Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 41

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Contents 1 Sex - Related 2 Pissy comments on the RDs 3 OP: obscure jargon 4 Speculation about when famous people will die 5 Editing/deleting other peoples posts. 6 Use of Jargon on the Computer Ref Desk. 7 New Year 8 Bizzareness with the section headings 9 Modification of other peoples signed remarks - A formal proposal. 9.1 Proposal redux 9.2 Other options 9.3 Another thing

[edit] Sex - Related

medical question removed

I'm sorry, but you are, by the definition of the word, requesting a diagnosis. And so I must apologize, but this is precisely the kind of question that the reference desk guidelines prohibit asking or answering. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Fact check. The question was not asking for a diagnosis. The request seemed to be for links to relevant medical information. --JWSchmidt (talk) 15:02, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The question related some symptoms and then said "What could be the cause of this?" - that is clearly a request for a diagnosis - and is therefore not an acceptable question for the reference desk. The fact that the questioner asked for a reply in the form of some links rather than some inline explanation doesn't change that in the slightest. It is the question that is disallowed - not the form of the answer. If the questioner had asked for a reply in the form of an interpretive tapdance routine, that wouldn't be OK either. Please take further discussion to the talk page. SteveBaker (talk) 15:25, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I find it disruptive when reference desk participants assume bad faith and bite new visitors. If we intend to interpret any description of personal health issues as not being welcome here then we should list that as a rule at the top of this page where people can see it before they edit the page. "Please take further discussion to the talk page" <-- I'm trying to repair the damage that has been done here, on this page, to a Wikipedia visitor. I do not see how that can be done effectively on some other page. If the person who started this thread comes back I want them to see that it is Wikipedia policy to welcome and help new visitors. --JWSchmidt (talk) 16:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure who is assuming bad faith. I see no evidence here Someguy and SB were assuming bad faith. The person appears to be asking for medical advice. She basically said 'I have this strange medical issue. Could you give me some links to help me understand why this may be occuring here?' this is a text book case of asking for medical advice. She I presume doesn't realise that but it doesn't change the fact. It isn't assuming bad faith to point out to someone that they are asking for medical advice when they are. And it isn't biting to tell someone we are unable and unwilling to answer such questions and instead they should seek out a person qualified to help them, i.e. doctor. Nil Einne (talk) 16:50, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

This is not a matter of assuming good faith in the absence of proof of bad faith (which is what the WP:AGF guideline is all about). The refdesk guidelines had been breached - and a refdesk respondant (JWSchmidt) had misinterpreted our rules. That has nothing whatever to do with assumptions of any kind. I didn't assume either good or bad faith - I simply corrected an error...vis: the so-called Fact check that JWSchmidt came up with.

JWS is essentially saying that it's OK to list some symptoms, then ask for a diagnosis (which is PRECISELY what the OP did) - so long as they ask for their answers in some specific format. Well, I'm sorry - but that supposition simply isn't true, and pompously writing Fact check in front of an incorrect statement doesn't make it more correct! Both the OP and JWS were clearly wrong. It's not a matter of assuming good or bad faith - I'm sure they were both quite sincere and had only the best motivations - but that doesn't change the fact that they had both misunderstood our guidelines...which had to be pointed out lest others fall into the same trap.

Finally, I requested that further comment be directed here - which is also per our recent agreement on the protocols for dealing with disputes about medical/legal questions. Sadly, that protocol was only followed belatedly. It would have been better if JWS had brought up any doubts here - then I would have been able to correct them here rather than in the more public ref desk thread. However, to have ensured that the OP understood the true situation, I would either have to have deleted JWS's comments (which I regard as somewhat rude) - or correct them at the point where the mistake was made - which is the action I chose to take.

It would be better if, in future, our previous agreement were followed:

• The OP posts something.
• Someone considers it inappropriate and removes it.
• If you disagree with that, you take the discussion here and DO NOT comment about it on the ref desk itself.

SteveBaker (talk) 17:33, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a case where I believe the person is asking for medical advice without intending to do so. I do not know how to teach users that if they want to research a medical issue before (or during or after) seeing a doctor, they need to ask in a different way. For example, "What are causes of pain and/or bleeding during sex for human females?" is likely to be treated as a homework question, not a request for medical advice. I find no problem with people trying to educate themselves. They just need to ask for information in the third person - and they need to understand that before asking questions. -- kainaw™ 13:36, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pissy comments on the RDs

User:Taraborn and I are having a "discussion" about

1. whether his comment here is or is not appropriate
2. whether the said comment should be removed.

I'd be glad of input from RDers on the matter. (Note that I'm referring to the on-RD comment, not the offensive edit summary) --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored. Comments by others are not removed. As discussed further up, comments that should be removed (for rather specific reasons - trollish not being one of them) are supposed to be moved to the talk page for discussion. It is my opinion that removing another person's comments is simply wrong. You can comment on the user's talk page that you don't like his or her comments, but you shouldn't remove them. What I have done on a few occasions is answer a person's comments along with a note that the manner in which they commented is trollish. I know it makes them angry and causes others to jump all over me for being mean. However, I do not say "you are a troll." I state specifically what they did that fits the description of trollish behavior. -- kainaw™ 13:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I think the original comment was completely out of line, and since it did not provide an answer to the question, it should have never been placed on the RD at all. However, removing people's posts does usually end up causing problems. People will continue to treat all the RDs as discussion boards, which is unfortunate, but seemingly an insurmountable problem. --LarryMac | Talk 15:22, 27 December 2007 (UTC

Our Reference desk/guidelines state:

"As always, any responses should be civil and avoid anything that could even remotely be considered a personal attack or ad hominem. Many questioners will be newcomers, and the reference desk should be a friendly and welcoming place."

The comment was clearly not in conformance with these guidelines; it was completely uncalled for and unnecessarily snide. (Unfortunately, the respondent in question is wont to have a dim view of the intelligence of others, and may offer snide remarks when s/he feels her/his high intelligence is insulted by their perceived stupidity. The edit summary of this edit is beyond the pale.)

Our guidelines further state:

"Further, we never set out deliberately to offend, and we endeavor to quickly remove needlessly offensive material in questions or responses."

I hope even kainaw agrees that there is a level of offensiveness at which it is completely justified to remove the offending material. Did the material in this case rise to that level? As usual, different people will have different judgements about that, but it is not reasonable to maintain that this was a bad-faith removal. In such cases, never just restore the removed material, but always discuss it first, here, on this talk page.

 --Lambiam 23:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

My two cents: 1. Inappropriate. It's insulting, and it amounts to chat, because it is off-topic and is addressed to a fellow volunteer and not the OP and his question. 2. I think we're stuck with leaving that one up there. It's not extremely inflammatory or obscene, just rude and stupid. I think all that can be done is to try to convince the contributor to remove it himself. Although, if someone wanted to make an issue of it, it could be construed as a violation meriting a Wikispanking.

This is how I see the RD as it stands now. I would like to see more control over bad behavior here, control of a kind not in keeping with the spirit of Wikipedia proper, because the RD interfaces with the public, and things happen here that require immediate action. We can't wrangle seek consensus over the course of the next week on matters that can harm people today if left alone. Perhaps a new kind of block could be introduced that would only keep an editor off the RDs. --Milkbreath (talk) 00:17, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello. Perhaps somebody should have warned me of this fascinating discussion, don't you think? Well, I'll put it briefly: useless replies and pure guesses are very, very bad. Bad. They do damage the reference desk. Now you are complaining that replies that point out the uselessness of certain replies are bad. Okay, it's possible. But I'm sure they are not as bad as the useless ones. I'm still wondering why this individual has made this soap opera from such a trivial thing, way too much free time? --Taraborn (talk) 00:21, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The OP's original question was probably unanswerable - but both Atlant's pathetic attempt at humor ("Vicarious martial arts have the lowest injury rate." - blagh!), and the subsequent answer from 67.185.172.158 ("The highest would be martial arts that emphasize tournaments and other forms of full-contact sparring. The lowest depends on your definition of "martial art", but could be exercise-oriented derivatives such as Tai chi chih.") were lame and useless given what the OP clearly wants to know. I don't think it was necessary for Taraborn to comment about that - but I can't disagree - it really was a statement of the bloody obvious and clearly not what the OP wanted to know.

The thing I object to most was Tagishsimon's removal of Taraborn's comment (although the edit summary of both the removal and the Taraborn's subesquent replacement were totally uncalled for). Removing someone else's post (especially one that is critical) is something we reserve for only the most extreme situations - there is no way Taraborn's comment rose to that standard.

Personally, I think all three respondants and Tagishsimon did a really crappy job - all four should slink away in shame. The question should either have gone unanswered or maybe it might have been appropriate to wait a few days (just in case someone found some obscure source of martial art pain ranking or a report in the British Medical Journal or something) then to answer with something like "This is all pretty subjective - there is not likely to be a definitive answer to your question". One of the faults of the Ref Desk is that there is a tendancy to try to answer unanswerable questions like this one that are best left alone.

SteveBaker (talk) 00:52, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

My take: since when did we make the RD over to trolls? What incentive is there to answer questions if we know these ugly things are waiting under the next bridge? Why would we wish to tolerate & carry comments like this? Having thought about it for 24 hours, the approach of the poster in question reminds me of nothing so much as LightCurrent. We've been here before and I don't think we should encourage a repeat. --Tagishsimon (talk) 09:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed taraborn's comment and alerted taraborn to the removal and the reasons for it. On reaching disagreement with taraborn, I brought the matter to wider attention here. I'm sorry Steve finds that a crappy job. Seems transparent & standard procedure to me. And I'm sorry that taraborn, despite the consensus above, does not see fit to remove the comment himself. That speaks volumes. --Tagishsimon (talk) 09:18, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Seems I'm trying to speak to (some, not all) people that are clearly biased and immune to reasoning, but well, I'll try once again (I've observed that personal attacks are apparently allowed in this petty discussion). Some questioners are ushered to Google or to a Wikipedia article when their question can be answered with a simple search. That's correct, in my humble opinion. On the other hand, respondents are allowed to state the obvious and make useless replies. I think this should change. And, why do I think that? Because I think that's something that could be improved. I've been using Wikipedia for almost three years now an average of two to three hours a day and, needless to say, I'm in love with it. So, please, I may screw up, but don't say I'm driven by bad-faith because that's just not true. --Taraborn (talk) 11:12, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Then take it up with the poster on their discussion page. Follow your own advice; keep meta-discussions off the RD. Try to be constructive. Flaming someone by saying "thanks for stating the obvious" is not going to help. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:50, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I've just read this thread for the first time. I couldn't see any personal attacks. There was comment on behaviour, but that's not a personal attack. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:23, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] OP: obscure jargon

I used the acronym "OP" in a reply and (see my talk page) received an angry response (I still don't know why he was outraged by that) by the above user. Well, just wanted to hear your opinion on this matter. Did he act correctly according to the guidelines we all are subject to? --Taraborn (talk) 00:28, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, the use of "OP" didn't seem to be what did it for him, as he only mentioned it once briefly. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:34, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

You two seem to be striking sparks. There seems to be tension in the air. I recommend a trial separation. Take a little break and see other people, and if it was meant to be, you'll get back together. --Milkbreath (talk) 01:02, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

There has been plenty of previous discussion revolving around the avoidance of internet acronyms, and particularly those most identified with discussion forums. In short, don't do it. --LarryMac | Talk 01:24, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, that's fine. Honestly, the only reason for using the acronym instead of proper words was pure laziness and, yes, I can be ridiculously lazy at times. But that was not my point. I wanted to hear your opinions on the way he addressed me. He shows clear tension in some of his messages, the cause of which I can't seem to be able to determine. --Taraborn (talk) 01:52, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

It is fairly obscure jargon - I've been using the Internet since it was 'Usenet' and email had '!' in addresses - and I didn't know the term. However, it's clear what it means from the context - and I don't see how either "Original Poster" or an acronym you don't know could be considered insulting or anything. I don't think that's the problem. SteveBaker (talk) 03:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

It is a little tendentious to characterise my OP post to taraborn as "angry". It is fair to say that I have been consistently disappointed by his responses, though. --Tagishsimon (talk) 09:33, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

OP is used a little on 4chan, less so on threaded forums --ffroth 18:58, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I find "OP" to be quite widely used, in plenty of discussion forums. Granted, it's somewhat obscure -- the first time you encounter it. But so is any unfamiliar word.

