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I have closed this req: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Miscellaneous#Could_this_be_a_Craiglist_scam.3F It amounts to a solicitation of legal advice. μηδείς (talk) 20:57, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't sound like a request for legal advice to me. The OP wants to know if there is a way of making an apparent payment on PayPay. That's asking for information on how PayPal works, not the law. I'd re-instate the question. Bielle (talk) 21:20, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see anything in there that looks like a request for legal advice. It looks like somebody worried about being scammed, even the part about paypal, which is not central to answering it, is at most asking about paypal policy (which about 3 tangents later could start to involve legal stuff, I guess)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 21:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the hatting. If something arises to worry us, we can always put it back. Bielle (talk) 22:50, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Fraud' is a legal accusation of crime. We are not qualified to give advice on that. The OP has asked us to predict whether someone might commit fraud against him. How can we answer that without making predictions, which are forbidden, without giving legal advice, which is forbidden, and in an encyclopedic manner, rather than in reference to him as if we were his counselor. At this point the OP has asked nothing we can answer, and no encyclopedic reference has been offered to him. UI am going to rehat the matter. If people have general non-predictive non-legal advice they should feel free to add it outside the hatting. μηδείς (talk) 22:58, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Medeis, sometimes, in my less charitable moments, I believe you haunt the desks looking for ways to get Ref Deskers to rise to your bait. There was nothing in my response that was predictive or even vaguely suggested legal advice. You do need to stop jumping onto questions with your own, idiosyncratic interpretations and seek some consensus. To this point, no one agrees with you. Please remove the hat. Bielle (talk) 23:31, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The question is "Am I about to get ripped off? Does this smell like a known species of Craigslist scam?", not "Could this stranger be successfully prosecuted?". It's possible, at least in principle, to cheat someone without breaking the law. —Tamfang (talk) 23:34, 20 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone other than Medeis thinks my response wanders into prediction or legal advice, speak up. The hatting is, in the view of everyone who has responded to it, unnecessary. I have provided a reference about shipping carefully. Please, Medeis, leave it alone. Bielle (talk) 00:32, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a problem that requires intervention at this point - agree with the unhatting. -- Scray (talk) 06:03, 21 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say I am disappointed that I have been accused of trolling here because I recognize that accusations of fraud are defamation per se. Especially by Bielle who knows I contribute a lot of good work to this project. There seems to be a total ignorance of policy and law here. Fine with me, I won't be sued for expressing my concern that we not defame third parties. Good chance WP won't be sued for this either, but google defamation national review mark steyn and see what comes up when such words are tossed about. μηδείς (talk) 04:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry I have to bring this up on the talk page. I tried to argue with Wickwack in the refdesk question "Cancer: cause and lack of cause" (science desk) because he is supplying unreferenced, clearly wrong statements about cancer. Either he is not getting my point, or he doesn't care. What is the apropriate behaviour? I would be very disappointed if the topic would stand there only with Wickwack's over-simplified, muddied replies, but if he doesn't stop and introduces more wrong concepts (biological design, genes as defects, to name a few), this really undermines the purpose of the refdesk, doesn't it? I know, I'm also missing references in my replies, but it's really hard to find references for such basic things as the non-existence of design or the differences between defects and genes. Another problem: He doesn't seem to have a functional user page, so I can't talk to him directly to sort out the problem. Any ideas? --TheMaster17 (talk) 09:30, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't particularly happy with the replies to the thread in general but felt I couldn't add sufficient reliably sourced info to help out. However without commenting on the main issue, I would note Wnt was the first person mention design. The term isn't ideal in a biological context since it can easily be misunderstood but I would note both Wnt and Wickwack seem to have tried to explain what they meant by it. In terms of problems communicating with Wickwack, they are entitled to use an IP/not register, their IP appears to be highly dynamic which does make problems communicating directly, I would suggest either post a note to one of their IP talk pages or to your own page and link to it from the thread, not ideal but communicating with IPs can sometimes be tricky. Nil Einne (talk) 12:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the suggestion. I invited him now to my talk page, perhaps we can sort it out there. I did never want to imply that something is wrong with "only" using an IP-address, I just felt that a direct approach is more complicated by this and didn't know how to proceed. --TheMaster17 (talk) 14:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looie already redacted