move out of the house and get a job? Alteripse 19:01, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Eequor, really, you seem to have a problem with divergent opinions (or at least mine). What I suggested is the solution which would be proposed to the described problem by a large segment of the grown-up population of the world. Are you engaging in age discrimination? Part of solving a problem is formulating it in various ways to see what is suggested. You admit to having no practical suggestion, but you delete the one most grown-ups would offer? The problem described a person in twenties who thinks he is a teenager (or perhaps thinks like it). What do you think the person meant? Teenagers don't act like children with Asperger's (most of the time). One prominent characteristic that distinguishes teenagers from adults is a sense of entitlement, because their needs have been provided by their parents. And some of them have the self-absorbed social imcompetence that might make someone say, "it's sort of like autism, but not really..." Part of growing up is understanding that if you wait for the world to offer you a living, you won't get much. I can imagine a distressed mother of a non-functioning twenty-five year old describing him exactly that way. Maybe a frustrated girlfriend wondering why her boyfriend is sponging off of her? The problem person is probably male, wouldn't you agree? If it's his mother, the formulation of the question contains the explanation of why the person is that way, don't you think? If so, I wrapped it up rather neatly, didn't I? Why don't you tell us what you imagine the situation is behind the question? Or least an equally probable scenario? I'll bet if we took a poll, quite a few other editors would see my scenario as a relatively probable one. Persuade me otherwise, or don't censor constructive suggestions please. Alteripse 01:06, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Mainly, you have made two assumptions which were not even alluded to by the questioner, and thus possibly not relevant at all. Namely, that the particular individual lives with their parents and is unemployed. It is possible that either of these would be interpreted as rude or hostile, and so they should be expressed politely and explicitly, if at all.
As for your latter questions, I would prefer to not speculate on what their particular situation might be. If you are concerned in knowing the specifics, you should probably ask first. --η♀υωρ 01:50, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

How could possibly presume to answer without speculating what the questioner has in mind? Good grief! Alteripse 02:01, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Please see the answers from Cvaneg and Kim Bruning for examples. --η♀υωρ 02:13, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)