True story: a little while back, our own User:SteveBaker asked what that abbreviation meant and expressed concern that people were flinging it about casually and confusing new users like him. Now, he uses it all the time. Presto: language acquisition in action! —Steve Summit (talk) 18:02, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Presto! :D I remember that too, I was annoyed :3 --ffroth 02:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Speculation about when famous people will die

moved from main page

I really do find the above idea in very bad taste and unbecoming of Wikipedia. Any one else agree?--TreeSmiler (talk) 03:43, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with Wikipedia. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 03:45, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean? Do you agree with me or disagree?--TreeSmiler (talk) 03:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Disagree. Please put/keep meta-discussion on the talk page. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 03:59, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

While I'd agree that celebrity death pool's are in bad taste, not that that actually bothers me in the least, I think Wooty is trying to say that whether it is or not is irrelevant as far as Wikipedia as a site is concerned. Azi Like a Fox (talk) 09:46, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

What exactly has been moved from where to where?  --Lambiam 12:41, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The above conversation, minus my comment, orginally took place in the thread on the Misc. Desk titled "Famous Deaths in 2008" after which someone moved it here. Hope that helps... Azi Like a Fox (talk) 13:40, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Whilst I personally find this kind of thing pretty ghoulish - I don't see why someone shouldn't ask the question here. I don't think I'd want to spend the time to research an answer - but if other people do, I don't see why not. We deal with answers for other questions that are just as antisocial. SteveBaker (talk) 17:55, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

One could argue that we're not a crystal ball, so we shouldn't get into answering such questions on principle. And that would be the only relevant principle; bad taste, goulish, whatever are subjective and are no barrier to certain questions being asked or answered. But it's not as if we're saying "Person X will die in 2008", but that they're more likely to die soon than someone considerably younger. That's scientifically sound. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:09, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Certainly we can't be expected to answer who will die in 2008 - but I suppose we can reasonably answer who is most likely to die. But the OP asked use to identify "famous people who have cancer or another terminal illness that will probably die in 2008" which is an even more sharply deliniated request. Getting a list of famous people with cancer is not at all an unreasonable thing for us to be able to do. These are factual matters. I still think the entire concept of betting on this is sick - but that doesn't make it an impossible question. SteveBaker (talk) 23:20, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Was the original question because the OP wanted to bet on this? Was this profesionally or just among friends? If professionally, perhaps if it comes back someone should tell the OP how bookies operate and point out that it's difficult to beat them since they almost definitely have all the information you have and more. Of course bookie odds also depend on who's betting on what so it may be possible you have a small chance of winning on average with good research but this is still rather unlikely Nil Einne (talk) 09:15, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing/deleting other peoples posts.

We've had two recent incidents of people editing/deleting other people's posts. I want to point out that deleting someone's post is an extreme measure - we're only really supposed to do that in the case of vandalism or (within narrow guidelines) for breaches of the RD rules (specificially questions about medical/legal matters).

Editing other peoples posts is NEVER OK - there is no possible excuse for doing that. When someone signs a post, they are saying "I hereby certify that I wrote those words" and signing that with a digital signature - if someone changes those words then it makes it look like someone said something they didn't. That's a heinous thing to do and we cannot not stand for it.

It is acceptable to clean up formatting of other people's posts when (and only when) the formatting is disruptive to the readablility of the RD. For example, OP's frequently indent their question by a couple of spaces or mismatch italic/boldface quotes - clearly we need to be able to fix that.

SteveBaker (talk) 23:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm hoping that this would be in the OK category ;-) hydnjo talk 23:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know which tablet of Moses you're reading your rules from, Steve, but in my book, if a thing needs to be deleted it should be deleted, and a clear note made, either here or on the poster's discussion board. There are whole swathes of stuff which get deleted from the RD without demur. WP:BOLD mandates this approach. Note the and. If you delete, you'd better have a damn good reason, and you'd better do it transparently. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:55, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Whoa! I took Steve's to mean "paraphrasing" or otherwise altering someone's text to "clarify" and I agree that that gets dicey. Deleting is another matter entirely and wasn't what Steve was addressing with the bold "NEVER OK". hydnjo talk 01:18, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I know of one of the cases he is referencing. A user changed the word "automagically" to "automatically" with the edit comment "I hate HATE! HATE!!! that non-word!!!" It is rather obvious why this person changed the word in another person's post. It has nothing to do with formatting or readability. It is purely based on a obsessive need to eradicate the word "automagically" wherever it may appear. I agree with Steve that it should never be allowed on the RD. In Wikipedia articles (where the WP:BOLD rules apply), it is perfectly acceptable. -- kainaw™ 01:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. If you don't like someone's post then post your own, don't change their's. hydnjo talk 01:33, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Right - in articles, you should absolutely fixup language, punctuation, grammar, whatever you want. But signed comments are inviolate. You mustn't alter them. Deleting an entire comment is only occasionally justified - we know the rules (vandalism, medical, legal, yadda, yadda). Fixing up formatting (where it messes up the rest of the page) is OK - but changing the words someone said and signed is a huge no-no. The guidelines are clearly laid out here: Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Editing_comments. SteveBaker (talk) 01:41, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

And while we're at it, you shouldn't go back and edit your own posts without transparency as it can really confound the subsequent debate. By transparency I mean striking the unwanted text rather than replacing it or adding a labeled addendum (I'm not speaking of Article namespace). hydnjo talk 01:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
addendum: I bring this up because of the confusion that has gone on. It's tempting to go back upon reflection of one's own post and "fix" it up. Just please do it in such a way that responses that were made prior to your "fix-up" don't appear idiotic!. hydnjo talk 02:05, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I think this is what you mean hydnjo, but just for clarification. . . If another user has responded to your message, yes. Absolutely strike it if you have to make a relevant change or write “edit to add” if you want to make a further point. Even better just post a new comment, BUT there is nothing wrong with going back to a just saved edit and making a few formatting/spelling corrections. (Something small like change “there” to “their” for instance.) Ideally of course you should catch these with preview, however inevitably I occasionally miss something and must go back to copyedit. --S.dedalus (talk) 08:52, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree changing indenting is fine provided you are sure you aren't confusing/changing what was intended by the poster. In any case it's best to politely inform the poster IMHO Nil Einne (talk) 09:17, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Whenever I've modified incorrect links to Wikipedia articles or other formatting changes I've written both an edit summary and a reply to the modified post explicitly saying so. I fully agree with SteveBaker that signed comments are something that (except in very special cases) should never be edited, both because I don't think it's OK to change someone's words and it may cause confusion in the ongoing discussion. --Taraborn (talk) 13:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

By the way, anybody’s free to reset my bad indent above. :) --S.dedalus (talk) 22:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Give me a break Steve. People's RD posts get edited and modified by others ALL - THE - TIME. Spelling errors corrected, re-indents/outdents-applied, red-links removed, plaintext words wikified. Sometimes people indent-outdent other posts so their posts appear relatively more "prominent". Even the "automagical" modification was not really a big deal because the change was blatantly documented as a pet-peeve, and quickly and easily rolled back. This is Wikipedia, remember? Anyone with an internet connection gets to participate here. Even nit-pickers, even *gasp* people who are technically "incorrect".

No, the change probably wasn't the most considerate thing to do, it may have even been flat out factually wrong -- but it also wasn't intended to misrepresent someone and it wasn't made difficult to find or reverse. No one was slandered and no personal secrets got aired, you can't even call it an edit war. "Heinous Incident"??? please, good sir, do excuse me while I heartily guffaw in your general direction. NoClutter (talk) 04:17, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Of the things you think it's OK to change - I'd mostly agree with you. As I said up-top, it's OK to fix formatting problems - so by all means change the indent level (PROVIDING you don't confuse who a particular reply was addressed to), by all means fix a trivially mis-capitalised link (but please don't change where a working link goes to - or add a link where none was provided - you may be putting words into someone's mouth by linking to an unintended meaning of a word). I don't agree that you should correct other people's spelling errors - or punctuation - or grammar or add/subtract emphasis.

But you mustn't change the meaning of what they said in a signed comment, however subtly. Automagically and Automatically are not the same word - they mean quite different things. There are connotations and shades of meaning in automagically that automatically utterly lacks. You changed the meaning of someone else's post. This is a matter of high principle to me...it's right up there with free speech, freedom of religion and the right of assembly. It's a fundamental human right to have your say without someone else changing what you said. SteveBaker (talk) 05:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

None of those "rights" are enshrined here, though. The only real right you have as a Wikipedian is to vanish and to fork. Its not unheard of for people to modify the comments of others if they contain personal attacks (though it is typically made very clear the comment has been edited and the editor will sign his or her changes to indicate that), doing so does not infringe on your human rights. That said, its a matter of simple courtesy to leave the signed comments of others unmolested unless those comments violate our policies. Last I heard we didn't have a policy forbidding the use of irritating neologisms (Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms refers to article space only). However, there is no harm done here (except, one might argue, to the English language), and I don't think NoClutter is going to repeat it. Can we move on? Rockpocket 06:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly well established that you may remove personal attacks - but I've always taken that to imply removing the entire post - not picking and choosing which words to remove and which to leave. But removing personal attacks is truly a waste of time. You'll get more sympathy from others if it stays there as testament to the bozo who attacked you - and the personal attack will always still be there in the history whether you delete it or not. SteveBaker (talk) 07:17, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh - yeah - as for Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms - that's really not a concern here. The guideline says "Editors should generally use established words instead of neologisms, unless the neologism decreases the complexity of the sentence or increases the clarity of the sentence." - most jargon words do substantially decrease the complexity of the sentence and may also increase clarity (although not always)...after all, that is generally the reason people started using the jargon in the first place. Also, the main concern of that guideline is to avoid the use of terms who's meaning is hard to pin down or not widely used. The guideline explains that verifiability from primary sources is a way to determine whether a neologism is acceptable.

In the case of computer science, we are lucky enough to have the venerable "Jargon file" which has been tracking the origins, meaning and usage of a large body of computing terms back from the 1970's and which has appeared in print at least three times (I think the fourth edition of "The New Hackers Dictionary" is in preparation right now). It's continually updated - but you can see all of the versions going back to about 1975 online - so you can track how a word has shifted meaning over most of it's life. This means that most computing terms are well-defined in a standard reference text that you can buy in print and read for free online and which most users of the jargon are quite familiar with. That's pretty damned serious verifiability!

I think there is a rather significiant misunderstanding about many of these terms - people seem to think that most of them came about in just the last few years - but in truth, a huge number of these terms have been around for 30 or 40 years. The 'neo' in neologism has to expire eventually! SteveBaker (talk) 07:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The Jargon File is more just to help people out, not really to be a definitive, academic source. It's excellent- but I doubt the original writers would be pleased to hear someone speaking of it as "venerable" and not just being playfully hacker-religionish --ffroth 16:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use of Jargon on the Computer Ref Desk.

(Responding to NoClutter's response in the Computing desk thread: "Linux Dependency Hell")

The English language gains it's depth and richness from being continually open to new words. To see what happens when you try to freeze a language for all time - look at what is happening to French. You literally cannot talk about computers without accepting this continual infux of new words and new meanings for old words.

