Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Archive 6

message: Perhaps I should look into making a 'bot to automatically archive the reference desk. Good? Any ideas? --HappyCamper 19:03, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good.  Do you know PHP or Perl?  If not, maybe you could use a modified version of the now-defunct VFD Bot. Superm401 | Talk 19:28, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: PHP will be new to me; Perl isn't exactly my forte, but I can pick it up again quite easily. Right now the RD has 700+ questions, and it's getting to be somewhat impractical to manually archive them. Where can I find this old VFD bot? --HappyCamper 00:20, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure.  You'd have to ask around.  They used to it to move around VFD nominations. Superm401 | Talk 00:41, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A reference desk bot 

message: If "Ask Wikipedia a Question" on :Template:Categorybrowsebar links here, shouldn't the browse bar be at the top of this page so that users can navigate back out?  — RDF talk 04:13, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it directly links here...it links to WP:ASK which then links here. I guess one reason why there isn't this reciprocal linking is that there is the big globe to the side which always links back to the front page. --HappyCamper 10:31, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That (“The big globe maneuver” ;-) can be used to justify eliminating Categorybrowsebar everywhere!!!  ;-)  Here's my counterproposal: 
Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Add Categorybrowsebar-like wikilinks to every wikipage  — RDF talk 16:43, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Actually, right now, Template:Categorybrowsebar links here, while the Home Page links to WP:ASK.  I guess that's why camels come with a variety of humps. ;-)  — RDF talk 16:51, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It turns out I was the culprit for having the two different versions of "Ask (Wikipedia) a Question" out there! Sorry! >;-o) But it's fixed now. :-) 20:57, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categorybrowsebar at top of page? 

message: I've noticed that the quality of questions being asked and answered has decreased quite noticibly. Recently, the RD has been made quite a high profile page, with links from the main page pointing to the WP:ASK which then points to WP:RD. Any thoughts on this? --HappyCamper 10:27, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's like SAT average scores going down when states increase their participation rates.  It's a "good thing" for the overall quality of Wikiparticipation. :-)  — RDF talk 16:55, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I've noticed it too. I think the new format is more difficult to navigate, and that people are less inclined to answer questions as a result. Trollderella 00:05, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Since the split... 

message: I have searched in many places, and cannot find former President of the United States John Tyler's middle name. Any help?
:Maybe he didn't have a middle name. "JOHN TYLER is the only full name of a president of the United States which has no letter repeating."
:- A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia, Page 4  — RDF talk 02:36, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That would still leave some possibilities for his middle name, though (pick from ABCDFGIJKMPQSUVWXZ). — mark ✎ 14:07, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  John Tyler's middle name? 

message: I have stopped looking for unanswered questions and editing e-mails out of the pages. They are far too long for me to do by myself now. I think I need more help :-) --HappyCamper 02:39, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that I have been stupid enough NOT to follow that advice, and have had 2~3 emails a day, from... A ROBERT MABANADA... 419 Scammer extrondinare...I will help, and if not, then its trial by fire. Artoftransformation 11:51, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stopped archiving unanswered questions 

message: Boy, that sure was a way to phrase a fake question. Who would ever ask such a thing for real? It would have been much more believeable if it had been phrased as "Who is George Giri?". It's such a shame the question was removed before I could see it, otherwise I would have answered "I sure hope not." — JIP | Talk 13:10, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Is there any person named George Giri?" 

message: Is there any way to track only one section of a page. If I post a question, and then watch it, everytime someone edits anything on the page, it appears in my watchlist, drowning out my question. If not, would it perhaps be possible to answer questions on a relevant subpage (say wikipedia:reference_desk/miscellaneous/how_is_cheese_made?) rather than searching through a 200+ table of contents for a section. Plus, it would shorten the very long page and might help prevent people from losing the first question and then asking it again and again and... smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 20:24, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Watching sections was a very posted proposal, but, I don't know why, it was never implemented. As for your idea of creating a page for every questions, it would be cool, but not practicle. First, there's no conventions for choosing a title, and regarding the dozens of questions daily, there will be a lot of mix up. CG 11:22, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Idea/Question 