this nonsense. It was restored, and I have removed it. Accusations of bad business practices are defamation per se. Couching it in terms of "I heard" does not protect against legal action. μηδείς (talk) 02:34, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reasonable removal. I question whether it's "libelous", but it appears to have no valid sourcing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:39, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do read defamation per se#defamation per se. The important thing that most people don't realize is that saying "allegedly" (or "someone else said") is not a legal defense against libel. I cannot find a good on-line source for this, but see http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=allegedly+libel&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 ehow.com/about_4567679_libel.html μηδείς (talk) 03:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the US, libel is generally limited to statements about living persons, I don't think it could be libel per se. Reasonable removal anyway, as there was not likely to be any encyclopedic responses. Monty₈₄₅ 04:03, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My only comment on this is to wonder whether we're competent to make such decisions. None of us is a lawyer, but even if we were, the law varies from place to place. Just as we don't make medical judgments about the matters our OPs bring to us but instead refer them to doctors, we should not be making legal judgments about the things our OPs, or anyone else, say. If statements made here offend against our own rules, policies and guidelines, then certainly we're justified in taking action. But if they do not, I doubt it's up to any of us to decide they're legally dubious and need to be redacted. A link to a WP article or some external source does not give us the right to play the prosecutor or judge, or indeed the saviour. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 04:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a better link to the Q, prior to removal: [1]. StuRat (talk) 04:13, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

BLP policy requires that we err on the side of not defaming. Even ignoring that overriding policy, I don't think we really have anything of encyclopedic value to address with this question. (As I have said a dozen times before, does it possibly harm? Yes. Does it serve a good purpose? No.) Remember, the ref desk is supposed (however much fun we have with it) to serve encyclopedic, not chat or personal or internet purposes. And yes, American law is laxer than other law re defamation. But the project has apparently held itself to a higher standard. Frankly, morally, holding ourselves to a higher moral standard than US law doesn't bother me. μηδείς (talk) 04:17, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree that this thread had little or no merit, I canot agree with defending its removal on the grounds of a "higher moral standard". To have moral standards is certainly laudable, but achieiving consensus for action on Wikipedia requires a more objective benchmark than personal morality. Specifically, the problem is that one person's moral standard is another person's censorship. Gandalf61 (talk) 08:28, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think "morality" figures into it. There are endless jokes in pop culture about fast-food joints, so that's not really at issue. It's more about the "ethics", and also the practical issue of trying not to get wikipedia in trouble. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:32, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I saw this thread earlier on and agreed with Looie's redaction but decided there was no point trying to argue for a deletion once it was reversed. However we need to remember BLP specifically excludes corporations and says so. There is some gray area in cases where the distinction between individual and corporations or groups isn't clear, but as the policy mentions this is generally in cases where the group is a small set of readily identifiable individuals. You're welcome to take this to BLP/N if you disagree but I'm sure you'll find there's consensus accusing a large restaurant chain of dubious practices is not a BLP issue. Accusing specific persons in the large chain, e.g. the CEO or accusing a specific outlet of the large chain or dubious practices may be a BLP issue, but this wasn't done here. This doesn't of course mean it's acceptable to defame the organisation although bear in mind defamation laws vary greatly between country and that BLP actually is only minorly concerned with defamation (in that while we should never defame people, BLP aims for a higher standard then would normally result in defamation in many countries). I do agree with Gandalf et all here, I think we need some degree of better consensus and agreement how to go about it if we're going to apply 'higher moral standards'. Personally I actually feel accusing two courts of 'judicially murder' for their rulings in a specific case, when the identity of the justices involved (and their rulings) readily available along with effectively accusing another identified individual of being the instigator of this murder much more of a BLP issue and much more morally questionable (and suspect I'm not the only one) but it's apparent μηδείς does not agree so we already have a problem when applying such a standard. Nil Einne (talk) 06:13, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• I didn't read this before, but from Googling I suspect that the OP heard a somewhat garbled version of a current news story. Someone filed a lawsuit trying to force Taco Bell (not Del Taco) to not call their tacos "meat" because they say most of it was other components and so didn't meet the formal criteria for "beef".