Heck, the meaning of the word "computer" has changed three times in the past 60 years alone. Originally, it meant a person who does arithmetic calculations, then it meant something that we'd currently call a 'calculator' - then it meant what CPU means now - and finally, it came to mean the entire box containing CPU, memory and peripherals. Words like 'byte' and 'nybble' are entirely new words which literally have no alternatives.

I myself invent jargon words when needed - mostly they are used in a small community - occasionally, they are useful enough to break out and become common terms. Take my word "wrapetitious" (a computer graphics term meaning roughly: "A polygon who's texture coordinates have wrapped so many times that is has become obvious that the texture map is being repeated in a boring/ugly manner"): Computer graphics people really need a word with that meaning. As far as I know it's never been used in print - but I've heard lots of complete strangers using it correctly so it's only a matter of time. These words slip into common usage in the same way that "automagically" has.

So what about "Automagically"? Is it rarely used or perhaps merely a recent neologism? Well, it's listed in The Jargon File version 1.0.4 but not in 1.0.3 - which dates it to before 1977 - so we know for sure that the word is at least 30 years old. The meaning back then was pretty much what it is today:

  AUTOMAGICALLY adv. Automatically, but in a way which, for some reason
  (typically because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps
  even too trivial), I don't feel like explaining to you.

The latest Jargon file retains the original definition and adds:

  This  term is quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s in jargon
  and   probably   much  earlier.  The  word  `automagic'  occurred  in
  advertising  (for  a  shirt-ironing  gadget)  as far back as the late
  1940s.

The word gets 2.4 million ghits (sorry: that's "Google hits" for the jargon-impaired) - for comparison, the word "jaywalking" (which NoClutter used in reply to my complaint) was once a neologism - the word is 98 years old and it only gets a tenth of the number of ghits that "automagically" gets. This suggests that automagically is a useful and widely understood word that's a solid part of the language.

NoClutter: You can't stop the progress of the English language - nor can you be the personal arbiter of which words make it into the language and which do not.

The computing desk would be literally incapable of answering questions without using jargon terms of the same approximate age and prevalence as 'automagically' - it is totally unacceptable to have 'language lawyers' dictating this kind of thing.

SteveBaker (talk) 05:21, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Whats an infux, and how dare you pollute our language by introducing it to the lexicon? Rockpocket 06:06, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Another response to NoClutter (though this may be more appropriate for the Language desk than either the Computing desk or this talk page): in this context, there is no such concept as "not a word". There is no such thing as a "standard English dictionary". English (as opposed to, say, French) is not a standardized language: it is defined by its users. This is no joke. Within limits, Humpty Dumpty had it right: "a word means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." If a group of >1 people are all using a word, are in agreement on its meaning, and are using it to communicate actual information, there is just no way you can come along and declare it to be "gibberish" or "not a word". It may not be a word you like, recognize, or would use in your own communication, but it is a word -- neither more not less. —Steve Summit (talk) 17:58, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

While I don't support NoClutter's argument in any case, I feel someone should point out it is factually incorrect. Automagically appears (with earliest recorded use 1961) in the online OED, the standardest dictionary I know. Algebraist 18:12, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

lol who cares? He was obviously wrong, you don't need to justify yourself --ffroth 02:17, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It's "not in the dictionary" and "not a word" I will concede as incorrect ... but I've yet to see someone offer a citation to a technical writing style guide that sanctions the use of the *cough* "word" automagically. Yes, it's prevalent -- so is adultery. So what.

As far as ghits go, prevalence does not imply understanding, or even coherence. Use your ghit counter on the following phrase:

   "a pre-madonna"

[1]. Then ask yourself how many of those people actually meant prima donna and didn't even realize it. People use ghits to try to prove all sorts of things, and the counting thereof is one of Wikipedia's most long-standing tired and sorry substitutes for research there is, nothing personal against the ghit counters among us, but c'mon, even though I may disagree, I know you've got better chops than that.

The "computing community" has a lot of these steaming piles of language refuse strewn about in various sub-groups: "object oriented", "first-class objects", "duck typing", "lambda function", "non-greedy", "closures" ... yaddda yadda ... oh yes, of course they mean (or meant) something to someone ... of course there are some who actually know what they mean when they use these and similar terms ... but the overuse and mistreatment causes these and many other terms to be non-terms and clinically meaningless. "Automagically" is the prime example and crown jewel of this phenomenon. Of course, people who offer such critique are just dismissed as language lawyers or people who don't understand, and that is precisely why these steaming piles persist and become petri dishes for lovely little "communities".

At the end of the day, I changed a single word, someone else changed it back: crisis averted, travesty resolved. You may now resume your jaywalking activities. NoClutter (talk) 03:59, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

This is not a trivial matter - it's an important principle. So either back down and apologise - or explain in detail why your way is right.

• Why is it OK to edit other peoples comments?
• Why would the computing desk work better if we didn't use jargon?

I don't think you can address either of these points coherently - so maybe you should apologise instead of flippantly brushing off a serious complaint about your behavior here.

Editing what other people sign is totally and utterly unacceptable to me (and, I suspect, to most others here). When someone SIGNS something - it makes it their statement - right or wrong. That's why we ask people to sign their statements on talk pages - it enables readers to understand who said what. If people go around changing words they don't like then it's only a matter of time until they change the meaning of what was said (I would argue you already did that by changing automagically to automatically) - and then someone may be accused of saying something they did not and causing all sorts of grief and anguish. Feel free to add your own remarks afterwards or fix up egregious formatting - but you may not change their words. Not ever.

Secondly, we in the computing community don't give a damn for your ideas of what are or are not acceptable words. Language belongs to the people who use it. Words like "object oriented" and "first-class object" form a vital part of my daily communication with co-workers. I and my colleagues need to commmunicate efficiently - if the right word doesn't exist in 'standard' English, we'll co-opt another word or use an acryonym or just go ahead and make up a word. Your imagined 'standard english' simply doesn't contain the vocabulary to describe the kinds of things that happen in modern information technology. So we have to expand the language. That's what every profession in the history of the world has done - and will continue to do. That's our call.

I'm especially amazed at the examples you gave - most of these are terms that have been used for 40 years or more and may be found in most modern dictionaries! If I tell someone at work about a new object I've created (using a very special meaning of the word 'object' that's completely different from any dictionary definition) they may very well enquire "Is that a first-class object?" and I'll tell them "yes" or "no". In six words plus a one-bit answer we saved three sentences of confusing discussion about whether my object supports stream I/O and overloaded operators, whether it has a copy constructor...a whole bunch of deep techy stuff. We did that by using a term which we both understood and which has no equivalent in so-called "standard" English. Our article on First-class objects takes 12 sentences to describe the attributes of such objects. I'd be intrigued to hear you use your hypothetical standard english (perhaps from these imagined technical writing guides of yours) to ask that question for me. Go ahead - write me your version of the six word question "Is that a first class object?" - feel free to consult our article on first class objects to help you. I bet you a barnstar you can't nail it accurately in under 50 words without using any computing jargon. I'll wait - if you succeed I'll give you The Rosetta Barnstar - if you don't...well, just pick me a nice, shiney one that I don't already have. SteveBaker (talk) 05:18, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much for choosing an article that’s filed with undefined computer jargon. If I can figure out what it means I’m sure it’s possible and I’ll give it a shot if you’ll do the same for Interval vector. . . :-) --S.dedalus (talk) 08:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Steve, all I can say is we obviously see things differently, and that's fine, because "backing down" is not a problem for me, I already backed down when my modification got reverted and I accepted that action without dispute. In fact, if you had actually read what I wrote (instead of just assuming I don't know what I am talking about) you'd discover that there's only one significant point of disagreement I have with you: that my modification constituted a "Heinous incident". You say it did, I say it didn't. Those are opposing personal viewpoints, and no one ever has to back down from those, because they don't adversely affect anyone else. People think what they want to think. End of drama.

As far as the matter of terminology, here's a piece of advice. If someone disagrees with you, and you want to demonstrate they are wrong, come down from the tower and actually observe what they are saying before attempting to do so. It will save you from arguing a lot of irrelevant points.

For example:

• Why is it OK to edit other peoples comments?

It's OK if the facts and circumstances dictate such on a case-by-case basis. Such discretion is the foundation of the entire Wikipedia ethos. I didn't say it's *always* OK, nor did I say it's necessarily even advisable. But it certainly is not "always a Heinous Incident®". Oh sure, perhaps the "automagical" mod was sub-optimal, but no one is going to amend the UDHR to prevent this kind of "heinous incident" from happening again, nor should they. Wikipedia self-correction fixed the situation normally and no lasting harm was done.

You're free to disagree, but it's very simplistic to call an activity always wrong without allowing for interpretation and judgment based on context. Even if it is only acceptable one time out of five hundred thousand, that still invalidates your always wrong edict.

• Why would the computing desk work better if we didn't use jargon?

I dunno, you tell me, since I never made such a ridiculous claim in the first place. Again, step out of the cinder block strictures of always and realize that jargon, just like anything else, has both a proper use, and an improper use. Style guides are just guides for people who respect both the language they use and the audience to which it is directed.

By the way, Wikipedia's audience is a general audience, so if you really want to nit-pick, I'd suggest you'd be helping more people if you used jargon sparingly, or at least explained it in context; without assuming that only the "computing community" (whatever that means) matters here.

• we in the computing community don't give a damn for your ideas

Oh brother, the voice from the tower has spoken, and he's got the monolithic "community" of drones behind him! Run for your lives! (more chuckling)

• perhaps from these imagined technical writing guides of yours

Go take a look at Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications and then go re-factor your definition of "imagined". (and if anyone retorts with 'ooohh! Microsoft is bad!' ... I'll try hard not to vomit on them).

• most of these are terms that have been used for 40 years or more and may be found in most modern dictionaries

Again, I never suggested a "ban on jargon" ... I've suggested that certain terms are frequently abused and misused. Injudicious and analytically imprecise usage was the issue, not the mere existence of jargon itself. Sorry if you misinterpreted, but sometimes it takes discussion to clear these things up, happy to help.

• write me your version of the six word question "Is that a first class object?"

You might want to sit down, because I've got a shocking revelation for you: There is no "my version". Proper communication entails both an understanding of the message, as well as an understanding of the target audience. Again, any reputable style guide will make this point blatantly obvious for you, imaginary or otherwise. Proper communication depends on: 1) the context; 2) who uttered the question; and 3) their level of familiarity with the relevant subject matter.

The point that certain workplaces and professions competently use jargon and technical terminology is another irrelevancy. Of course they do. I never disputed that. I never even brought that up, there's no need to. The issue was *ab*use, not use.