message: For those unaware, this guy's been posting to WP:RD/Misc in the last week or so, asking what town "Good Burger" was set in, for a list of fictional Florida locations used in films, or the like, and now we're on to "Which movies are set in Brierdale, Florida". There's four of these questions on there just now - added by , , and  - the latter added two on the 6th, but also removed four of them, which had been answered by various degrees of "aaaaargh, this again?" -  (Note two of the three new questions were added as he edited.)
If we go back, guess who created those four? , , before that 
 rephrased one originally posted by , and guess who the fourth was?  (This last also asked one unrelated question at the same time- the only uninvolved edit in the lot). All the same IP block, apparently somewhere in Texas.
So, that's eight questions over a week or so about this one film, by someone who deletes the answer and innocently re-asks the question. Any idea what we should do about this, or what they're trying to achieve? They're one person on a dynamic IP, I suspect, rather than a bunch of users with similar tastes - it's disruptive, it's annoying people, and by the looks of the most recent question I suspect they know what they wanted all along. We can't engage them on their userpage - they change. Responses on the RD seem useless - they deleted a set of comments which seemed pretty insistent we wanted no more. It's beginning to get on my tits, and I'm sure I'm not alone - but I'm loath to start just killing the questions, any responses, and any future queries without raising the issue first. Thoughts? Shimgray | talk | 01:26, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd advocate removing the questions on sight. There are lots of active questions on the RD already, and it doesn't make sense to waste resources to maintain these things. However, I don't want to see a revert war happen on the RD though... :-) --HappyCamper 01:32, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

text: My speculation ... reason for deleting answer to a question, and reposting the question, is 
* to play games with Google search ... lots of activity on a subject;
* use RD as a sandbox. AlMac|(talk) 03:08, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Or better, astroturfing for unknown reasons. ☢ Kieff | Talk 03:18, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Oh, the solution is very simple: simply block all IPs in the range 12.18.90.xxx and the problem is gone. --User:Mdob | Talk 22:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Movies in Florida/Good Burger/&c 

message: As I see it, we have several options for this system:
# Infobox, to create a subpage for every question. This would make it hard to answer several questions at once, though.
# Infobox, to create a subheading for every question. Since the point of the infobox is that you can specify which article you'd like to add the subheading to, a link seems more logical.
# A link, along the lines of this. We can specify a page or template code to be loaded into the edit box, so we could possibly create a short form in the edit box for the asker. Disadvantage: the user is prompted for a subheader title, so it cannot be autogenerated.
# A template, as used at WP:AFD. Askers would be asked to add something like:  to the bottom of a page, manually. Less simple perhaps than the previous suggestions, but that could help to keep riff raff out, as it were.
All of these proposals can incorporate a system in which answerers put questions into specific categories. And they could be adjusted so that askers could do the same, themselves. In the third proposal we could have links for each category. In the last proposal, we could use specific templates or links to distinguish between categories; the template would become something like: . Both experienced wiki-users/askers and answerers could assign categories. 
In the last option, (I think its my favourite) all questions would be put on the same page again. -- Ec5618 15:54, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  options 

message: Wow, I'm glad my little question stimulated a lot of discussion. Well, I have never actually written a bot for Wikipedia before, but I will definitely spend some time to figure out all the steps if this is the way to go. I have already talked a little bit with AllyUnion to get everything set up. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to look at the materials though due to Real Life :( 
Initially, I was thinking of writing a simple bot that would archive the page every now and then. If we need to change the question-asking scheme again, I hope we can wrinkle out as many things first before we attempt an implementation. Ideally, it would be nice if the "new" reference desk (if that's where we're headed) doesn't require a bot so much. --HappyCamper 21:41, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: One way of keeping e-mail addresses off the RD page might be to offer to send the answers via e-mail only to those who sign in to Wikipedia and provide an e-mail address in their user information. If a bot could do it (send e-mail to a designated user each time their question is edited), it would get people to sign up for Wiki usernames, and keep their e-mail addresses safe. - Nunh-huh 18:13, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thanks! 