[2][3]. This isn't "recycled" meat, but I'm not quite sure what "recycled" meat is, since you don't give it back to them after you eat it. But Taco Bell pushed back, running ads that their meat is 88% ground beef, not the 35% the lawsuit alleged. [4] I haven't tried to come up with an opinion about it. Wnt (talk) 05:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I realize this is a dead conversation, Nil, but be aware there is an absolute guarantee of political free speech in America, with no restriction on criticisms of Supreme Court decisions as such. Quoting notable liberal and conservative writers calling the court decision judicial murder is in now ways problematic. Repeating unfounded criminal allegations against private parties is. μηδείς (talk) 00:22, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Judicial murder" is an oxymoron. Murder is the unlawful taking of life. "Judicial murder" would be the lawful unlawful taking of life. That doesn't work. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:14, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What about the murder of a judge? 203.27.72.5 (talk) 22:35, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, folks, I've archived all desks and debulked the pages to a week's Qs. If I get some more time in RL I'll create the indices, but please consider chipping in - this would be so much easier if more of you gave a hand. I've created rudimentary instructions here, feel free to improve them. -- Scray (talk) 03:46, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your efforts. StuRat (talk) 08:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, many thanks (and to Steve Summit as well, or we'd have to do this all the time...). Matt Deres (talk) 19:22, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so, I can see that the archives up to the 20th are in there, but threads as far back as the 17th are still showing up on the desks with the result that we're showing ten days of threads. Can we simply delete that material since it's been archived? Or will that somehow break things since the archives are still transcluded? I will give a few hours for someone more knowledgeable than me at this stuff to comment (i.e. virtually everyone) and will then be BOLD and try it out. Matt Deres (talk) 12:04, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Double sharp (talk) 13:37, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've done the others to help reduce load times. If I get a chance later, I'll try my hand at making up the new transcluded archives. Matt Deres (talk) 17:56, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've completed the archiving on all desks (and the talk page), though I haven't made up any indices. It's not that hard once you get a rhythm down, though I would hate to be trying this during the week rather than a Saturday afternoon; the edit conflicts would be maddening. I added some examples to Scray's useful page, in case the code-speak was unclear. If we all pitch in, we can keep things afloat until the bot gets fixed. Matt Deres (talk) 19:02, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've archived manually again. Doing a single day took me about twenty minutes, though it would have been less if I hadn't tripped up on the Computing Desk not having the 25th as a separate day. That's not too bad, though again, that's without indices. My time through the week is often unpredictable, but I'll try to keep up for the next week or so and see how it goes. If anyone is looking for a pain free way to help out, I would appreciate someone making sure that each day has its own date header, even if there's nothing for the day (as is usually the case in the Math wasteland). It should be done anyway, and it reduces confusion. Matt Deres (talk) 13:27, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh, so much for that. I will probably be without internet for a couple of days. I'll get back to archiving on the 1st of Nov. Matt Deres (talk) 19:19, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I picked up where you left off (nice work!) and have created archives of all RDs through 28 Oct. Now all anyone needs to do for the next few days is to trim a RD to one week's content is delete the earliest excess transclusion template(s). In a few days it'd be great if someone could archive again. -- Scray (talk) 01:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah! Brilliant! I wish I'd thought of pre-transcluding the other days; well done. It's probably not the best permanent course of action (I think people find it weird/scary to find themselves on an archived page when they hit "save"), but it's a nice workaround given the circumstances. I see we're up to nine days now, so I'll do some trimming. Matt Deres (talk) 22:20, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I pre-made the archives for November. By doing it for the whole month, it only required me to do some find/replace copy/paste. Is there a shortcut for all that boilerplate at the top? I just copied and pasted and changed the month links. Hopefully, there's nothing much else in there. :) Matt Deres (talk) 21:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The toil is over! See below. —Steve Summit (talk) 13:15, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What is everyone's problem with this question? (Permalink). Professional physicists have discussed this very topic. Suggestions that the OP is suffering from some kind of mental health crisis for entertaining this idea is simply baffling to me. Slightly less baffling is the suggestion that the context of the question or perhaps the question itself is proof of trolling. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:48, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I just assumed the OP was making up the part about alien abduction. His actual question is technically unanswerable, but there have certainly been published opinions about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:23, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh wow, I didn't even think she might be talking about aliens. I thought she was saying she'd been kidnapped (by a human). Someguy1221 (talk) 18:32, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it would be helpful if he elaborated, but I didn't think your conventional kidnapper would be likely to get into a discussion about parallel universes. An extraterrestrial might, though. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:41, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What makes you think that the OP is female? Comploose (talk) 23:53, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Statistically speaking, it's the slightly safer assumption. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 01:10, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see no problem with the question. 92.233.64.26 (talk) 11:31, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that the preamble about an abduction detracts focus from the meat/point of the question. Questions with preambles are hardly unknown in these parts, but they're usually by way of important information that helps us understand the question when we finally get it. Talking about some unexplained abduction, hardly a common-or-garden event like a conversation in a pub on a Saturday afternoon, is guaranteed to divert our attention before we ever get anywhere near the question. And that makes me wonder what the OP's true motive in coming here at all was. All we needed to know was that the OP had a conversation with someone about this subject of the perception of time, and who, where, when or whatever else does not matter. But they made it matter by mentioning it first. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:08, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alien abduction might be of help here. Some people indeed believe they were truly abducted by aliens. If that's the case, the OP would be acting in good faith, wouldn't he? Comploose (talk) 01:04, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not in the flippant, off-hand way he alluded to the abduction. It was written as if it happens to everyone, like puberty, and needed no further commentary. It had zero relevance to the rest of the post, so what was the point of mentioning it at all? The very fact we're talking about it back here proves it was attention-seeking behaviour. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:15, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like there are too many people here looking to put people down. We should assume good faith. We have people talking about the Fermi Paradox all the time, and one of the simpler answers is, the aliens choose to communicate with people only on a one-by-one catch-and-release basis, just as our own wildlife biologists communicate with most animal populations that they study. I don't really believe it, but let's be scientific - I don't know it's true or it's false, so why go out of my way to assume bad faith on the part of the poster, or try to make medical diagnoses which are very obviously outside my ability to make based on both my own personal competence and the limited data I have to work with? Let's just play the ball as it lies and see where it goes. Wnt (talk) 21:22, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So, if we're to be scientific about it, we first of all don't assume it had anything to do with aliens. His question was prefaced by "Back when I was abducted". That's it. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:34, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

True. But that doesn't change my preference for a good-faith response, which is why I didn't go into it. Wnt (talk) 21:50, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The more common term would be "kidnapped". The term "abduction" in colloquial usage is more likely to refer to extraterrestrials. And I say again, how likely is that a garden-variety low-life kidnapper would suddenly launch into some deep philosophical discussion? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:55, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And I say again that this issue is a complete red herring in the context of the actual point of the question. It seems to have been put there deliberately to get us off track and waste some time. And it has succeeded magnificently. I'm done. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:30, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies, I don't know what I typed, but when I auto corrected the misspelled words in my question my attempt for: "Back when I was at school..." was saved as abducted. Sorry for any troubles. I appreciate the relevant replies to the multiverse theory, especially the ones with links. I have a follow up, related question concerning Free Will that I would like to ask, but I don't want to cause any more problems. What should I do? 46.229.161.232 (talk) 18:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

After a too-long hiatus, the RD archiving bot is finally working again. Thanks for everyone's efforts doing manual archiving in the meantime. Details to follow. —Steve Summit (talk) 13:12, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sweet! Matt Deres (talk) 13:37, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks from this computer incompetent to you, Steve Summit, and to Double sharp, Matt Deres and Scray. Bielle (talk) 21:39, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What Bielle said. Thank you, archivers. - Karenjc 22:24, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Further echoing the thanks. — Lomn 03:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Awwesome. StuRat (talk) 07:24, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]