Anyway, the relevant "community" here is Wikipedia -- not your workplace. The relevant question is whether it is always wrong to modify a signed post for *any* reason whatsoever. Your answer is apparently "yes", my answer is "it depends on the circumstances". Sure, it would be nice to have a simple "paint-by-numbers" rulebook response, but sometimes judgment calls have to be made, that's why Wikipedia is a community of humans, not robots. NoClutter (talk) 17:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Tell the science desk people, not /C! The science articles are 100x more incomprehensible, and they insist on trying to explain foundational concepts with abstract calculuses and fantastically arcane formulas D: --ffroth 01:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Also I hope you're joking that we should follow a microsoft standard on jargon. Microsoft doesn't do standards. They stomp all over existing standards, substitute their own secret standards, then abandon it to eternal incompatibility unless it can be reverse-engineered. --ffroth 01:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Also please just accept the fact that by vast consensus, the community wikipedia (not steve's workplace) has agreed that signed posts are absolutely inviolate. There's no room for circumstances. In. Violet. --ffroth 01:34, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Not so. I have modified the signed comments of a number of other editors, as I indicated in the section above, because they violated what the community considers acceptable. There are always exceptions, which is the point NoClutter was trying to make, I think. Rockpocket 05:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I really object to you doing that. But could you give us some actual examples where you've found this to be necessary? IMHO if something is posted that is so terrible as to breach our rules, the only fair thing to do is to delete the entire posting from beginning to end and leave a brief note explaining why. Let's be crystal clear here: MODIFICATION (not deletion) is the thing I'm objecting to here. We need to get agreement on this point because I for one would not be prepared to continue to contribute to the Ref desk if I thought there was any likelyhood of someone modifying my posts. SteveBaker (talk) 20:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whether you consider replacing the offending parts of text that contained personal attacks with <personal attack removed> as modification or deletion, but that is what I am referring to. That is why the signed posts of others are not inviolate, if there is something that is grossly offensive among useful content, it may be in our interests of all to replace just that text. The likelihood of someone modifying your posts in that way very much correlates with the likelihood that you will personally attack others in your otherwise informative posts. If you don't plan to make personal attacks then you can continue to contribute without due concern. If you do, then you run that risk and may wish to reconsider your participation, but those contributions would be no great loss anyway. So alls good. Rockpocket 21:21, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with you on the Microsoft thing. We should ideally aim to follow the general thesis of styles guidelines used by Microsoft and other technical groups that are used to communicating with the public (this probably includes Mozilla, Ubuntu, Apple etc). Whatever you may think of Microsoft and whatever bads they may do, this doesn't change the fact they have a point in that writing technical articles we need consider we are writing for a general audience Nil Einne (talk) 13:40, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with your disagreement! Wikipedia has its own manual of style (WP:MOS) for articles which we should certainly follow - we most certainly must not take on the style from guides written outside of Wikipedia. But for talk pages, that degree of formality is neither required - nor desirable - nor ever likely to be followed. SteveBaker (talk) 20:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

As in all things in wikipedia, it's usually helpful for us to see what we can learn from other sources and yes, if other technical writing guidelines can help us improve the MOS, then why no use them? Who cares whether they're from Microsoft, or Apple or Mozilla or Ubuntu or whatever? Note also that style guidelines are meant to be descriptive not proscriptive. If you have experience with some style guideline and you use your experiencing in improving an article and what you're doing is not violating any policies or going against the MOS then I fail to see the harm in doing so (and if it does violate the MOS but you feel your way is a better way then I fail to see the harm from proposing a change to the MOS). For talk pages and the RD in particular, while it isn't necessary to follow a strict style guideline nor do I suggest we should, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try and make our posts understandable to a general audience particularly when the audience is an unknown. Note I emphasised the RD here because it is not a talk page even though it shares some features. Note also this is not so much about formality but in using common sense. Oh and finally note that I actually find it annoying when someone complains because they don't understand something I said (and usually respond as such) but it doesn't mean I don't take their complaint on board or that I think we shouldn't take resonable steps to make sure that people understand us. Audience is the key here. If you're replying to someone who can resonably be expected to know what you're talking about then sure it doesn't matter if what you're saying is fairly technical. But if not, then is it really worth the time writing out a long response only for it to be ignored because the person reading hasn't a clue what you're saying? In any case, I'm a strong believer as to each his or her own. If you want to do something your way that's mostly fine with me. I'm not saying you have to consider your audience when writing I'm suggesintg it's wise but if you don't want to, I won't object and I'm definitely not going to make a fuss about your use of automagically. I'm giving my POV and I'm fine if you don't agree although but I do prefer it when people understand my POV which is why I sometimes respond in a discussion when I feel they have not understood it. I'm also a strong believer in the idea that questioner askers should take realise they are asking for a favour and need to therefore accept that question answerers often expect them to do some work for themselves. I find it particularly annoying when questions askers seem to ignore this or think we are here to server them. So yes, it's entirely resonably to expect question askers may have to make some effort to understand responses by themselves. But again, I would encourage question answerers to make their meaning clear. I emphasise again I don't feel there was anything wrong with your response in this particular instance just that I don't agree with the view that people seem to be expressing that we shouldn't worry about jargon or making ourselves understoof on the RD at all. Perhaps this was not what was being said but it was the impression that I got and I strongly suspect very few people actually have this viewpoint it's just that it's what often happens in debates or heated discussions. Nil Einne (talk) 09:27, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

More general my POV (which may not be entirely relevant to the situation) is:

• Yes we should avoid jargon to some extent but particularly on the RD and talk pages it isn't as essential as it is in articles
• Use the word automagically is acceptable on the RD. Perhaps it should be avoided but it definitely isn't something we need to get worked up about.
• Yes it is acceptable to modify someone's signed comments in a very limited set of circumstances. If you do so, you should make it clear in the edit summary why you are doing so, make it clear that you did so in a response to the comment and inform the person who's comment it was. An example would be to remove an extreme personal attack (in some cases removing the comment might be best but not always).
• In most cases the best thing if you really feel there is a serious issue with the comment is to take it to the person's talk page rather then modify it yourself. Alternatively respond to the comment but be careful since this can often result in the other party getting more defensive.
• It is not acceptable to modify someone's comment to try and clarify it (other then indenting changes perhaps) although if someone only does it once it's probably best if you explain to them that what they did wasn't acceptable rather then getting to worked up about it particularly if they are new.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Because my use of "automagical" was the cause of this argument, I feel that I should point out that I first used "automagical" on September 7, 1978 - the day after I first heard it used. It meant then, and it means today, something completely different than either "automatic" or "magical". Automatic means that some series of events are going to happen, one after the other, and I'll be happy to explain it all to you if you want to know more about it. Magical means that something is going to happen that cannot be explained using the well-understood physics of our universe. Automagical means that some series of events will take place but I have no intention of explaining it - so consider it magic. This word is the polite version of the military use of "FM". In the civilian world, I tell people that something is automagical. When I was in the Marines, I said it was FM. Both mean the same thing: I know it works. I know how it works. I'm not going to explain it to you. Therefore, changing it to "automatic" lost much of the meaning of my comment.

As a side note, I guess it is important to point out that I'm not SteveBaker's sockpuppet. I'm rather surprised that hasn't been suggested already. So many people disagree with most of what I say here - I'm sure I can find something I've said that has sent Steve on a rant. -- kainaw™ 02:40, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Year

At last, two thousand seven ends; so, what is left to say?

But thank you to our refdesk friends who come out here and play.

May zero eight be just as full of fun and lively actions,

Of long debates on bear and bull, and friction 'tween the factions.

A year of helping those who ask, o Captains of the keyboard!

You armchair docs who wear a mask, you seagulls at the seaboard.

You matrixists, defiantists, you lecturers and scholars,

You proud and squamous scientists, and also YOU WHO HOLLERS.

Thanks to all the volunteers, the questioners and jesters.

Have the best of many years, and Happy Saint Sylvester's!

Boo, EST is the best. --ffroth 01:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Pah why celebrate new year when nearly everyone else has already done so? This years the same as last year so far BTW Nil Einne (talk) 13:34, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bizzareness with the section headings

Why do the RD subpage headings now call from a userspace page? What's wrong with the original ones located under WP:RD? 68.39.174.238 (talk) 23:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The one that used to be in project space took a hellishly long time to load. Now, as to why Froth's version hasn't just been moved to the original location, you could always ask him. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:20, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm only asking because something bizzare happened to my edits to the old (now blanked) version. 68.39.174.238 (talk) 23:37, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Best not to touch it -_- ffroth 01:23, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

That answer didn't answer much. 68.39.174.238 (talk) 02:01, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Who cares? --ffroth 01:23, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Anyone who's worried you'll fall off your rocker and G7 your own subpages? That's not me, but...you asked :-p Someguy1221 (talk) 01:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think G7 entirely applies.. it's certainly not written entirely by me, and it wouldnt be in good faith since it would be hugely destructive unless someone else can sort out the flattening fixes or recover the deleted page --ffroth 01:36, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

U1? Someguy1221 (talk) 01:37, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

You knew it was coming: "In some rare cases there may be administrative need to retain the page." --ffroth 17:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

So why can't the present templates simply be moved into RD space? It's clearly inappropriate for them to be in a Userspace. SteveBaker (talk) 01:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I have created a uniform RD header that should work on all sections of the Reference desk. The template is now at User:Lambiam/Try, and it has been installed by transclusion for a beta test at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics. If there are no problems, I'll copy it in a couple of days to Wikipedia:Reference desk/header and transclude it on the other RD sections.  --Lambiam 16:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. But wtf @ "clearly inappropriate"?? --ffroth 23:37, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Modification of other peoples signed remarks - A formal proposal.

It's worse than I thought. Nil Einne, NoCLutter and RocketPocket have all asserted (above) that they have no compunction about modifying other peoples signed posts for reasons other than simple format fixups. I personally, cannot accept their position. Modification of other peoples posts (other than for formatting reasons - or in the case of a total deletion of the entire post) for any reason whatever is utterly unacceptable. There are plenty of reasons to need to reject a post - but deleting the entire thing is the only fair way to proceed.

The rationale for this is that once you have SIGNED a post - it's almost like signing your name on a contract. What you signed was that exact form of words you wished to express - not some variation on that which someone else thinks you should really have said. Just imagine the damage that could be done by people inserting odd words here and there into someone's clearly thought out posting. There is no point in requiring people to sign their posts at all if the words within those posts may not be theirs. Since the RD does (rightly IMHO) require posts to be signed, then it is only fair that the words thus presented should be treated as theirs and theirs alone.

Hence, I think we must have a formal policy on this so that we can all be crystal clear about our rights in these matters. So...

PROPOSAL: That we add to the RD guidelines something along the lines of:

'It is not considered acceptable to edit the contents of other peoples signed posts to the reference desks other than for the purposes of simple format fixups. If a post violates RD rules or other Wikipedia guidelines then it must either be completely removed or not touched at all.

Please respond Support or Reject: SteveBaker (talk) 21:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

• Suppport - I simply cannot tolerate a situation where someone might change my words after I've signed them. For me, this is a non-negotiable matter. The integrity of my words is more important to me than my ability to contribute here. SteveBaker (talk) 21:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
• Reject for reasons of WP:CREEP and because the issue is already well enough covered at Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Editing comments --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:12, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The talk page guidelines don't apply to the RD because it's not a Talk: page. SteveBaker (talk) 14:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• Reject and move to close this straw poll. We are not in a position to make a "formal policy" in this manner. I would direct your attention to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/AI. The Arbs found:

• All users are welcome to suggest changes to Wikipedia policies such as Wikipedia:No personal attacks. However suggested changes or interpretations do not become policy unless they are adopted by community consensus.
• The remove personal attacks guideline (and the application thereof) is controversial. It has often been abused by malefactors, and may not have community consensus. It should, at most, be interpreted strictly and used sparingly.