message: Please add :pl:Wikipedia:Pytania merytoryczne. Thanks, Googlpl 09:27, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  interwiki 

message: I added a note on how new questions are placed at the bottom of the page. People seem to keep missing that, and I figured it'd be a nice place for it. gkhan 23:24, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah! I see. Very nice :-) --HappyCamper 01:57, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introductory change 

message: You know, RD has grown so much, and the current set-up has proved so inadequate, that one really wonders if this belongs on Wikipedia at all or on a new separate Wikimedia project with specialized software, a Wikioracle perhaps.  I think specialized software could easily address all of the problems discussed above.--Pharos 09:28, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Mmm, it's a thought. But I'm really not sure a pure wiki is the best system for it, generally. Shimgray | talk | 09:46, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A separate project would give us greater power to control the way questions are asked, but it would not help Wikipedia, so I oppose the concept. -- Ec5618 11:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

text: And who's going to make said "specialized software"? Superm401 | Talk 02:20, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it should be a pure wiki; I would think something with some more forumlike features would be called for.  I don't see why it couldn't be configured (as an example) that answers would be automatically emailed to a questioner (without that email being public), solving our basic futility issue here.  What would the benefit to Wikipedia be?  Well, this would be a general free reference service, a part of Wikimedia but separate from Wikipedia.  This job would leave Wikipedia, which perhaps can't quite handle it, and might grow better in a new conducive environment; if this were to evolve substantially beyond the Reference Desk, Wikioracle could be quite a boon to fact-checking Wikipedia editors.  I can claim no credit to technical ability, but if there's someone out there who can, perhaps we should consider making a proposal at :meta:Proposals for new projects.--Pharos 07:44, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Separate project?

message: There seems like a lot of these questions are posted by vandals/trolls just to start conversations that eventually get BJAODNified. Just my point of view. Frenchman113 22:00, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That might be true.  I'm not sure exactly which questions you're referring to.  Maybe you can give examples.  Some of the questions that seem odd to me are the most interesting ones.  (Great example: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science#Killing Me Softfruit : Which food would kill you first??)-Superm401 | Talk 02:19, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Try Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities#how to get your girlfriend to act out her fantasy? --Frenchman113 22:02, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, you're probably right about that one, at least. Superm401 | Talk 01:05, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Odd questions? 

message: I've just done a page repaire on Reference desk/Language. At some point, someone or something had posted a copy of the entire page at the bottom of the existing page. This made page loads very slow. It also made it difficult to find answers to questions, as people were posting in different versions of the question. I've done a not-very-clever repair job, but I fear that some text may have been left out. I'm trawling through the history to see where that might be, but I could easily miss something. This is just to let you know what's happened. --Gareth Hughes 14:46, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Doubled desk 

message: I'm trying to learn how to safeguard a page once it's finally entered. I know this is a 'user-editing' site, but I also know some pages can be safeguarded.
I'd like to safeguard my own discussion page.
What particular code do I need to accomplish this please?
Tach
:Your user talk page is designed for other users to contact you, so baring persistant vandlism, an adminstrator will not protect your talk page for you. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:31, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Advice please 

message: If the goal of RD really becomes an attempt to answer all of the questions asked by the general population (the millions of them who use wikipedia), a completely different project would have to be set up, and a user base at least as large as the total amount of current wikipedia editors created. As things are, this is really not a very viable option though if RD gets enough editors to manage this, it would likely require such a move to continue operating. The real question that comes into play is "What is our mission statement?" RD needs a single direct statement that explains the purpose for its existence. It will provide direction for further improvement, and give users and idea of what they should really expect from us. Do we take the editor oriented approach suggested by Shimgray, or avoid this to be more open to one-time/infrequent users? I propose that we create a conclusive mission statement for all of the Wikipedia: Reference Desk, and its ancillaries to be voted on and officiated. Dariusthegreat88 00:58, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm....I like it the way it is...The reference desk is fun because it's not bureaucratic I think. --HappyCamper 23:18, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  However, the effective one is probably "The Reference Desk serves the same function as a library reference desk. It answers questions about the world around us", as I said in my post above.  I don't think any mission statement needs to made official, though. Superm401 | Talk 01:07, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mission statement

message: I am noticing an emergence of accounts which are only used to edit the reference desk. Hmm... --HappyCamper 16:10, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's not be too hasty in condemning that.  We currently answer anon questions, so it's unreasonable to say that the RD is only for contributors.  Given that, it's easier to keep track of registered users, and their questions tend to be better formed (perhaps they feel they now have a reputation).  Most importantly, even if these users start on the RD, I think many of them will become devoted contributors.  Let's give them a little time. Superm401 | Talk 23:56, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, you're right. Is it just me, or are the answers somewhat improving in quality lately? It is as if after September, the questions in October are much better formed. Noticed how historically, the number of questions on the RD peaked around September and then declined afterwards. --HappyCamper 00:01, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you mean both the questions and answers, or just questions? Superm401 | Talk 00:15, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, maybe the answers. The questions seem to be getting a bit homework-like, but the occasonal eclectic ones are nice. --HappyCamper 00:45, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am "guilty" of not having much time to work on Wikipedia articles recently, so if I can spend an hour here or there, I try to make constructive answers on RD.  Hopefully I will have more time in the future and use my account to improve other articles, like I was doing before I got more busy. AlMac|(talk) 05:16, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  On the lookout 

