Wikipedia talk:Reference desk

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I have read most of his answers are not perfect but he is eager to answer everywhere. He reminds me similar to SinisterLefty or Sturat.

His answers and replies are not friendly and welcoming like other people in Reference Desk. 42.108.156.209 (talk) 02:27, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Strange post. You didn't courtesy ping Shantavira and his posts here are absolutely fine. There are very few, if any, troublemakers on this board nowadays and he is definitely not one of them. --Viennese Waltz 06:43, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Stu Rat didn't get the credit he richly deserved for setting an pioneering example of civility to all of us including me....When the reference desk first began, not only were the answers incorrect, they were often obnoxious, snotty or condescending, or at least flippant. Stu Rat gave a lot of good answers and was one of those who was tenacious in remaining civil and friendly. People criticize him now for occasionally incorrect answers, but the civil discussion is more important. incorrect answers can be corrected with further discussion, and people can learn from thinking thru the logic errors of others , and of themselves. Some of the people who complained about Stu Rat have brought down the level of civility, at least somewhat.Rich (talk) 05:01, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See StuRat's behaviour on the Reference Desks. Looking through that discussion, it's pretty clear why he was banned from the ref desks. As for civility or the lack of it, I don't know what you're talking about. There is no problem with lack of civility on the ref desks these days. --Viennese Waltz 06:33, 26 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

StuRat, I cannot ping you because you are excommunicated i.e in Wikipedia terms "blocked indefinitely", but I hope you see the meritorious report above by Rich. The invitation by Viennese Waltz to review the treatment StuRat received is timely because with cooler heads we may reach a conclusion different from that reached in november 2017. A worrying question in the closing admin's sentence "[Sturat] can appeal the [total ban from the desks] sanction...after a year [when] the community will evaluate their contributions in other areas during this time." is just what inspection of StuRat's private life outside Wikipedia desks did the admin @SpacemanSpiff: envisage? Some 16 of 3242 users that admin has blocked are now unblocked so one may wonder what principle for unblocking StuRat, if any, he has in mind. I actually understand what talking about an "example of civility" means and so do users who addressed this important quality at User_talk:StuRat. They (e.g. @Lomn:, @SemanticMantis:) write; "..you are great at largely remaining civil,.." and "..thanks for all the spectacular work I see you do quite often at the Reference Desks."

If condemning StuRat to Damnatio memoriae in 2017 was an experiment to test whether the Reference Desks would improve in his forced absence then I think it time to declare that experiment failed. If StuRat wishes to contribute to the reference desks again then I see no good reason not to welcome him back as a valuable contributor again, and I would do so without imposing any humbling prerequisite such as a "penance and apology" for alleged previous errors. Furthermore, when after necessary reconciliations StuRat is free to post here he can answer the insinuation by single-purpose IP User 42.108.156.209 that StuRat is or isn't Shantavira, and I shall believe the answer. Philvoids (talk) 15:13, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please explain, with diffs, why you believe the ref desks have got worse since StuRat was banned from here. And by the way, maybe you're not aware, but StuRat is indefinitely banned sitewide for sockpuppetry, so he's not going to be making a reappearance around here any time soon. --Viennese Waltz 19:26, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are 7 reference desks and my recorded contributions show zero - 0 - engagement ever in some 4 or 5 of them. From this one may (correctly) conclude that I judge desk activity with my bias towards STEM subjects (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). I allow my opinion that Wikipedia has built a formidable reputation as a go-to reference in these fields and that the greater part of that work was done in the years when StuRat was influential before he was silenced in 2017 on the sockpuppet pretext you mentioned. I decline to be drawn into debate whether the act of indefinitely banning StuRat was a mistake that worsened or chilled the ref. desk climate. I am neither StuRat's confidant nor am I here to bury nor to avenge his treatment. It is evident that 7 years have passed, that there is no voice claiming that Wikipedia or users gain from anti-StuRat policing of the ref.desks and that there has emerged a sizeable group of past or present friends of StuRat named already in this thread. I am pinging each so they may express an opinion about a collective call to rehabilitate StuRat. Philvoids (talk) 22:33, 5 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Once upon a time there was a gang of problematic reference-desk regulars, who got banned one by one except for one, who was so adept at wikilawyering that he managed to hang on. This was why I eventually decided, mid June 2008, to no longer visit the reference desk. I only returned in late January 2020 when I saw that he too was, finally, banned. Should he be unbanned, I'll refocus my attention again.  ​‑‑Lambiam 18:03, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I do not understand the complaint about Shantavira, who in my experience is no less helpful and polite than anyone else. Show us the diffs.  ​‑‑Lambiam 18:07, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not to be understood, and you won't be getting a reply from Philvoids, who's been banned. —scs (talk) 00:15, 22 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Archiving is not working on Misc reference desk. 22nd April posts are still present on page. Pablothepenguin (talk) 16:09, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like something went wacko on the 14th inst. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:22, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there's been a problem with Scsbot on the Miscellaneous desk since May 7. I reported it on Scs's talk page, and he says he's working on it. I looked into archiving stuff by hand, but the process seemed complicated enough that I was afraid of bollixing it up. Deor (talk) 22:03, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the same goes for this talk page? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:52, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's anything wrong with the archiving of this talk page. The archiving parameters for this page (which is archived by a completely different bot) contain

minthreadsleft = 4

algo = old(7d)

which I take it to mean that a thread is archived when it's 7 days old and there are more than 4 threads on the page. (But since there are currently just 4 threads on this page, some remain even though they're well over 7 days old.) —scs (talk) 11:51, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Taken care of. —scs (talk) 01:05, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Brgy election 2025 on going December 122.54.223.207 (talk) 07:54, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Were you looking for 2025 Philippine barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections?-Gadfium (talk) 09:10, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

After an issue with a linux mint package, I got interested in q&a sites and discovered this. I tried to look around and see how this work. With all due respect, What q&a site would Ever order it's content like this!? Imagine looking 'Google' up on wikipedia, only to be bombarded with countless "month-articles" that contain the word 'google' in it, and trying to figure out where the original article you're looking for by the arbitrary month it was created, only to, again, look for it between who knows how many articles were made in November 2004? I would love to use this as my standard q&a site, but the way that this is made is ridiculous. Is there any way this could change? Kind regards Ambrionix (talk) 21:47, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is an encyclopedia, and the reference desks are a small part of it, constrained by using software not designed for a q&a site. The reference desk regulars use their skills in searching for information to help answer queries, but it cannot match the much more popular q&a sites of old with vast numbers of forums and great expertise in arcane matters in at least some of them (I'm specifically thinking of Stack Exchange). However, there are some questions we are very good at answering, such as those on obscure pieces of history. The rise of LLMs has substantially reduced the demand for Stack Exchange, and perhaps other q&a sites, and our own reference desk has lower traffic than it once did, and has lost some valuable contributors.-Gadfium (talk) 01:00, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ambrionix:-Gadfium (talk) 01:01, 10 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]