If you wish to make an editor's comment absolutely inviolate then you should go and propose a policy to the community in the proper manner, and watch it get shot down in flames. As Tagishsimon notes, our guidelines are clear that one should not edit the comments of others unless you have a very good reason to do so. That can certainly be noted in our guidelines, but lets not couch this in terms of "formal policy" about our "rights" (we don't have any editing rights, remember?) Rockpocket 21:37, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure we are allowed to make RD policy here. This is the place where all of the other RD guidelines were made - we discuss and update those guidelines right here. SteveBaker (talk) 14:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

A guideline is not a policy. I have no objection to noting that our existing talk page guidelines about editing other's comments apply to the Ref Desks. I have a serious issue with attempts at creating a new policy making signed comments absolutely inviolate anywhere in Wikipedia. Rockpocket 01:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

• Reject per Tagashimon. Such a policy would be largely redundant with existing policy, guidelines, and practices. In the extraordinarily rare circumstance where it might be appropriate to edit a signed comment (and there is such an exception to every rule, whether we've yet located one or not) creating a formal 'rule' would encourage wikilawyering over the policy rather than discussion over the merits of the action. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Incidentally, Steve, you should be careful about making statements like "Tom, Dick, and Harry have no compunction about doing [something objectionable]." It is often the case that the editors in question will have positions far more nuanced that such a statement might imply (Rockpocket's response here is a case in point) and it's generally a poor idea to set up a policy proposal as an us-versus-them the-Wikipedia-must-be-saved scenario. More light; less heat, please. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Slightly reject. Kinda goes without saying. I once went in and changed the way a guy had caps and hyphens so his wikilink would turn blue, and I made my summary "Fixed link, hope you don't mind." I can't believe anybody would have a problem with that. But, almost always otherwise, no, don't touch my moustache. --Milkbreath (talk) 22:22, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The right to make formatting changes was specifically mentioned in my proposal - that is not grounds to oppose it. SteveBaker (talk) 14:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I was unclear. I'm inclined to oppose because it kinda goes without saying. I think we're mostly all pretty much on the same side of the basic issue. It's wrong to change people's words. --Milkbreath (talk) 15:20, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• Reject and speedy close. Per Tagishsimon and Rockpocket. Personally I don’t see a problem here. Wikipedia policy is already crystal clear on the mater. An addition of this kind would be nothing more than WP:BEANS. --S.dedalus (talk) 03:15, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• Reject no one that I've seen has suggested it is okay to add in odd words here and there into someone's post especially in such a way that you change the meaning and I find it offensive that SB seems to suggest that I was saying this was okay. I did say modifying someone's post in a limited set of circumstances is acceptable provided, amongst other things you make it clear that you did it to all readers and to the person who's comment it is. I also made it clear it's rarely a good idea (in particular removing a personal attack against yourself is dumb as SB pointed out somewhere above) but I will not, nor have I see any evidence that the community as a whole thinks it's never acceptable to modify someone's comment (and the evidence presented by RockPocket from the arbcom suggests they largely agree with my view). SB has suggested that you should always remove a comment wholesale but this ignores the reality that sometimes people include an extreme personal attack in a long line of more resonable comments and removing the whole comment is likely to result in screams of censorship and otherwise just make the situation worse. While I sometimes like hardfast rules, this is one case when it clearly won't work and this is one of them. While I have great respect for SB and his usually well thoughtout and useful responses on the RD and for the work he has done in improving the RD particularly in developing the medical advice section I really feel as I hinted in my first response that this is a much ado about nothing. NoClutter should not have changed automagically to automatically and there was nothing wrong with SB taking this up with him. If he refused to accept it was wrong or at least agree not to do or something similar again, there was nothing wrong with bringing it to the community (who appear to wholeheartedly agree it was wrong and should not be repeated). But two instances of someoe changing a comment does not a problem make (sic) and it seems to me even though obviously well meaning the attempts to resolve it have just made things worse. Perhaps I didn't help but I do think it is a mistake to claim it is never acceptable to modify a comment since as with many things there's always an exception where at the very least it shouldn't be condemnded even if not condoned Nil Einne (talk) 09:37, 1 January 2008 (UTC) P.S. In light of what I said about I feel this discussion isn't going anywhere good I'm withdrawing from it. If anything I said requires important clarification or you want me to retract something I've said then you're welcome to take it to my talk page but otherwise I won't be back. I do apologise if I've offended anyone that definitely wasn't intentional. I just hoped I could offer a third party insight into this incident from an occasional RD user Nil Einne (talk) 09:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Similar to Milkbreath's reasoning given above, I have (quite rarely but it's happened) corrected someone else's typo when it was part of a key word in the reply (e.g. translation requests). Like Milkbreath, I probably added "hope xy doesn't mind" in my edit summary, and I only did it when I had good reason to believe that user:xy, in fact, would not mind. Why did/do I do this? Because, in those instances, a quick correction of this unintended error is more helpful to the reader than ignoring it, and because I don't believe it's necessary to point out an obvious typo in an extra post, and draw attention to an irrelevant flaw in an otherwise excellent answer. I will continue to do this until one of the victims complains. But rest assured, SteveBaker, I will certainly never touch any of your signed posts :-) ---Sluzzelin talk 10:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Since the consensus appears to be that we will not require editors to leave signed comments intact, I will no longer be contributing to the reference desks. As I said - I cannot accept a system that allows my comments to be edited by others - period. SteveBaker (talk) 14:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I see the desks as a cooperative effort. If I accidentally misspell a crucial word in an answer, I hope somebody will correct it, becuse I might not notice it. If I forget to wikify an important term or name, I hope somebody will throw some brackets in. To ask on my talk page first would be proper and polite, but I don't think that's necessary for obviously needed correctons to answers I give on the ref desks; it might take a day or two for me to get around to making the correction myself, during which time bad information lies there for all to see. I see such corrections as a form of friendly help. If somebody goes too far, I'll revert and tell them why. That said, I would not make such corrections on other people's answers just because there are those who hate that, like our steamed colleague here. But I don't see the need to make a federal case out of it, that's all. --Milkbreath (talk) 15:40, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I fully agree. I have regularly made changes such as correcting annoying spelling errors or adding wikilinks in responses without adding a comment to the effect – although I'd do that only to responses by regular respondents. I've never had a complaint. I've also occasionally made more substantive corrections, but then with an added comment that I had made such a change. Again, no-one has ever complained about that; whenever this elicited a reaction it was a thank-you note. I have also been at the receiving end of such corrections, and I saw no problem with that. We are just trying to give the best possible answers (which are supposed to be factual and from a neutral point of view, not expressions of one's personal convictions). The consensus to reject the formal proposal merely means that it is formulated too absolutely; guidelines are just that, guidelines, anyway.  --Lambiam 17:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

All that said, we should respect Steve's decision & wish him well. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

If that's what Steve really wants to do, of course we must respect his decision. But I wonder if it's not an over-reaction. The rejection of his proposed policy does not mean that it's suddenly OK for people to edit others' posts except for the circumstances referred to by various people. Nothing has changed in relation to the way things are done around here, what's generally considered acceptable practice and what's not. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:19, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment have been away, so seem to have missed this. My feeling is that Steve is more or less right - we should not be editing other users' signed comments - we may, accidentally or otherwise, cause someone to appear to be saying something other than that which they intended. I'm not even happy with editing for spelling - I sometimes use spellings which some users may consider incorrect, but which are acceptable variant English usages, and chosen by me for reasons of æsthetics, tradition or sheer bloody-mindedness. If I fail to wikilink a term - then why not add a comment like "We have an article at [[insert article here]]. If I appear to have mis-spelt something, then say so, and then I can correct or explain as appropriate. DuncanHill (talk) 22:52, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

• • The question then is, what part of Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#Editing comments is insufficient, and do we need the additional layer of regulation being suggested by Steve. My answers: nothing & no. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Duncan and with Tagashsimon both—we shouldn't be futzing about with other people's commments to correct their content, even in the case of 'obvious' errors. (What's an obvious correction to one person is quite non-obvious to another, and may well change the intent of what was said to a third.) Fixing a typo or formatting in a wikilink to turn it blue is right at the edge of what's acceptable; did you remember to check the link to make sure it pointed to relevant information, and that it wasn't to a dab page or to an article on a different topic with the same name?

Far better in such cases to add a comment:

I think that our articles on foo and bar might be useful... or

I think that link should point to fubar not foobar...

or better yet – in cases of different capitalization or hyphenation – to create an appropriate redirect to turn the redlink blue. I wouldn't recommend adding wikilinks to someone else's comments for similar reasons. Just add your own links. (As well, if the OP has read the response before the wikilink is added, he might not realize that there's even been an update. Far better to draw clear attention to it with a new comment.)

One should never fiddle with another editor's spelling or choice of words; I regularly see 'corrections' that introduce errors or unintentionally change the sense of a passage in article space, and I have no doubt that similar problems would arise here. (Just because you don't recognize a word doesn't mean it's a typo.) For translations and the like, it's best to add a second comment with the corrections (ideally highlighted somehow); again because such corrections may not actually be correct, and because the OP might not notice minor changes. WP:NOT paper, after all—we can afford a bit of duplication for the sake of clarity.

Incidentally, I think all of the stuff I've laid out here follows naturally from the existing talk page guidelines and is also an important and deeply ingrained part of Wikipedia culture. There's no need to reinvent this wheel by drafting new policy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

It is better to make corrections in a new post, sure, but no harm no foul, I think, for minor stuff, as long as you don't screw it up. And I don't even correct my own typos unless they affect the substance of my answer (I started programming on a machine with 64K, so I hate to waste storage space.). I did check the link thoroughly, by the way, and considered and rejected making a redirect. I don't want to leave the impression that I approve of cavalierly monkeying with others' posts. I don't. At all. I do, however, approve of friendly cooperation among the refdesk guys and gals in the interest of informing the questioner, and if somebody tidies something I messed up, I'm happy about it. --Milkbreath (talk) 01:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

• Reject without prejudice. While I agree with Other Steve that edits to others' comments should be few and far between and very cautiously made, I don't think we need this kind of hard policy here. —Steve Summit (talk) 01:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm finding myself agreeing (more or less) with SteveBaker, Tagishsimon, Rockpocket, TenOfAllTrades, Milkbreath, S.dedalus, Nil Einne, Sluzzelin, Lambiam, JackofOz, DuncanHill and the other Steve, (Summit). So, is there any way to back out of this mess? For the good of the RD, I certainly hope so  :-)) hydnjo talk 03:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I know. I think we are more or less all in agreement, the only differences appear to be in whether that could be codified in policy (doing so here would be meaningless, until it went through the process at Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance) or whether it remains a well established and adhered to guideline, but with the flexibility per the general recommendations. There is nothing to be gained by disagreeing over a matter of principle, when in practice there is really nothing to dispute. Rockpocket 03:18, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree totally - this isn't any disagreement about misbehavior but rather a disagreement about the codification and the ability to quote such as we all seem to agree that that would be a breach of conduct on the RD. I'm confident that any such misbehavior, well intentioned or not, would be jumped upon vigorously and that the offended user would be enthusiastically defended by the RD regulars. I'm not aware of any other egregiously foul edits than have already been brought up here. I'm led to the conclusion that such editing is not only rare but well intentioned. As such, codification or not, these rare events can be dealt with within the existing rules and guidelines. This misbehavior (if deliberate) is so offensive that the offender would feel the sting of the community and we should have no doubt that the written record would be restored and archived appropriately. hydnjo talk 03:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

BTW, I've found SB's vehement insistence and some of the others' vehement opposition in this matter well, uncharacteristically vehement. I don't know why this matter has struck with such poignancy but perhaps we should all reflect a bit and be less confrontational about a matter in which we all substantively agree. hydnjo talk 04:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I hope the way forward is for Steve to reconsider his intention to leave the Ref Desk over this on a matter of principle. I don't believe there is anything else anyone could do to alleviate his concerns other that further reinforce the point that there is no realistic likelihood, whether it is codified or not, that it would have any impact on him on 99.99% of any other contributors here. That is clearly what everyone would want. Rockpocket 04:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Yessss! hydnjo talk 05:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

• Reject. How convenient that everyone's suddenly so libertarian, after all that /guidelines nonsense. They're right though, if anyone edits my posts AT. ALL. so help them "I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger" (pulp fiction version x_x) but I don't need rules to protect me on the internet. --ffroth 17:22, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

  Guidelines are rules that are meant to provide guidance; the nonsense was that some people screamed as if they were a ukase, dictated by the Supreme Fascist.  --Lambiam 09:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support... uh... I think. I really didn't expect such an unanimous reject of Steve's proposal... but well, since I haven't read some arguments and probably I'll never be fully aware of every Wikipedia policy and guideline, I guess you can safely ignore my vote. Anyway I'll shyly say that, well, if comments are signed, it's because that text is attributed solely to you, not to the Wikipedia community as a whole. Perhaps we should warn another top respondent of the RD of this fact (if I have understood this well), I mean User:Clio the Muse. She states in her userpage that at the RD no-one can butcher what she writes. --Taraborn (talk) 18:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you should take the time and read the "arguments", particularly what hydnjo and Rockpocket discussed above. There's no cause for alarm, and we hope Steve returns. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal redux

From a post on my talk page, it seems that RockPocket didn't actually read what I proposed we vote on - just in case there are others who don't actually read their ballot papers (which might explain a LOT about the world today!), I'll copy the line down here for you all to read again. The line was:

---

PROPOSAL: That we add to the RD guidelines something along the lines of:

---

...I don't think many people misread the critical word...but just in case, I've highlighted it this time. As I explained, I think it should be policy - but I was realistic enough to ask for a mere guideline. SteveBaker (talk) 20:15, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

• So, to be clear, you are asking that support or reject a move to reinforce talk page guidelines, pretty much as they stand, in our own RD guidelines. You are aware that such a guideline would not be a "formal policy" and that it does not protect anyone's absolute "right on these matters" beyond advising contributors about expected talk page behaviour and community norms as they apply to the RD? If that is the case, then I would support such as proposal, though I think there should be further discussion on the wording. Rockpocket 20:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure that you have read the many detailed responses, Steve, but just in case, there seems to be pretty broad agreement that such an absolute statement is both unnecessary and largely redundant. While Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Editing comments refers to talk pages, it is already understood that its strictures apply to signed comments everywhere. (For example, WP:AN isn't in a Talk: namespace, but we don't allow editing of signed comments there.) It is already accepted that we do not accept editors changing other people's comments without a damn good reason, and it is already understood that in the absence of a damn good reason we will come down hard on editors who decide to ignore this community norm. It is widely acknowledged that damn good reasons are few and far between. (Fixing badly broken formatting has been discussed as one such reason; another is where we redact personal contact information from posts. Other exceptions may exist.)