message: Why was Wikipedia:Reference desk unprotected?  There is no reason anyone would ever need to edit it.  They should go to Template:RD header.  If it remains unprotected, people will ask questions no matter what we say on the page.  Can an admin please reprotect? Superm401 | Talk 00:07, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. I don't know why it was unprotected though. And did you see this weird page blanking error?  --HappyCamper 00:11, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll 'fess up. I blanked the page(no wonder I keep getting blocked) I keep/pt trying to revert it and getting into edit conflicts with you. :)  However, I thought I just edited a section.  What seemed to happen is that I edited the section normally (with a preview I think) then upon save it replaced the page with that section.  Do you know if this is a site-wide bug(or am I just going crazy?) ? Superm401 | Talk 00:15, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I tested a section edit on my sandbox and it replaced the entire page with the section again.  Also, I got an unprecented three previews when I clearly clicked save each time(I realized I hadn't let the page fully load each time; perhaps that was a factor...). Superm401 | Talk 00:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, it's not really protection (because of the template), so I don't think that logic applies.  Ixfd64 probably assumed the template is protected; however, it never has been. Superm401 | Talk 00:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I was the one who last unprotected the page, and I was not aware that there was an unprotected template used specifically for editing the central page. I won't unprotect the page again. I apologize for any misunderstanding. --Ixfd64 03:05, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey, no problem :-) --HappyCamper 00:22, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protection of central page 

message: Hi, I've recently started answering a few questions on the Science reference desk and I'm wondering about something. To what extent is it permissible and tactful to rearrange or reformat the comments of others?
There's always the occasional newbies who don't know any better who mess up the page with really long monospaced lines -- those are pretty obviously OK to fix. However, there are other cases where there are more substantial changes that could be made, but I'm worried about people getting annoyed. For example, is it acceptable to rearrange a discussion if it's gotten out of chronological order? Is it OK to change indentation (for example, if there's a weird mixture of : indents and bulleted lists)? Just wondering if there's any established etiquette for this sort of thing here. --David Wahler (talk) 02:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been monitoring the reference desk for over half a year now, and it's perfectly reasonable to be bold on the page. Clarity is good :-) --> Did you factorize the science pages so that the questions are categorized by date? I'm wondering...will the users of the page maintain those dates? That idea is new, and I don't think it was attempted before. --HappyCamper 00:25, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Refactoring 

message: I think adding a reminder not to "bite" is an excellent idea. I've also reworded the text right by the "ask a question" link. --HappyCamper 23:37, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change in header 

message: (question moved to WP:RD/S#GPS Protocols) Garrett Albright 04:06, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  GPS Protocols 

message: Ec5618, why did you add the following to the reference desk header even after your above comments?
‣ᓛᖁ[ ᑐ] 13:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm afraid it was part of my experimentation. The link, added to the template, is now added to the subpages, including Science. Science includes a second parameter (Science), which I had hoped to use to uniquely identify each page. Unfortunately, it didn't have the desired effect. I neglected to revert the changes I had made, hoping that inspiration would strike me. It did not. Thank you for reverting. -- Ec5618 23:27, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's your fault.  Try going to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference%20desk/Humanities&action=edit§ion=new&editintro=Wikipedia:Reference%20desk/How%20to%20ask  directly.  Inexplicably, it doesn't work.  However, if you change the URL to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Humanitie&action=edit§ion=new&editintro=Wikipedia:Reference_desk/How_to_ask  , it does.  Also, it doesn't show the intro if the title's Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science , but it accepts Wikipedia:Reference desk/science or Wikipedia:Reference desk/Scienc.  It seems like it never works for pages that exist, which is somewhat unhelpful.  It's tempting to assume the converse, that it works for all non-existing pages, but I'm not sure that's the case. Superm401 | Talk 18:26, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've brought this problem up at the Village Pump (T), as I see you have. It was suggested to me that it might simply require that someone turn the option on, but how and who is still a mystery. It would be nice to have this option, though. -- Ec5618 21:55, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ec5618's header addition 

message: When do these pages get archived and who is responsible (geesh, I hope it's not me)?  The Science category is running about two weeks old and takes forever to load. Isn't one week long enough for everyone to chime in?  --hydnjo talk 23:22, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A week sounds good to me, as long as the discussion is dead.--Commander Keane 11:10, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems reasonable to me as well. I'm going to break the sections into dated supersections for a start (see progress below). Anyone know a bot that can add a supersection, =newdate=, to each RD category at midnight? Thanks, hydnjo talk 21:18, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been doing most of the archiving. Interesting how before the page split, there would be suggestions to archive when we had 100+ questions on a single page. But now, at one point I think one of the subpages had almost 400+ questions and nobody said a word! --HappyCamper 01:11, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey HC, does the dating supersectioning help or hurt with archiving? I'll keep it going for a while to get some reaction. If folks like it can I be replaced by bot (not entirely but just here)? --hydnjo talk 18:11, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, technically speaking, doing anything will affect the archiving :-) - but for the moment, I haven't found the time to set up a bot to do this important task yet. I'm too busy in "Real Life" at the moment. Please continue to date the questions and be bold though - I think it makes the RD more readable anyway! --HappyCamper 01:49, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: When/who archive question

message: What's with the "Science and Mathematics" and "Science and Math" headers. Ideally it should be "Science, mathematics, medicine, computing, and technology", I can't see why mathematics is getting special treatement.--Commander Keane 11:10, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Technology, medicine and computing can easily fit under Science as a broad heading, while mathematics can't really. Science and math are almost always considered broader headings than the others. - Taxman Talk 13:55, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

text: My personal bias may be to blame here. I originally named the categories "Science & Mathematics", "Language & Grammar", "History & Humanities" and "Miscellaneous". Only the first seems to have stuck though. --R.Koot 14:17, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess it must be a difference of opinion because I think that engineering questions struggle to fit under the Science bracket, but Math easily goes with science (mathematics graduates get a BS after all).--Commander Keane 06:46, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Heh, that's funny. :) To me, engineering fits perfectly as an applied science, whereas math is more an extraordinarily precise language for expressing logic and concepts and manipulating them. And my degree is in applied math. - Taxman Talk 00:46, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't really seen to many "engineering" questions so far...Taxman, have you taken formal courses on real and complex analysis? --HappyCamper 01:42, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Advanced calculus that I took is basically an intro to real analysis, but no complex analysis for sure. Finance math for everything I got into pretty much involved real numbers. And I haven't used any analysis since, so it's certainly not one of my strong areas. Curious why you ask. - Taxman Talk 14:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just that I keep on running into your edits on my watchlist, that's all, and I had to wonder "hm...what is in common to all these pages?" :-) --HappyCamper 14:59, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: and Math

message: Finished RD/S and started work on RD/M. Gotta go for a while but will return. Pitch in if you want - tricky because most questions aren't dated. :-(  --hydnjo talk 20:52, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Dating supersections in progress

message: The header should include a link to the WP:HD for those who end up here but really have a question about how to use Wikipedia. I don't know how to do that so... thanks,  --hydnjo talk 01:25, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Be bold and fiddle with Template:RD header! --HappyCamper 01:51, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh sure, easy for you to say. OK then I'll try tomorrow when my head is screwed on straight!  --hydnjo talk 02:44, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Link to [[WP:HD]]

message: Recently, people started adding images together with their questions. Do people think it would be necessary to
# Use links to decrease the length of the page and improve the page loading times.
# Track the images, so they can be deleted when questions are archived.
--R.Koot 21:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think we need to use links (I like colours on the RD), but maybe just put the image in frames and shrink them to the size of a WikiThanks, and that should be sufficient? I don't really mind whichever thing we do. --HappyCamper 21:26, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I messed around a bit and changed some of the image calls (4 of them) to links and the page did load faster. What I'm noticing is that the page text loads fast and then the progress bar (Safari) bogs down until the images are loaded. This talk page loads just fine. --hydnjo talk 21:32, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nah HC, that didn't help. To observe the diff ckeck out the load time at WP:RD/H, WP:RD/M or WP:RD/L compared to WP:RD/S (with images).  hydnjo talk 21:40, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What about now? I archived 50% of the questions, so it should be noticibly faster. --HappyCamper 21:48, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