I'd say that NoClutter deserved the earfull he got up above for the edit he made. I hope that he has absorbed and internalized the guidance that he received because I'll probably block him if he fiddles with someone else's words again—and I'm not the only admin who would do so. In cases where the community has not corrected editors who have modified others' signed statements, we probably weren't aware that they did it. (If Froth's 'joke' modification of your comment had come to my attention, I might have given him a stern warning, or I might have gone straight to a block.)

So I ask, what – if anything – would you like to change about the talk page guidelines that are linked? If they're acceptable as they are, then we don't need any policy changes—we're already enforcing those standards here. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

To be clear (although I believe it was pretty clear the first time around), I wrote exactly what I meant:

PROPOSAL: That we add to the RD guidelines something along the lines of:

'It is not considered acceptable to edit the contents of other peoples signed posts to the reference desks other than for the purposes of simple format fixups. If a post violates RD rules or other Wikipedia guidelines then it must either be completely removed or not touched at all.

I did say "something along the lines of" - intending that once we had agreed on the general principle, that the wording could be tweaked a little - as is usually the case with such things - but without modifying the intended meaning that was voted on. The three key points being:

1. This is a guideline - which means it carries the same force as the 'no medical questions' and other guidelines and it applies only to the RD desks. It might be that someone would occasionally violate it - but the community would rally around - condemn the violator and work hard to explain the guideline to the miscreant - and to put things right - as we usually do.
2. Nobody edits other peoples signed posts under any circumstances whatever EXCEPT
   1. To fix trivial formatting errors
   2. Or to delete the entire post if it violates other policy/guidelines

This means (at a minimum):

• No, you can't remove jargon words that you don't like.
• No, you can't fix my spelling.
• No, you can't fix my grammar.
• No, you can't fix my redlinks or redirect a misdirected link.
• No, you can't correct my equations.
• No, you can't change my post for the purpose of making a joke.
• No, you can't even edit my post to remove what you perceive to be a personal attack or medical/legal advice - although you may (if you absolutely must) remove the entire post including all of the text and the signature. (It would be polite to leave a note to say that you did so - and in the event of an argument about it - to explain why you did so right here on the talk page).
• Yes, you can add a ':' or remove leading whitespace or fix a mismatched link bracket, italic or boldface tag, strip or add leading and trailing '=' signs to make the headings work out right, etc.
• Yes, you can do what the heck you like with unsigned posts (although - it's a bit impolite because the person may come back and sign it later when they realise their error).

Because this is only a guideline - not "policy" - then just like the "No Medical Questions" matter - no admin is likely to block you for a single infraction - but as usual, repeated refusal to obey guidelines is likely to be considered abusive editing and will likely EVENTUALLY get you in trouble. However, do expect other members of the community to be quite upset if you start violating it...just as is the case with medical questions and so forth.

I believe that this is precisely what I said the first time.

SteveBaker (talk) 21:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

That is all fine and well. Though as with all guidelines, if there is a damn good reason for ignoring it in the wider interests of the project, then I would do so and encourage others to do so too. Guidelines do not trump policy, and thus there could be cases where WP:NPA compelled me to act in a way not compatible with both. Therefore a guideline does not inform one of what one "can" or "can't" do, it advices what the community norms are and informs how we are expected to adhere to them. If you want to tell people what they absolutely can or can't do, then you should consider proposing a policy (and still people will still quote WP:IAR back at you). Alternatively you could consider having children, they may better appreciate your attempts at using words of one syllable or less too. Rockpocket 21:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

In the case of NPA (as I explained in the original wording) you can delete the entire post and be on solid ground with both your rights under NPA and this guideline. (And I do have a kid...he knows only too well what I mean when I tell him that I'm going to spell things out with words of one syllable and then use polysyllabics at him! :-) SteveBaker (talk) 22:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I could do, and there is every chance I would do. But for a multitude of complex reasons it may be better, in my opinion, to remove just the offending comment (let I be accused of CENSORSHIP in deleting the rest of the comment). Your guideline is not going to change that, because thats not what guidelines do; they guide - they don't instruct. Telling someone they cannot do something is manna from heaven for wikilawyers and trolls, which is why there are very few things phrased in such as way. A guideline must be phrased like a guideline and not a policy, and it must be interpreted like a guideline, not a policy. The only addition that is required, I think, is ensuring RD contributors are aware of the the current guidelines and that they apply here. I don't object to that, but anything more than that is not required. Rockpocket 22:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

But if I say "I'm sure you are a very nice human being in person - but here on the reference desk you are...(three pages of expletives)....yours sincerely ~~~~" - and you prune out the words you don't like, it might then read "I'm sure you are a very nice human being. yours sincerely ~~~~" - and I don't think you should have the right to mangle the words that the person signed as his/her own. So just remove the entire post - and leave a note saying why. If it truly rises to the level of abuse where leaving the entire post intact is not tolerable to you - then that's perfectly fine - dump the whole thing as abuse. It's not worth giving people the right to pick and choose and leave words devoid of their context and have everyone wondering what REALLY was said - when they only need the right to remove an abusive post (which is explicitly granted by my proposed rule). It's like the US presidential line item veto...a more dangerous and powerful tool than an all-or-nothing veto! 23:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SteveBaker (talk • contribs)

Well I don't have the "right" to mangle anyone's words and I don't have the "right" to pick and choose words to delete, no-one here does. I have no rights beyond GFDL and to leave. However, I believe out of almost 14,000 edits, in three occasions I removed part of a post of another and replaced it with either <personal attack removed> or <libel removed>. I did this because, under the particular circumstances, that appeared to be a better solution to a problem (and, incidentally, less likely to cause misinterpretation) than removing the entire comment. I have removed plenty more comments in their entirety, perhaps hundreds, because in those situations that appeared to be the best course of action. This, I believe, was entirely in the spirit of our standing guidelines and policies. Unless there is a change in policy by community consensus, or ArbCom issues further guidance on the subject, I will not hesitate to do so again here should such an unusual set of circumstances present itself. No guideline passed here will change that and no contrived example of how it could lead to a misrepresentation will convince me otherwise. The facts are that, as an administrator, you sometimes are asked to intervene in delicate situations and sometimes they require creative solutions. I don't apologize for that. Rockpocket 01:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Could you spell out – clearly, and in words of one syllable or less, as you are wont to do – what the precise difference is between the existing guideline for signed comments and your proposed guideline, if any? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I presume you refer to WP:TALK - notably, the section "Editing comments//Others' comments" - which I'll quote here:

---

It is not necessary to bring talk pages to publishing standards, so there is no need to correct typing errors, grammar, etc. It tends to irritate the users whose comments you are correcting. Do not strikeout the comments of other editors without their permission.

Never edit someone's words to change their meaning. Editing others' comments is sometimes allowed, but you should exercise caution in doing so. Some examples of appropriately editing others' comments:

• If you have their permission
• Removing prohibited material such as libel and personal details
• Deleting material not relevant to improving the article (per the above subsection #How to use article talk pages).
• Removing personal attacks and incivility. This is controversial, and many editors do not feel it is acceptable; please read WP:ATTACK#Removal of text and WP:CIVIL#Removing uncivil comments before removing anything.
• Unsigned comments: You are allowed to append {{unsigned}} or one of its variants to the end of someone's comment if they have failed to sign it. The form is {{subst:unsigned|USER NAME OR IP|DATE AND TIME}}, which results in —The preceding unsigned comment was added by USER NAME OR IP (talk • contribs) DATE AND TIME.
• Interruptions: In some cases, it is OK to interrupt a long contribution, either by a short comment (as a reply to a minor point) or by a headline (if the contribution introduces a new topic). In that case, add "<small>Headline added to (reason) by ~~~~</small>"). In such cases, please add {{subst:interrupted|USER NAME OR IP}} before the interruption.
• When a long comment has formatting errors, rendering it difficult to read. In this case, restrict the edits to formatting changes only and preserve the content as much as possible.
• On your own user talk page, you may remove comments from others, although archiving is generally preferred and removing comments without any reason is generally regarded as uncivil. The text of another user's comment, however, may never be directly edited to misrepresent the person or change the meaning of the comment.
• If a signature violates the guidelines for signatures.
• In the past it was standard practice to refactor talk pages, although this practice has fallen somewhat into disuse.

---

OK - that's the original guideline on editing other people's posts on Talk pages - as far as I know. It's pretty good - it's close to what we need - which is why I believed that the guideline I proposed was not at all outrageous. But...

1. It is debatable whether it applies at all - the RD not being a talk page.
2. It is not at all clear on whether you can fix things like spelling - it says that it irritates people and that there is no need to do it - it doesn't say that you can't. When faced with a rabid language lawyer (yes, you know who I mean) - I don't see any guideline that says they shouldn't mess with your words if they believe they are improving them.
3. It says you can't change the meaning of someone's words...but that means "You can't INTENTIONALLY change the meaning" - I want the guideline to prevent you editing my post AT ALL because in technical matters such as science, math and computing (and perhaps others too) it is exceedingly easy for accidental changes (the 'automagically'/'automatically' incident is a clear case in point) to change meaning. Better to say - JUST DON'T EDIT MY GODDAMN POSTS and avoid the problem entirely.
4. Removing a perceived personal attack (and these things are almost always "perceived") by editing the original comment word-by-word is an unnecessary practice. If it's an abusive post - dump the entire thing. Changing or removing a few words here and there might (again) change the meaning in an unacceptable manner. The original guideline hints that this practice is frowned upon - I see no reason not to outlaw it directly given that we're making a nice, simple, easy to understand guideline that says "the words the guy wrote and signed are inviolate - delete it all or keep it all".
5. I would argue that the RD is DIFFERENT to talk pages and other forum-type pages (such as - say - the Village Pump). The differences are as follows:
   • It's not like village pump - which is somewhat a place where only fellow Wikipedians hang out - and it's not some chatline like user talk pages. It's the public face of Wikipedia - just like article space...except on the RD, we sign our posts. That makes the RD unique - and for that reason, unique rules are required.
   • The RD is a much more public place where anyone and everyone comes to ask questions and read replies. People who ask questions on the RD are generally not Wiki-savvy - they won't check their "watchlist" to see if the answer that was given has changed (eg if I change automatically BACK to automagically after someone futzed with it) - they won't use the history mechanism either. They'll read a post - signed by me - and reasonably assume that I wrote it.
   • A post is only likely to be read once by the OP - they frequently don't come back and re-read the same post again (we know this because we so rarely get replies to our requests for clarification) - so I only get once chance to make my point - if someone else fscks it up (yes, that's a jargon word with a very specific meaning!) then I don't get another chance to come back and argue about it. If you have another opinion about what I wrote or how I wrote it - then say so underneath so that the OP can still read what I actually meant to say.
   • What is said on the RD's is often highly technical and quite complicated - if someone who may be less expert than the respondant - in all good faith - and in their zeal to improve (as several people have asserted their right to do) - spell-corrects "Silicone" to "Silicon" or "Poynting vector" to "Pointing vector" - or fixes what they perceive to be an error in an equation - then much greater damage may be done than is likely on a mere talk page or in some other "chatty" environment - and it's very unlikely that 'many eyes' will fix that error as they might in Article space because very few of us are re-re-re-reading the same posts and carefully following the history. It is MUCH better in an environment like this to add a subsequent post saying "Did you really mean 'add the Silicone Poynting vector'? I'm pretty sure you meant 'subtract the Silicon pointing vector'." - that's what is the usual practice here - and I think we should say so. The OP can clearly see that there is some possible error and will presumably take the advice with an appropriate grain of salt.
6. Clearly, many people here don't believe the WP:TALK guideline in any way prevents them from editing other peoples posts. Sadly, I think they are correct in saying that - it doesn't say that you can't fix jargon/spelling/grammar - only that if you do, it'll upset someone. (Which it did!). There are enough experienced people who said as much in the discussion above. My two sentence version is clear, easy to understand and is tailored to the unique needs of the RD.

SteveBaker (talk) 22:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Revisiting this, I see that I made a comment up above but didn't actually get to the point of saying whether I personally supported the proposal or not. I was reading through your post, Steve, and I was agreeing with everything you said, until the last bit: "Yes, you can do what the heck you like with unsigned posts (although - it's a bit impolite because the person may come back and sign it later when they realise their error)." This mystifies me. Nosine is pretty busy these days, and not many unsigned posts remain unidentified for long. But even if a post remains unsigned, they're still the words of an editor, and should still be as sacrosanct as the words of any other editor. I understood that the matter of principle that saw you threatening to leave the Ref Desk altogether, was about the inviolability of an editor's utterances. It wasn't about whether or not the maker of the utterance happens to be known or unknown. What happened to the principle, and what makes it merely "a bit impolite" to fiddle with unsigned posts? Why would anyone ever want to anyway? Are the reasons for changing an unsigned post any different from those for changing a signed post? This enormous distinction between your attitude to signed and unsigned posts has me seriously questioning the principle at stake here. Until that's clarified, there's no way I can support your current proposal. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:17, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, if someone can't be bothered to sign their posts - I don't think they need the protection implied here. I regard signing my posts much as I do signing a cheque (or a 'check' if you're an American!) or signing a contract. If I sign it - then I've frozen the amount on the cheque or the agreement set forth in the contract. If I don't sign it - it's worthless. Put another way - I think the act of signing your post is putting your personal stamp on the post - it says "These words are what I wrote".

I suppose one could extend the same protection to unsigned posts - but I don't really feel the need. I didn't intend to suggest that automatically signed posts would be protected either though - so Nosine or Sinebot don't matter. Those robots aren't perfect anyway...they make mistakes if the edit history is sufficiently complex. Again - if you signed your name (or your IP) to that post then the act of doing that made the words yours. If you didn't sign them...well, you didn't really make an affirmative statement that they were your words - and going overboard about protecting them seems ... unnecessary ... messy ... I don't know. I assume though that the existance of this guideline would be a sufficiently chilling factor that nobody is likely to go about editing unsigned posts anyway.

I can see your point though - and if I had to concede that unsigned posts were also protected in order to get consensus on this guideline, I would do so - but reluctantly.

I do feel that this change would dilute the principle of the rule. The principle is that if I sign a cheque or a contract then that says "Hands Off!" in the real world - you can go to jail for messing with the words after I've signed them - but you can do what the heck you like with the words if I don't sign them. Same deal here...to the extent that an implementable guideline means . The final act of President Clinton, here in the USA was to make digital signatures legally binding. They actually have the same force of law as hand-written signatures. That's worth considering!

I'd like (as I said before) for something like this to one day be general Wikipedia policy - and then the principle is even more appropriate: "Posts" made to article space are not signed - and that's an open invitation to go in and edit them - by not signing them you are saying "these words are for the collective editing of all - go ahead - have fun". If you did sign a "post" in article space (which is not allowed even now) then that's abuse and even under these rules, we can delete the entire post (but not parts of it). That means you don't have to have special rules for "article" space and "talk" space (and all the other messy spaces like image space and such - wherever you make a change, you either sign it to keep it together and make it yours - or you don't and it's there for everyone. But for now, an RD guideline will be fine. I'm just kinda thinking ahead here!

SteveBaker (talk) 23:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

In regards to your first long post Steve. . .

Goodness, this seems like a tempest in a teacup to me. I’m sure NoClutter’s change was not motivated by any monishes intent, although it was unwise and rude. Calling him a “rabid language lawyer” which I assume is what you mean by “(yes, you know who I mean)” is unkind. Edit to add We should also consider that there are people on Wikipedia who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder or other “brain blips” that may affect their edition. (Obviously I’m not saying this is so in any particular instance!) It’s always best to assume good faith. (Come to think of it we all must suffer from some sort of a brain blip to be spending so much time on here :))

First saying that WP:TALK doesn’t precisely cover the reference desks seems like Wikilawyering to me. If someone crosses those guidelines on the RDs in a harmful way they will most like face some administrator action either way. Saying that WP:TALK “doesn’t mention the desks" isn’t going to convince anyone. However, if you want a clause added to WP:TALK saying “talk pages and reference desks” than it should be brought up there.

In regards to your number 3, do we know of any instances where this has happened? I remember someone once asked on the desk for information about each person on a huge list of people. An editor kindly went in an linked every one of those names to the appropriate articles. It must have taken the user a while since only sir names were given in the list. The only instances of changes to posts on the desks I can think of have been constructive and appropriate. For this reason I strongly oppose adding a cause to Reference desk/guidelines baring this behavior. It would be a classic case of WP:BEANS. Overnight vandals would discover a new and more powerful way to cause mayhem. Don’t give people ideas Steve.

Thirdly, an “absolute guideline” (I can’t think of a better way to describe what is being proposed here) wouldn’t work on Wikipedia anyway. As Rochpocket points out , if it is beneficial to Wikipedia users will simply Ignore all rules as they should do. Making a “JUST DON'T EDIT MY GODDAMN POSTS” rule as you say will not even work here because it is outweighed by policy.

Finally I don’t understand why this is suddenly a problem now. The desks have continued on for years and there have been no serious incidents of this kind to my knowledge. Wikipedia already has a built in function that allows us to maintain sanctity of our words, the history button.

If we make some absolute rule up that no one is allowed to mess with people’s words it won’t stop people from doing it, it will just mean people are raped rapped on the knuckles harder if they do. --S.dedalus (talk) 23:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I thought about modifying something in your post, S.dedalus, but decided not to in the spirit of the discussion. Beside, being raped on the knuckles for transgressing sounds a lot more punitive than being rapped. Perhaps Steve could add that to the guideline ;) Rockpocket 01:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Hahaha! I fell of my chair laughing at that! Yeah, never trust the Word spellchecker. . . --S.dedalus (talk) 01:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

In the past, I had no clue that so many people believe that it's OK to edit other peoples signed posts - or that so few people would spring to the defense of one who had their posting molested (rapped for chrissakes!). I was utterly horrified to discover than not one - but several people would have no compunction in doing that - and that almost nobody seemed to care about it very much. For me, it's absolutely not OK - it's a matter of fundamental principle. If there is not so much as a guideline to protect me from having my words mucked about with then I do not wish to contribute here anymore. I'm trying hard not to make it sound like a threat (because that would be empty and infantile) - but the situation is that I cannot continue to contribute to the RD without some reasonable guideline protecting the words that I sign. SteveBaker (talk) 01:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Steve you persist in misinterpreting people’s opinions here. Once and for all I do not condone “rapping” other people’s posts, nor do I think anybody else here does! I object to a rule that is unenforceable and redundant, and I acknowledge that not every situation can be interpreted in black and white. Read over the replies here. Do you see anyone who is in favor of allowing widespread “post molesting”? I, and I believe others, are simply not in support of a rule which reduces this issue to “good guy” “bad guy” terms. --S.dedalus (talk) 02:22, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

What rules in Wikipedia are EVER enforcable? None of them! Does that mean that we should do away with WP:AGF and WP:NPA? No! Of course it doesn't. But it's hard to ask people to maintain standards if there aren't any documented standards. Of course we can't enforce them. Even rules like "No breaching of copyrights" which have force in the laws of almost every country in the world are unenforcable. All I'm asking is that we tell people that this is not behavior that we accept here and please don't do it. If the rule were redundant then WP:TALK would say "Do not edit other people's posts." - it doesn't say that - it has some wishy-washy thing that says "Well, you kinda sorta can edit them for spelling and grammar but people don't really like that much." and "You can't change the meaning of the post" (but how do you KNOW that you aren't changing the meaning?) SteveBaker (talk) 13:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:TALK has "some wishy-washy thing” because that’s what Wikipedia consensus decided was an appropriate wording. Believe it or not, even you Steve cannot simply decree that a guideline should be changed. Only Jumbo has that power as you well know. --S.dedalus (talk) 21:27, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

In regards to your second long post Steve. . .

By contributing to Wikipedia we give up our write to the absolute sanctity of our words. I’m not sure about the legality of digital signatures but the GNU Free Documentation License under which Wikipedia is licensed gives anyone the “freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying it.” That includes our signed messages if I’m not mistaken. I’ll say it again; by contributing here we all agree to give up some rights over our work. A Wikipedia guideline does not trump US copyright law. However, if you wish to institute a Wikipedia policy on the mater, by all means. This is not the way to do it though --S.dedalus (talk) 23:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

That's so bogus - we have all sorts of guidelines and full-up cast-iron policies that are not defensible if someone makes a copy under GFDL. Does that mean that there should be no behaviour policies or guidelines whatever? SteveBaker (talk) 01:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

No, an organization can make up any internal guidelines they want. That doesn’t mean they’re legally binding though. My point is that if we’re talking about the legality of online signatures and such we should consider the other pertinent laws here as well. Even better we should agree that none of should be judging the legality of this issue at all. --S.dedalus (talk) 01:59, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Who said anything about legally binding? I mentioned that digital signatures are legally binding in the US - but I don't think that makes any difference here. I'm asking for a guideline - something that people can read that tells them that they shouldn't edit other peoples posts. Of course I'm not demanding a change in the US constitution or law or even Wikipedia policy...I'm asking for a simple guideline to remind people what acceptable bounds of behavior are. 13:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Who said anything about legally binding? Umm. . . you did. “They [digital signatures] actually have the same force of law as hand-written signatures. That's worth considering!” But as you point out that has nothing to do with anything here. There’s nothing wrong with seeking consensus for a guideline obviously. I will even support it if we're just talking about extending WP:TALK to cover the desks. However it is considered bad form to explode when consensus is not in your favor. --S.dedalus (talk) 21:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Well - I tried - again. I give up - I'm going back to editing car articles. You know where I am if the guidelines ever do get changed. SteveBaker (talk) 01:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