text:  Thumbnails seems to make it a lot worse. Firefox stalls with a 'Waiting for upload.wikimedia.org...'. --R.Koot 21:52, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Hmm...then we'll go with the links then. --HappyCamper 22:01, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, I screwed up. Check again: WP:RD/H, WP:RD/L and WP:RD/M as compared to WP:RD/S (with images).  --hydnjo talk 22:03, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ckeck it out. /S takes forever compared to the other three. No?  --hydnjo talk 22:19, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

text: *OK, please check it out so I'll know or not if it's just me.  --hydnjo talk 22:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm in the Netherlands, so I'm using the Kennisnet cluster. All that I can say is that H, L and M load consistently fast, while S varies between fast and very slow. --R.Koot 23:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. /S is the only one with images right now and and it is very slow compared to the other RD divisions.  As they all depend on the image server to complete a download, then the page is at the mercy of its slowest link and the image servers are very slow, call an image to see what I mean.  hydnjo talk 23:49, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images 

message: Just noticed, by chance, that Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/2005 questions is up for deletion here; it's a low-traffic page, but I suspect the only people who ever look at it read this one, so thought it best to mention here. Shimgray | talk | 17:53, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive deletion 

message: Just a word of advice - a good answer to many country-specific questions maybe a referal to a regional noticeboard.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 04:52, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Regional notice boards]] are here to help 

message: I (and I think several others at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics; see talk) would like to see a help desk devoted solely to math.  How do people feel about splitting math off from the science desk? -lethe talk 21:09, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well then, are you willing to behave responsibly when you get a question about GTA as to how to better one's score? ;-)  hydnjo talk 00:56, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What are you asking, what I will do if people post non math questions to the math reference desk?  I suppose I would just move them to Miscellaneous or whatever other appropriate desk.  I do occasionally find it necessary to make a snarky reply to an ill-formed question though.  -lethe talk 01:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As one of the orginal participants in helping to split the old reference desk, I don't see why we can't introduce a math desk as well. The only issue I have with the idea is the archival, and the maintenance of the date headers. The dates don't really have to be maintained, but when the page gets really long, it helps tremendously. Also, the archival needs to be done periodically so that the page is reasonably short. --HappyCamper 02:37, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Oddly, I noticed that the link to Maths in How to ask and answer linked to science, so I tried to correct the link, but the desks still link to the Science desk rather than the maths desk, even though 'How to ask and answer' itself now links to the Maths desk. Why is this? smurrayinchester(User), (Talk) 10:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We also need to fix the "list all" page so that the math desk shows up there. --HappyCamper 00:34, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone will need to duplicate the Maths-icon, and make the description-page redirect to the Maths-RD. Currently, clicking the icon will lead to the image description page, which is boring. -- Ec5618 20:50, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  math reference desk 

message: **I just made one for AOL and General Tech support, does anyone mind?--Aolanonawanabe 00:08, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As long as you clean up your own mess? —R. Koot 00:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I appreciate the thought, but I'm really against the idea of having an AOL/tech support page on Wikipedia. I think it's best that we stick to academic subjects. Also, let's emphasize that the creation of the math desk was not so much a suggestion that we should begin to split the RD into more subjects - there are plenty already. It just made sense to create a math desk because it was requested by a number of different Wikipedians, and also, I have a feeling it will help decrease the traffic on the science page the most. The science subpage is one of the most heavily edited RDs, and archiving that one is probably the more difficult of 4 that exist already. --HappyCamper 00:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I agree with you.  In fact, I felt a little guilty doing the split that I did.  Mostly, I don't want there to be a subsequent cascade into a new reference desk for 1000 different topics.   I like the simplicity of the branching of topics. -01:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please don't feel that way...I appreciated it, and I'm sure others did too!! :-) Sometimes it's nice to see a healthy dose of wikiboldness. --HappyCamper 04:03, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Hmm...I went a bit bold and deleted them...It seems somewhat out of place that those pages were created. --HappyCamper 00:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Only somewhat? :) Superm401 | Talk 01:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Euphemistically speaking of course. :-) --HappyCamper 01:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Another new reference desk: [[Wikipedia:Reference_desk/AOL]]