On the basis that you'll drop by and see how the issue is progressing (or not), I'll post here rather than on your talk page. The stuff about cheques/checks and contracts lets me see where you're coming from, but I don't think the analogy works. Unsigned cheques and contracts are just pieces of paper. But unsigned posts to an online forum are every bit as much valid posts as signed posts. The words are out there and other people are reading them. It's not as if the words haven't been spoken/written yet - they have been, the communication has occurred. The logical equivalent of a contract/cheque signature here is not the 4 tildes but the Save button - that's what causes the post to occur, not the 4 tildes, and that's the editor's mouthpiece. You know better than I that every keystroke made here is traceable back to an IP address, so in a sense all the signing does is facilitate readers knowing who has the floor right now without having to dig around in the records for the author's identity. It's a courtesy, and it makes things work a hell of a lot more easily than without signatures; but the absence of a signature in no way makes the words posted any less valid or effective. I'm certainly not advocating that people don't sign their posts; but all of us have occasionally forgotten to sign. Any suggestion that these unsigned words of ours should somehow be afforded less "protection" than our signed words is a non-starter. Then there are those who deliberately omit to sign, for whatever reason. But anyway, methinks you give up too easily. If the proposal you're arguing for is that important to you, surely it's worth sticking around to argue for some more. You seem to see it as a very black-white issue: "see it my way or I'm outta here". You must know by now that life ain't like that, and if you consistently adopt that approach to external things, you'll cut yourself off from some important resources. As dedalus said, you seem to have created this out of virtually nothing, as a matter of principle for its own sake, and are prepared to absent yourself from the ref desk on the basis that we don't have a policy on a matter that, if it already existed, would hardly ever be breached anyway. It's almost like refusing to pay your taxes until the government brings in a law that says everyone has to breathe air. Am I missing something here? Regards. -- JackofOz (talk) 03:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, as I said earlier, if I have to accept that unsigned posts also get protection, that's a price I'm willing to pay to get this guideline accepted. SteveBaker (talk) 13:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand the problem here i guess, what's wrong with:

Don't edit others' questions or answers except to fix formatting errors that interfere with readability (like a leading space or unclosed markup tags). Do not correct spelling or presumed typos, or anything that might change the meaning of the question.

? Are we going to remove that from the guidelines? Sure it's redundant and mostly just common sense, but haven't most of those commenting here said the same about the whole guideline at one time or another?

I suggest that Steve go ahead and make any changes to that passage he feels are necessary. I'd do it myself, but don't see any real difference between what's proposed and what's already in the document.—eric 05:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

How does that improve on (or even differ from):

It is not considered acceptable to edit the contents of other peoples signed posts to the reference desks other than for the purposes of simple format fixups. If a post violates RD rules or other Wikipedia guidelines then it must either be completely removed or not touched at all.

The first sentence says the same thing as your first sentence. The second sentence in your version is redundant - those things are already banned by the first sentence. My second sentence merely clarifies my first by saying that 'deletion' is not considered to be 'editing'. (So you can still delete abusive posts...but you can't just edit out the offensive parts - it's all or nothing.) SteveBaker (talk) 13:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, there's not much difference between the two versions. That's why i don't understand the proposal to add to the guidelines, or all the objections to your suggestion, when nearly the same language is already in the guidelines. It's not my version, it's a passage that has been in the guidelines for quite awhile now.

Contributors should absolutely have a reasonable assurance (on Wikipedia, we can't do anything about other sites and the GDFL) that they will not be misrepresented by other editors making changes to their posts. I don't understand the objections to having the guidelines state as much, but neither do i understand your proposal when very similar language is already in the document.

If your point is that we didn't handle a particular situation as well as we should have, then maybe i'd agree w/ that also. I saw the change to "automagically", thought "boy, is he going to get an earful for that edit", but didn't revert and did not leave a note on the user's talk page. Next time i think that will happen very quickly, as we are all now aware that it's a problem.—eric 18:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Amen, Eric. I think that you've hit the nail on the head. We already have guidelines/policies/cultural norms that prohibit the sort of mucking about that Steve wants to avoid. The issue here appears to one of enforcement and education rather than one of flawed policy. In the NoClutter case above, I saw that there was wide agreement on this talk page that what he did was wrong, and he seems to have gotten the idea that he ought not do it ever again. I didn't join in to browbeat or tar and feather because I though that the message had already been delivered (and frankly, I didn't want to wade into what had become a tangential argument). I'd welcome any suggestions from Steve (or anyone else) about how the community might respond to these sorts of breaches (of policy, guidelines, etiquette, and tradition) in the future. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

So we have Steve agreeing that the current guidelines,as they stand, pretty much already contain what he proposed we add. Enough awareness has been raised so that its unlikely anyone is going to deviate from the guidelines on this issue in future, at least without a damn good reason. Exactly what is the issue now? Rockpocket 19:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

After reading the whole discussion (I skimmed just a few passages), I must admit that I didn't understand anything. --Taraborn (talk) 10:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I replied to you on my talk page. I won't repeat it again here. SteveBaker (talk) 13:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I support adding a notice to this effect (possibly to that banner at the top of the ref-desk), but as so many people never read, or intentionally ignore these sorts of rules, I wonder if there's a more active solution? Would it be possible to construct a bot that would automatically notify you if your ref-desk comment has been tampered with? APL (talk) 19:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I doubt that is necessary. As the "instamagically" example shows, it was reverted and a whole discussion bloomed a few days before I ever noticed that my post was altered. It is really an issue of "Is it OK to revert a change that someone makes to someone else's post?" I believe the answer is "yes." Now, what if it is someone altering their own post to make it say something completely different, ie: I call you an idiot. You say that I'm making a personal insult. I say I didn't. You quote that I called you an idiot. I change my comment to say that I believe your comments lack sufficient knowledge in the area. Then, I say that you are making up things and personally attacking me. -- kainaw™ 19:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

That's what the page history, contributions logs, and diffs are for—it's quite easy to look at the state of the page when you replied, and someone who lied about their comments would tend to get called on it right away. In general we discourage people modifying their own remarks in a threaded discussion where it would render the responses confusing or nonsensical. (Instead, we recommend that people strike out their comments or post additional clarifying remarks.) The situation you describe, Kainaw, is fairly rare; I think we're okay handling those instances on a case-by-case basis. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I grant that it's rare, and usualy harmless when it does occur, But I think the concern is that if one of the first people who read my post made an edit that changed the meaning of my post, accidentally or on purpose, how would I know? It's the nature of a wiki to occasionally have to revert stuff, but since I'm not really in the habit of re-reading things I already wrote, and since going through page histories for a frequently-edited page like the ref-desk is not really an easy or pleasant thing to do, it seems like my comments could theoretically get mangled without me ever being the wiser. Personally I think some sort of mangled-comment notification would also be handy in article talk pages because people tend to read those even less often than the Ref Desk. APL (talk) 23:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Other options

I support changing WP:TALK to clarify that is covers the desks. I strongly oppose adding a notice at the top of the desks to that effect. It would be a perfect example of WP:BEANS. --S.dedalus (talk) 21:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

No objection to that, but it should probably be raised at Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines. Rockpocket 22:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Certainly, I’d like to see if this is an acceptable solution here though first. --S.dedalus (talk) 22:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Done, please comment. --S.dedalus (talk) 01:08, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

---

As one of the unrepentant violators who surreptitiously change other editors' signed replies on the Desk, let me put a recent example up for scrutiny, where I modified a posting by one of our celebrated contributors (and one who, for sure, does not want to see her contributions butchered), replacing Kantain by Kantian. In my defense, I can say that I am very careful to make sure that I do not fix something that ain't broken, and only when it is really obviously not intended that way by the poster. But if the consensus is that this is unacceptable behaviour, I will refrain from further corrections.  --Lambiam 20:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

It's always going to be safer and more clear to just reply, saying something like "I think you meant this word, not that word". In this case, I don't see that your edit was harmful in any way, but not quite everyone sees it that way. Friday (talk) 20:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I've seen many typos in Clio's replies. Normally I just don't touch them, but sometimes when I find the typo's impact on the overall understandability of the message is important enough to need a correction, I do it, but always leaving a reply explaining what I have done. I don't think fixing a typo is a criminal act, but I think we should always leave a reply informing of the modification. It doesn't take that much time. --Taraborn (talk) 21:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think "Kantain" to "Kantian" is a harmless, friendly correction of an important word in an answer, a perfect example of a no-harm-no-foul exception to the guidelines. But it is also a perfect example of the kind of correction I would never make to someone else's answer, especially the Great Muse (points for cojones, there, Lambiam). In my case it's more WP:DGAF than anything else, with a courtesy chaser. After reading all the above, I've come round to the view that it's always better to make corrections in a follow-up. The questioner probably won't re-read the old corrected answer, it's more polite, and you might screw it up.

To answer SteveBaker, if he's still listening and can hear over the roar of the engines, the reason that I'm not getting worked up over the issue of my words being altered is that I'm Milkbreath, and what does Milkbreath have to lose? Who cares what Milkbreath wrote back in January 2008? Not me. It's Milkbreath's reputation that's at stake, not mine, if you get my meaning. I think we have a fundamental difference in viewpoint about our sojourn in Wikispace. Again, WP:DGAF. Please believe, though, that I can see that the matter is of great importance to you, and that I will respect both your wishes and your point of view at all times. --Milkbreath (talk) 22:48, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

So if you admit that would affect your cyberidentity's reputation and you "respect" Steve's use of his real name, does that mean that you Support his idea? --Taraborn (talk) 08:03, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

"His idea" is not precise enough for me to answer, but I think that little harm would be done by a strict rule against modifying others' posts on the reference desks. But when we start enumerating exceptions, we run into trouble, so I start thinking "ain't broke, don't fix". I was only trying to answer SB's astonishment at the apathy he's encountering by explaining mine, which would be the same if I weren't anonymous. I'm here for fun and to contribute, not to make a name. --Milkbreath (talk) 17:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Another thing

As I mentioned above, the primary thing I had in mind when I said it was on some occasions (IMHO) acceptable to modify posts was primarily related to personal attacks, on the few occasions when it is better to simply remove the personal attack rather then delete a very lenghty post or leave it there. However I was pretty sure there was one or two more things which I had forgotten about. And indeed, another thing which just occured to me is e-mail addresses and phone numbers. We remove e-mail addresses and phone numbers from questions all the time but on the odd occasion these are signed (although since posts are auto signed nowadays it's in fact all the time), we won't be able to if we have a strict never modify anyone's signed post rule. Yes, sure, hopefully we can all agree changing automagically to automatically or it's to its or kaitakana to..... should not be done (just reply in a follow up) but there are a number of times when modifying posts is done and when it's resonably non-controversial it is done. And as I've already said, it's not a matter of it happening secretly. You should always make it abundantly clear when you've modified a post (and inform the user via their talk page). I've had a time to think about this some more and the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced a hard and fast rule doesn't work. P.S. I have reverted changes to signed comments myself (not on the RD) and have even searched through the history to do so. I also find it frustrating when people excessively nitpick my errors (I do it to myself enough :-P). I definitely agree inappropriate modification of comments is unacceptable, it's just that there are times when it is necessary or at least shouldn't be condemnded. Nil Einne (talk) 19:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Those are occasions on which I too have edited posts. While I guess one could argue an adult is free to post their email address and number if they choose (its their own problem if they reap the spam whirlwind) there could be instances where contact details from a self-identified minor may be removed for their own security per Wikipedia:Protecting children's privacy. As you note, its infrequent examples like this that makes it inadvisable to make a hard and fast "official policy" on the issue. Rockpocket 21:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I would just like to add a little point. I can fully sympathize with SteveBaker's point. For a lack of a better word, it is blatantly rude to edit a post signed by another user. Among others, it runs the risk of a faulty interpretation of the answer by the one who is correcting the post. However, I can also understand that if WP policy conflicts with this proposal, then it will be difficult and perhaps "not worth it" to adopt and implement this proposal. Personally, I have never run into the problem of my post being corrected, but I can fully understand why such an occurance should be an extremely frustrating experience. Acceptable (talk) 23:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)